BHG Flash Sale!

Happy Friday!

I wanted to pop in for a quick surprise announcement... I've teamed up with Better Homes and Gardens for an exclusive 3-day flash sale!

I always offer my blog readers a 10% discount, but this weekend you can score 30% off everything my Etsy shops! This is the biggest storewide sale I've ever had so I thought I'd give you guys a heads up if you've been waiting for the right time to order that new print. Well, now is the time!

All you have to do is...

1. Visit jennasuedesign.etsy.com or jennasuemaps.etsy.com
2. Find your favorite print(s)
3. Add everything to your cart and enter the code BHG66 at checkout
4. Wait for your awesome custom prints to arrive in the mail.

I'll be working tirelessly over the next few days to fulfill your orders ASAP before the big studio reveal!

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

Studio Progress: Finishing touches, + an SLR lens breakdown bonus.

This past weekend I finally got around to completing the last couple projects in the office before I can call this room "Done".

First up... a new way to display an inspirational quote.

After the wainscoting and shelf ledge went up, the upper wall area was lookin a little lonely...

I knew right away I wanted to incorporate some sort of inspirational quote, as a studio should be an inspiring place to spend your day.

Instead of slapping something up on the wall, I thought a little harder and decided that something suspended from the ceiling could be a neat alternative.

Step 1 was to choose my quote. One of my favorites is from a very smart man by the name of Walt Disney... 

This quote feels very relevant to me, as I started with just a dream myself and am now aiming to make it my reality.

After that was settled, I figured the easiest way would be to paint the words onto wood (something I am quite familiar with).

I picked out a 1x3 plank of Whitewood from Lowe's. This type of wood is my favorite because it's a light, neutral color (not orangey), it's very lightweight, and it's also very soft which means easy to imprint/modify for projects like these.

I thought I'd also fancy it up a bit by notching out a little flag/banner shape on the edges. I did this once before on a smaller scale and loved the way it turned out:

For this part, I got to use my brand new jigsaw for the first time. It was fun!

After the edges were shaped, I decided to go with a rustic look and weather the wood using tools I had lying around.

Since the wood is so soft, it dents easily which is perfect for this process.

After it was distressed enough to my liking, I gave it around 4 coats of my go-to stain, Minwax in Ebony, and let it dry for a few days.

Then I had to make my word template.

For this part, I measured the height and length the overall quote had to be, typed it out in Illustrator and spaced the words appropriately, and then printed them out using several pages of plain paper:

Then I cut boxes around the letters so I could easily tape them within the wood piece, like so:

I carefully lined up my words and taped them down...

Then I took a pen and pressed firmly on the outline of the letters to leave an imprint in the wood.

See it?

Using a small paint brush and a steady hand, I filled in the letters, one by one...

After probably an hour, it was done!

Now it was time to hang this baby.

After considering my options, I decided hooks and twine would be a good solution. The board is so light that it doesn't need anything heavy duty (like chains). 

I picked up a pack of eye hooks, and screwed one in on each end (by hand):

Then we hung it up to the ceiling, made our marks for the ceiling hooks, and used inserts to secure the top hooks into.

Once the hooks were in, I snipped off some twine, knotted them tightly and it was good to go.

I love my hanging sign. It makes me happy :)

Ready for the next one?

With the amount of paper and scraps I go through on a daily basis, I needed a pretty substantial waste bin to contain everything so I don't have to empty it 24/7. I'd been using a wicker basket in my old office but it was too small and not very efficient.

Enter the steel tub.

I purchased the 16 gallon version on Amazon because I loved the rustic look, the size was perfect, and it was just $26 shipped.

It was technically cool looking enough to leave as is, but I wanted to jazz it up a bit.

So I printed this out and cut each letter out using my Xacto knife:

I wanted to add a white stripe across the center and have the word RECYCLE show through in the bare steel. 

The first step was using painters tape around the edges of my border:

Then I cut some plastic sheets and taped them on top and bottom so they wouldn't get sprayed.

Once it was prepped, I whipped out my trusty spray adhesive (I've had this bottle for years—works every time)

I gently sprayed the back of my letters, and used a piece of tape to line them up.

After a few light coats of paint (with some drying time in between), I peeled off my letters and admired the results.

It adds a nice touch, don't you think?

And that's as much as I can show you for now before the big reveal!

But I do want to mention my other latest Amazon purchase... (if photography doesn't float your boat, you may want to skip the rest of this post!)

Hello, lovely 24mm f2.8!

Here's the deal. I'm obsessed with my 50mm f1.4. It's so perfect in every way, I rarely even have to touch the photos in processing before posting. I use it every chance I get... except that doesn't happen too often because 50mm is not ideal for full room shots. 

So a while back I bought a 10-22mm f3.5-4.5 thinking the wide angle lens would be perfect, but I didn't love it. And I've finally realized that the small aperture is what's killing me.

Unfortunately, I'm not in a position to drop $1500 on a 24mm 1.4, so after some research, I figured the best compromise would be the 24mm 2.8. 

It's pretty much exactly what I had expected, and I do like it. I'm still trying to decide if I want to sell my 10-22, because it does come in handy with the small rooms in my house. It just sucks in low lighting, which is pretty much my whole house minus the sunroom.

Just for fun, I've done some comparison shots with all 4 lenses I own (all Canon): 10-22mm f3.5-4.5, 24mm f2.8, 50mm f1.4, and the 18-55 f3.5-5.6 kit lens.

These are all straight out of camera shots, no cropping or editing at all (aside from the 'enable lens profile corrections' checkbox in RAW). I tried to keep the focal length about the same (except the 50mm of course). The goal was to keep a low aperture so you can see the difference in the lenses capability as much as possible—so I set it on Av and had the camera do the rest to even the playing field as much as possible.

Disclaimer: I know some of these photos are dark. And also the ISO is too high (800). All shots taken with a T2i.

Ready? Here's scene #1. The focal point was on the center of the light aqua pillow, for reference.

10-22mm:

24mm:

18-55mm:

50mm:

Not much of a difference between the first 3 lenses, although you can see the subtle background blur from the 24mm. In a larger room like this it isn't as noticeable, but in a smaller room it really makes a difference.

Scene 2.

10-22mm:

24mm:

18-55mm:

50mm:

The focal point in these shots was the top right corner of the black printer, and in this situation there is less of a noticeable depth of field difference.

And finally, Scene 3.  I realize this setup sucks with the over and underexposed rooms, but I chose it because there are objects both close up and far away to illustrate the DOF. The focal point is on the sunroom pillows.

10-22mm:

24mm:

18-55mm:

50mm:

Here you can definitely tell the 24mm from the 10-22 and kit lens with the out of focus couch and chest, and that is the reason I bought this lens. It would be nice to have a slightly wider focal length, but I had to compromise somewhere. 

I'm still just at the beginning stages of learning my way around my camera and different lens options so I am nowhere near an expert at any of this. But it does help me to get an idea of how different lenses perform under identical conditions though, so hopefully this is helpful to someone else in the market for a new lens. (And if you are, be sure to check out this most helpful camera & lens review site). 

I'd love to hear about your favorite lenses for shooting interiors (I wish there was more resources on this out there!), or your thoughts/tips/opinions! 

Next week is the big studio reveal, whew!

Studio progress: The desk is done!

We're nearing the finish line with our office renovation, and we finally made it past the biggest hurdle with marking the workspace area off our checklist.

After we built and assembled the big desk, we discovered it had some wobble to it. Possibly because it was so heavy, resting on skinny-ish legs, and not bolted or secured to anything.

The two Ikea desks on either side were also easily moveable—not ideal.

To remedy this situation, I purchased some decent sized L brackets and Brad secured them underneath the large center desk into the wall where the studs were (sorry, no photos of this process, but there's not much to it). We were relieved to find that it worked! The desk won't budge now.

We then attached the two side desks to the large desk with regular flat brackets, and now those won't move either when you pull or push on them. Success!

Then it was time to address a storage issue I'd been trying to resolve for a long time now. See those large pieces of cardboard in the photo above? There's posters/extra large paper inside that had nowhere to go. I had no extra desk space to keep them, and I didn't like to store them vertically (didn't even have space for that). So what's a girl to do?

Brad was wearing his thinking cap and suggested shallow drawer underneath the desk. Um, genius! Now I just had to figure out how to DIY it.

I decided on a piece of 1/4" plywood and some 1x2"s for the sides, mounted with center mount drawer slides.

Here's how the placement would be: 

The largest size Lowe's had was 22", and the length of my drawer needed to be 41" to accompany my biggest posters, so I crossed my fingers it would work.

I hauled everything into the garage and got to work on my setup. I lined up the 1x2's with the edge of the plywood base and made my cuts:

Looks like a pretty straightforward plan, right?

But then we realized we had a big problem. The drawer glides were one piece and couldn't be taken apart, which meant that once we attached it to the drawer, we couldn't attach it to the desk because the wood pieces would be in the way. DANGIT.

Plan B was to chop the wood off right where the screw holes were to attach it to the desk. This meant that the back side of the drawer would be free hanging but we hoped it was light enough that it didn't matter.

We started by securing the front side of the rail to our wood (with two 1" wood screws):

Here's a side view to get a better idea:

Then we brought them inside, lined them to the correct spacing, and attached the back part of the slides to the desk from underneath.

Once the placement was right, we attached our plywood base to the bottom:

And with bated breath, I slowly pulled on the drawer...

and it worked!

What a sense of relief to be able to FINALLY get rid of that old cardboard that has been driving me crazy for over a year and have my posters nicely tucked away out of sight. 

We celebrated by rolling out the new rug.

And yes, we totally should have done this before securing the desks in place... it was a total pain to get situated underneath everything! But it made such a difference in the overall feel of the room. 

It instantly transformed it from an uninspired, white, institutional feel to a creative and happy environment—as it should be.

I just hope it lasts, because this little one has made it her mission in life to destroy anything that starts with an R and ends with a UG...

Yeah, I'm lookin at you, Miss Susie. Claw caps won't stop her!

Next it was time to get rid of the eyesore in the room...

These horrible unfinished desk edges.

They do make white edging tape for melamine boards, but it's only for the width of one board and I wanted it to look like one seamless thick desk.

I figured my best/only option was trim, and found some in the perfect width (1.75").

I cut the edges at a 45' miter so they would sit up nicely against each other.

Then I used a nail gun to secure everything.

All it took was some spackle, sanding and touch up paint. 

This was the easiest part of the day, and really makes the room look finished!

Next, we focused the bare space in the center of the back wall. 

Remember these letters from the old office?

They got a makeover, via leftover brushed nickel spray paint from my Ikea shelves:

I also relocated this Ikea rail that used to hang in the old closet space...

I like how the light is positioned directly above it to illuminate the letters.

Ok, back to the desk.

After a day or two, I noticed the plywood was sagging a bit in the back.

Oh and FYI, the bench in the back was originally going to go underneath my map wall by the printer, but it ended up being too cramped in that corner so it was relocated to this otherwise wasted space under the desk.

Another angle to showcase the plywood saggage...

So I chopped another 1x2" to line up with the edge, used some wood glue and brackets to attach it to the front piece, then screwed the plywood in to the bottom. 

Problem solved.

I then decided I wasn't in love with the au naturale wood tone of the drawer. Even though it's mostly hidden, you can see a bit of the edge and the front and I wanted to minimize its visibility by blending it in with its surroundings.

Out came the white paint.

Much better...

Now it just looks like an extension of the desk. 

Can you spot the jumping cat?

That just about covers it for now. I was going to squeeze in a couple more projects but figured they were special enough to save for their own post next week.

But I do want to share this awesome custom engraved sign I purchased on Etsy...

This will be attached to the door. Love it!

Up next I'll be sharing my final two projects before the big reveal (hint: they involve words!)