Metallic Magnets for your Refrigerator

This DIY idea started with this necklace….

…and from there, I thought of a super easy DIY that would give instant pizzazz to any blah kitchen.
You know those crazy, colorful alphabet magnets you see in most college apartments, and pretty much any home with small children??
I just realized that these magnets spell out Punch me in the Face… do we think this is a college apartment or what??
Yep, those ones… well how chic would they look in a single metallic tone!
Is it just me, or is this the coolest way to jazz up a boring refrigerator??  A cheap package of those plastic alphabet magnets, and a can of copper (or gold) spray paint!!

It’s like jewelry for your fridge!  I am sooooo loving this idea…

Buy the magnets HERE
Buy the spray paint HERE

So cool, right??

Restoration Hardware Iron and Rope Mirror… the DIY version…

Meet my new little friend…

The large round Iron and Rope from Restoration Hardware

He’s rustic and cool and old timey, but welcoming him into your home won’t make you seem like a suspender wearing, fake-old-timey poser… but just a cool collector of rad things…

The problem??

$650 for a mirror???

I think not!

But how easy could this possibly be to replicate??  Sure, those knots are the complicated knots of a skilled sailor, but heck, I’m sure it’s nothing a quick Google search (or help from my father… who is a skilled sailor) can’t fix!

Let’s find some eligible mirrors, eh?

Here are a few contenders… I’m liking both the size and thin rim around the Ikea version – and that could EASILY be painted black.

This is how I see it all coming together…

I’d mount the mirror on the wall (as opposed to appending the rope and using that to hold the mirror’s weight.

Then I’d find some good rustic rope (I’m sure any hardware store supplies it), and tie some ornate knots at each end.

Glue to the sides of the mirror.

Get a largish door knob, and spray paint it black.

Mount the doorknob on the wall where the rope can loop over it… to give the illusion that it’s hanging

And voila!  For a lot less than $650 (and dare I say it… probably quite a bit less than $100) you have a very close substitute for the Restoration Hardware Iron and Rope mirror…

Easy DIY: Upcycled Wine Bottles

How cute / cool does this upcycled wine bottle turned vase look??
My cousin posted this picture on Facebook, and it got me thinking… I’ve been focused on larger projects recently, but there is something so satisfying about the little DIY projects that you can tackle in a night after work… case in point – this wine bottle made over with a little paint and twine
#instantgratification
Clearly clever women run in my family… or is it that Pinterest-lovers run in my family… or is it that expert wine-drinkers run in my family??? Or is it all of the above??  Eh, that’s neither here nor there.
I happen to be QUITE the expert wine drinker, so this is the perfect project for me… in a week’s time I could have enough bottles emptied and ready to open an Etsy shop!  I kid… kind of.
I took to Pinterest for more bottle inspiration, and these wine bottles doused in chalkboard paint caught my fancy…. they’d make for a cute little centerpiece at a party (or better yet… mask a cheapish bottle of wine if you’re hosting a big family style dinner)…
Not to get completely distracted, but a few of my favorite bottles of inexpensive red is the Menage e Trois Meritage blend (usually around $8 at the supermarket) and the Ravenswood Old Vine Zinfindel (also around $8 most of the time)… you are welcome in advance!

Source

And how cute is this one… much more “wedding-y” and a little more rustic since they actually used chalk on it, instead of a chalk pen like the above photo…

Source

Or white – I’m loving the black bottles much more, but a group of these (in varying sizes and shapes) in white could look kind of rad on a mantle…

Source

Like I need an excuse to pop open a bottle of wine… but if I were looking for one, I’d say these are a pretty good reason!

X Bench Makeover

Say hello to my little friend(s)…

Last week I mentioned how I’d been lusting after a pair of x benches for our space, but had all but given up on the idea of them, since every bench I found cost hundreds of dollars.  I’d stopped looking for a while, and then found a pair of these guys from Target for ~$50 each.  It was a no brainer to buy them and make them over since the cost of spray paint and fabric is minimal.

I am SO happy with how these turned out…

Especially considering how they started out…

Not attractive…

The dark faux leather was so bad in person… and when I say “so bad” I mean “SOOO BAD”.  The leather was rock hard, super shiny, and had no give – it was like sitting on a slippery brick… but I saw past their sad exterior, and whipped them into shape quickly…. here’s how it went:

Step I: detach the cushions from the base.  Easy peasy…

Step II: Spray the bases the color of your choice (I went with Rustoleum’s trusty gold spray paint – never fails my friends) – while the paint dries on the bases, head upstairs to gleefully rip off the faux leather from the plywood using whatever tools at your disposal.

**This was actually the hardest step for me since the manufacturer really stapled the hell out of each bench.  I was left with lots of bits of leather and random staples I couldn’t get out, but it’s fine… no one cares about the underside…

Step III: Throw away horrible faux leather and breath a sigh of relief.

Step IV: Lay out beautiful new fabric that you will be covering the cushions with, and cut the fabric to size (leave ~3-4 inches around the sides of the plywood and foam)

Step V: Staple fabric securely to the cushion starting with the sides, and finishing with the corners

Step VI: Grab the fully dried bases from the garage, and re-attach the cushions to them (or in my case, get lazy on this step and vow to attach them tomorrow)

Step VII:  Stand back and admire your handiwork

What do you think??  Pretty good right?!

I fid that taking pictures of my projects is super helpful… it really allows me to see the imperfections that I want to go back and fix.  In this case, there is a bit of marred wood on the front side of one of the benches that I’ll want to patch, sand, and repaint for a smooth finish…

I also see now that I’ll want to trim down the extra fabric from the bottom of the cushions and that I really do need to reattach the cushions so they sit flush with the base – easy fixes, but you get the idea overall!

Big picture, these benches under-went a major overhaul!  I think it’s a huge change from dark-and-sad to light-and-bright.

So let’s recap costs and savings for a minute… the two benches cost ~$110, the fabric was marked down to $30 a yard, (I needed just 3/4 yards which came out to $22), and the two cans of spray paint were $14.

All together, this pair of benches cost me $146!

It’s not the least expensive project I’ve ever done, but considering I’d been seeing single benches for $200 each, it’s $146 compared to $400.

Pretty dang good if you ask me!

Rast Hack – Ostrich Leather Upholstered Side Table

It all started with this image…

Can you imagine anything more extravagant??  To have a side table that is upholstered with ostrich leather??  And that brass hardware… stunning.  You all know how I feel about gold.  To die for…

A piece like this would cost the big bucks (can you hear the ca-ching sound in your head???)

But oh how amazing it would be to own a fabulous side table JUST. LIKE. THIS. Since I’ve been put on a budget, and I could never fathom spending thousands on a side table anyway, I had to get a bit creative in brainstorming up a little DIY for this end table…

Here’s what I came up with…

So that means that with a little patience, and a bit of work that you could recreate one of these side tables for less than $115 –  and for just over $200 you could have a pair of them!  That’s my kind of budget!
To recreate this side table, I imagine the steps going something like this…
STEP I: Piece together the Rast side table, prime and paint the top and sides of it gold (leave the drawers bare)
STEP II: Use Barge’s multi-surface glue to secure the fabric to the drawer fronts.  Leave a half inch of space around the edges of each drawer for the trim (side note, if you ever have a question on what adhesive to use, use this site… it’s AMAZING!!)
STEP III: Measure and cut the pieces for each drawer front (you’ll need 8 pieces of trim total – two long for the top and bottom drawer, and six short for each drawer)
**Note: you could probably have the Home Depot cut the trim for you before you take it home to avoid the hassle of measuring the corners and sawing them yourself…
STEP IV: Prime and paint the trim gold
STEP V: Use finishing nails (or even liquid nails) to secure the trim to the drawers
5. Screw in the pulls to the drawer fronts
Ta-da! You’re done!
The hardware is certainly the most pricey part of this endeavor, and I’m sure that with a bit of scouting around, you could find three plate brass pulls for less than $15 each.  
While I’m on a bit of a DIY hold until we find out if we are moving for sure (and when we are moving for sure) this is definitely a little project I’m itching to test out! 

X (bench) Marks the Spot

For anyone else out there that is a devout follower of the wedding blog, Style Me Pretty, you probably also follow their spin off blog, SMP Living.  Last week they had a FABULOUS feature on “how to makeover an x bench”.
I have been a long-time lover of the x-bench, and had been on the hunt for a pair for a while, to fill the empty space below the large piece of art in our living room (well the space occupied with bags for donation in this photo…)
A few months back, when I first found our tripod lamp, I even created a mock of how I saw this wall looking… complete with x-benches.  Unfortunately, not much has changed in this space since I posted this back in January:
SMP’s x-bench makeover gave me the inspiration to look into getting a pair of x-benches again, and so I hunted about for some additional inspiration…
X-Benches as a lovely accent under a console table…

X-benches are lovely at the foot of a bed…

X-benches are the perfect seat to tuck under a desk

X-benches are the perfect way to add seating in a living room…
Now the real trick is to find a pair of x-benches… they are apparently not available online, and so I suspect I’ll be making some calls to a few stores today…
Happy Monday!

Painted Curtains – Part Deux

Happy Friday friends!!  Are you as ready for the weekend as I am??

I’ll  be heading down to Orange County this weekend for my beautiful friend’s bridal shower, but before I hop on my flight, I wanted to share with you an idea I had for painted curtains…  I’m not sure if you remember the chevron painted curtains I made and posted about here, but after seeing the below image on Pinterest (unfortunately no source folks) I had a brilliant idea for another take on painted curtains.

Something about these curtains spoke to me – I have no idea if the curtain panels in this bedroom involved a DIY, or if the fabric just has a print with a “painted on” look… but either way, that’s not really the point!  I think that an abstract painted curtain would be a fabulous, simple DIY!
Curtains can get really pricey – especially if you are looking for a longer length – but using the simple, white Merete curtain panels from Ikea (only $25 for two 98″ panels) would save you A LOT of money, and I think it would be really fun to tap into your inner Pollock.  Right?? If I were to attempt this, I’d be sure to measure things out beforehand to ensure that each swirly row was roughly the same width, and that they went down the panel in straight rows, but to replicate something like these curtains would require hardly any artistic capabilities!  Right up my alley!
Now that I’m really looking at this photo, those coral striped pillows actually look as though a paintbrush was taken to them as well!  I can’t imagine they would feel very good to lean against, but if you were going for pure aesthetics, these would be another fun DIY to test out with a bit of paint!
If you wanted to try out the pillow version, Ikea also sells two-packs of plain white 20×20 Pillow Covers for $6 – that is a price you cannot beat – and if you mess it all up… it was just $6 down the drain.  I’ve spent more at Starbucks before!
If you need a little inspiration to get the creative juices flowing, check out the walls around Kelly Wearstler’s staircase and entryway!  Phenomenal!
Jenny Komenda of the Little Green Notebook used a paint brush and mint green paint to overhaul the itty bitty powder bath in her Brooklyn apartment…
Or if the chain link swirls are too girly for you, take a more abstract route, and go to town – curtain panels with a large scale black and white abstract would be super edgy and bold, and would really compliment either very simple, or very feminine furnishings.  Best yet??  You wouldn’t need (or probably want) a lot of art to compete!

Making an Old Apartment New

It’s pretty much official that my best friend, Kira, is moving to Chicago, which means that Kris and I will be most likely packing up our little apartment, and moving back into the apartment I shared with Kira.  It’s bigger, and packs a lot of character, so it’s pretty much a no brainer.  Putting aside the fact that I’ll miss her so much, I really am looking forward to living there again.  
It gets great light all day with a east/west exposure (our current apartment is north/south facing), has tall ceilings  an a open layout.  We’ll have space for an office AND dining room (separately), a deck for grilling, a backyard, and a much larger kitchen.
View of the bay from Pac Heights, San Francisco: Source
Obviously it has it’s downsides – a terrible shower, a teeny tiny oven that doesn’t fit a standard cookie sheet, and a leaky roof – but these are all things we can work around.  Before Kris and I moved in together, I lived with Kira there for just over two years, which means this place has been inhabited without updates for nearly 4 years.  While it’s in good shape, things start looking a little sad over time, so we’ll definitely need to make some improvements.
While I don’t want to put any serious money into renovations (all appliances will stay as is) I don’t mind spending a little money (and a lot of elbow grease) to spruce things up.  
One of the rooms that needs some serious love is the kitchen.  I’ve been keeping a running mental list of what I’d like to update, and while there is a multitude of sins that paint can cover up, I’m looking forward to getting a little creative.  I also want to be extremely conscious of the fact that whatever we do has to be seen by the landlord as an “improvement” so no jarring changes that they wouldn’t want to keep for a future tenant.
The kitchen cabinets are nothing to write home about, and they could use some serious love – I’m thinking they’d benefit a great deal from being sanded down, and re-painted a soft grey…
Here are a few photo’s I’m using for inspiration…
I love the look of the brass pulls in most of these photos, but right now, the cabinets and drawers have cheap silver pulls.  Hardware adds up really fast, and with possibly 15-20 pulls, new cabinet hardware could get really pricey.  I may just leave them as is, but there is also the option of using spray paint on them, and even replacing a few pulls on a few of the drawers / cabinets are are most focal.
Just some food for thought…
Connected to the kitchen is a large breakfast room – I think we’ll use this as an office, but as it’s essentially part of the kitchen, I want it to have a cohesive look and feel.  We painted two of the walls a muted sage green a few years back, but I’m thinking it’s time for that to go, and switch back to something lighter and brighter since this room has tons of windows.
I’ve actually been loving the look of a striped focal wall, and something like this could be kind of cool…
 
Since the cabinets don’t meet the ceiling, and I’m thinking of a medium grey on the cabinets, perhaps a very pale grey would look nice bringing the cabinets to the ceiling… or should we do the stripes on the wall the same color as the cabinets…
More food for thought…
I also really love the casual, fun vibe of a chalkboard wall.  On the wall opposite the sink, stove, and cabinets, I’d love to paint a large chalkboard directly on the wall, and possibly frame it like one of these…

Do they make magnetic chalkboard paint?  It could be kind of fun if it were, so we could use this as a sort of command center.
Anyways, that was sort of rambling post, but sometimes it helps to get ideas down on paper.
Opinions?  Any other simple, but cool things you’ve seen in kitchens lately I should be thinking about??

Our new Upholstered Headboard

I gave you all a sneak peek of our new headboard last week, but yesterday afternoon, it finally made it’s debut in our bedroom!

It took a lot of hard work, and a FULL weekend of sawing, sanding, measuring, drilling, screwing, gluing, upholstering, stapling, over-analyzing, band-aiding, nailing, un-nailing, re-nailing, and perhaps a little cursing somewhere in the middle, but it’s finished, and while it almost ended up face down in the middle of the freeway (another story for another day), it’s finally in our bedroom, safe and sound at last!

Literally blood, sweat (no tears), and a little stain remover went into this headboard, and I could not be more thrilled with how it turned out.  I am SO PROUD to say that with A LOT of help from my parents, I successfully made my own headboard!

We joked the entire time that the “A-Team” was working on it, and that the “A” stood for “type-A”.  It’s genetic I swear – we are all just as anal-retentive as one another… so that’s probably why it took us two full days instead of one.  It had to be JUST PERFECT – down to the stained (and lacquered) legs that no one will ever see behind the bed.

The full tutorial on what you need, and what we did is on it’s way, but in the meantime, here is a full photo dump of my pretty headboard in all it’s glory!

After living in this apartment for over a year and a half, this room is FINALLY a room that we want to spend time in.  Up until recently, it had been a catch-all for rejected furniture that didn’t belong in the rest of the house.  Slowly but surely, I’ve been making small updates to the room… making some chevron curtains, painting my furniture, replacing the dinky lamps that were there before, getting a new bed, new rug, new bedding… and the headboard is the final piece to tying this room together.

Do you even remember how this room started out??  Let me refresh your memory…

Scary!

I think I’ll also do a post on “the evolution of our bedroom” since it has gone through quite a few changes.  Anyway, getting back to our headboard…

The headboard really anchors the room, and makes the bed the focal point in the space.  While our bedroom gets less light than any other room in our house, I think we finally got it right with the light bedding and pretty blue accents.  Late morning is my favorite time of day in this room – it gets direct light, and feels bright and airy for a few hours before the sun moves beyond these windows.

The mirrors I hung behind the nightstands help reflect light for the rest of the day, and open up the space.

Let’s get a close-up of this fabric!

From a distance, you can’t see the texture, but it is one of my favorite things about the headboard.  I am usually a VERY indecisive person, but when choosing this fabric, it took me maybe 5 minutes to make up my mind on it.  The nubby texture is my favorite part… and I feel that it has the perfect mixture of tan and grey together, so wall color and bedding will never be an issue.

I started out comparing solid colored linen fabric swatches, but my concern was that if I ever picked out a bedding in a similar neutral tone that it would look like I tried (unsuccessfully) to match the fabrics, but with this texture, there is no risk of that.  I toyed with the idea of white or creme fabric, but if I ever wanted creme colored bedding and had a white headboard, or white bedding but had a creme colored headboard, it wouldn’t look right either.

So long story short, the fabric was an easy choice, and I am so in love with it!

I’ll also talk about this more in the DIY tutorial, but we went with a nailhead trim – it’s actually a strip of connected nail-heads  where you nail in every 5th nail or so.  This made it WAY easier to keep our lines straight, nail-heads evenly spaced, and after going through the process, I can’t even IMAGINE tacking in individual nail-heads.  What a nightmare that would have been!

This shot is facing the hallway that connects our bedroom (and bathroom) to the dining room, kitchen, and living room.  It’s a bit washed out due to the exposure (I swear, I am going to learn how to take better photos!) but you can KIND OF see the roman shade I made last year.

And as if the universe knew my headboard would be done, it’s peony season!  And is there anything better than a big bunch of ruffled pink peonies??

I think not!
I think that this is hands down, my best DIY to date!
What do you think?  Do you love it as much as I do?

Vertical Gardens

My newest obsession has nothing to do with interior decor, but with exterior decor… specifically in the garden. And specifically addressing the issue of how to dress up an outside space that is short on… well… space.
The vertical garden maximizes what space you DO have… so if you don’t have space to plant in the ground, utilize the side of your house, or a wall on a small porch, deck or other mini-outdoor area.  Right now, we don’t technically have an outdoor area (unless you count the fire escape), but that may change soon enough… so when we do, I want to be prepared with ideas!
I mean how AMAZING is this??  Here is an up-cycled a pallet from a local garden store stuffed full of all kinds of succulents… LOVE!
Or this larger scale succulent wall against the bright orange-y red aluminum siding…

Here, it’s almost like a piece of art in a zen indoor-outdoor space with lots of natural light.

And here the vertical garden is applied inside, and is lush with ferns that take over this entire wall behind the mod sofa.
I really love the rustic look of this one… In my head it seems like it would be easy maintenance but god knows I have a brown thumb that can kill any living plant within the week…
What do you think of the vertical garden?  Any experience building one yourself?  Is it easy? Hard? Should I try it out or stick to potted plants?