Sunday, November 22, 2009

Guest Bath Refresh


Six weeks?!! Seriously??!!! It's been six weeks since my last post? Ugh. If there's anyone left reading this blog, it's a Thanksgiving miracle. I could give you a litany of excuses, but wouldn't you rather I just got on with my post? Good.

In October I linked up to Amanda's Decorating Dilemmas party at Serenity Now and asked for advice on my guest bathroom. I particulary wanted input on a paint color. It was really helpful and I highly reccomend linking up to her next party (I think she does it monthly) if you have a decorating dilemma you're stuck on!

Here's the before:




And After:











After lots of deliberation, I wound up using the leftover paint from my kitchen on the upper part of the walls (free!) and I used some white trim paint I had (free again!) for the beadboard. I found the nest picture on clearance at TJ Maxx for $5 and splurged on the shower curtain that matches the towels ($24 at Target). I got the little lamp on CL for $5 months ago and it finally found a home! Oh, I also spray painted the existing brass/clear acrylic (um, can you say weird?!) with my favorite hammered brown rustoleum spray paint.



This room is a far cry from my dream bath:



but for a room I set foot in once a month at most, I'm pleased with it. Of course it could use a few more accesories, and I'd still like to replace the light fixture and the faucet and frame out the mirror when the right opportunity presents itself, but until then at least it's freshened up and welcoming for guests!


Love,










Friday, October 9, 2009

My $8 Master Bathroom Makeover

Before:



We moved into this house mid March 2008. Two weeks later our second child was born, and this photo was taken one month after her birth. Now you understand all the mess in this room!


The walls were painted the worst shade of yellow. You can't really tell just how bad they were from the photos. It was exactly the color of yellow school chalk. The worst part was the previous owner also painted all of the trim and the back of the door with the same paint! Ugh! Who does that? Oh, and that oh-so-lovely lace panel thumb-tacked to the window came with the house too. What in the world? How did their realtor not tell them to take that down? I love a good mistreatment, but come on! The cabinetry wasn't terrible, just builder basic oak.






Our purple towels and bathmats weren't doing anything to help the situation!



A gallon of camel/caramel paint, some white trim paint and two cans of spray paint later(Valspar satin java brown) it looks like this:
















I just taped off around the cabinetry and spray painted the cabinetry in place. I did take off the wood cornice on the light fixture as well as the cabinet doors and drawer fronts and painted those outside.
















The wall color looks more camel in person. It looks too yellow in this photo.

I'm planning to frame out the mirror soon...

I didn't pay a penny for the fabric in the room. Remember this post about my sofas? The lady who sold me this sofa threw in a slipcover for free. I liked the fabric but it didn't fit the sofa so i cut it up and used it to make the window treatment, the shower curtain and this little curtain for the area between the cabinets (thanks for this idea, Nester!). The shower curtain is bordered with a burgundy window panel that used to hang in my hubby's bachelor apartment.







I would love to replace that light fixture, but now that it's painted it doesn't bother me as much.








I already owned the ledge shelf (still trying to figure out how best to accesorize it though!) and all the accesories in the room (including the world's naughtiest kitty!).

The tile in this room isn't bad, but it has a burgundy border, so we had to work with that color. I found these towels at Target and had a $100 gift card, so I bought the towels and bathmats. The wall color is maybe one shade lighter than the camel color in the towels.



I still haven't decided what to hang above the towel bar. I thought I had it all figured out- two vertically hung frames spray painted brown and filled with leftover fabric from the shower curtain and window treatment, machine embroidered with "His" and "Hers" (similar to the art in the bedroom), but it just turned out weird. So, if anyone has a suggestion, I'm all ears!! I do have one idea...


By the way, do you like the shower curtain better hanging on the rod like this:



Or froofed up on clip rings a la the Nester like this?:


The shower actually has nice tile (somewhat nicer than the rest of the room) and an attractive glass door, but after one shower the glass looks dirty, and I just can't keep up with that, so I decided to add the curtain. It's also nice to have the privacy since my little ones are frequently in and out of the bathroom while I'm in the shower.


Here's a closeup of the window:



I just sewed a little pocket into the top and put it on a tension rod inside the window frame. Then I accordion folded the bottom and put a pin on each side. Our house backs to woods, so we don't have to worry about privacy. You'd have to jump off a cliff and then climb a huge tree to see into this window!

Oh, almost forgot- I did purchase these new switchplates and outlet covers, but I used store credit, so I'm not counting that towards my $8 bottom line. The two cans of spray paint were the only thing I purchased. I'm not counting the wall paint, but that was purchased a while ago. Yeah, that's probably cheating, but I won't tell if you won't.


For the cabinet knobs I painted my old brass knobs with rustoleum hammered spray paint in brown. I love this stuff. It has a nice mettalic sheen, but it doesn't show up well in my photos. Sorry- you'll just have to take my word for it!



What do you think?

Love,


















Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Guest Bath Decorating Dilemma

Today I'm participating in the Decorating Dilemmas party at Serenity Now!

Here's my problem:

My guest bathroom. I have some ideas in mind already to snazz it up a bit, but I need help choosing paint colors for the beadboard (or do I just keep it white?) and the wall above. Since there is virtually no budget to redo this room, I will be keeping the existing tile and fixtures for now. Why do people insist on colored tilework when building houses? Don't they know we will be stuck with said color for a very long time?

I actually don't mind this color (dark teal or peacock), but I hate having the color scheme dictated by the tile.

I found these towels at Target and liked that they had the same peacock color as well as some other warmer colors. When I bought them I thought they would make choosing paint colors easier- just pick two colors from the towels, but now I can't decide! Help!

Here's a closeup of the towels:

The colors are Peacock, creamy white, gray, chocolate brown, camel/tobacco brown, mossy green, and browny burgundy.

Thanks in advance for your suggestions!

Love,




Monday, October 5, 2009

Fedex Love

I'm participating in DIY day at Kimba's. Make sure to go check out all the other great projects!

Oh how I love my fedex man!

Last week he brought me this:

Thanks, Boogie! It's a Dell inspiron mini notebook and I love it! It's teeny-tiny and I love being able to blog from anywhere in the house. My old computer was on its last legs and these are very affordable. We got this one for $299!

Mr. Fedex also brought me this fabric I ordered from fabricguru.com


I can't wait to start crossing off some of those projects on the right! Fabricguru.com is great! Their selection and prices are terrific. I bought these aqua and red fabrics for my living room projects. I have no idea what I'm going to use the trellis fabric for but I absolutely love it. It is such a dead ringer for the Kelly Wearstler Imperial Trellis fabric that I had to go to the KWID website and compare to make sure that it isn't the real thing. I bought a total of 12 yards of fabric for $72 including shipping. That comes $6 per yard including shipping! And these are all upholstery weight fabrics!

Oh, and there's one fabric that I used up before I took this shot. I managed to cross one project off my list...

Before:



After:


This is a silk taffeta fabric with an embroidered diamond pattern. I had to pleat the fabric to keep the pattern going in the right direction, but I really like the look. It reminds me of the pleated neckline on my favorite dress.


Here's how I did it:



  1. I measured the circumference of the bottom, larger ring of the shade, and cut a piece of fabric a little longer than that circumference and a little wider than the height of the shade. (My circumference was a little longer than the width of my bolt of fabric so I actually pieced two pieces together and hid the seam in a pleat)

  2. Then I carefully peeled off the old fabric from the hard-back shade.

  3. Next I hot glued the long edge of the fabric along the bottom of the shade frame.

  4. Pulling straight up I hotglued the top edge of the fabric to the top rim of the shade frame only between where the pleats would fall (I used the geometric pattern of the fabric to guide the pleat placement)

  5. Using two hands I pinched the extra fabric between the glued spots and pulled them smooth and glued them to the top rim of the frame.

  6. I ran a thin bead of glue all the way around the inside of the top and bottom rims of the frame close to the rims, pressing the fabric into the inside of the rims.

  7. I trimmed any excess fabric from the inside of the shade and glued some white single fold bias tape to hide the raw edges of the fabric on the inside of the frame.


What do you think? I'm debating whether or not to add some trim and whether to paint the lamp base...

Love,










Friday, September 25, 2009

Master Bedroom In Progress

I'm participating in DIY day at Kimba's. Make sure to stop by and check out all the great projects!

I can't believe I haven't posted in two weeks! Since I last posted, we've had a slew of house guests and then got hit by the natiest stomach bug. My poor little Jellybean is on day 6 and is still quite sick! I will spare you the gory details (I know I don't have to explain to all you moms out there!) but suffice it to say, between the extra laundry and disinfecting everything in sight I haven't had much time to myself.


I'd love to blame illness for not posting sooner, but the truth is that the main reason I haven't posted is that I keep waiting for everything to be just right before posting, and that just isn't realistic. So, I finally decided to get over myself and post some things that are merely works in progress.


Without further ado, here is my master bedroom "before". I must warn you, it's rather gruesome (insert horror movie sound effect here...)


Yikes!! In my defense, this photo was taken 1 month after my second baby was born, and we moved in two weeks before that. The walls were painted this oh-so-lovely mint green when we moved in. Don't you just love the way it plays off the purple bedding?! Hee-hee. And, yes, that is our very naughty kitty laying in the bassinette. Luckily she never did that while the baby was in there, but I still freaked out and washed everything every time she did that.


The lovely mini-blinds and window scarf combination came with the house too. The house is backed by woods, so there's really no need to worry about privacy. I debated putting panels in between the windows, but they are really close together and there is sort of a bulk head on top, so I think it would have looked a little smooshed. I decided to do panels flanking the bay window instead.


After:


I bought these brown panels for $10 for the pair when Linens 'N Things went out of business last year. Then I added the taupe band at the top mistreatment style. It's not even sewn together, just pinned, and I used drapery clip rings at the top. I planned to sew everything all proper like, but I pinned one side just to see if I liked it before sewing it and decided I liked it just fine the way it was! I still plan to add some type of blind- possibly bamboo. The little seat is two of these pushed together. I lucked out and got the pair of little framed watercolors of Williamsburg, VA (I'm a VA girl born and bred, so I was happy to find these!) on CL- $10 for the pair. Hmmm, that seems to be a theme for this room. Maybe if I play my cards right I can carry it over to a new pair of lamps for $10? We'll see...



Here's our bed:


I would have rather had more color in here, but there is burgundy tile in the adjoining master bath, so I had to either work in the burgundy (tried and tried and couldn't find a good deal burgundy bedding) or keep things fairly neutral. This is extremely neutral, like Switzerland neutral. I would have liked to have more color, but I guess this palette will force me to add in more texture.


I bought these lamps a meeellion years ago at Tarjay, but they're looking a little tired. I think something more interesting and substantial would add a lot to the room.

I made the artwork above the bed for free!



It's hard to see in this photo, but it says "Love Grows". Those are the words my hubby had inscribed in my engagement ring. It's kind of a promise between the two of us.




Here's a closeup:



I couldn't really get a good photo, but you get the idea. I used my embroidery machine to embroider the letters onto two pieces of fabric that were once pillow faces. They were a little too small for the matts, so I bridged the gap with ribbon that I had in my stash.

Here's the before:




The ribbon was actually printed on one side, but you can't tell on the other side. Here's what the matt looks like from the back:




What do you think? It could still use some lamps and accesories, but I'm pretty happy with how it's coming along.


Stay tuned for my $9 master bath makeover!!



Love,






Friday, September 11, 2009

Girls Shared Bedroom Reveal

I'm participating in DIY day at Kimba's. Make sure to stop by and check out all the great projects!

I kept waiting for the rain to let up and the sun to come out of hiding, but it rained here all.....day....long....

So, I finally gave up and took the pictures anyway. I apologize for the quality!

Hey, by the way, don't you think a nice new camera would be a lovely Christmas gift for a certain someone who's recently gotten into blogging?! Oh, Boogie!

Yes, I call my hubby Boogie. Go ahead, finish laughing, I'll wait... hmmmm......, tapping fingers......, done yet? No?! I'm sorry, I'm going to have to go on anyway.

As promised, here are the pics of the girls' room!
Here's the before:


And the after!

It's finished! Well, sorta finished. Almost finished. Just a few little... Aw, who am I kidding- you know I'm gonna tweak this one till they're in college!

Like that little space between the top of the window frame and curtain rod- don't you think vinyl lettering that says "SISTERS make the best friends" would be sooo cute?!

The bedding is called "Spring Tulip". My dear friend, Becky helped me pick it up while it was on uber sale at the pottery barn outlet near her house last year. I lucked out and found the drapes on eBay a few months ago. I got the vanity for free on freecycle and I picked up the chair at our neighborhood yard sale and refinished it in this post.

I made the roman shades with instructions from my girl, Jenny(okay, she still doesn't know she's my girl but I think I'm getting up enough nerve to ask her to stop by) at Little Green Notebook (by the way, she just finished her little girls' room too and it is sooooooo fabulous!)


At the foot of each bed is a little modular shelf thingie from Ikea (from a zillion years ago- used to belong to a friend in college) that I'm using as a little storage bench for books. I topped each with a little cushion I made by slipcovering a 1" piece of foam. I kinda cheaped out on the foam, but I guess they get the job done. I'll beef them up when I can get a better deal on the foam.

My mom is working on crocheting the cutest blankets for the foot of the beds! I'll show you when she's done.

Oh, and the rug was $40 (I think?) at Sam's club.


I was hoping to find some Jenny Lind style headboards on CL, but so far I haven't had any luck. I found these white ledge shelves at goodwill for $3 each and figured that could take the place of a headboard until I found some that I liked.

Once they were in place I remembered this photo (I think it's from BHG?)

And got excited because I had similar looking cushions that I thought would fit the bill sitting in the top of the closet. They were the first incarnation of the bench cushions, but I forgot that they would pull in when they were stuffed and they came out too small for the benches. They happen to be the perfect size to hang under the ledges. Hooray for happy accidents!


I blogged about the artwork here and I just added the little potted tulips and framed initials. The "pots" for the tulips are little buckets I found at the dollar spot in Target. I found wooden tulip cut-outs at the craft store and covered the stems in ribbon and the flower part in scrapbook paper. I stuck them into a piece of styrofoam in the pot and covered the top with moss. Easy, peasy.

To make the framed initials, I used my embroidery machine to embroider the initials onto scrapbook paper (yes, it can embroider paper!) but could have just as easily cut the letters out of scrapbook paper and layered over another sheet.

I painted the green part of the walls and my hubby, the fine artist, humbled himself to paint the ribbon effect border. He really does not enjoy any kind of painting that is merely decorative. Thanks, Boogie! It's just what I wanted!


Wanna know something really funny?! I originally suggested to my hubby that perhaps as a substitute for headboards, he could paint a trompe l'oeil mural of a headboard onto the wall behind each bed. It took some nudging, but he eventually agreed. He went off with his sketchpad to figure out what he wanted to do. He emerged a while later, excited to show me his ideas.

I took one look and started laughing. I was sure it was a joke. You see, he had sketched out this crazy scary gothic bed with hypogryphs, dragons and griffins perched on the bed posts. It was terrifying. I'm not exaggerating, there really were dragons... and griffins! AND hypogryphs!! Oh, MY!!

In true artiste style he said something to the effect of, "If you don't like it, that's just fine!" and stormed out of the room.

I tried not to, but that made me laugh even harder. Oh, dear god. He actually thought we would paint dragons and griffins on the wall of our three-year-old daughters bedroom!! Um, hello? Nightmares?!

Ever wonder what in the world is going through your man's head?!

After he calmed down he explained that the gargoyles and griffins would protect her while she slept. Okay, that's pretty sweet, but what's the matter with guardian angels?!

Apparently, I haven't read enough fantasy novels. I told him if he wanted to paint medieval/mythical creatures in our home he'd have to wait until we have a boy.

Anyway, back to the room at hand...

Here's the opposite wall. I'm not in love with this arrangement on the wall, but it took some doing to get that shelf hung, so it's staying, at least for a little while.


I found the shelf on a recent goodwill run, and the little painting of the dresses was a Homegoods find. There are a few more of the Target pails on the pegs for hair do-dads and such.



The dresser was my husbands in his single days. It used to be brown but I spraypainted it white. I really wanted to change out the hardware, but between the serpentine shape of the drawer fronts and the non-standard widths of the existing drilled holes, I gave up the search and decided instead to use this ribbon that I already had in my stash. The mirror was another Homegoods find (I just added more ribbon) and the crosses and knick-knacks were all gifts. I know the yellow ducky lamp doesn't quite fit the color scheme in here, but my aunt made him for me in her ceramics class when I was a baby, so I'm not painting him. He did get a new shade.




By the way, in case you were wondering who was peeking down from that ledge up there, here's a better look...


What in the world is the point of this weird little space? You can't really tell in the photo, but it's really high. I risked life and limb standing up on the dresser on my tippy toes to get those guys up there. And there's an electrical outlet up there! What in the world might someone possibly plug in up there?!


ACK! No sooner did I finish that sentence than I realized I could plug in a cute chandelier up there and swag it over towards the center of the room, right?! Hmm....


Or if we ever have a Duggar sized family (breathe Boogie, I'm only kidding!) we can put a mattress up there!



I'll leave you with one more little Homegoods find...


I'm linking up to Someday Crafts for the "Man Craft" party!



Love,
















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