DIY Brass Sconce

Did you notice I didn't blog last week? Oopsies. Crazy busy week and then I took off Thursday for the Bahamas with my work team. It was amazing. And needed. And now I'm back with a slight tan and slightly clearer brain.

So let's get back to it with an adorable IKEA hack that I'm planning to swipe for myself. Have you seen this precious little girl's room from blog Dwellings by DeVore? Completely adorable.

And though the room and gallery wall are really cute, I'm completely focused on the hack of that IKEA sconce as I'm always on the hunt for an inexpensive, good-looking sconce and I think this one fits the bill. It's the RODD Wall Lamp - the bad news is I don't think you can get it online. Boo.

But a little gold spray paint and cool lamp shade go a long way here. Perfectly sweet in this space but you could reimagine the shade several ways and use it in a grown-up way.

Read more details on the hack and the space here...

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Getting Straight Paint Lines

A recent Pinterest jaunt led me to a clever DIY done by a mom and her tween daughter:

Essentially, painter's tape was put on the wall at random, varying angles and each geometric shape was painted a snazzy color to create a cool, colorful wall. Easy little project that had a fun impact for a tween bedroom.

But what caught my eye most was the product they were using, as it's new to me but I would have loved something like it when painting my own dining room's stripes - FrogTape now has a sealer that you can use as a second step after applying your tape.

Especially helpful if your walls have some slight texture to them which can cause messy paint lines.

My old technique would be to paint the base color, apply my tape, go over the seams with the base color to "seal" it, and then paint my stripe/line/shape color. That did not work so great, but it did help.

This doesn't cut out any work but if it achieves a sharper result, it's totally worth checking out. And no, the FrogTape people haven't reached out to me. This one just made sense, especially since I can guess that almost all of us will encounter a painting DIY at some point where this might be useful - I don't have anything on my radar but I'll remember this tidbit next time I do.

Have you used it? Good or bad results?

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Black Doors

Done and done.

Before:

And After!

Photos by Crystal Downs

WHAT TOOK US SO LONG????

Not only did we paint the doors black, but we also replaced what were puny, hollow doors with sturdy, solid paneled situations. This simple change made a huge impact in our little hallway. Carter and I were both patting ourselves on the back after this one. The plan is to do this to ALL doors in our house, except maybe the french doors leading into the dining room.

Yay for small, easy changes with big impact.

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DIY Starry Ceiling

The first image that popped into my head as I started planning baby Irwin's nursery was this one:

Aloe walls and a starry ceiling...it was exactly where I wanted to start because I knew Tyler would love it. And stars are sweet and childlike without being indicative of any gender.

Now, being clear that putting stars on a ceiling is not an original idea, I did try and think through how to accomplish it, as papering the ceiling in Osborne & Little's Coronata wasn't really in the cards. I know folks have painted those stars using a stencil - a possibility, but I thought Timmy would curse me for all eternity if I gave him that assignment. There had to be an easier way...

Enter wall decals. Easy to put up, easy to take down, easy to fix if you mess up, not permanent, inexpensive - so many bonus points. And a quick Google search gave me exactly what I was looking for:

I found 8-pointed wall decal stars here...initially I was bummed thinking they just came in this large size. But no! They come in a 2" size in gold metallic. Done and done.

The room's ceiling is already white so this should be an easy afternoon project for us (read:Timmy) to knock out. I'll let you know the success factor.

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Friday Crush

Jessica Risko Smith Interior Design, via Houzz & Pinterest

This is a good idea. Tassel fringe on a roman shade against a solid bottom border. Really smart because you get all the detail of the tassel, but the background border keeps it tailored and not so crazy to the eye. I need to do this somewhere.

Have a wonderful weekend...see you next week!

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Another Mongolian Lamb Stool Option

I think we are all enjoying the Mongolian lamb stool DIY craze. Or maybe you haven't seen it, but you love a good furry upholstered piece, like so:

Design by Shari Markbreiter of MH Studio, image via The Zhush

I think I prefer the warm, global use of these furry pieces like the image above. The girly, frou-frou take on it is cute in the right context...but if I did this DIY, I would opt for pairing the texture with warm wood. And I found two good contenders to create the project.

First up is this barrel stool. I have a very similar piece in my living room in all white that I bought about four years ago and it's one of my favorites.

Price is great at $86 (and free shipping) and I bet that top is a cinch to screw off and recover. 

Next, I found this faux-fur Mongolian pillow for only $17 for an 18-inch pillow! It's hard to find high-pile faux-fur fabric for that price for one yard. And most pillows are kinda pricey so finding this one put this DIY on my map.

The stool measures 15.75" in diameter...which I'm thinking is at the widest point so the "seat" portion is probably a little smaller than that, making an 18" piece of fabric workable...I think. The only thing with the pillow is that I believe it is an actual pillow, not a cover, so you'll need to do a little deconstruction to get at the fabric. 

So, have you tried your own spin on this DIY? Do you like this combo? I know I love that stool...would be great with any fabric.

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Dresser Painting and a Nursery Peek

We attacked the nursery dresser painting this weekend and, for the most part, it went well. If you recall, the original dresser was painted black with silver hardware:

First, I discovered that the black was hiding some damage pretty well....damage that became pretty visible when painted yellow. Oh well...I paid $75 and I still like it more than something I would have bought new so I got over it. I guess I'll just never take any up-close pictures!

Second, apparently painting yellow over black is quite the chore. We [Carter] prepped the table by sanding the top just a tad and giving the whole piece a coat of primer. I was hoping this would lead to a fantastic finish but it took 3 coats of yellow paint to hide the black and to be honest, the piece could probably still use a 4th coat to really make it perfect...but we [I] ran out of steam.

Here is its current state:

You can catch a glimpse at the bottom of the 2nd picture of the hardware which we spraypainted brass. Our next step is to give the whole piece a coat of lacquer to give it some shine and protection.

I'm really happy with the color, but this is not the color we started out with. I initially chose Sherwin Williams' Bee (6683) because the paint chip was dead on. But, once we put it on the dresser it was a very lemony fluorescent yellow (cue the crying breakdown when I realized this...as if the world was coming to an end...geez louise). I think that might have had less to do with the color and more to do with the fact that the primer/black was very visible below it and the color would have gotten better with more coats.

Even so, I kinda knew that after 500 coats the color would still be a little off. So we went back and I picked up the color that was next on the paint chip - Brittlebush (6684). This yellow was much better as it had a deeper golden tone to it...not as fluorescent.

Which brings me to a lesson I learned (or better said, confirmed) during this painting adventure:

Go darker than you think. About three times now, I've chosen a paint chip only to realize that it's not as intense as I wanted it to be. ESPECIALLY when it comes to room painting - a color on a 2" square can seem pretty saturated, but once you spread it out across an entire room, it can wash out a good bit. I'm always scared to go too bold, but like I said, about three times now I've gone back for the "darker" color and the results have been great.

I also learned a lesson about the Sherwin Williams quart samples that I love so dearly...they are awesome for the price, but the quality isn't fantastic - especially if you are painting with a tricky color like yellow (ie. we've used them when painting black and they were great). The samples don't cover like their higher grade paints (that are not available in sample quarts, just "regular" quarts). If I was sure of the color I wanted I would have paid the money to get a quart in their Cashmere line and we probably would have been done painting in two coats with a much better finish. Using the sample just took longer and isn't quite as perfect, but we did save some cash.

For reading this far, I shall now treat you to a peek of the window treatments that are all done...

BAM! Awesome, right? Y'all, they totally make the room. This is the big focal point window in the center of the room and we also have a much smaller window in an alcove that only has the pelmet box and blinds (no curtains). I couldn't be happier with the arrangement...it's all looking quite fetching. I see the end in sight...the nursery might actually be done before December! Go Team Shuffler!

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DIY Fabric Wallpaper in My Kitchen

Carter was out of town this weekend. He went to the ACC Championship in Charlotte. So, naturally, what did I do? I wallpapered our kitchen. With fabric. Without telling him.
 

 My kitchen before

 The aftermath

I have a partner in crime when it comes to anything crafty/designy - my coworker/designer/friend/teacher Crystal. This girl is amazing...she is also a photographer and the photos you'll see in this post are her doing (and they are boring DIY pix...I'll show you fun pictures she took later this week). Anyway, she and I schemed up this plan a while back and I was so happy to put it into effect this weekend.

After reading a couple of how-to tutorials online, namely this one and this one, I felt pretty confident the two of us could tackle this. Y'all know I've been toying with all sorts of wallpaper ideas for the kitchen, but I had not come across anything that I passionately loved.

The fabric I ended up using was Waverly's Formosa in Campari. I had seen this fabric but it wasn't until I saw a post from Camila a while back that it sprung back to my frontal lobe with fury.

The red looks amazing against the aqua subway tiles we installed as our backsplash and the infusion of color looks great against black and white. It is also obviously reminiscent of our dear Chiang Mai, but I actually like this fabric more because it's strictly floral (ie. no dragons) and at a ridiculously cheaper price point. Done.

Now to the how-to portion....what you'll need:

- Fabric (I used upholstery/home dec weight, which worked OK)
- Scissors
- Push pins or nails/hammer to tack up fabric while it dries
- Paintbrush
- Homemade starch
- Liquid starch
- Sponge
- Paper towels
- X-acto knife
- Patience and a partner

I wish I could tell you exactly how much fabric you'll need, but that will depend on your project. I ended up using about 5 yards, but there was a good bit of "waste" in that yardage, as we cut around doorways, etc.

My first step was to make the "homemade" starch. I boiled 3 cups of water on the stove. While that was boiling, I mixed 1/4 cup of cornstarch with some cold water just to dissolve it. Once my water was boiling, I slowly stirred in the liquid cornstarch. I let it boil for a while until I thought it was thick and bubbly - then I pulled it off and let it cool. It ended up looking something like this:

It was pretty lumpy and goopy. I was expecting something more "liquidy," but it ended up working fine. It was definitely a thicker paste - some tutorials used this over their fabric as well. If you're doing my method, DON'T DO THAT! This glue dries cloudy and white. That might be because I didn't make it right, mind you, but still. Use the liquid starch for that part (more on that below).

So once I had this goopy paste cooling, I ironed my fabric to get out the big creases/wrinkles:

Crystal and I also began surveying the awkward wall pieces in my kitchen that we were covering to determine the largest swatch of continuous fabric we would need, and used that area as our starting point.

Our first step to begin hanging was to cover the wall with our goopy paste. We used a regular paintbrush and brushed the glue on pretty thick because I was worried my thicker-weight fabric wasn't going to stick so well. I think going heavy-handed ended up being a good idea. Also, my walls were painted with a flat paint, which was a good starting point. If your walls are super glossy or slick, you may want to prime them before you start.

Once we had the layer of goop down, we started pressing the fabric against the wall to get it into place, starting from the top. The fabric was heavy, so it took one of us holding/pressing against the wall, while the other either tacked it into place with a couple of lightly nailed-in nails (don't nail in all the way - just a little to hold the fabric) or cut away the excess from doors/windows, etc.

As you can see, we left a couple inches of extra fabric around all the edges. This helps keep the fabric tacked up while it dries, and you cut away the excess later with an X-acto knife.

Fabric is really easy to place - you have plenty of time to move it around, readjust it, etc - and we didn't have to deal with any air bubbles, really. We just smoothed it out with our hands, pressing firmly to make sure it was absorbing some of the goop on the back. The hardest part of this portion is lining up the pattern, but that actually wasn't that difficult either - and we had a ton of weird slices of wall. If you had a big continuous wall, I imagine this would actually be even easier.

Once all the fabric was in place and tacked to the walls, my next step was to go back over it with liquid starch. As I mentioned, I learned the hard way that the goopy paste I made actually dries very white and very cloudy. I likely should have figured this, but I didn't think about it. And we had glopped it on over the fabric where the pattern seams met up - and now the seams are all cloudy white. So, instead of using the goop to go over the fabric to further "seal" it to the wall, I opted for pre-made liquid starch I bought at Walmart:

I poured the starch in a bowl, soaked my sponge in it, and then went over all the fabric with it. The goal is to pretty much drench the fabric in it - to do so, you have to press the soaking-wet sponge down pretty hard on the wall, which will cause the starch to get ALL over you, your hand and the floor. Make sure you use your other hand to hold a paper towel under the sponge to catch the dribble.

My fabric was also pre-treated with some sort of Scotch-gard type protector - which is great for upholstery use, but not so great when I'm trying to soak it with liquid. So getting the starch into the fabric was a little difficult, but I did my best. It also didn't feel as "sticky" as my goop paste - so I'm not sure it did much to further stick the fabric to the wall, but I liked going over the fabric's surface with something to stiffen it and give it another barrier layer on top.

Once that's done, you can just sit back and wait. I think my fabric dried in 3-4 hours, but I let it sit overnight just in case.

The next morning is when things started to unravel...literally. We have reached the X-acto knife-wielding portion of this event. This is arguably the most "fun" part because you get to slice away the excess and admire your work, but cutting fabric with an X-acto knife at weird angles on a wall is difficult. 20% of the time, the blade sliced right through with no problem, leaving a clean cut. But 80% of the time the blade tugged at the fabric or didn't slice all the way through, so I had to go over the cut several times, creating a jagged edge.

And, I was using a new blade. I ended up switching my blade up several times, which looking back I don't think was necessary. I just needed to work on my technique, but in general, this part isn't so easy. I got quite frustrated many times, but I decided to just keep going and in the end, you can't really tell some of the edges are jagged in the kitchen. BUT, I still want to fix it. I'm going to look for some very thin white trim that I can tack against the crown to hide the fabric edge. This is one place where wallpaper wins - the crisp edge of paper is nicer than fabric.

On a positive note, whenever the fabric hit up against door casing or cabinets, we usually had just enough gap behind the casing/cabinet to tuck in the fabric, so no cutting needed! This was definitely a bonus and made for some very clean edges.

These photos show the before/after - Crystal took these before the X-acto part, so the edges aren't quite trimmed down here, but you get the idea.

Carter walked in Sunday and was very surprised and impressed. I wasn't too worried he wasn't going to like it, but it still made me happy that he liked it so much. And now I can have him help me finish it up to make it look perfect.

All in all, I really loved this project. Like all things DIY, I had some hiccups and learned some lessons, but it was pretty simple to do with some great results. Hanging the fabric probably took us a total of 4 hours and cutting it took about 1 hour or so. If you had a lot more wall space, this would obviously increase, but it's still not a ton of time.

And the huge bonus of fabric as wallpaper is that it removes very, very easily. You can just peel the fabric off the wall when you are ready to remove it. Or, if it doesn't budge, just wet the fabric to dissolve the starch and you should be good to go. You can even wash your fabric to rid it of residual starch and reuse it. I would not recommend this treatment for very damp spaces, like a bathroom or behind a kitchen sink, but it's a great option for basically anywhere else in your home.

Thanks again to Crystal for the helping hand and the picture-taking! Email me with any questions!

UPDATE 2017: It's now 6 years later and we decided to take the wallpaper down...and it came off SO easily. It also held up wonderfully for the 6 years we had it up - it definitely had lots and lots of life left in it. But when it came time to remove, most of it just peeled right off as I pulled very gently. Any parts that seemed stuck, I just dampened to loosen. The fabric did leave debris and some residue on the walls, but that cleaned right up with just a sponge and warm water. Removing the wallpaper AND cleaning the walls took me all of one hour. Win, win.

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Painted Dresser and Nursery Prints

I hope you are enjoying hearing about Mason's nursery. I'm really enjoying telling you about it and I could probably go on and on about the room because it's now a little nugget of my heart, but I think I'll wrap it up today with some final details.

Today's story is about this area of Mason's room:

It's home to my two favorite projects. The first is the set of prints that hang above the dresser.

Kerry correctly identified where these prints came from. They are originally from a Little Golden Book called "Corky."

The day Julianne and I were hitting up vintage shops and found the vintage rocker, we also came across a copy of this book for $5. Julianne is a black lab NUT - she and David have two black labs, Brady and Lucy.

Seeing this little book almost made Julianne cry in the store. So we obvi had to get it. And then I blew her mind by telling her that we could rip out the pages and frame them for the nursery. She loved the idea.

But I kept the best part secret...I didn't tell Julianne that I actually didn't have to rip out the pages. With a scanner and my Mad Photoshop Skills*, I was able to scan the pages we liked and then doctor them up to make them look fresh and match the colors of the room. I also took artistic license with the prose and changed names and sentence structure.

So I started with this scan:

And this is what it looked like after applying my MPS:

Brady got the role in the book because he came first. Lucy is his little sister and I thought that the first-born deserved the part.

Another example:

Pretty nifty, huh? I really, really loved working on this because we got a huge bang for our buck. Once my files were done, I had Staples color print them on 8.5x11 cardstock for a whopping $1/each. And I framed them in very inexpensive 8x10 light wood frames from AC Moore. The whole wall of prints was less than $20 and arguably one of the most sentimental things in the room.

And my other favorite project was definitely the dresser. Remember this $40 Craigslist find?

I loved that Julianne and I worked on this together - mainly because it helped me get it done but also because I think she enjoyed playing a part in creating something for the nursery.

We cleaned this guy, sanded him down a bit and then used oil-based primer to create a nice fresh layer. Then we painted it using a sample quart from Sherwin Williams, but I forget the color. Those sample quarts are such a good deal - $5 for SW's high-quality paint (it's my favorite). The quart was MORE than enough to paint this piece with two coats.

Then we painted in the detail with Folk Art craft paint and some small paintbrushes. I think the color was "Antique Gold" - it was a coppery-gold that I used to bring out the copper of the lamp (which I found at HomeGoods...I LOVE IT).

The project took time, but it was not difficult. And I was able to get exactly what I wanted for a great price.

That wraps up the tour of projects! If you have questions about a specific item's source or anything in the room, feel free to email me!

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 *Shout-out to my friend and fellow designer Crystal who also shared some of her Mad Photoshop Skills with me and helped make the prints extra awesome.

IKEA Hack: DIY Crib Bumper and Monogrammed Pillow

Mason's nursery was full of little projects, two of which were courtesy of some clever usage of inexpensive IKEA items.

I knew I wanted to use custom fabrics for the room's curtains and crib linens, but had I made a crib bumper or crib skirt before? No. And Julianne still trusted me to make hers? Yes. She is a good friend. Or maybe I just didn't tell her that I had never done it before.

I'm not sure where in the recesses of my brain I had stored this information (or why), but I recalled that IKEA has a fantastic, very simple crib bumper that I could use as my starting point. The Kompisar bumper is only $14.99, white, and very thin so it's easy to cover with fabric.

The short version of this story is that I took several strips of my 54" wide fabric, sewed them together to make two very long strips, and then sewed them right onto the crib bumper - one on the front and one on the back. I know that is not very helpful if you don't sew, but if you do sew, I hope that makes sense.

And if it does make sense, you can scroll to read about the monogram pillow now.

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If not, here are some more details.

First, I cut off the ties that come on the bumper. Later, when I installed the bumper, I made a note of where the ties should go according to the crib I was using and I sewed small strips of grosgrain ribbon to these spots for affixing the bumper to the crib. 

To cover the bumper, I used a sewing machine to essentially sew on strips of fabric to both of its sides.  I measured out six strips of 54" wide fabric - three of which were 2-3 inches taller that the bumper on top and bottom, and three of which were about the height of the bumper. I sewed the first three together on the short sides to make one very long strip of fabric that was 2-3 inches taller than the bumper on top and bottom so that I could essentially wrap this one piece of fabric around one side of the bumper and its edges - folding the fabric around the edges as I went. I sewed my seam about 1" inside of the bumper's edges to create the look of a welt. If you look at the picture, the bumper already has this kind of edge, so I basically just followed it.

Here is a picture of this strip of fabric wrapped around the bumper, and the placement of the needle shows about how far in I made this seam:

So I just sewed around this long, long rectangle until that piece was affixed. The bumper was longer than my strip of fabric, so I just cut off the excess bumper and finished up as usual around the raw edge. (When I initially tried out the plain bumper in the crib, I knew that it was a good bit longer than I needed, so I was safe chopping off the excess - make sure your crib doesn't need that extra length)

Then I took the three strips of fabric that were about the same height of the bumper and I also sewed their short sides together to make one long strip about the height of the bumper. For this strip, I did the same thing as the first in that I just sewed it right on to the bumper - but in this case, I didn't fold the fabric over the bumper's edges. Instead, I just folded down the strip's own edges to make a bit of a hem and sewed over this hem following the same seam I sewed on my earlier strip.

Let's recap - one long strip is taller than your bumper and this strip you wrap around the bumper, covering the edges. Then on the other side, you take the other long strip whose edges have been folded over to make a hem, and you sew this hem right on to the seam from the first strip (but this second strip doesn't fold around the bumper like the first).

Yes? Make sense? I didn't take good pictures, I know. Email me if you have questions.
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The second, MUCH easier project was Mason's monogrammed pillow:

This pillow uses one of my absolute favorite, favorite items that IKEA sells - the 16x24 Fjadrar pillow insert! It's an amazing fluffy insert (I think it's down?? not sure) whose quality seems much higher than the price of $6.99. I LOVE it. Love it. 

In Mason's case, I also used the Sanela velvet pillow cover from IKEA, which comes in some really handsome colors - like navy, hunter and paprika - and only sets you back $7. I went with the taupe-ish color for baby M.

So, total, the velvet lumbar pillow is only $14. Bananas. And my secret to the monogram is felt and fabric glue....that's it.

Get yourself a piece of felt in the color of your choosing from any craft store. Find a font on your computer that you really like - I find that fat fonts work the best - and print out each letter. You'll have to play around with the sizing you want each letter to be.

Then cut out each letter to use as a guide on your felt. Pin the paper letter to your felt and follow its edges to cut out the felt letter. Then glue the felt letter right to the front of your pillow with fabric glue. I use Unique Stitch, but any fabric glue will work.

That's it! I will add a disclaimer that my letters are a bit more fancy than computer font. I actually drew the letters to make them look Leontine-esque in Illustrator and then printed them from there. Being a graphic designer does come in handy with projects like this, but you can definitely still do it using fonts you like from your computer.

More details on the room tomorrow!

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Quadrille-Look Wall Stencil

I so wish I had the patience to stencil. I'm too messy and impatient, but using a stencil is a relatively easy (though slow and detailed) way to achieve a smashing look on your wall.

I found this awesome stencil below via Etsy - it's based on Fez embroidery and it definitely has a Quadrille look about it.

Link to Etsy Listing

If you are meticulous, you can achieve a result similar to Danika's hand-painted mudroom which was based on Quadrille's Trellis Background.

You HAVE to read her post about how she hand-painted this wall. It will leave you feeling inspired and woefully inadequate. I am always STUNNED at what this woman can do with paint and creativity.

Have you tried a stencil in your house?

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