18 Mar 2013 DIY – 'Love the challenge'
by Levi Gilbert
DIY projects can be a blessing or a curse, depending on the complexity and skillset of the people taking on the challenge.
My wife, Brittany, and I have taken on several DIY projects in our little Conway home since becoming homeowners in May 2010. But some projects are just a little too much for us to handle. That’s where our good friend Abby Davis comes in.
Davis, an ICU nurse at Arkansas Children’s Hospital, has a gift of design that has led her to take on several side projects since she was in junior high school.
“I started doing paintings for family, mostly murals,” Abby said. “I painted a church window, a preschool playroom and designed a theme for our locker room in the basketball gym. Then I’ve just kind of been doing it ever since and taking on more and more projects.”
While not a full-time gig, her various design projects always display full-time quality and appeal. Large modern art pieces, canvas art, modern shelving, distressed wood pieces and other woodworks, pantries, furniture and more — there’s not much that Abby isn’t willing to tackle.
“I really just love the challenge of creating things,” Abby said. “I love for someone to bring me something that I haven’t tried before. I don’t much like to make duplicates of things, so once I have done it a time or two, the thrill is kind of gone for me.
“I like the process of watching what is in my head come to fruition. I really like doing things that have sentimental value to the people I am creating for.”
Davis is fearless when it comes to taking on projects. It’s a trait that we do not possess when it comes to certain DIY projects, which is why we have turned to her on several occasions.
“I am not afraid to try things,” she said. “I usually tell people when they bring me a project, ‘I think I can do it, but don’t know how long it will take or how many tries, but I will give it a shot.’ Most of the things I know how to do have just been learned by trial and error.
“I think it helps though that I can usually see the finished product in my head before I ever start, so it is just getting it out, which sometimes takes many tries, busted fingernails, ruined clothes — which my husband is always griping at me for — and sometimes, admittedly, a few temper tantrums. I may or may not have thrown wood scraps across the garage a time or two.”
The Gilbert household is blessed to display four pieces created by Abby — one is very functional in our kitchen, one adds a splash of color and modernism to our living room, one is both functional and funky in our child’s room and one is very personal to us.
Pantry
Our kitchen (and our house, for that matter) is quite small. It’s definitely a starter home, and we have struggled from day one with a lack of cabinet space in the kitchen. We have done several things to alleviate this problem over the years, but we’ve never really been able to overcome the lack of a pantry.
Brittany found a great idea on Pinterest one day that Abby was able to re-create for us. We call it our hideaway pantry. It’s designed to be the same height as our refrigerator and wide enough to fit between it and the wall. It was a space previously occupied by our mop and broom, but now serves a greater purpose by holding most of our dry foods and canned goods. It has opened up so much cabinet space for us, which has in turn created space in other areas.
“The pantry was all Brittany’s doing,” Abby said. “Sh
e brought me the design, all I did was re-create. It was really quite a simple project if you have the right tools. It is genius — I can say that because I didn’t design it!”
Modern living room art
We’ve tried several different things on our living room walls to give our home a little more spirit. We’ve hung photos and even created some art ourselves, but ultimately we wanted something a little more modern and much more professional looking that could also throw some more color into our home.
“The hardest part of that piece was hanging it,” Abby said. “I had made one of these before, so I had the process for this one down pat. In fact, I totally improved on it and saved lots of time. It was just finding a dang stud in your crazy house to hang the thing from!”
Custom shelves
If you know the Gilbert family (or have read my faith column in the January issue of 501 LIFE), then you probably know about the struggles we went through to have a child. As we prepared to have our first child, Canaan, we wanted to get some personalized pieces created for his room. One thing we needed was shelving. Abby gave us an idea for a pretty crazy design, and we loved it. We had painted Canaan’s room grey with a dark blue accent wall. We gave her the remaining blue paint for the shelves.
“I found this amazing shelving system online and was determined to build it for someone,” Abby said. “[The Gilberts] were the takers. Again, it was really easy to build but horrible, heavy and complicated to install. Are we building a theme yet?”
Canaan’s art
We also wanted a custom art piece to hang above his crib. We had picked the name Canaan, “promised land,” because we believe Canaan represented God’s promise to us that we would be parents. We weren’t set on a particular design, but we wanted it to reflect the meaning behind Canaan’s name and incorporate Numbers 13-15.
“Brittany knew the colors she wanted and had, I think, an idea of how she wanted it to feel,” Abby said. “I actually just picked out a few paintings that I liked and sent them her way. She couldn’t decide, so I then drew up one that was a combination of three of them put together, and then somewhere along the way, I decided to make it have 3D pieces.
“It definitely took a while to do all the handpainted lettering. I love Canaan’s painting because of the story that is behind it and how it glorifies God.”
For more information, visit Abby’s Facebook page, AbbyDavisDesigns, call 479.965.6584 or email [email protected].
We always have more DIY projects that we are tossing around. Some of them we can achieve on our own, and others require a more skilled hand. Abby’s advice — do proper research before taking on too much.
“It will save you lots of frustration — be meticulous,” Abby said. “DIY projects are only good if no one knows you did them yourself. Just don’t look at my house right now because all my projects are half finished. I kind of have project ADD, I think. Although, at my house, people always assume I did everything myself and are always surprised when I say, ‘Nope, it’s from Target.’”
