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A DIY Living Room in Progress

by on August 3, 2012

Remember my living room? It looked like this last time we talked about it:

Something has been snoozing me out about this room ever since. Neutral upon neutral upon neutral.

And then I saw Emily Clark’s family room:

That navy and white was speaking to me. I loved every single inch of it.

And then I saw THIS:

More crisp navy and white with walnut-y trim. It gave me the same feeling as looking at Emily Clark’s living room.

So I spent the next month obsessing over researching Pinterest to make sure this was the right direction. It was hard waiting because I’m not known for patiently planning and thoughtfully considering. I typically just go for it. But I’m learning that sometimes that doesn’t turn out the best result.

Pinterest didn’t let me down…


(Source: HGTV Designers’ Portfolio)


(Source: ? Anyone know? It wasn’t attributed on Pinterest.)

(Source: http://dianebergeron.com)

So after much drooling and planning, stage one of my living room went from this:

to this…

The walls went from a dingy tan to Sherwin-Williams’ Gray Clouds in flat. It’s a cleaner more modern shade that works well with the yellow accents and the navy/white combo.

My favorite feature in this room is this wood slab that used to be a coffee table top. Here it’s used as a sculptural element, bringing in the warm wood tones to balance the room’s coffee table, leather chair and side table. It’s a full 5 feet tall.

Best of all, I found this in my neighborhood in somebody’s trash pile at the curb.

I know. Right?

The yellow pillows were made from $3.99 Target placemats using this tutorial from SAS Interiors.

The blue and white striped pillow was made from a twin sheet cut in half and assembled with this no-sew tutorial.

The most impactful piece in the new color scheme is the 6-paneled abstract painting. I needed color on that wall but didn’t want to assign too much of a theme by using an actual painting of something. (Not to mention I didn’t want to PAY for a giant painting.) So I bought six 18×24 canvases on sale at A.C. Moore for $7.50 TOTAL, used navy blue paint from the boy’s bedroom project and white paint from our family room makeover.

Behind the lampshade is an old barn wood frame that I lightly whitewashed and then hung to “frame” the light cast from the lampshade. When the room is dark it’s a really cool effect.

Cool things are happening on the other side of the room too, but they aren’t quite ready to show. I’m still layering and texturing.

For now, I like where we’re headed. And for $27.50 you can’t beat it.

That’s…

$7.50 – canvases

$8.00 – two placemats

$12.00 – twin sheet set (for blue/white pillow fabric)

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How To Paint Striped Drapes (a no-sew)

by on February 26, 2012

I found these Ballard Design striped drapes on Pinterest that would work perfectly for my client’s living room makeover. They are no longer available through Ballard  but the look was just the inspiration I needed.

(Source: Ballard Designs via Remodelaholic)

Remodelaholic knocked off these drapes using ribbon, but painting is easier for me so I decided to give it a try.

I started with two cream-colored painter’s drop cloths sized 6′x9′ from Lowe’s ($14.00 apiece), that were first washed, dried and ironed. (Make sure to get matching drop cloths. In this case they each had one vertical seam down the middle.)

I laid out the drop cloth on my kitchen island after everyone had gone to sleep so I could work in peace more quickly.

Since the bottom of these drop cloths aren’t exactly straight, I had to create a straight line across the bottom where I wanted my first stripe to begin. I began my first line at 8″ up from the bottom, accounting for the crookedness of the actual fabric.

I knew that I wanted four stripes like the Ballard drapes, but that I also wanted the entire striped portion to take up 1/3 of the total drape height. So I measured my stripes to be 3″ wide each with 3″ between them.

Then I could finally begin rolling on the paint. This is a flat latex wall paint that we chose to match the client’s chocolate brown sofa. I used a Sherwin-Williams 6″ mini roller …the same one I use for painting walls for a nice smooth finish.

It took two coats of paint to get the stripes absorbed evenly. I kept newspaper underneath the fabric so it wouldn’t bleed through to the countertop.

Immediately after the second coat, and while the paint was still wet, I peeled off the painter tape. The lines weren’t perfect, but they were pretty darn close.

The first panel took me 3 hours but the second panel went a little faster…about 2 hours total.

The paint dries a little crispy but once hung, the fabric drapes pretty well. You can train the canvas with clothespins to fold in specific places if you wish.


Here’s the final product.

Whatcha think? Here’s Ballard’s $180 version ($90 per panel):

And here’s our painted version.

Since I already had the paint roller, it only cost $15 for the quart of paint + $28 for drop cloths ($14 apiece).

Total = $43.

More importantly, Becki loves them in her newly transformed living room. I will be posting more about her makeover soon!

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How to Make a Faux Roman Shade

by on January 15, 2012

In a previous post I wrote about my friend Shelley’s handmade blue toile pillow that fit perfectly in our new family room.

Well, years ago she made a gorgeous black and white toile window treatment that hung in her kitchen. Now that she’s moving on to new decor and a new house, I begged to have inquired about that window treatment fabric. She gave it to me!

Here’s my tutorial for making a faux roman shade from a piece of fabric. In this case, I started with two pieces of fabric that Shelley had sewn together. You can see that the back is a pretty green striped material.

Her window was 50″ wide and mine only 39″ so I centered the design and marked where my cuts would be to bring it down to size.

My initial plan was to use fusible bonding tape and iron the edges for a finished look. This has worked many times for me even with the thickest upholstery fabric. BUT, in this case the bonding tape wasn’t strong enough for the double thickness of the two pieces of fabric sewn together. After many tries I gave up and pulled out the ol’ needle and thread. (Mind you I have no sewing machine and very limited skills in the sewing department.)

Can you see the faint stitch lines along the edge of the fabric? It wasn’t quick but it worked. And actually I ended up preferring the sewn approach because it allows the fabric edges to fall more naturally in the finished piece than if it had the hard line of the fused tape method.

After I had cut the fabric and sewn the first edge I hung it up just to make sure the width was right before I stitched the other edge.

I used a metal wide-pocket curtain rod from Lowe’s ($7) and hung it 4 inches protruding from the wall to provide some depth. Okay, in truth my hubsy hung it for me. :-)

Yep, looked good.

Then I folded the fabric to look like a roman shade. I tried a few different times until I got the width of the folds to my liking.

Next comes my super-special-secret-sauce-surprise for all my fellow no-sew-ers out there.

SAFETY PINS!

The pins hide so well in all the folds of fabric that you can use as many as you like until the shade hangs just the way you want.

I ended up using about 45 pins by the time I was done!

And here’s the finished piece!

Here’s a look at the kitchen window before…

And after!

See that I hung the shade as high as possible so that it barely intrudes on the window space? That is THE most  important principle of window treatments! Always, always, always, hang your window treatments high and leave as much exposed window glass as possible to let in as much light as you can. It also raises the perceived height of the room.

Send me some more inspirations for no-sew safety pin projects!

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