Saturday, March 31, 2012

DIY: Nightstand Revamp



I'm not sure if I've mentioned it before, but I moved up to DC with only 2 suitcases and have eventually brought the rest of my stuff (as long as it fit my my Jetta) so I have been lacking furniture for the past year. I spent 4 months sleeping on an air mattress! I know. But now that I have a real bed, I needed a real nightstand. After numerous trips to ikea, target, and a few more "expensive" furniture shops I decided I needed to DIY something to get the look I wanted. I trolled craigslist for a few days, and found this baby for a STEAL.  
What do you think? It's a beautiful solid wood piece, and I wanted something basic (and small) for my bedside table. I love that it has this cubby to display books, baskets, trinkets or whatever else I would want, and still has a drawer (which is currently housing lots of papers). So I thought about this for a while... How should I paint it? My room is painted grey with white bedding and pink curtains. Since I'm obsessed with my grey walls, and I love the monochromatic look I decided to save some $$ and paint it the same color as my walls. I also I wanted something that would blend nicely, but would still work with a new color scheme should I chose to change it in the future. I also decided to tackle a stencil. I realize it was a tad ambitious as my first project, but hey when I was 8 my mom and I re-did an antique dresser for my room. We painted it white with an antique pink for the handles. THEN when I was 14 we spray painted the handles silver... so it's not exactly my first attempt at re-doing antique furniture. I attempted to take pictures all the way through, but I missed a few steps so I apologize and please just use your imagination.

Once I settled on a color scheme it was time to execute it. But... one problem. I live in a small apartment, no porch, no garage, nothing but a sidewalk to paint on. So spray paint was out. Then I decided I didn't want to invest in any industrial sanders, so what to do? Oil-based primer my friend. Yes. Not only didn't I not have to sand the piece, but the primer was so thick the application with a brush created these lines similar to wood grain. Love it.
One coat wasn't quite enough to cover the dark color, and while I'm sure it would have been fine, it really didn't require that much paint, so here's coat #2.
Background information. I have a black and white damask bedspread. I love all things black and white damask. like... LOVE. I was going to attempt a damask flower on top, but couldn't find a good stencil and decided it was too difficult. So, what to do? After searching blogs and blogs for stencils, I finally decided on a fleur de lis. I work for a Louisiana company now, so why not? Let me tell you, thank god I did something simple, because this part was HORRIBLE. as opposed to creating a stencil, I simply cut out the shape, traced it, then taped over that (the worst part), then painted over the whole thing, peel off the tape. Done. Thankfully it turned out well, and I only had to do some minor touch ups.

Time for the big reveal... are you ready?

Yay!!!!

So cute right? I am planning on spray painting the handle white, but haven't gotten a chance to get back to home depot. What do you think???? I have to say, I'm pretty impressed with myself.

Friday, March 30, 2012

{Friday Cocktail} Fancy Gin Cocktail

If you read my post from earlier you know that I have been in need of several yummy cocktails lately. Last night my roommate KJ and I headed to a local bar/coffee shop/restaurant in our hipster-hood called The Big Bear Cafe. Each of us selected a yummy sounding cocktail from their list of hand crafted concoctions. I ordered what Big Bear deems the "Fancy Gin Cocktail" It was SO good. If y'all live in DC you need to seek out this joint and treat yourself. For anyone else, you need to make this at home!

In a shaker muddle 1.5 oz Genever with some orange peel and 1 tsp cane sugar. Add 3 shakes of aromatic bitters and top off with ice. Enjoy!

If you try one let me know what you think! Hope y'all have a great weekend! I'm heading to Williamsburg, VA for some much needed R and R.

Thank God For Fridays

I mean really. This has just been one of those ridiculous weeks, and I am so glad its coming to an end. Work continues to be just... ugh...work... you know what I mean? I'm dealing with some BS on the home front and then there is the small matter of my car.  Let me tell you the story.

I park my car behind my row house in a small spot. Its "secured" by a gate but I use the term secured very loosely. So Tuesday morning I'm walking out the door to get in the car, turn it on and it wont start. great. my six year old Jetta with 47,000 miles is not starting. Must be the battery right? Okay, fine. I had a hectic morning on the Hill tuesday so I raced off to the metro and to the House side. Wednesday night I called  my roadside assistance to come jump it for me. Nothing. It's not the battery. GREAT. So, called for a tow truck to come take her away to some garage in town. Get a call from the garage yesterday its going to be $375 because there's a hole in the firewall and some frayed wires or something. Okay. fine. That's honestly not as bad as I was expecting. I go walk over to the garage (25 mins away) during my lunch hour to pick it up. Andy, your friendly neighborhood Asian mechanic (it was Chinatown so what else would you expect) promptly notified me I need to find a new place to park my car. RATS have decided to take up residence in my engine.

Let that sink in a minute.

RATS were living in my car. I'm disgusted, furious, and to the point of hysterics that I start laughing. The rats have apparently been eating the wiring in my car.

So I drive away, in shock at the absurdity of all of this. THEN I notice a new light has come on my dashboard. I call Andy and he tells me to come back. They have to do MORE work to fix whatever this other light is.

NOW I'm out $700 because a few rats decided they were hungry. Bitches. I mean really. I hate them. Plus I have to switch my plates and insurance over to DC where its MUCH more expensive than Arkansas (where my car is currently registered) so I can park on the street. Wonderful.

When is that vacation again?

HOPEFULLY all will go well today and the car will be done today, because I plan to get the heck out of dodge and head to visit my bff/grandma and her husband.

I have a fun post scheduled for tomorrow. Hope y'all all had a better week than me! Here's to Friday. I'll post a cocktail recipe soon!

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Politics v. Policy

So far in my professional experience I've discovered that there are two kinds of people in the business of politics. There are those who love the game, the strategy, the posturing and the power, and those who love the policy. I love to watch the game, but I'm more concerned with the policy side. As of late the biggest policy issue on peoples minds is Healthcare Reform. March 23, 2010 the House passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) aka healthcare reform aka Obamacare. I hope you all looked at that date, TWO YEARS AGO, and and the same reaction as I often do: health care reform is done, for now. The House repealed it in January 2011, there is no way the Senate will do the same in this Congress or any Congress in the foreseeable future for that matter. So why are we still fussing about it? Can't we focus on policies that need to be tackled NOW. Energy security? Increasing poverty? Tax Reform? that pesky nation debt that keeps getting bigger? Oops. No. Sorry, we still want to keep up this anti- political rhetoric that raises ratings and sells books. It just infuriates me the crap that people are able to get away with these days.

This week in in Washington all eyes are on the Supreme Court as they hear arguments in the Department of Health and Human Services v. Florida, aka the Heath care Reform Law. Today wraps up the final day of arguments and based on the media coverage I've seen the individual mandate part of the law seems to be in jeopardy of being overturned. Now, if the individual mandate is deemed unconstitutional that does not necessarily mean the whole law is nullified, but there is really no point in speculating. A decision will be made in time. However, you just have to flip your TV to the three networks to see the absurd spin going on right now. Just for kicks I started my day with MSNBC this morning. According to them, Justice Kennedy (the so-called swing vote) is going to support the individual mandate and vote to uphold the law. Then I switched to CNN's coverage, without hesitation their reporters are saying the mandate will surely be overturned and the law might go with it. Then I checked out fox. Ohhhh Fox. You bring me endless joy with your blatantly obvious pandering to the right. I mean  COME ON, I know people tune in to hear the rhetoric that they want to hear, but jeez. SO BLATANTLY BIASED. Fox is saying the law is going down in burning flames, this is the end of the President, he will lose horribly in November, and this is the new coming of the Tea Party Republican Movement. I'm not arguing that MSNBC isn't biased towards the left, believe me it is, but Fox's reports are so extreme they boarder on lies. Where is your journalistic integrity? You are supposed to be reporting the truth, not fostering hatred towards Americans of different opinions. I believe that one of the main tenants of the Constitution that makes our country is the fact we have the freedom to disagree. You don't have to like what I believe, but you have to respect that I believe it. Honestly, I'll respect your beliefs. We can agree to disagree, REALLY.

Okay, I've got to reel it back in. I could just get on a political tangent for hours, but back to the topic of the day.  Politics is the gesturing that gets people riled up (see my rant above), its playing a game, its the constant struggle for power, fame and money. Policy is usually what goes on behind the scenes: working with issue experts to try and improve the lives of an effected group through legislation. But all too often politics gets wrapped up in policy negotiations, and in the example of the heathcare reform of 2010 politics ended up muddling the bill and reduced the effectiveness of the policy. If you can take one thing away from this rant I hope its this:

Hate the Game. Not the player.

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