A Shelter Dog RESCUED This Family

It's true. We adopted Brooke in 2008 from Last Chance Rescue, after her mom had died when she was only a couple weeks old. Mona, whom we adopted in 2010 from Last Day Dog Rescue, was slated to be euthanized because of her age (estimated to be 9, going on 10, by our vet) at a SE Michigan 'shelter'. Her foster mom, A, saved her from a certain death and even helped relieve her stress and her constant licking of her paws. Where most rescues would be leery of adopting out a dog to a family with a 1-year-old, A took a chance on our family, and we couldn't be more happy with our Mona-Litze. Our hope is to get her enrolled and complete therapy dog certification so she can become part of the Tail Waggin' Tutors at the local library. Tail Waggin' Tutors pairs children that have trouble reading with a dog for them to practice their reading. Dogs are excellent listeners :)

Anywho. Enough about the loves of my life!

I had Nic cut me a piece of scrap wood, and I just went to town painting. Here's what I came up with:

 

Total cost? 40 cents for a paintbrush :) Gotta love that.

DIY Headboard

Something we haven't had since we upgraded to a King mattress 3 years ago is a headboard. Doesn't a headboard just instantly jazz up your bed a little? Complete the look?

My stepdad is completely rebuilding his back deck, and he offered the old wood to us. Free lumber? Yes, please!! We can build a headboard out of reclaimed wood, and it'll be 'green', not to mention FREE. That's a big thing for my husband--he's Dutch, so he's cheap ;)

I looked around on the internet, checking out blogs and pinning things to my Pinterest boards (if you haven't checked out Pinterest yet, DO IT NOW). Here are some pictures that I got inspiration from.

Reclaimed wood headboard from AKA Design

 

Create and Delegate, using Ana White's plans.

Songbird

House*Tweaking

I loved the one from Ana White, but to buy the lumber new (you needed 1x3, 1x4, 1x6, etc., and the lumber we got from my stepdad was 2x10) would be between $80-$100. So that was a no go. I would like to stain the wood to match our floors, but the builder/seller didn't leave us any stain. Sidenote: they left tons of used paint and other stains in the garage, which I have been happy to use. I really liked all of them, but there were little things that bugged me--the banner was too girly, the boards didn't line up with the bed, they were too long/too short, etc.

Nic and I were just gonna have to wing it and hope that, along the way, we'd come up with a design we could agree on and like enough to fasten to our bedframe.

Nic's dad's table saw and the pile of lumber we got from my stepdad.

Sexy look :) I had welding gloves on too.

Brooke checking out the lumber. We decided to sand the wood inside because it was too darn hot out!

After assembly, 'love' written with our bedroom paint color, and a coat of satin polyurethane.

After it dried, it was the 'moment of truth'. We had to get it back in the house without destroying our walls or knocking things off the counter. Nic had a tough time getting it screwed to the bed frame--the screws kept stripping--but he got it done! Excuse the bad picture and my husband's flat-as-a-pancake pillow that makes the headboard look unlevel, but here it is.

Ta-da!

Next: I just need to sew up some more pillows and get started on some artwork for above the headboard.