Bathroom Before and After

One of the things that is fun about owning a home is that you can personalize it and make it your own.  Of course, when you are extremely indecisive, this can take a long time and therefore not quite as fun.  I spent months and month looking at paint samples, deciding on a "color-scheme" for our house and then finally finding the time to actually use the paint.

Painting and Waiting

Jason has been gone for the past eight weeks.  I'm pretty excited to have him home.  But at least now my countdown is in hours not weeks!  I think this is the first time away that we've actually been married and not just dating.  It definitely was harder after being married, but I found God gives you just enough grace for the situation He's put you in.  Not any more, not any less.

On the plus side, I barely had to go grocery shopping, and I got to watch whatever TV I wanted, which included an entire season of Downton Abbey and Top Chef.  Jason laughs that all I do while he is gone is shop and eat.  Of course, he thinks this because it is kind of true.  (I have some weird form of OCD that compels me to never leave Anthropologie without buying a dress.  It's like an addiction.  I usually return it later.  Also, I did eat out a lot, but mostly because I was using the time he was gone to hang out with girlfriends, and most of my friends get as excited about food as I do.)  However, eating and shopping isn't all I do.  I tried to take advantage of his time away to get some projects done (like LASIK). 

My overly ambitious checklist included taking our car to the shop, organizing, cleaning, freezer meals, wedding album, taxes, consign my wedding dress, other home repairs and instagramming everything I actually finished.

The first big project was painting the bathroom and selecting a photo for the photo to canvas groupon that I decorated the bathroom with.  The original blue wasn't too bad, but also didn't flow as well with the other repainting we've done.  I've had the paint since last July, and when I got a day off work for the "snow storm," I figured if I didn't do it now, I never would.  It's Duron HGTV line called Ethereal Mood.  I actually wasn't too happy with the quality of the paint itself.  The coverage doesn't seem the best and it has already scratched in some places, revealing the old color underneath.  However, I suppose you get what you pay for, and I do think the color goes well with the other grey and blues in the house.

the before (blue) and after (grey/brown):

As for the photo-to-canvas, it sounds easy, but since I didn't have a picture in mind, it took me a while.  I had to narrow it down out of the thousands we've taken over the last two years alone, try to figure out editing software enough to enhance it a bit, before just uploading it and buying it.  I picked a photo from our recent Africa trip and am happy with the color it adds to the bathroom.

I ended up replacing the shower curtain rod once I took the old one down, so I even got to use power tools! I now understand why Jason ends up with so many holes in the wall when he's hanging things.  (Let me tell you, it was less fun trying to do it at 11pm just so you could shower before a 7am commitment the next day.)  I actually have a few more ideas for the bathroom in mind, but that'll have to happen next time Jason is gone.

The other big project that I barely finish before he gets home also involved painting.  I know not everyone feels this way, but I am a fan of modern abstract art.. think Mark Rothko's color fields. I know a common comment on that type of art is, "My five year old could do this."  And while I still think it has more meaning than a five year old puts into a painting, I used to agree that it didn't seem too hard to do.  I mentioned this to Jason as we started to set up our new home after our wedding, and he surprised me with a giant blank canvas for Christmas that year.  That was over a year ago, and it was time to face my intimidation of such a big canvas.

I pinned a bunch of ideas to my pinterest account, got some paint and a "practice" canvas, and got together with Rachel, who actually is an artist.  She gave me tons of good guidelines and principles to think about when painting abstract art.  I was surprised to find that painting something that looks "good" is much harder and more mathematical than I expected.  One of the hard things is knowing when it is done and what to add next.  I basically heavily referred to the paintings from this etsy shop and tried to put my own spin on it.  I finished my "practice canvas" and then spent the next few weekends tackling this big one.  You can definitely see the progression of each:

practice:

 

big painting:

And the final product, which I thought looked better flipped from the way I painted it:

Thank you to everyone's kind comments on my instagram picture.  If I learned anything from my painting projects is that I still have a lot to learn.  The two paintings ended up with pretty similar patterns, so I'll have to branch out next time.  I've never really done any painting or drawing besides as a ten year old, so it still turned out better than I expected.  It was fun though and now that the creative juices are flowing (or maybe just slowly dripping), I'm seeing ideas and inspiration everywhere and hope to keep up the hobby.

I'm probably not going to get anything else on my list checked off before Jason comes back.  Getting groceries and laundry might be all I can handle, but at least I've got the painting done after a year of "meaning to."  As nice as getting some projects done, spending time with people you care about is way better than crafts.  Plus, I need him to come home because I have jars that I haven't been able to open for the last two months.

That's a Wrap

You want to know the downside of pinterest? One, you spend so much time looking at projects that you now no longer have time to do them.  And two, things sometimes don't end up looking as they do in the picture.  I was inspired by the pinterest pictures of items wrapped in brown craft paper, with beautiful bows, lace, etc., so this was my attempt to do the same.  While this project wasn't a complete failure, it did take longer than I expected.

I liked the idea of getting the brown craft paper for wrapping because it is less expensive and more versatile.  However, in order to keep it from looking like something the UPS man just dropped off, I tried to get creative.  I also didn't want to lose all the cost-savings by buying too much ribbon and lace, so I just got one roll of shiny stretchy stuff from target, and used up some red and green fabric scraps I already had on hand.

I tried to make fabric poms by following similar instructions to this tutorial.  Instead of yarn though, I just made fabric strips about a centimeter wide and used 3-5 depending on the length.  At first I just used scissors to cut the fabric, but liked the look (plus had straighter lines) when I tore the fabric.  Just a warning though, some fabric is easier to rip than others (ie: anything too thick or too soft will be tough).

Since the poms took longer than I thought, I also just used fabric strips as you would ribbon and sometimes added the shiny stuff from target.  Since I did a lot of it while watching Christmas movies, I didn't mind the time it took, but I kind of have a feeling my packaging will just go downhill from here.  Hopefully this provides some inspiration for you during the Christmas season!

Flower Files: White Spring Wedding

Growing up my mom used to take me around her yard, quizzing me on what types of flowers were in her garden.  Although I have living houseplant for more than a few months, her love of gardening had to rub off on me somehow.  Due to my love (or rather, my mom's love) for flowers, I have developed a hobby of arranging wedding flowers.

Kari, the sister of a friend of mine, had a beautiful but simple wedding and the flowers she chose certainly reflected that!  She got married at the beautiful Shade Tree and Evergreen in Frederick, MD.  Her bridesmaids carried small white tulip bouquets and she had a mix of white tulips, rananculus, and calla lilies.  They were beautifully captured by Kristen Thomas Photography.  Kari reminds me of my own younger sister in some ways so it was an extra joy to be part of their special day!

Bed Head(board)

Do you ever find that one not-too-well-planned project just leads to another and by the end, all this DIY-ing isn’t worth it?  Happens to me more often than not.  This was one of the few attempted projects that actually was relatively easy from start to finish and didn’t involve more work than bargained for.

It all started when Jason and I went up to Baltimore to clean out a storage unit of his that he had from before we were married.  We both moved a ton in the year leading up to our wedding so now that we’re relatively settled (as in we’ll stay at least 6 months), it was time to clear it out.  We stuffed a U-haul and the jeep full of everything and just had a few things to drop off at the dump before heading out.  Ironically, as he was dropping stuff off at the dump, I noticed we had parked next to a warehouse called “Overstock Outlet.”  It looked like the perfect place to get my craft on, so we browsed a bit.  It’s like the law of the conservation of energy, you know? (Do you know? Or am I revealing my nerdiness too soon?)  As soon as we get rid of something, we just pick up something else so it’s always at a constant level.

Anyways, Overstock Outlet seemed mostly full of stuff out of old hotels: mirrors, tables, frames and headboards.  The last two of which I thought I might actually be able to use!  Neither I nor Jason has really had a proper bed for the last ten years.  We've just had the mattress frame and mattresses, but being married now made us grown-ups, so it was about time to have a proper headboard (or maybe the implication goes the other way? Having a headboard makes us real grown-ups?).  Unfortunately, they only had full size and king size headboards. Our bed is a queen, but the guy working there convinced us the king would only stick out a couple inches.  I figured it was cheap enough that if we really hated it or just didn’t want to keep it forever, I wouldn’t have any regrets, so I think we walked away with a headboard for something like $20 and 6 frames for another $20.  Good thing we had a U-haul.

Because the back was just held together by a few screws/clamps, it didn’t look like it be too hard to unscrew the padded parts, repaint and reupholster.  I think because I planned on using a staple gun, I can use the word “reupholster,” which makes it sound fancy, but honestly, it wasn’t.  If I can do this, I think anyone can.  

The hardest part really was choosing fabric I liked. The one I really liked was also (of course) the most expensive, but I went for it since I really only needed a yard.  I got it from Joanne’s and since it’s impossible to get to a convenient fabric store in the city, just had it shipped, which was a little scary not to be able to test it!

I followed these basic steps:

-Measure as best as you can how much fabric you will need (erring on the side of a few extra inches). I’d recommend a relatively sturdy fabric such as “upholstery fabric.”

-I washed, dried and ironed the fabric just to be sure any shrinkage, ink bleeding, etc. happened before it was forever stapled.

-Unscrew padded parts from the back of the headboard.  (Or if you are lucky, have your husband/man do it.  Not that girls can’t.)

-Stretch tightly and staple along edges.  Be sure to staple far enough to the side so staples don’t show when you put that part back.

-Sand and paint frame.  Let dry 24 hours.

-Screw the upholstered panels back in.

Here is the before picture:

 

There were actually a ton of layers of fabric underneath when we unscrewed it. I tried to remove the staples and layers of fabric, but it was actually really hard, actually impossible for me to do.

So I just had to try to staple far enough in to not be on the old staples, but not so far in they would show when it was reattached.

 

When working with a geometric pattern you may need to pay more attention than with solids to ensure that the fabric is straight and you won’t have a skewed pattern (though it may not bother you as much as it would me).  Once I was done, I kind of wished I’d lined up the two pieces of fabric so that the pattern started at the same place on both sides.  Oh well.. next time.

This brings us to the frame, which basically the only thing we did to it was paint it with some sample paint that I bought when trying to decide on wall colors.  It’s Behr’s “Subtle Touch” which is really really light grey, but was close enough to white for me.  It took two coats. I wish we had sanded the frame before painting to smooth it out and help the paint to be sure to stick, but it hasn’t chipped yet.

Because the frame is actually a bit bigger than the bed, Hubs had to drill a couple holes to be able to attach it to the bed frame. After 24 hours of drying, we reattached the upholstered parts.  And the final product!

Overall, I am thrilled with how it turned out.  We just need a bigger bed to fit it now.  Oh well, at least we have room for our side tables.