Storing the Storage

What do people do when, on one hand, they need lots of seats for hosting several families at once, and on the other hand, don't have lots of space to store the seats when they aren't hosting several families at once?

The answer: they make storage table benches and store the benches as tables.  At least, that's what the people at The Swallow's Nest did.

I always loved our antique coffee table.  My grandma tells me that my great-grandfather adapted it from a discarded library table by cutting down the legs.  You can see a picture of it at the end of this post.

What you can't see in that picture is how incredibly small and inadequate this pretty piece was in our living room configuration after we moved more furniture in.  Here is another picture, but we've never kept our chairs and sofa as close together as they were when it was taken.

Even from the start, though, we knew we'd need something different.  This is where we turned to one of my favorite blog authors: Ana White of www.ana-white.com.  With some simple instructions, we were able to turn out three of these great benches in one weekend, and with plenty of time for us to put them to use during our hymn sing on Sunday night.

They worked beautifully!  We had plenty of room for plates and beverages during the meal while the kids ate outside, and when everyone gathered around to sing, none of the 33 people here had to sit on the floor.

Add to that the additional storage under the flip-top lid and the shelf below, and we have great potential for tidy organizational happiness.  *contented sigh*

They still need to be stained and finished, though, so you haven't seen the last of this project.  We made them out of pine, so I don't expect them to look like fine furniture when we're done, but we'll get them as close to it as we can.

In the meantime, it's time to purge in preparation for this weekend's garage sale!

Organ Donation

Remember how we used to sleep on the stage?  Well, the kids were the first to move their quarters to the basement.  We moved them down there before the heat of summer set in.

And I loved having the entire nave as a bedroom.  It might have been a little weird for our guests to walk into our master bedroom, and all the cats may have started pa-dumping across the floor and around the furniture just as we were ready to get serious about falling asleep, and it may have been hard to fall asleep in an 88-degree room, but I really liked it up there.

Only something really great would entice me to give up that spot.

A couple weeks before my birthday we received word that a family had moved away from their home, leaving behind an organ.  Yes, they were offering to be an organ donor.

The perfect birthday gift, and perfect for the birthday budget!  I'd often dreamed of owning our own church organ ever since we'd moved into our own church building.  And so my darling, wonderful husband man, with a lot of help from some really kind men, loaded it into and out of the van, hauled it up the stairs, and into its new home.

I'm not an organist, but I'd like to play well enough for congregational singing.  Mastering some good organ literature wouldn't hurt, either!  I just wish I could dedicate more time to practicing.  *sigh*

A funny thing about Pipes: she, of all the cats, has been the most interested in befriending the organist.  How sweet that she's so aptly named!

Home is where...

February 21

...the living room furniture is. Thanks for leaving your couch and chairs for us, Randy and Tamara!

the weekend of February 21

...the birthday party is accompanied by music and lots of friends. Thanks for celebrating Paul's 40th with us, everyone!

March 14

...the water gets hot. Thank you, James and Mr. Bausch! And Mike and Elizabeth!

March 18

...hands are washed, teeth are brushed, and basic needs are met. Thanks, Love, for being so happy with the yellow floor! Working together is a delight.

March 25

...the past is exchanged for the future. So many thanks to those who helped pack, lift, and provide food for moving day!

March 25

...a hot shower awaits. Thanks again, Dad and Paul.

March 26 and following

...finishing touches can wait a little longer. Thanks to anyone who puts up with the rough edges!

April 11

...the garden grows. Thanks, Patsy and kids, for helping us uproot the old plants to make room for the new!

April 11

...we air our clean laundry. Thanks, Becki, for letting me teach music in exchange for clean clothes!

Yes, this is home. By the grace of God, through the labor of our hands, and encouraged by the kindness of those who love us, we are carving out a place for ourselves, bit by bit. We thank God for the riches He bestows on us.

Nave Cabinets

A unique space requires unique storage, especially if we hope to host people in the same place we work and live. Stuff that is used on a daily basis needs a place to hide, and there isn't a lot of room downstairs to store essentials like fabric, the microscope, recording gear, and LEGOs.

The solution will be massive, custom-designed cabinets and hutches, engineered to our specific storage needs, and built and installed along the perimeter, much like the drawing above demonstrates. Both sides of the nave will feature the same basic layout.

One key element of this design is the modular nature of the tables. They are intended to be pulled out from the wall without messing up the integrity of the overall design, and having a 2:1 length to width ratio, they can be placed in many different configurations, depending on our need: a square, a skinny rectangle, a fat rectangle, a hollow square... Purposefully flexible.

To get an idea of how well my theory might work in reality, I recently pulled out the measuring tape and a roll of painter's tape. Now that I can see the outlines on the wall and the floor, I'm still quite happy with the size of the future furniture and how it fits the scale of the building.

But that means that the top of the hutch comes to 9 feet tall! At that height, I'll need to plan to store one more thing: a short step ladder for reaching items on the top shelf!

The depth of the cabinets will be 30 inches instead of the traditional 24. This will create a smoother line to unify the tables and the cabinets, increase our storage below, and give us a more roomy and comfortable work space on top. And again, it fits the scale of the room. Then to complement the extra-deep base cabinets, our upper cabinets will be 15 inches deep instead of the traditional 12.

My inspiration for thinking about custom cabinets comes from Ana White, a woodworking mom who, in her words, likes to put the "make" back into "homemaker". Visit her site and see if you don't begin to feel inspired and empowered to create some great things yourself!

From the Floor to the Table

Remember the stack of floor boards that had been left behind when we moved in? Measured and counted, they rested along the side of the nave. They served well to contain the plastic bowling ball for our New Year's Eve 5-frame bowling tournament, but other than that, they've just been in the way.

Over 17 feet long, they couldn't make it down the stairs in one piece, so in the interest of making the most of what wood we had, I needed to decide how short or long each piece would need to be for us to make, in this case, the tops for our tables.



For this, I turned to my print publishing software. After creating a scale model of each floorboard, I was able to cut and assemble them over and over until I had them in the right dimensions and configuration to create four of the six matching, modular tables we have in mind.

The wood is pretty rough, and while I'd love to retain as much of that character as possible, I do need the surfaces to be smooth so the tables can function as a place where we can write, eat, and sew, to name a few essential activities. And they need to be easily cleaned up.

So now that they're cut, we'll have to plane them down, rip them to equal widths, fill in the holes, and glue and clamp them together. By then, perhaps, we'll have figured out how to make the table base. This is the look we'll be aiming for:

Camden Trestle Table

Restoration Hardware

And oh yes, I cut them all myself. With the help of my handy hubby, of course.