progress

remember this cart? (blogged about here and here) the one that i refer to as my pride and joy:

we have decided for our apartment to use it as an entertainment center/shelving in our living room.  but the problem was that my precious cart did not have shelves.  originally we were planning on just buying cheap plywood and having it cut to size to use as makeshift shelving.  it didn't sound great aesthetically but we didn't really want to put money into a temporary fix. 

anyway, when we were at home depot, the plywood sizes were just not going to work out right and it was actually going to be kinda pricey (and not look very good).  

plan b. we walked past these big 2"x10"x16' boards that were quite pretty and really sturdy. they were cheaper than plywood and long enough that we could get 3 lengths out of them. so we ended up getting 2 of the boards ($10 each) and they cut them for us for free.  here was our basic idea:

the mister and i tag-teamed it. 

i did the sanding

 

we sampled our stain options.....and decided on "provincial".

before and after the staining

and he did the staining. 

a few hours later.....we are proud. 

of course i will have to get better pictures of it when it is actually in our home (and i've figured out storage solutions....yikes. this thing is so big we need to get a lot of storage out of it for all the square footage it is taking up! ha ha)

andrew was sweet and supportive when i wanted to buy the cart. it was kinda an irresponsible buy, for many reasons:

1. it wasn't in the budget

2. we were living with my parents. so it sat in the front yard for a year.

3. it is huge.

4. we were moving to texas and it had to make the move with us.

5. it was impulsive

6. the real use i wanted to buy it for (kitchen island) will not be realistic until we own a home. with a large kitchen. that could be years....

7. it is an acquired taste for some (not everyone understands putting an industrial cart in the living room).

but regardless of all of these things, we bought it.  he thought it was cool but not spend-money-on-and-keep-in-the-front-yard cool. but he let me do it.  

now even he is telling me how great it will look in our apartment. the simple shelves really dress it up. although he still teases me ("i think we need to sell this....") he is on board. it is so nice to have a supportive husband and it was fun to work together on it.