Office Wall Stripes

I've been dreaming about this next post for a long time.  Here's the background: I love stripes.  That is all.

My fabulous FIL let us borrow his laser level and we set up shop in our office.  The walls are vaulted so one wall is much taller than the others and that was the designated wall.  We used the same color that is in our living room (Behr Bavarian Cream - love it!) for the other three walls and alternated Bavarian Cream with white for the striped wall.

Before and After:

Frog tape!

 Instagram enhanced.

I am so happy with the way this room turned out.  It looks a million times better than it did prior to the makeover and I love, love, love the stripes!  Daunting, yes, but not terribly hard.  This leaves us with one more bedroom... the MASTER... to remodel.  This is what it currently looks like -- four paint samples later (with no winner):

Oy vey.

Behr is having a paint sale that lasts until tomorrow so I'm giving myself 24 hours to pick a fifth sample and then have a winner.  Wish me luck!

The Master Reveal

We had a goal to complete the renovation of our main bathroom before the family came out for Thanksgiving.  You know what the best part about setting goals is?  Meeting them.  We finished this one right down to the shower curtain!  (Just don't ask about the bath mat.)

This will mostly be a picture-filled post but here's the nitty gritty...

I left the humble abode for one full week to stay with my BFF in Denver and keep myself out of the work zone.  The Mr. and Pugsley supervised and assisted with the renovation along the way -- and they were under strict instructions to take photos at the end of each day to document the progress.  By the time I came back home on Friday, we just needed to paint and hang the light fixture.  All in a day's work...

Before:

Aside from the toilet, this is a 1985 original piece of ... art. 

Gorgeous grout. 

Beautiful gold fixtures.

Light fixture that was so awesome that we didn't even replace the bulbs.

Ick.

Looks like a dog chewed it up...

During:

I think this is my favorite picture of the whole thing.

The Mr. found a Dave & Buster's card under the vanity... he is so excited.

Before the grout on the shower tile.

I had to post this picture because we lived with the ladder and the bathroom door in the hallway for at least one week.   

After:

Two, big organized drawers! 

I love the light fixture!  Purchased off Joss & Main the week before we started the reno.

 My favorite artwork in the house.

A sink with lots of counter space!

Love our fixtures, especially the shower head. 

I wish it was easier to take a better photo of such a small space but this is the best I can do.  The paint came out a little more purple than grey but I compensated with the grey shower curtain from West Elm.  The vanity is perfect and holds at least twice as much as the old one.  We love our new bathroom!  

Master Bathroom Sneak Peek

The biggest renovation to hit our house is currently in full swing!  Starting this past Sunday, our main bathroom is undergoing a much-needed revamp that will bring the room out of the 80s and into the current century.  We had a terrible time picking out tile but I'm feeling confident in our choices and can't wait to see the finished product (Friday!!).  The Mr. and Pugsley are at the house helping and overseeing the work -- thankfully the bulk majority of this project was contracted out to our favorite home contractor, Sperr Maintenance & Improvements.

I left the war zone and am staying in the comfort of my BFF's guest room/bathroom for the week but the boys are under strict instructions to take pictures of the progress each day so that I can blog the new room once it's complete.  In the meantime, here's a sneak peek of the progress after Day 1:

Who needs walls when you have a Cadillac bathtub?!

I Made Curtains!

Yes, you read that correctly.  I made curtains!  This is probably the project that I'm most proud of thus far in my home-fixer-upper career.  Why, I'm not really sure.  Probably because, unlike painting and scoring deals on Craigslist, this is something that I never really expected that I would do.  But along came a simple-sounding tutorial on one of my favorite blogs and the results came out much better than I expected.

The room:
Our dining room, which is in the front of the house, has tall, vaulted ceilings and a lot of dark furniture.  There is a little window seat in front of the main windows that have been decorated, since the moment we moved in, with a few pillows.  It brings a bit of dimension into the room but it has always been apparent that long drapes would bring a lot of pretty into the room.  Due to the height of the wall, I would have had to order custom-length drapes... not an option ($$).  DISCLAIMER:  This room is next on the list to be painted.  Please ignore the (lack of) color at this point.

The materials:
The hardest part was picking out the fabric.  I saved my Joann Fabric coupon for the perfect rainy day and away I went.  I stayed in the "home fabric" section because the fabric seemed nicer (read: more expensive) and looked closer to the material that I would expect curtains to be made from.  I have no idea if this was the right choice or not!  I needed approx. 6 yards of fabric, iron-on hem tape, a tape measure and pins from my new sewing kit (thanks, Joe!).

The process:
I used the dining room table to help make the cut.

After I had two long pieces of fabric, I ironed the hem tape onto all four side of both pieces of fabric.  I was worried about this step because I am not in charge of ironing in this family.  It took a bit of adjusting (perhaps I just don't know how to use the iron correctly) but the second curtain went much smoother than the first!

Before:

Hanging:
I purchased a curtain rod at Home Goods and bought clip-on drapery rings at Joann.  By using clip-on rings, I didn't have to figure out how to fold over a loop of fabric in order to fit on the rod.  The clips also help the fabric to hang in perfect folds.

DISCLAIMER #2:  It's nearly impossible to take a good picture of this room.  The afternoon light streams right into the room but the color just isn't the same once it's dark.  Please also see Disclaimer #1 regarding the color of the walls.  Perhaps this is a premature reveal but I'm just really excited :)



After:

Yay!!  What do you think?  I think they'll look much better once we have some color on the wall but this is a good start!

Interest in Pinterest

Have you heard of Pinterest?  It's an online pinboard where you can organize your favorite things.  Between house decor, recipes, wedding ideas, clothes or anything else you're interested in, you "pin" your favorites to a "board."  You can share your board, follow other boards and generally share the best of the web in your area of interest. 

Sounds intriguing, no?  So one slow day at work, I mentioned my curiosity (led by an urgent email from a certain Mrs. Valorz that I MUST SIGN UP!!!) to my crafty co-worker (shout-out to the party planner herself, Mrs. D. Shulman!) who immediately encouraged me to take the plunge.  So I did.  And I played around with it for an hour or so.  Until I got bored.  And I haven't gone back since.

Until now.

I had dinner with my favorite Altitude ladies the other night and Pinterest came up during our dinner conversation.  I was told that Pinterest was "made" for me.  Well, if that doesn't make me want to take another shot at it!  So I am announcing to you, my faithful blog followers, that I am embarking on a new Pinterest journey beginning today.  I'll let you know how it goes :) 

Are you on Pinterest?  Any tips/suggestions/comments about it?  I'd love to hear!

DIY Headboard

I know, I know.  I've been sucking at the blog lately.  But I promise the next post is going to very thought-provoking!  Until then, as promised, I've included the steps to my DIY Headboard that is so proudly displayed in the guest bedroom - which recently hosted it's first post-renovation guest!

The materials are very simple: I purchased a wooden frame typically used to stretch canvas from the local art supply store, a staple gun, 1 yard of fabric and some batting.  That's it.  Picking out the fabric was the hardest part so after I became completely overwhelmed I went for black.  Kudos to you if you're not scared of patterns!

The wooden frame was actually harder to put together than it looked.  Luckily, I found a mallet in the garage that did the trick... or broke it... I'm not sure yet... :)

After the frame is together, staple the batting:

And THIS is how you know when you've purchased the wrong size staples!

Luckily I was able to hammer them in a bit further.
After the batting, do the same thing with the fabric:

Voila!  You now have a headboard!

Fabric headboards are so expensive so this is a great alternative to purchasing.  With a nicer, patterned fabric and a little more batting to make it thicker, nobody will ever know that you made it yourself!  Good luck!