new levels of suburban dad

I'm still trying to get some bigger projects complete around the house with not much time to make them happen, but I have to say the level of happiness I am getting out of the yard looking like this is beginning to concern me.

And this is a few days after a holiday weekend mowing. Things usually aren't quite so manicured.

commuting surprise

I have a couple of outstanding projects I'll post on when they get more finished, but I did want to share a run in I had on the way home yesterday. Thankfully not an actual run-in.

So I came across this guy in the road on the way home last night. Probably not going anywhere, just happy to have a sunny warm spot. But having seen the aftermath of another squished turtle in the road earlier in the spring, I didn't want this guy getting run over and moved him to the side of the road.

I couldn't hold him, the bike, and a phone at the same time so I didn't take a pic of him getting carried, but I hope he didn't mind moving out of the traffic path.

So that's all. Really busy with work, school, and the kids, and a bike ride like that is enough to keep me sane most days.

Upholstery is not in my wheel house.

But when has that stopped me?

We have a dining room set from World Market that's about 6-years old. The table and bench are in good shape, but the chairs started shedding their covers at an alarming rate this winter. I took one of the chairs into the garage this winter to try and take it apart to see if I could get it down to a seat cushion to re-upholster. Eventually I did, and even got the back off too to see if I could sew a new one (I could not).

Ugh. How exactly do I do this?

This chair has been in the garage since March, and this weekend we finally made it to a fabric store to see what we should try to put on it. I guess it's good that we waited, b/c four yards of the fabric we choose was going to be over $120, but there was a 60% off coupon in their app for Memorial Day. At least that way if I fucked up I wouldn't feel $120-bad.

And this was the first one, I figured out the corners after this. 

But getting the fabric on the seat cushion is easy enough. I wasn't going to mess with cushions so all I had to do was staple the new stuff on and re-attach the cushion. I might not have been technically correct but it looks way better and hopefully will hold up for a while. And none of this meant new tools; a screwdriver to start the staples, pliers to pull them out, a staple gun to put stuff back on. After the first one I got the system down and could turn them around pretty quickly while watching tv. 

At first glance it doesn't look horrible.

Sewing the back, not so much! I pulled two seams on the old cover to make a traceable pattern, and the fit actually wasn't too terrible. The stitching is god awful though.

Yeah, that's not a look I'm happy with.

So I have three mis-matched chairs while I track down a sewing machine to try again with. I can live with that as long as I don't have to pull any more staples any time soon. That was a pain in the ass.