Sydney time takes 100% of your attention 85% of the time. That 15% is when she feeding herself cheerios, playing with her juice bottle or watching the animals in amazement. Even when she is on the front porch in the pack n’ play (see photos) or trying to crawl around on the floor, she requires constant supervision. It’s like she’s a baby or something

This last week, I have been leaving the office around 5:00pm and loading up Sydney in her new baby backpack and hiking up into the hills. Our average hike was about 45 minutes or so and Sydney just loved it. Loaded up in the pack, she is way up high, bouncing around, grabbing for leaves, checking out cows (see photos) and staring at every dog and cat like it’s the first time she’s seen one. Keep in mind, we’re in Puerto Rico and everyone has dogs. It’s like a barking orchestra as you walk through the narrow roads up and down the hills.

Last weekend, we started building bench railings on the front porch. Sydney is getting more and more mobile everyday. Putting up the bench railings is going to kill two birds with one stone. First, Sydney won’t be able to fall off the sides of the porch (highest part, the front is bordered by a big planter) and that is a good thing. Second, it solves our front porch seating issues. Porch furniture is super expensive and we haven’t found anything that we like that will work on our narrow front porch. Adding the benches has eliminated the need for furniture out there. Now we have two hammocks and seating for 6 to 10 people. I’ll upload the bench photos as a single post once we finish them. You can get a sneak preview by checking them out in the background of the front porch picture with Sydney.

CB2.com ships to Puerto Rico!! And they don’t even rape you in shipping fees (shipping costs are generally 10% of your order price).

So, I took care of that problem I was having with lacking a place to put our books, and ordered the “Scaffold Bookcase“.

I bought quite a few things, spent around $600 and shipping was only $50. I also updated the list I’ve made of websites and stores that ship to Puerto Rico. Anyone know of any additional websites that I can add to the list?

It prompted me to look around online a bit and I found this great desk….in Wisconsin. Does anyone know if there are any antique dealers here on the west coast or in San Juan?

Today, we set off on our final mission. We went to 5 furniture stores before deciding that we would just go to Sears and get the bedroom set that we thought was “okay”, last time we were there. In a last ditch effort to avoid settling on something we didn’t really want, we went to the Pier One that is located in the Sear store, first. Low and behold, we found the PERFECT king sized headboard, dresser, night stand and bench, for our master bedroom! It’s from the Shanghai collection (which just happened to be on sale this week) and is pretty much exactly what we wanted. We also purchased a king sized Simmons Beautyrest mattress, and everything should be delivered next week.

YAY!

The plywood that will be built.

Day 1 – Building floor to ceiling center shelf

Since the center shelf is floor to ceiling, we had to construct most of it inside the closet.

We measured wrong, as you can see on the top rear of the shelf. So we cut some additional pieces and fixed it. Luckly for me, Stefan is as big of a perfectionist as I am.

Day 2: Pieces for the sides have been carefully measured and cut and I am sanding the edges.

Right side has been successfully built (on the 1st try this time!).

Sides installed!

So far, I am so excited about what we’ve built! There was a bit of bickering in the beginning since neither of us has any experience building furniture and both of us are “A” personalities, but we’ve found our niches and we’re moving right along. I draw what we visualize, we work together to get the measurements right on paper, I measure and mark where the wood is to be cut, Stefan cuts the wood, I sand the edges on the cuts and we both put the pieces together with wood glue, a squaring ruler and a nail gun.

When building a closet (or furniture) it’s SO important to get your measurements 100% correct before you start cutting up all the expensive wood. All of my fashion design classes are all coming back to me now…Furniture design and fashion design are very similar when it comes to putting the design on paper, measuring, cutting and building. Who would’ve thought…:)

Today we are going to hang the dowels and build the side shelves. Off to Home Depot!

A day bed seems like the perfect solution for our guest bedroom. Since there is a queen size bed in the loft area, we’ve been going back and forth on if we were going to get another bed or perhaps a pull out couch or something along those lines.

Cool daybed = bueno, West Elm’s shipping policy = no bueno!

I can’t even tell you how nice it is to have a comfortable place to lounge! Before the couch, we would either be sitting at our desks, on a bucket or in the hammock, which isn’t very social friendly…

In our quest for decent furniture in/around Rincon, we’ve found the two best places to be Sears and Rooms To Go, both in Mayaguez.

We found a really cool couch at Rooms to Go as well as the vanity in our bathroom…but I didn’t see any bedroom sets that I liked. I really am convinced that buying a bedroom set from a big furniture company is the wrong path to take. I would love to slowly furnish the house with killer furniture from our travels and explorations of the world. We can scoop up antique mail desks in Rome, hand woven Tibetan rugs from Nepal, authentic statues of Buddha in Thailand and teak furniture from Bali!

POP

That was the little dream bubble popping over my head. There is no way Summer and I will live in a half furnished house for the next 5 years especially since my world travel so far this year has been limited to a 5 day trip to Oklahoma City and a 10 day visit to San Diego for some legal stuff.

OK, with all this said, Summer and I still need to furnish our house. I found a bed online that I like that is hand made out of teak in Bali. It isn’t expensive, but the shipping costs more than our new truck. I don’t necessarily like the head board, but I really like the simplicity of the frame and legs. I think I could build this King Size Platform Bed. Maybe I could find some “How To” instructions online as far as recommendations go on how to fasten the corners and legs on so it is super sturdy.

Teak King Size Platform Bed

“The next generation in our popular leaning desk-shelf system – now in a sleek mahogany finish. Ladder-style design crafted of solid mahogany and engineered wood secures against the wall for maximum stability (hardware included). Sturdy open desk has two shelves and workspace for a laptop. Five-shelf bookcase works well alone or in multiples (two shown here with desk). Also available in white.”

Each bookcase is $129 and the desk set up is also $129. $387 as shown (2 shelves and 1 desk).

I think this shelf/desk combo and a couch with a pull out bed (plus the bed in the loft) would make for a pretty sweet guest room…