Head and Shoulders, Knees and Toes, Knees and Toes... Hands and Legs?

The last 8 weeks have been filled with ups and downs. I've loved blogging, but have run into an interesting road block - my hands! For the last while, I've been struggling with a couple of cases of Dyshidrosis, which is an incredibly painful type of blistering eczema.

And though that isn't the prettiest picture I've ever posted, it is where I'm at. I've been to the dr. twice with no successful results, I've tried eliminating dairy and wheat from my diet, and now I'm trying some hard core probiotics. I can't use cream on it, as it only makes it worse, and so have resorted to some ointments. But between the itching, the swelling and the pain, it's difficult to do much of anything. I'm lucky that the swelling hasn't progressed to the point that I'm unable to work. But my fine motor skills of pen and fork holding are really painful. It's been heart breaking for me to not get to work on all the projects that I've wanted to. And to be honest, I'm going a little stir crazy not making things. So I figure I can still do some things, and I will, and I'll also blog more about other things, like what's happening in our neighbourhood, little adventures we take and stuff that I'm loving on line. And I'll keep working away on projects that I can. Which leads me to the second piece of this blog title - LEGS! And not my legs - couch legs. 

As I've shown before, we have two Klippan couches in our living room. And of course, they came with beautiful metal legs (please hear my sarcasm). Okay, so they weren't horrible, but they weren't pretty either. 

And since now there are so many custom options for these couches, like Bemz covers, I couldn't help but lust over some new legs from Pretty Pegs. And it didn't take much searching on their website to fall in love with these three styles. 

And though I like the pop of colour they can bring, I was totally into changing out my silver legs for black ones!

After much consideration, I decided that the chunky middle one was my fav. The final step, as per usual, was to convince my husband they were worth the $200 splurge. 

And that's where this project came to a screeching halt. For the first time, in a long time, he was a no on the legs. Not that he didn't like them, because he did. He just wasn't willing to part with the money to get them. Keeping in mind we bought the couches for $300 each. But for me, a no is just a little word with a deep desire to be a yes! So I began a new hunt for cheaper legs. And all it took was one stop at the ETSY store to find exactly what I was looking for. 

With a price point of 4 legs for less than $50, that "NO" to new legs became a "YES"! And this shop had lots of style options. 

And since I'd previously settled on a square taper, I ordered two sets of black square tapered legs for under $100! Score!

Now just to get them and get them installed!

Cover Me!

Oh how quickly the summer has come and gone! Well, it's not totally gone yet, and in some ways I feel like it never started because of all the rain and cloudy days, but that's really beyond the point. So with just a couple weeks left, it seems like the perfect time to do some final garden list checking and call this summer to a close.

As you can see, I've decided to resolve painting the table until next year, and only because I haven't fully decided what to do with it. Too many ideas, not enough decisions! Which left only one remaining item, the CANOPY!

Which originally made it to the list for two reasons, we wanted to use the table when it was too sunny and also when it's a bit rainy. But we also didn't want to always use it, which meant that it needed to collapse to one side, when we didn't want it. And though that sounds and looks like a simple thing, rigging it up so that it moves along the lines was a bit harder than I expected. Who knew you needed 4 ropes for something that looks like it only needs 3. Here's a look at my 4 rope solution. 

The biggest issues came from rope #1 and #4. #1's biggest issue was that it couldn't just share the line with #2 because of the angle of connection and the size of the fabric. Which I don't think I said I got from ikea for $20 each. 

The second issue was with rope #4, because the tension of the fabric meant that when it rained, the water poured down the back of the sectional. So I instead added some galvanized nails to the top of the fence to create tension points to hold the canopy back.

And then the simplest part was clipping the canopy onto rope #2 and hanging it over rope #3.

And voila! Done. And though it took lots of tries, it finally works the way we hoped, and it's perfect for hot summer days. Here's to hoping we have lots of those next year and that we get to use it even more! 

The final piece is that I use a collection of ikea kitchen clips to keep the canopy pulled into tension and to hold it while it sleeps. And yes, I do mean the ones you have at home to clip on chips to keep them fresh! Who knew they could work wonders in the garden.