Wait, this isn't Power Tool User's Anonymous? Damn.
I first used a framing nail gun when I was all of 11 years old. It was pretty damn comical, actually, since I wasn't quite big enough to handle the recoil, so every time I put a nail in the floor, it would push me back a foot. Picture it- a pipsqueak of a tween with a nail gun that weighed 1/10th of her body weight. I'd lean over, put a nail in the floor, fly back a foot, waddle forward 2 feet, and repeat.
It's easy for me to know why I love tools so much. They allow me to create, to change the world around me. Things take me a lot longer to do these days, with the whole being disabled thing, but I find that if I approach a project slowly, surely, and in pieces, I can still do quite a bit. And well, what I can't do I can often bribe my parents into helping with. I've been catching up on some planned projects this last week, so I figured I'd picture bomb the blog for fun.
First up, I finally managed to get rid of the hideous vertical blinds on my back door. I am not a fan of those things. The replacement is a system from Ikea that consists of 3 off white lace panels, each in it's own track and able to slide the full length of the door.
As I was trimming the ridiculously long lace panels, I realized I had more than enough fabric left over to cover the glass fronts on a cabinet in my kitchen. It's a liquor cabinet with glass on both sides, viewable from the kitchen and the dining room. I don't drink, so it's packed full of coffee cups and reusable shopping bags. Useful, but not so sexy. So I sexified it.
Before:
After:
Steps to doing this (if you're interested):
1. Take the door off the cabinet.
2. Remove glass from door by removing the 4 small plastic pieces holding it in.
4. Cut some 3M Clear mounting strips (for those removable hooks) into very skinny little sections.
5. Apply clear adhesive strips to glass in several spots along each side (you can skip over where the plastic tension piece for holding in the glass goes- it will hold up the fabric for you there).
6. Attach lace panel to glass, watching the tension to keep the fabric taunt. Only removing the backing from the strips as you get to that side. Do each of the 4 sides (right, left, top, then bottom), then do the corners once the sides are anchored.
Last project of the week thus far as been finally assembling the drawers for the Ikea storage unit in my craft room. Now my pattern drafting supplies and fancy sewing scissors have a home.
Next up: finishing the kitchen table and saving my fall garden from the sudden and early winter.
The cabinets with the fabric inside look fantastic - you've done an excellent job. I imagine it must provide you with an enormous sense of achievement to be able to look at the result of the tasks you've completed, with or without support, on the days your body is refusing to cooperate! There are many people who don't face the health challenges that you do on a daily basis who would be completely flummoxed by trying to do this kind of dig!
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Thank you! I love creating, changing things to fit what I want and need. I'm especially proud of the cabinent as I pulled that one off completely without help. Since it only took a stool to get me tall enough, a combo of upper body strength and crutches let me get up high enough to reach the cabinent. I also yanked out my entire summer garden yesterday, solo. Couldn't walk the rest of the night as I accidentally over did it, but I tore out all the dead and dying plants and prepped things for the light box we're constructing over the fall plants today. (Pics to come in a post tonight.)
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