PETER!

Last weekend Jordan and I welcomed a new edition into our fam. His name is Peter and he is the cutest/also rudest member of our household and I love him.

Jordan and I had been discussing getting a cat for a few weeks and we decided that last weekend would be the weekend we'd bring a baby kitty home. I was sitting on the couch Saturday morning scrolling through the selection of cats at the KW Humane Society when I saw they were having an adopt-athon THAT DAY. All adoptions were $50 (versus the usual $150 adoption fee). Um. Yes.

We ran our butts to the Humane Society to see if there was a cat there for us. I saw a little black kitten and said to Jordan "We have to get that one, then I can pretend I'm a witch." He agreed to look at him and we went into his room, which he shared with a little grey kitten. Well the black kitten was zonked out and did not pay attention to us at all but the grey kitten was happy to have us there. He let us pick him up, he was friendly and while Jordan was holding him I said "I think I like this guy better" and he said "Me too!" So we got Peter, the cat who never caught our eye. Sorry dude.

We are so happy we got him, though. He's definitely a bit of a jerk sometimes (which I think is just a personality trait shared among cats), but he's adorable, he loves to fall asleep in your lap, and we're completely smitten with the crazy, hyper, cuddly kitten.

I can now officially be the crazy cat lady I always wanted to be.

<< Matching Mean Muggs>>

From the desk of:

Taylor Brown
Cat Mom (Non-Witch)

DIY Couch Table

When Jordan and I went to buy the wood for our headboard I picked up a piece of wood for a project of my own.

I had fallen deeply in love with this couch table when I saw it here. 

I showed anyone who would look this amazing piece and declared proudly that "I'm going to make that for myself!" We bought the wood and then I was fully committed. 

The table looked pretty easy to make so I drew up some simple plans with Jordan using our couch to decide the measurements. 

The first thing we did was cut the wood.

Word to the wise: bad things happen when you stand down wind from a saw. 

Next step was to give it a good stain. I used the same stain from our headboard a) because it's just economical and b) because its a b-e-a-utiful deep, stain that I'm completely smitten with.

I then enlisted Jordan's help to screw the thing together. This was probably the trickiest part of the whole endeavour. It involved a good amount of team work to make sure you were holding everything together and keeping it straight while the other person screwed.

Ta-dah:

The last step was my least favourite of all: varathane. 

Here's a little something about me: I'm pretty impatient and I love instant gratification. This does not always go well with projects, but I push myself anyways.

I knew I wanted a really glossy finish on my table and I knew my impatience would keep me from sitting around putting coats of see-through goo upon coats of see-through goo. I thought I could bypass this by buying a more expensive varathane that boasted a 1 coat finish while the other varathanes  called for 3. The joke was on me because I ended up having to do 3 coats. This ended up being the longest process of all as I left a day for drying in between coats. You also have to sand in between coats- sanding is the bane of my existence (for reasoning: see my love of instant gratification vs the basic non-existent visable change of sanding).

I pushed through and I'm glad I did because I am now the happy owner of a beautiful couch table that I brought to life from a simple picture.

Now to go convince Jordan that we need to build a new coffee table....

From the desk of: 

Taylor Brown
Future Ron Swanson