shiso mama

With the purchase of our latest Craigslist find and the reorganization of my studio, Otis suddenly found himself without a place to draw. He still had his little chalkboard table, but because it was round with a hole in the center, it was not a good space for drawing with pen and paper. So we came up with our own little Ikea hack: a multi-purpose art table. For some reason, I prefer tables to easels for drawing, probably because easels make me think of paint and paint makes me think of Oh My Lord, There’s No Way Kids And Paint Mix In This House!

Here’s the list of supplies we used. Most of it was purchased at either Ikea or at the hardware store.

index curtain rod
index wall hardware
vika olegby table legs
vika persbo table top
magnetic bar (ours was black and named something different, which I can’t find on their website)

paint
unsanded grout
chalk
craft magnets
glue (I used a hot glue gun)
markers
roll of paper (we used Ikea’s Mala)

We used the Vika Persbo table top, but only because we already had it. I was using it as an ironing board, but since it didn’t fit into my new studio, I was looking for a new use for it. It’s quite large, which is good for us because kids can eat at the table when we have friends over rather than worrying about our new table. Any of the Vika table tops that are paintable can be used, and they’re pretty inexpensive. Of course you can also do this to any finished table as well.

Prime, paint and finish the table top according to these directions from Martha and crew. I gave my tabletop two good coats of paint, and chose a dark grey to go with our cabinets.

Turn the table over and install the index wall hardware, centered, along one short edge of the table, making sure that there is enough room between the hardware for your roll of paper. For our particular setup, we also had to make sure that the wall hardware didn’t get in the way of the table leg hardware. Thus I attached the wall hardware after the leg hardware, but before the leg itself. It might make more sense if you look closely at the following pictures.

Hang your roll of paper on the curtain rod and install in the hardware.

Turn the table over and install the magnetic bar, centering it on the table. Make sure it is tight enough to hold your paper down and to use as a tearing edge, but not too tight so that you can’t slide your paper through easily.

Glue craft magnets onto the caps of markers (I used a hot glue gun) so that the markers are attached to the magnetic bar, ready to be used.

Here you can see Otis using his new table (looking like he draws a lot more than he really does). He also occasionally attacks it with chalk:

Pretty simple. The most time-consuming part of the whole project was waiting for the paint to dry. Then you can hang your kids’ finished artwork up on your homasote bulletin board!

“A sandbox for Otis? Oh, that’s easy project No, no, it won’t take long at all. Of course it’s not too much work!”

While our home received a total makeover, inside and out, the backyard remained pretty neglected, alternately buried under a thicket of weeds, or totally barren and dry. It’s taken us this long to start thinking about sprucing things and making it liveable back there. The studio was the first step. Next on our list was a sandbox and raised planter bed. I had this idea, see, that we would build two big 8′x4′ redwood frames - one for a sandbox, and one for vegetables. Then, when the sandbox was no longer being used, the sand could be taken out, and voila, more room for vegetables. I was pretty pleased with our clever, dual-function idea.

The boxes were constructed using these instructions. The raised bed we made 12″ tall. The sandbox we made 18″ deep so that we could bury it 6″ into the ground - that way, we could have at least 12″ of sand for Otis to play with. So the frames were constructed, stained and ready to go. Our across the street neighbor, Jonathan, even volunteered to help us dig the hole to bury the sandbox (not knowing what he was getting himself into). F and Jonathan started digging, and that’s when the trouble started. Here is what they found:

•  a concrete foundation reinforced with steel wire, with a corner post for a former structure still embedded
• a whole pane of shattered glass, still intact, along with all the shards from a giant glass jug
• large clumps of some mysterious, metallic paint which has made the dirt irridescent (it looks vaguely radioactive and is at the very least disturbing to look at)
• variously pieces of marine steel, from the WWII landing craft engines that the former owner was rebuilding in the yard
• an enormous redwood root that they eventually had to just chop off a section of and dig out as best they could

Here’s F holding the monstrosity (notice how he’s so covered with dirt that it looks like he’s dressed as a coal miner for Halloween):

Here I am, using it as a settee:

So a job that F initially thought would take a couple of hours took two strong (albeit approaching middle age) men most of a Saturday. But happily, Otis has been utterly thrilled with his sandbox, and has been playing in it a lot. (Although I will complain that every time he gets in there, he starts exclaiming, “Dirty! My feet are dirty!  Wash them!”) Now F’s in the process of digging out another huge section of the redwood root so we can get some vegetables into our planter.

I have to tell you that this backyard is totally defeating me. Every time we dig somewhere, we seem to find yet another unpleasant surprise (oh, a poured concrete former fish pond? a steel winch anchor? a brick path 4″ below ground level? pshaw.) Progress is so slow, and we still have no room to sit down and enjoy a meal or a drink. And there is just so much work to do yet before we even have a proper patio or real paths to walk on. And my dream of one day having an edible garden, with all kinds of fruit trees, bushes and vines, herbs and other edibles just feels really far away. Anyone have any advice for us?

Hello, fog and cold mornings.
Hello, socks and the occasional sweater.
Hello, strangers looking just so darned American, with your culturally identifiable bodies, hair and clothes.

We are slowly getting over our jetlag and becoming re-acclimated to the routine of our quiet lives. Otis has been happily reacquainting himself with all his toys, and continuing to jibber on in Chinese all day long. His language skills grew impressively during our Asian sojourn, and Chinese has become totally natural to him. So natural that he seems to speak English with a Chinese accent. In fact, coming back here has affirmed what I have been suspecting for some time now: Otis has forgotten most of his English. Weird, isn’t it?

The vastly improved Chinese is fantastic, really just what we had been hoping for, but…… of course there’s a BUT! BUT I think Otis is feeling a little stunned. He’s grown suddenly shy around strangers who approach him speaking English. And more importantly, he’s been having trouble communicating with F. The morning of their reunion, he was so happy to see F, jumping on him, giggling and jabbering on and on. But he started to pause more as he realized that his father couldn’t understand what he was saying. And he had to pause to listen to this strange language that his father was speaking to him. A few days later, he seems to understand most of what F is saying to him, but he just can’t respond yet. I know he’ll regain his English (and yipes, lose his Chinese) faster than we think, but it’s been a frustrating reunion for both father and son.

Otis has been suffering from his usual post-homecoming sleep issues, and we’ve been working on getting him back to his reliable old sleep habits. Actually, F’s been doing much of the heavy lifting in this department, since my stiffly frozen heart seems to have defrosted somewhat since the initial hardcore sleep training we did oh so long ago. And although not understanding Chinese may make it somewhat easier for F to ignore Otis’s endless requests in order to put off sleeptime, it’s also been extremely frustrating for him to realize that he could have reduced much of the crying by merely understanding Otis’s demand for his stuffed tiger.

Soon soon soon, I know.

I know I owe many of you emails and phone calls (those of you that make your presence known, that is. I keep discovering the identity of more and more of secret readers out there. You know, you can’t hide forever!) and of course, I owe ALL of you collages. I know! What are you, monsters? My child has LOST the ability to speak the English language and all you can think about is paper, glue and scissors?

Well, actually, all I can think about is the very exciting fact that this week and next, we are installing our exciting little prefab studio in the backyard! I came home to see a backyard totally cleared of weedy jungle and debris, ready for landscaping. I’ve been dreaming about this forever, and ALL I can think about is patios, garden design, outdoor furniture and how to decorate my studio. Check out this craziness that I’m going to buy next time I find a $4120 bill on the street. Now imagine it tucked under the gracefully drooping branches of mature fruit trees. OK, now imagine me napping in there.  Perfect, no? I’ll keep you updated, of course.

My friends, the lovely folks at Apartment Therapy Nursery did a story on Otis’s play areas, which you can check out if you’re interested in looking at pictures of our house when it’s clean (ha!) and there’s no toddler around to marr the immaculate placement of props (double ha!). And below is a tutorial on the bulletin board we made to display Otis’s artwork.

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Ever since I saw a story in an old Martha Stewart magazine, I’ve been wanting to make myself a homasote bulletin board. For those of you who don’t know about homasote, it’s a type of building material made of recycled paper. It can be used as soundproofing, and makes for fantastic bulletin boards, either plain, painted, or covered. Our architect told us that they used to it construct inexpensive room dividers in their studios in school.

Since then, I’ve seen lots of beautiful bulletin boards, like here. But me, I wanted to cover entire walls with the stuff. And maybe I’m a simpleton, but I couldn’t quite figure out the logistics of how to do it - most information I found was a little evasive about how to actually mount them to the wall. And when I finally dug out the actual issue of Martha Stewart (yes, we have a basement full of them!) that had the how-to, I saw that they used wood trim to help hold up their homasote, which wouldn’t have worked in our space. So here’s what we did instead.

Everything I’ve read online tells you to have the lumber yard cut the homasote for you, and it’s really good advice. We had to borrow a circular saw from our neighbor to cut ours down to the proper size (and I waited for F to come home so someone could drive me to the emergency room in case I cut something off and couldn’t drive myself), and even though we did it outside, we were sneezing paper bits for the next week.

I wanted to cover our bulletin board with this beautiful Etsuko Furuya fabric, but thought that a big wall of it would be overwhelming (and more expensive) so I sewed a strip of it between two pieces of regular canvas, making sure to line up my pattern so it was straight (oh how I love those ladybugs). After we finished, I wished that I had centered all the ladybugs, but oh well, c’est la vie.

Using a staple gun, staple down the center of one side, then the opposite side, making sure the fabric is nice and taut. Work your way from the center out towards the corners. Since our fabric had a pattern, I tried to line up the edge of my dots with the edge of my homasote so that it would look straight.

I folded the fabric on the corner this way (which I picked up from book making), since it created less bulk with our thick fabric. I pulled the point of the fabric down over the corner of the homasote, creating a 45 degree angle. Then I folded down the two sides of fabric, tucking the excess in along the sides. Try to make it as streamlined as possible so that there’s not too much fabric between the bulletin board and the wall.

We used our stud finder to locate studs behind our drywall and marked them with painter’s tape (you can see the blue tape below). This is pretty important since the bulletin board is so large and heavy (ours was 3′ x 7′). I suppose you could also use anchors with your screws, but that still makes me a little nervous. Studs are better. We ended up attaching our board into four studs and two anchors (they’re not evenly spaced because we wanted to catch studs and have screws at all four corners).

We used a stack of books to help us hold up the bulletin board so we could step back and look at it. We double checked with a level and then predrilled holes, both in the wall and in the bulletin board. Start out slowly when you drill through the bulletin board because it will catch and torque the fabric (and don’t forget to protect your floor!).

We used nice long wood screws and finishing washers, both to protect the fabric and to give it a more finished look.

Sit back and enjoy your handiwork. Now go force your child to be creative so you have something to hang up.

These days we have been in full-on home improvement mode. This despite the fact that we moved into our remodeled “dream” home 15 months ago. Isn’t that a positively absurd and depressing thought? Really, though, by the time we moved in, we were so exhausted by making decisions and spending money that we just needed a loooooong break. So we have lived without curtains on our windows. And we piled all our clothes in stacks. And we apologized endlessly to all our neighbors for letting the weeds take over our yard (and we would apologize for making them watch us parade around indecently as well, but we don’t know how to approach the subject).

So we gave Otis away for the weekend and worked away. We were too busy to think about a fashionable Sunday. And we installed some cabinets on the wall downstairs that will ostensibly be storage for Otis’s toys and other stuff. I guess we can finally take his Christmas and birthday presents out of the basement, poor kid. You can see the work in progress in the background here:

How can you not love a man that wields power tools such? I mean, it almost makes up for him not being an architect/doctor/musician who writes sappy guitar love songs. But props to me, I wield power tools such as well (but no, no pictures). Here are my men working together:

Although one of the men preferred dancing with the tools rather than working with them:

Doesn’t he look like he should be a stripper or in the Village People?  We’re excited about the projects we’re working on. I’ll post photos as we finish projects. This way, I’ll remember how things looked before a certain someone systematically destroys all our hard work.