The Hateful Chair, Turned Thankful

Remember this chair from my last post? Well, let me tell you something about this chair. It HATED me. HATED me. A lot. It should have been an easy, super cute transformation. It did turn out super cute. But it was not easy. It threw a tantrum about every single little thing. It made me fit to me tied. I swore some. At one point I just needed to step away. So I took a little trial separation from this hateful chair. After a few days and a few deep breaths, I came back. And then I changed this chair's mind.

Today it looks like this. In all the skirted, pleated, Houndstooth-ed glory it has decided that I probably knew best all along. Yes, I do own an iron. The skirt is a little wrinkled. I'll get that taken care of. Promise. As I mentioned before, it's now got killer little black and white Houndstooth print, with glossy black trim, double piping and a new skirt. It is super solid and totally comfy. I was going to list the Hateful-Turned-Thankful chair for sale, but instead it now lives at my mom's, happily married to her favorite desk. Maybe someday soon I'll get some pictures of the cute couple to post.

Now on to this:

I'm pretty sure this bad boy is somebody's old wood shop project. But I love it anyway. It's actually two pieces and it's really sturdy. I'm pretty positive that when the inspiration comes to fruition it will totally ring. your. bell.


Thanks for stopping by!

So I may or may not be obsessed with rugs right now. I think it has something to do with looking at every single one on the internet while trying to decide what do with my kitchen rug. In the throws of my search I came across this:

Camila from Effortless Style created this awesome DIY rug for her house using regular old fabric, a canvas dropcloth, and a rug gripper. When I saw it for the first time, I couldn't believe I hadn't thought of it! Well, ok, I actually can believe it never occured to me. It is pure genious, after all. Granted, it might not stand up too well to kids or super high traffic, but I happen to have one, seriously-just one, low traffic area where this idea would be perfect! I already have some fabric I think would work well and the spot where I envision it actually already has a rug, I'm just sort of over it. I wish I could think of a way to just cover what's already there, the trouble is that the current rug is shag. So now I've got to put on my thinking cap and see if I can figure something out. I know. That sounds dangerous. Sort of like, "Hey, there's smoke coming from your thinking cap!" Wish me luck and stay tuned!

Also coming up, this ugly duckling ugly no more!

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

A Silly Little Project

So see this basket of crap? Its my attempt at keeping the gazillion school papers, phone lists, and that kind of often-used random stuff under control in an easy-to-access place. It doesn't work very well. It just collects more and more and more CRAP and always looks junky. The sad thing about the picture is I had just cleaned it out. A long time ago at Walmart I spied some cute magazine files for just $6 each. I thought to myself, "Self, those would be cute and work really well in place of my crap basket." Never did get them. I don't know why. Last week I decided I really needed some. Around 5 of them. $30 is still really good. But at the time I was feeling crafty and I decided that I wanted to spend more like $0 on them.I rounded up these.



"Modge Podge," I thought. But I was all out. And the thought of going all the way to Walmart for one thing made me crazy. So I went to the Family Dollar, which is closer and a much faster in and out.

Did you know white school glue mixed with a little water does the same thing as Modge Podge practically?


I used some scrap fabric leftover from my laundry room window shade because that's what I had. And its super cute. I glued the spines on first, overlapping onto the sides a bit.


Then I cut a piece for the side a little larger than the box. I folded the edges under next to the spine for a finished look.

And this is what happens when you use way too much glue and the poor cereal box can't handle the stress. It dried all wonky like that. Whoops. So after that I got out the good old glue gun and just sort of 'upholstered' the boxes instead, using just a little bit of the white glue to help hold things in place as I situated fabric. That actually worked really well.

Way too much glue vs. the glue gun. I could have made the insides prettier, but I didn't.

I used plain manila folders in each file to organize the papers, plus that way it looks clean and neat. Its very deceiving. I used leftover folders to make tags for each file. They may change. Not so sure I love them.

Sorry about the yucky night time pictures.

This is where they live.

The cute flower pots hold pencils and pens for now. I just need to keep my eyes peeled for a good cereal sale so I can make a couple more. (The biggest size box worked the best with the manila folders.) I'm pretty happy with how they turned out. I'm sure they'll collect their fair share of crap, but at least it will be easier to ignore :)

In the end I didn't spend $0. I spent about $2.75 for the manila folders, glue and paintbrush.

Not too shabby.

Didn't Love It, Then I Did

The new rug is finally finished! No, this is not it. This is the old rug. After about two years of daily abuse, it officially gave up the ghost. In its defense, I completely quit cleaning it when I decided to make a new one. The first week of December. Don't judge me. I mean, I did still sweep under the table, but whatever. It actually lasted quite well for a cheap canvas drop cloth in a very high traffic area. And it totally fulfilled its purpose of protecting the wood floor while looking cute and remaining easy to clean. The biggest problem was that the edges started to roll a few months ago when the rug tape began to loose its stickiness. And then somehow one of the edges ripped. I think it had to do with a boy child that lives here.

Man, did I love that rug.

The portion of the new-rug-creating-process that took the longest was simply my complete indecisiveness as to what design I wanted. I get it from my mom, I'm telling you. As I said a few posts back, there are so many fun patterns and ideas to choose from. The one thing I knew for sure was that this time around I wanted a brighter color. After hemming and hawing and lots of going back and forth I just kept coming back to not-too fat, not-too-thin diagonal stripes. I had a vision in my head. It was beautiful. So I started with a $10-ish painter's canvas drop cloth from Walmart. I laid it on a piece of plastic in the hideous basement and rolled on a good layer of white paint until it really covered and soaked in. I suppose you could iron out the wrinkles but I'm weird and I like the texture they give the rug. Plus the paint smooths it out some.

Then I changed from my original idea of wider stripes to tape-sized stripes. It just seemed way easier. And sometimes when I'm making something for myself, I'm just plain lazy.
Painted over the tape. And...Disaster. And ugliness. Even if it hadn't bled like crazy I still would have hated it. Like really, really hated it. Laziness never really seems to pay off. Luckily, after the tantrum has been thrown, paint can always be fixed with more paint.

So back to the drawing board. I came across this wall paper from Ballard. I wanted this to be my rug exactly. It would be awesome, right? But I already had a totally (by this point) blue rug and again with the laziness. I know, I know.



So instead, I made a pattern and traced the shape randomly instead of in an entire trellis pattern. I also got some inspiration from this room by Kristen F. Davis Designs

Just scroll through her home tour until you see her bedroom. I loved it!

I painted in the pattern and topped it off with two good coats of polycrylic. I can already tell the difference between my first attempt at a canvas rug and this one. The current rug has about three times as much paint and twice the poly. It seems a lot heavier duty and is easier to wipe.
So laziness, it would seem, turned out to be quite fortuitous and not all that lazy after all those coats of paint:)

I'm sure you could attach a rug pad to this, but I just lay it down as is with some rug tape (again from Walmart) to keep it in place and keep the edges from rolling.

I kind of think its pretty fantastic.

Plus, remember, its super easy to sweep and mop!

And maybe sometime soon I'll get the table put back and looking cute for some pictures of how the rug was actually meant to be used. But for now I have a sick baby who just woke up and wants her momma to hold her.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!

That's a Rock Star Right There

-Edited April 29, 2011-

I might for reals in real life cry when this baby sells. The Rock Star Ottoman (so named because it completely rocks my world) is now officially my favorite thing. Ever.

It started out like this, remember?So much awesomer than a regular old coffee table. I had big plans to paint the legs either a high gloss black or possibly even a matte gold. But as I started to sand and get ready for paint, I couldn't do it. I thought the layers of black and white (my fav) and wood were beautiful. I put some poly on for protection and shine and just let them be. I know its not everyone's cup of tea. My husband kept asking when I was going to paint. Sometimes imperfection is perfection, ya know?It has been upholstered and covered in a fabulous and graphic black and cream stripe. A heavyweight indoor/outdoor fabric that can stand up to some abuse. Plus I Scotch Guarded the crap out of it. It probably couldn't live in the Family Room/hangout spot with my kids, but in the Fancy Schmancy Living Room sometimes a mom gets to have something a little special. To add to the glam factor I also tufted it. Rock Stars have to be glam. The Facts: 24" x 48" x 18" $175

Sold to a loving home! Thanks Hollie

p.s. See that couch ^ that's not so much a rock star anymore? Big changes are a comin'.

Linking up!

And a thanks to Brooke at All Things Thrifty for inpiring me to try some tufting!  If you want to try it yourself, she has some great tutorials here.

Silhouettes

This is the family room. Where we hang pretty much all day every day. As our basement remains in the "someday we'll finish it real nice" category, this room is IT.

It takes three boys, a Great Dane, a husband and all the tv watching, video game playing, and wrestling. Sometimes it even houses an 8' tee pee that Santa brought. Thanks a lot, Santa. I want pretty and fancy schmancy, but I've decided to save that for another room and go for comfortable and non-destructible in here. I needed to fill the space on either side of the fireplace until the built-ins budget kicks in.

I've been luh-ving silhouettes. Do you notice that when you really like something it seems to turn up everywhere? I'm sure that has nothing to do with trendiness. But whatever. Doesn't change the fact that I really wanted some.

They actually turned out pretty easy to make. There are a lot of tutorials out there. I read a few and then kind of improvised. I got the canvases at Hobby Lobby (can I get a woo hoo now there's finally, I mean finally, a Hobby Lobby around here?!) and took approximately 373 profile pics of the kids. I included hats and fauxhawks and bows. Hooked the projector up to the computer and traced the shadows onto the canvases, trying to keep everything centered and around the same size. Then I just filled in the tracing with acrylic paint.

And, I continue to love.

I'm linking to The Shabby Nest. Enjoy!

Rug Love and Other Stuff

Remember my drop cloth canvas rugs from this post and this post? Still very much love them. But its been a few years and really, its high time we switch it up. So, without further ado, I bid farewell to the ever-faithful Big Stripe Rug. You served us well, friend.

But wait. There's a problem. I suffer from a severe genetic inability to make decisions. Its true. You should meet my mom. And her sister. I've given my new rug a good base coat. Its all prepped and ready for the fun part, which is the design. Only I can't decide what design to commit to. A few options I've been mulling over-

1. Stripes again, but more like this: From Ikea. I have, however, seen similar rugs all over the place, so I'm sure there's a more high-end version too.

2. Chevron stripesAlso all over the place. But for a good reason. Love. From West Elm. But in a pretty french blue.

3. Zebra Stripes:

Soft subtle ones like the Jazzy Buffet.

4. Some sort of a quatrefoil-ish pattern:

Emily at Jones Design Company actually hand-painted this wallpaper in her office. It's just about to die for. I think it would also make a beautiful rug.

5. Some kind of big, statement-making pattern like Jaci's Rug:

Whatever design I end up with will be in a frenchy blue. (I think.) Maybe a blue that's just leaning into turquoise. Ha. I'm going for a little more color in that space this time around. What version do you like?

In other exciting news, this sad, sad table is about to become fabulous. Just you wait, Henry Higgins. I'm so, so excited!

And last but not least, I'm thinking about turning the mirror above Zoe's crib into an Anthropologie knock off knock out using Mandi's tutorial over on Vintage Revival. (The original Anthropologie mirror is awesome. Of course they're no longer available so sorry, no pic.) Again with the indecisiveness. Hmmm...

More to come on Baby Z's room.

So like always stay tuned for some project transformation awesomeness!