From Trash to a Valentine’s Present

Friday, some people were watching my Twitter feed as I was making a Valentine’s Day Present for Pharmie. First I said this:

Making my wife a Valentine's Day present - she'll either love it or hate it.... [gulp]...

And about an hour later, I tweeted this:

Valentines for m' lady is turning out OK. Still unsure how she'll like it....

And then yesterday morning, I tweeted this:

Dear semi-hot soccer mom at the Y: I don't care how hot you THINK you are, but you NEED to wear a bra if you're doing that.

OK, so that last one is unrelated. Whatever.

Anyway, back to my potentially good Valentine’s Day present.

Here’s what you need to know: over my Spring Break last year, I re-did one of our guest rooms. Here are 2 “before” shots:

In typical home-owner fashion, 4 weeks later we were done with our 4 day project. Good riddance. We had the floors refinished by a pro, and then we took down the shelves, patched the walls, fixed the ceiling, scraped the radiator, repainted everything, replaced the ceiling fan, replaced a broken wall fixture, and repainted the radiator. (Not to mention all the crap I did in the closet.) Here are 2 “after” shots to match up with the 2 above:

Until 2 days ago, we still had the torn-down shelving in our basement. The idea was to take good measurements so I could rebuild something similar in the future (but keep it unpainted and “prettier”). We like the look of the room so much the way it is NOW, that I don’t think we’ll end up putting up shelves. I deep cleaned the basement as part of my Valentine's Day present to Pharmie - and that included taking out the old shelving pieces and cutting them up to throw them away.

Well, I took some measurements and turned some of that junk into a (possibly charming) little shelf for the guest room. It was SOO beat up because those shelves were in the “boys room” when we bought the house, that I actually had to give it another little coat of paint. There was a quart of paint in our basement that came with the house labeled “shelves - bedroom,” so I re-coated it with a thin coat of paint, and called it good.

I think it will fit fine next to the radiator in that bedroom...

... or as a bedside table:

So to everyone wondering as they read my Twitter feed: Pharmie approved of the gift! (She’s not 100% sure about how red it is, so we might re-paint it sometime...) I just thought it was fun to have something that was trashed from the remodel being used back in that room.

Oh, and if you’re wondering: NO, that's not ALL I got Pharmie. I also got her a cake pan. And she got me a snow shovel. For Valentine’s Day. Really. We’re romantic like that. ;)

Check my previous post for some solid workouts from last week. And make sure to stop back and see my next post which will feature the top contenders in the “Gnarliest Injury Photo Contest!” It’s gonna be wicked! You’ll get to vote for your favorite! Just make sure to not view while you’re eating...