Hello! Did you survive Christmas? We had a sick little boy with influenza so our holiday was very low key. He still isnt completely 100% and his Christmas gifts still lay in a pile as he hasnt had the energy to play yet. It makes my heart hurt to see my kids sick but especially during the holiday.
With a New Year right around the corner, I thought it was time to make some blog changes so please be patient with me as I try to upgrade our look a little. Im not technical and these things take me forever.
But I wanted to make the design a little more us, simple. :)
New Years Resolutions......
Mine is to try not to stress and worry so much. Easier said than done, right?
Oh, and Im going to TRY to eliminate sugar from my diet. Im pretty sure I will break that one on January 2. :) Any tips?
And to just have more fun and celebrate life.
My hubbys birthday is tomorrow, so Im planning a party. :) I love making him feel special.
What about you? What are your New Years resolutions? Id love to hear them!
Have a great day and a wonderful New Year~ Diana
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With a New Year right around the corner, I thought it was time to make some blog changes so please be patient with me as I try to upgrade our look a little. Im not technical and these things take me forever.
But I wanted to make the design a little more us, simple. :)
New Years Resolutions......
Mine is to try not to stress and worry so much. Easier said than done, right?
Oh, and Im going to TRY to eliminate sugar from my diet. Im pretty sure I will break that one on January 2. :) Any tips?
And to just have more fun and celebrate life.
My hubbys birthday is tomorrow, so Im planning a party. :) I love making him feel special.What about you? What are your New Years resolutions? Id love to hear them!Have a great day and a wonderful New Year~ Diana
Sunday, July 31, 2016
New Headboard
Hello! It seems like its been so long since Ive blogged but however long its been, Im so glad to be back. If you follow us on Facebook, you know that my hubby had a health emergency come up. He was diagnosed with a heart problem and ended up in the hospital having a few tests run and thankfully, the tests came out good. I want to say thank you to each and everyone of you who prayed for him and our family. It truly meant the world to us. He is on the mend and we are slowly getting back to a normal routine again.
Quite honestly, the whole thing shook us both up so much that I havent even wanted to blog or work on any project. I wanted to spend all my time with him and our kids. I even considered stopping blogging altogether. But my creativity seems to be coming back and Im looking forward to getting back to the projects I was working on.
I was in the middle of redoing our middle sons room. His room is tiny and so making it work has been a huge issue. Plus, he is tall and must have a double bed instead of a twin so the first thing on the list after getting the bed was a headboard. Of course, it had to be cheap so I knew I was going to make it myself. I didnt want to do the same thing I did for our other sons room and had always wanted to make a headboard from an old door, we just couldnt find the right door, until a few months ago. So, I got to work.
Ive been so absent minded lately so unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of the door before I cut it down and added the molding. But here it is before I painted it. I wanted to use a door that had the same size panels all the way down. I measured the width of his bed and added a couple of inches just to be safe, then measured and cut the door to size. Then I removed all hardware and filled the holes with spackle.
I added crown molding and a top piece to finish it off. Im not about to try to do a tutorial on making miter cuts and return pieces for molding.
Mine are never perfect and I always end up with a big pile of mess ups as it is always a trial and error kind of thing for me. Im sure there are lots of tutorials out there that are a lot better than anything I could show you. Faster, too.
After all that, I filled the holes and painted the entire piece.
Heres how it looks now before I put it in the room. I still need to add a brace to the bottom so I can attach it to the wall. I will blog about that when its finished and show you how it looks in the room. I cant wait to put it all together with the bedding I bought for him from West Elm. Love their bedding! So thats it for now!
Thank you for visiting today! Enjoy your day!
Diana
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Quite honestly, the whole thing shook us both up so much that I havent even wanted to blog or work on any project. I wanted to spend all my time with him and our kids. I even considered stopping blogging altogether. But my creativity seems to be coming back and Im looking forward to getting back to the projects I was working on.I was in the middle of redoing our middle sons room. His room is tiny and so making it work has been a huge issue. Plus, he is tall and must have a double bed instead of a twin so the first thing on the list after getting the bed was a headboard. Of course, it had to be cheap so I knew I was going to make it myself. I didnt want to do the same thing I did for our other sons room and had always wanted to make a headboard from an old door, we just couldnt find the right door, until a few months ago. So, I got to work.
Ive been so absent minded lately so unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of the door before I cut it down and added the molding. But here it is before I painted it. I wanted to use a door that had the same size panels all the way down. I measured the width of his bed and added a couple of inches just to be safe, then measured and cut the door to size. Then I removed all hardware and filled the holes with spackle.I added crown molding and a top piece to finish it off. Im not about to try to do a tutorial on making miter cuts and return pieces for molding.Mine are never perfect and I always end up with a big pile of mess ups as it is always a trial and error kind of thing for me. Im sure there are lots of tutorials out there that are a lot better than anything I could show you. Faster, too.After all that, I filled the holes and painted the entire piece.
Heres how it looks now before I put it in the room. I still need to add a brace to the bottom so I can attach it to the wall. I will blog about that when its finished and show you how it looks in the room. I cant wait to put it all together with the bedding I bought for him from West Elm. Love their bedding! So thats it for now!Thank you for visiting today! Enjoy your day!
Diana
Thursday, July 21, 2016
CUSTOMER EMAIL joelles new foyer
I got one of those amazing emails from a happy customer.
Hi and George,
I thought I would send you a pic of my new old world dresser!!!
I put it in my newly revamped foyer..............I LOVE IT!!!
Thank you so much, Joelle
Doesnt it look amazing?
The original posting for this OLD WORLD DRESSER can be seen here.
Tuesday, July 19, 2016
A Vintage Map A New Bed and Little Guys Room Redo
Hey there! We are in the process of redoing our boys rooms upstairs and this past week, I worked on several projects for little guys room. I was so happy with how they turned out, but it sure didnt start out that way. I have a tendency to get in a hurry when working on projects, because usually I have other things to do like laundry, dinner, and being a mom and wife, so I get in a hurry and do things wrong only to have to go back and redo. Not fun. First up was this headboard I made for his room using our collection of vintage yardsticks.
I started out by building a simple frame using 1 x 2s and attaching the yardsticks to the front of the frame. Because I didnt want to use all yardsticks, I also used groups of lattice strips that I already had from a previous project.
Originally, I stained those strips of lattice with Minwax special walnut stain. But I didnt love it and it didnt look right. So, after staring at it for a couple of days, I pried off the lattice strips and started over. Luckily, I had plenty of those strips laying around. Does anyone else ever do that? Redo a project if it isnt just right? Or do you just live with it?
Redoing this project wasnt that much of a hassle, and I really did want it to look perfect for his room. After they were all attached, I simply coated them with a clear water based polyurethane. Then for the top, attached a 1 x 3 and thats it. Heres a peek at it before I show you the rest of the room. Total cost for this headboard? Nothing! We already had everything needed. :)
The next project I worked on was a vintage map. I am crazy for those old vintage pull down classroom maps. But we dont happen to have $600 laying around to buy one. Maybe Im exaggerating a little but not much. Ive never been lucky enough to find one for below $300 so I did the next best thing. Made one myself. I had already purchased a fun vintage classroom map from Etsy for less than 20 bucks but it was just a regular ol map. Not the pull down variety so, I turned it into the pull down variety. :)
I started by completely coating the map with Mod Podge glue in glossy finish. It gives the map a shiny, thick surface similar to the pull down kind. Then I headed to Lowes to pick up the supplies I needed. Total cost for this project, not including the map, was less than 15 bucks. I picked up a large round wood dowel rod that is used for hanging in closets. Some vintage copper spray paint, a 3/4 inch wood dowel rod and two packages of white plastic closet rod sockets. I cut the dowels to be about half an inch longer than the map on both sides and then stained them with Minwax special walnut stain.
Then I lined up the map with the dowels and attached industrial velcro strips to the dowel and the map.
I also used little dabs of hot glue. I wanted to make sure it stuck to the dowel but also didnt tear the map. Then I repeated that process with the smaller dowel for the bottom. After that I took the plastic rod sockets and spray painted them with the vintage copper spray paint.
I attached those to the end of the top, larger dowel with hot glue and the screw included in the packet with the socket, leaving about 1/4 inch of it sticking out of the dowel.
Repeat with the other end. Next I took hemp twine and tied it around the screw head also attaching to the other side. This will be what you hang the map from on the wall.
I hadnt planned on putting anything on the bottom dowel but it didnt look right. So, I cut two 1/4 inch pieces off the scrap of larger dowel I had from the previous step and spray painted both of them with vintage copper spray paint.
I hot glued those to the ends of the smaller dowel on the bottom of the map.
I absolutely love it! Who needs a $300 pull down when you can make a faux one for 15 bucks? And whenever we decide to store it, all we have to do is roll it up on the dowel rods instead of folding. Here it is in the room.
I started by cleaning those beams hubby brought home. Heres a pic of one of them before I sanded them down.
Have a great day!Diana
