Motherhood Makes Invention a Necessity

I have never been one to just buy things. Truth be told, I have never been able to just buy things. I have always been on a budget that would strangle most folks. If there was work to be done, I was the one who had to do it. I have never been able to just hire work out. I suppose part of it was the way I was raised. Being from the Midwest, we were all raised to do the work yourself, unless you absolutely couldn't, which for me has almost never happened.

The bad side to this is Michael and I are always working on some project, be it big or small, around our house. The good side is we always know the workmanship that went in, so we can enjoy the fruits of our labor. Lots of labor equals lots of fruit.

I have had the unfortunate task of re-organizing and cleaning out our house. It is amazing to me how stuff we have acquired over the last several years. Some of the stuff is 20 years old by now and we are just now deciding what to do with it. When we combined our households, we ended up with an odd eclectic group of stuff. Nothing matched, nothing went together and the doubles we did have were usually things we had both held onto since we first moved out of parent's houses. For example, we each had some pots and pans. Collectively we had a full set of miss matched cookware that we inherited from our mothers. I just donated it to one of the kids and charity. We have been married 8 years and neither of us thought to buy a new complete set of our own. That is us in a nut shell. We are not spenders. I hate to refer to us as cheap, because we have both had to live under the constraints of a budget, but our kids will gladly call us cheap in a heart beat.

We are re-doing our formal living room. We have in the past, made lamps from large tree branches (I saw something in a catalog that cost $200 each, we spent bupkis). They look lovely. Michael built frames for my large paintings out of fallen fence pickets thanks to Hurricane Ike. And my personal favorite is, we built a large storage ottoman out of some left over shelves and an old massage table. It looks incredible and would retail for about $500.00. We spent less than $40.00. If we have the bits and pieces, we will definitely find something to make out it. It's what we do.

Currently, we are building "built-in bookshelves out of old bookshelves, that in their current state have no value. We are turning an old entertainment center into a faux fireplace and will be re-upholstering our antiques. After that we will build a banquette for our kitchen and tile our kitchen counter with granite tiles.

It is the way of it for Michael and I. We are lifetime DIYer's. Every time I approach Michael with another brilliant, inspired idea, I see the "Holy Crap!" look on his face. In the end, he is always very proud and happy that we saved the money and how great the results look. It's slightly comical to me that since the economy headed down the toilet, people all over the country are starting to do what we have always done, waste nothing, use everything, spend very little. I think in some ways it's good to get people thinking about not being the throw away society and re-purposing what they have. My motto has always been - "shop your own house first". If I were to wish for a purchase of my very own? A nail gun of course. I believe a nail gun is a girl's best friend!