van's bench

when damion and i decided it was time to have a baby, my sister, julie, and her husband were deciding it was time to have their second baby. we both ended up pregnant within weeks of each other. she had her gorgeous 'little man, van' and i had eden (who is, of course, also gorgeous!).


as the kids got older, julie noticed that van was missing certain physical developmental milestones. after taking him in for tests and an appointment with the neurologist, van was diagnosed with spinal muscular atrophy type II. SMA is a rare genetic condition that affects the proximal (closest to the trunk) muscles of the body.

julie asked me to build van a little bench and stool (the stool is still in the works) for his physio exercises. of course. but, a cool kid like van definitely needs a cool bench. so, i photoshopped the vans sneaker logo and a funky graphic to produce this design. i projected it onto the wood and painted it black. julie is going to take care of the finishing touches (adding a bit of colour and varnishing it).


for more information on SMA visit the families of sma or fightsma.org.

i'm still deciding how to design the stool...if you have any suggestions, let me know.


new blog of the week feature

one of my new favourite pastimes seems to be scoping out neat blogs online. i get a little thrill when i find a cool new-to-me blog. when my cousin spent 6 weeks recovering from a surgery i sent her a new website everyday to help keep the boredom away. now that she's up on her feet again i've missed digging around the internet with purpose. so, i've decided to start a new feature here. every week i'll post a link to a blog i love. find it in the sidebar.

check, the red bench

the curtains are complete! remind me never to do that again...it took a few hours of massaging to coax my hand back to its normal state. here's the finished product.

to show you something new i've dug up the photo below of bench i built for my living room. actually, i built two benches for my living room, but the second one literally fell apart. not my best work (i'm going to whine now and say "but, i was 7 months pregnant at the time i built them", even though i don't know that it really makes a difference...things i've made have been known to fall apart every now and then!).


i made the bench with pine and upholstered the top cushion with my old ikea curtains (i still need to replace those curtains!). the material on the side that covers the storage below is simply a translucent plastic...the same material that people use to cover their florescent lighting.