My journeys

Hey ya'll. So I'm on a lot of journeys right now. A journey to lose weight and be more fit, a journey to be a better housemaker, and a journey (which encompasses all of my little journeys) to build, make, sew a less expensive, cleaner, healthier life for my family.
It started with a website and a love of Home Depot, Sutherlands, and Lowes. Since becoming an adult I have loved these stores for reasons that weren't always clear to me. My dad loved it, I liked joining him on his twice-thrice weekly, sometimes daily trips up to the local store, and maybe at the time it was being with my dad and working our ideas into life in the house he built for me. As I am sitting here writing this, I think I get what I love about it now. Its the possibilites I see when I go inside. Anyway, the website is full of plans for people just like me, total beginners, to use to build something beautiful and sturdy for a lot less than buying from somewhere else.
I have wasted many hours clicking through the free plans available from Ana (the mind and work behind the site and plans) and last spring we finally built something. Its a helper tower.

We built it for Benji to allow him to reach the kitchen sink and counters, and its adjustable so it grows with him. This last year Santa & Mrs. Claus built the boys a train table.

This year I have decided this is not the pace I had in mind when daydreaming over these plans. Maybe Mitch doesn't like this as much as I do? Huh. Maybe, just maybe I can do it myself.... And so, I picked the most simple of the plans I wanted to do, and I began. Ten Dollar Ledges is where I started. I decided it would make a good new design for our family photo wall. If you stick with the 8 ft length, there isn't even any cutting involved, so this sounded like the project to get comfortable with pocket holes.
I built them for both the family room and have just finished 3 ft shelves for the boys room to hold their books. Pictures to come soon!