Wall Texture using Shutters in my dining room

Wow what have I started this time? My dining room is a bit on the boring side. We've spent our attention on other rooms and have neglected giving it the character we desire. I've had ideas for lighting (see blog post here), and I've sewed curtains (more on this later). We have a table, an antique baby crib turned love seat (which is pretty cool and I'll blog about later) and a couple plants. It's even missing a rug since my lovely dog destroyed it (you don't want details).

Every time I go to my favorite shop Anthropologie, I take photos of their displays. I find them so creative and inspiring. Last month I visited a friend in the L.A. area and on our way to the airport we stopped by the Pasadena Anthropologie for about twenty minutes. (A teaser of a visit). I snapped this shot of one of their displays:

Notice the use of shutters? This was my inspiration for the wall in my dining room. I'll be taking it to the next level and plan on covering the entire wall, floor to ceiling, in painted shutters of varying shades of blue and green. You may remember my recent thrift store extravaganza? I was in search of shutters. Finding only one small shutter on that trip, I was a bit discouraged in my hopes of finding enough to blanket the entire wall! A friend suggested Habitat for Humanity Restore, where I found a car load of shutters! They had some great price tags:

I also posted an ad on craigslist asking for wooden shutters for an art project. I received an e-mail that night from someone asking a hundred bucks for about ten. I considered not even e-mailing back at that price but responded with my price of thirty. Sold. He was going to throw them out anyway and I nearly doubled my supply and saved them from the trash.

Milton is checking out the new art to be. I have to admit, they kind of stink. I don't want to know why.

Besides taking over my house, the shutters are turning into a fun project. With this many to paint, I'll have several opportunities to experiment with different color combinations, painting techniques and faux type finishes. Overall this project is proving to be very useful experience for future projects, especially because there is very little pressure for each shutter to look perfect in any way, it's like art therapy.

I went through our paint cupboard and pulled out all the blue and green paints. We have tester cans and full size from previous projects. Some I mixed together in a jar to tweak the color a bit, and some I used straight from the paint can.

I found that adding water helped the paint to spread easier and faster, and created a nice uneven finish.

This shutter I painted a bright blue green, then rubbed a dark ebony wood stain over the surface, wiping it off after about 30 seconds.

This shutter was painted with a light blue green. After allowing it to completely dry, I brushed on a dark brown wash (50% dark brown paint and 50% water) and then wiped it off with a rag.

This shutter I painted the bright blue green, then brushed on and wiped off a full strength taupe colored paint (which was created on accident).

Before painting the shutters, I first remove all hardware and hinges. If it is really covered in grime or dust I clean them with a gentle household cleaner and rag. I am not sanding because I want the rough wood to show and help add character.

It's turning into a fun project for the whole family!

See how the project has evolved!

Wall Nook with Garden Gate

Our home has a very shallow wall nook at the end of a hallway. It's maybe an inch deep, which is not deep enough for a vase or shelves. A painting could be hung inside the niche which would give the piece added focus and interest, but hey, how 'bout a garden gate? My gate was a gift from my parents (once again they have helped to fill my home with something salvaged). This gate has been hauled around with me through various homes and has always been a conversation starter. We hammered metal stakes in the ground and wired the gate to the stakes in our garden at our first house. Since it was outdoors, I sprayed it with a clear protecting matte polyurethane. It was not a functional gate but served as part of the entrance to our vegetable garden. It now hangs at the end of a hallway, over a shallow wall nook.

We screwed two screws into the studs that border the sides of the nook and the bottom of the gate.

Two eye hooks were screwed into predrilled holes in the studs at the sides of the niche, bordering the top sides of the gate. The eye hooks and nails were then painted the same color as the wall so they blend to the background. Using metal wire, we wrapped the gate to the screws and eye hooks.

Here you can see the locations of the eye hooks and the screws in relation to the gate.

The gate looks great at any time of day, but the lights from the hallway create some fun shadows in the nook.

Thrift Store Finds!

Ooooh I had a great thrift store shopping trip with my three kids yesterday. The baby and the girl and I picked the boy up from school, stopped at the donut shop and browsed through two thrift stores. We found some fun stuff:

~ A wooden toilet to hang on the wall in my "tacky bathroom" (I'll post about this soon.)

~ One wooden shutter, the first of many I hope to acquire for a big home art project I'm planning for my dining room wall.

~ Egg dye for Easter.

~ A wall candle sconce in desperate need of a make-over.

~ A lamp that I can see has a lot of potential.

~ Plastic bug containers for my kids. My son is uber excited about this one. We watched "The Secret" together last week and he says he's been visualizing getting a container to hold worms and that God helped bring this to him.

~ A blonde curly wig for my daughter (....yes, she refrained from putting it on her head till I washed it in the washing machine....live or die)

~ Some sort of blue oil & floating sail boat alarm clock my son deemed necessary.

~ An old record with a friend's name on it. 'Emerson Phonograph Company inc New York 1918' Happy Birthday Paul! (I always remember his birth date cuz it's the same as our dog).

~ Pottery Barn Table and two chairs for $15

~ Pottery Barn Kids work bench and stool for $15. This was the find I'm the most excited about since we were planning on building one. I hope to set up an area in my garage with tools, nails and pieces of wood for my kids (once they pass some sort of safety test)

What is your latest find? Have you found anything from a thrift store/yard sale that you just couldn't live without?

Towel Hooks vs Towel Bars

Keeping bathrooms tidy is a chore. Have you ever tried to teach a three year old to fold their towel over the towel bar when they are done with their bath? And if you have, is it hanging evenly? Folded in thirds? or at least in half? Forget the three year old, how 'bout your husband? Can he put the towels over the bar? I'm really good at putting the blame on everyone else and not mentioning my own pile of towels that seemed to gravitate to the floor. My answer? Towel hooks! Remove all the towel bars that came with your house, and hang up towel hooks. You can find various styles at Home Depot or Lowes in the Home Organization aisle. Conveniently the wooden base for the hooks usually cover the holes left behind from the towel bars. Voila! No patching necessary!

These are great in the kids bathroom. It's so much easier for them to clean up their bathroom if it's actually do-able. And it's so Montessori for them to be able to complete their tasks themselves. Hooks in the guest room can be used for hanging toiletry bags, swim suits, pool towels AND bath towels. You can hang more things with four or five hooks then you can with one bar.

This hook was an ugly brass thing I found at a thrift store and I spray painted it with Rust-oleum Hammered Gray Spray Paint. It's hanging by the door in the guest room for jackets and purses.

Follow My Blog on Blog Lovin

Follow my blog with bloglovin

Furniture Evolution - Small Buffet Cabinet/ Oversized Nightstand

I'm always on the look out for furniture that's asking for a make-over. When I was pregnant with my daughter, I found this piece at a local thrift store and imagined that it could look sweet painted white for her room. I was not in need of a changing table since I had a dresser in her closet for this purpose, so there were no prerequisites for height or width and when I came across this unusual buffet cabinet I decided it had to me mine. It is now used as an over sized night stand in my bedroom and I love it.

First I removed all the hardware, which was difficult with the hinges since many screws stripped or broke off and required pliers and a lot of elbow grease. Then I cleaned the wood with warm water and a bit of Murphy's Oil Wood Soap. This helped to remove any sticky build up or wax that might clog my sand paper and helped get all the grime out of the corners of the drawers and cabinet.

Using my electric sander and hand sander (from my husband's grandfather), I started with 80 grit paper to rough up the wood and finished off with 200 grit to smooth it out. There are lots of of nooks and crannies on this piece and sometimes I used a pencil wrapped in sandpaper to get into the hard to reach places. After the sanding was complete, I used a tack cloth (sticky cloth, a damp cloth would also work fine) to remove the dust. Next, I primed the entire piece, inside and out, using a water based primer. Oil based primers are probably better, sealing out stains from bleeding through to the finished piece and I would recommend them. However, I used water based for ease of clean up and less fumes (I was pregnant and working on this piece with my two year old). Before painting, I allowed the primer to dry by manufactures instructions, or possibly a little less since I was living in the dry Las Vegas climate. I chose a fresh glossy white paint since her room had a white crib and a white iron bed. When brushing, I completed my strokes at the end of the wood, or by lifting my hand gently mid stroke to minimize paint lines. A high quality brush really helps. Because of the many nooks and crannies, I opted to not use a roller. Two coats of paint were enough since I started with a primer and after giving ample time for drying, I finished it off with a water based polyurethane.

When refinishing furniture it is fun to shop around at places like Anthropologie for cute knobs. However sometimes the originals seem to fit so well with the piece, I keep them after a little makeover. This time I laid cardboard down on the grass in my backyard and spray painted them with Rust-Oleum Hammered Metal Finish in dark grey.

I continued the look by spray painting the hinges and wheels. The wheels needed to be sprayed, rolled, and sprayed again to ensure all parts were covered. I took the pictures of the wheels about four years after the completion of this project and you can see where there has been some wear and tear on the finish. Honestly this doesn't bother me and I think it gives the piece more character. But once again, the oil based primer would have probably helped to prevent some of this. I move my furniture around a lot and with three kids sometimes it gets a lot of "character." I'm okay with this, I have other worries to fill my head.

To add a little bit of fun, I decided I would lay some permanent drawer liners. I cut squares of green and pink printed scrap-booking paper using my roller paper cutter. For the drawers I used 2x2 squares and for the cabinet, 6x6.

With matte mod podge I brushed the inside of the drawers or cabinet in small square foot sections, stuck on the paper and then brushed more of the medium to seal it. Even though this piece of furniture is no longer in my little girl's room, I still love the fun colors I used to line the inside.

In the middle of the top is a square piece of marble which I removed during the refinishing process but left untouched in the final piece.

I'm pleased with how this piece turned out. It works as a perfect oversized nightstand in our master bedroom.

Vase with Flowers - School Auction Project - Part 2

Final piece hanging in it's spot of honor, the breakfast room of the auction winners.

The School Auction Project is finally complete! If you haven't read about the beginning of this ginormous project, check it out. By no means would I say this is an easy project. Every flower and center circle needed two to three coats of paint. This was done in the hallway at school, with my 18 month old son crawling around and two to three students at a time, armed with wet paint brushes. I had help in my home by parent volunteers with wiring the centers on to the flowers, but this part of the project seemed to occupy any moment of idle time while parked in the car line to pick up kids, every waiting room and during any time I watched television for nearly a month. When it came time to attach the flowers to the board, I set up my easel and just started drilling, adding flowers one by one.

I wanted a reference picture to find which flower was designed by each student. I sketched up a quick drawing of the flowers with colored pencils, labeled each flower with a name on the paper (the flowers are all labeled on the backs), took a picture of the final placement and used adobe photoshop to label the final picture.

The flower stems consist of craft/jewelry wire threaded with green glass beads (by the children). I handed each kindergartner a wire with a bolt twisted to the bottom. They were "encouraged" to put a big bead for every length of their thumb of small beads. I drilled eight holes under the vase.

The students threaded the wire with beads, I put the bolt through the hole and twisted the beaded wire around a pencil and stretched it to meet it's intended flower (some being at least a foot above the bottom bolt). This gave the stems an added dimension. A couple bolts have two stems.

The vase is built up on the back to give it the appearance of being half inch thick from the front, but with space at the top for the wire wrapped bolts. To add some additional interest to the vase, I cut strips of card stock and deco-pauged red pieces from magazine pictures. One stripe is at the top of the vase and two stripes are at the bottom. The vase was attached by drilling a two part hole, so the bolts would be sunk into the vase and could be patched with additional deco-pauged green squares. With the vase attached, I brushed on a couple coats of a gloss medium for added shine and stability of the paper.

The back of the art piece has a mitered frame set a foot in from the edges, so the piece hangs three dimensionally from the wall. My husband helped out with his air gun, nailing the wood to the back.

I screwed nuts onto the backs of the bolts and using a drumel tool, the long ends were cut so the frame in the back could hang flush with the wall.

The final piece has 31 flowers (a new student arrived on one of the final days of production) and eleven beaded stems (threaded by kindergartners).

The project was auctioned off live and sold for $1700!

Update on Home Project Vase

Our home project isn't quite as grand of course, with only 13 flowers and a total size of 2 feet by 4 feet. If I could do it over I would have the vase smaller as it seems to overwhelm the final piece. Our home piece has been tweaked a couple times since the first position of the flowers seemed to remind me of balloons with long stems. So with two holes at the top to fill, I decided to add two wire butterflies. Although it hangs in my kitchen, it is still incomplete due to me being completely burned out on this project. Hopefully I'll get back to it in the next month and I will post more pictures.