Here Comes the Sun

 I have been having guilt over never writing on my blog. Why have a blog at all if I never write anything? The trouble was that I've spent the whole summer thinking that nothing was going on, and there was nothing to write about, and everything was blah. But then, a few weeks ago, I realized that actually a lot was going on all summer, and now I had too much to write about! Last week I decided that I should just start with what's going on now and work my way back, making a few posts rather than one, huge "What I did this summer" post.

But I have been soooo busy!

Well, today I finished a project that I started...right after I finished painting the dining room and hanging up my cross-stitch picture, actually. So I'm going to post about that because it makes me so happy every time I see it! :-)

See, I had made up my mind that I had to have live plants in my house...you know, because I am such a green-thumb. But my house gets very little sunlight; we are surrounded by big, beautiful trees that shade the entire yard and attract bugs and leave a giant mess everywhere. No. I like our trees. I would have chosen different trees, but these are mature, and nice-looking, and shade our yard.

Unfortunately, that means we don't get a lot of light in the house either. Which is kind of a problem for a natural-born, but unwitting, plant-killer like me. I decided that what I really needed was a set of shelves with grow-lights built into them, so I got busy designing.

That's the idea. 

And then I got busy building.

I used the think-system to figure out how to build these shelves (instead of looking for instructions on the internet or at the library) and I probably put them together the very hardest way possible. I didn't want to put any screws—any visible screws—in it, so I had to drill a million holes that all had to align with each other. When I put the pieces together they didn't align perfectly so then I had a ton of sanding to do. Who knew that 36-grit sandpaper would ever be my friend?

I started out by building the two end pieces (the narrow pieces). When they were done they looked like two ladders. Then I had to make the front and back cross pieces and the shelves. I cut everything to fit, but couldn't decide on the best way of putting them together. Somehow I had to connect the two end pieces, the cross-bars for the front and back pieces, and put the shelves in place all at the same time. Using wood glue and clamps. And they'd been difficult—although not impossible—to put together when I was dry-fitting them (glue-less).

This is the beginnings of one of the end pieces. I think I have ten clamps on it, holding everything together while the glue dries.

Well, on assemble-the shelves day, I'd apply glue to the...let's say the left end piece, which was lying on the floor...then stick a shelf in, put glue on the long edges of the shelf and on the bottom ends of the front and back cross pieces, and then clamp them all together at the bottom so the shelf wouldn't fall down. Then I hurried to the next shelf to repeat the process—for four shelves. Then I had to wrangle the other end piece onto the top of the whole mess, align the dowel-pins that were sticking out of the cross pieces into the holes on that end piece, pound the whole thing together, and clamp it up tight. Before all the glue got too hard to work with—about 15 minutes. (I don't know what I was thinking! Or why I didn't recruit some helpers...)

Fifteen minutes? That is not what happened.

I was literally running around that shelf, from one side to the other, applying glue, trying to tighten strap-clamps and furniture clamps, and pounding that last end piece down into place for about 40 minutes. Think about this: forty. straight. minutes of frantic, non-stop running, pushing, pulling, and pounding things. And every time I got one part into place, another would pop up, or the alignment would get off, no matter how much I pleaded with that contraption to work, or how much I yelled at it! I had to start over and over and over again, all while my glue was irrevocably setting up.

When I was too worn out to keep running, and had almost given up entirely, I got mad and started whacking it with a rubber mallet (pretty ferociously, actually). That seemed to subdue it. So then I had to run all around again, making sure the clamps were all in the right places and as tight as they needed to be. I was exhausted by the time I finished! 

This looks peaceful enough, but after the Olympic marathon I ran to get it to this point I needed a soak in a cool tub (this was during the heat of July) and maybe a piña colada (non-alcoholic, of course).

I took the clamps off the next day, and it had gone together slightly twisted, as I feared it would. It looked all right from a distance, and I thought it would stand straight enough in the corner I had reserved for it. But I also thought that if you were to look at it too closely, you might go, "Hmmm. Homemade." Ah, well.

After a bunch of wood-filler and lots more sanding (by hand! My electric sander pooped out in the middle of this job), I had to choose a color for the shelf. It goes in the dining room, but I didn't want to make it white or dark brown like the other furniture. Actually, I kept thinking of a sunflower yellow, but I thought I might get tired of it pretty quickly. I brought home a bunch of paint chips, didn't like any of them and finally decided to go with stain.

Surrounded by—and covered in—sawdust from hours and days of sanding. (I think I am actually applying wood-filler in this picture.)

Then I had this great idea to put some excerpts from Alma (Book of Mormon) onto fronts of the  shelves. 

Ha! My shirt and my shelves are about the same color. I am painting on some lettering here; it's not exactly freehand. I printed the lettering backward on my regular, old inkjet printer. Then I taped it to the shelves and soaked the paper with a damp cloth. Rub the lettering on, remove the paper, and most of it had transferred (faintly) to the wood. Then I did the hand-painting over the top of that.

Here is what I painstakingly painted on them:

top shelf (above where the seedlings and tiny plants will be)  

"If ye give place that a seed may be planted in your heart, it will begin to swell...and when you feel those swelling motions then ye must needs say that the seed is good, for behold it sprouteth and begtinneth to grow."

second shelf (above the medium-sized plants)

"And now, behold, if ye noursish it with great care it will get root, and grow up, and bring forth fruit.

third shelf (above the big plants) 

"If ye will nourish the tree as it beginneth to brow, by your faith, diligence, and patience, looking forward to the fruit thereof, it shall take root and behold it shall be a tree springing up unto everlasting life." 

Hopefully that can be true of my plants and my life.

After the stain was done, the lettering was painted on, and the finish was applied (which was also a pain; just sayin') I was... well, mostly pleased with the way it looked. Homemade, you know. ;-) 

Then it just sat in my dining room, naked and lonely, while I searched thrift stores for dishes. I thought that since it's going in the dining area, it would be super cute to put the plants in muffin-tins, cups, and dishes instead of regular pots. I found a lot of cute stuff.

Well, today, about a month after the construction was finished, we finally installed the plant lights (which, I confess, were just sitting in my house waiting for me to pay attention to them). That was pretty cool. Then I added the cute dishes to it. Also cool. Then I put Lindsey's succulent plants in some of the dishes. Utterly fabulous!  I am in love with my plant shelves! (So is Lindsey's little solar flower; she—the flower—has been doing the happy-dance all day.)

There it is, all decked out with dishes, succulent plants, and the lights on. The kitchen lights are on in this pic, too, believe it or not. It really is like having a little sun in my house. Those plant lights are supposed to be full-spectrum, white lights—and they do look more white inside the shelves. But they cast a pinkish glow into the space directly around them.

kitchen lights on; shelf lights off
Eventually I will have big plants (I hope) in the empty dishes and pots on the bottom shelf.

Now all that's left is for me to order some seeds. Imagine fresh basil, rosemary, oregano, thyme, and maybe even cherry tomatoes growing in my house throughout the year!

Well, that remains to be seen... Wish me luck!

p.s. Look at these pictures:

Bruce says that while the one picture looks nice on top of the shelves (see the last shelf pic), the three are a set and should all hang on the wall together. (They are not on the wall yet; that is the blue carpet in my great room.) I had intended all along to put one on top of the shelves, and hang the other two together on the blue wall to the left of my door.

What do you think? Keep them together as a set? Or break them up?