Creating a beautiful bedroom on a small budget

When I needed to furnish the guest room at our mountain condo, my budget wasn't so much "small" as it was non-existent. I chose to purchase a new mattress and box springs, and that purchase meant that there was very little left over for other furniture and accessories. But I'm really pleased with how the room turned out.

The key to the room was a serendipitous find at my local fabric store: a beautiful, upholstery weight decorator fabric on sale for $5.00 per yard. I'm a sucker for houndstooth and I liked the colors, so I scooped up five yards.

Making a simple upholstered headboard is a really easy DIY project. For my queen-sized bed, I bought a 4x8 sheet of 3/4" plywood (less than $20) at my local Home Depot store. Since a queen-size bed is 60" wide, I had a kind employee cut the 8' side of the plywood down to 61 inches. That way the headboard would be just slightly wider than the bed.

When I got home, I used a dinner plate as a pattern to mark off a curve in the top two corners of the plywood.

Then I hot-glued an old mattress topper to the plywood to form a padded back. As you can see, my piece of foam didn't cover the entire piece of plywood, but that doesn't matter; the unpadded part will be at the bottom of the headboard. I cut the sides of the foam topper to fit the plywood using an electric knife.

Then I laid a piece of my fabric down on the ground, placed the foam side of the plywood on top, and pulled the fabric taut around all sides, using a staple gun to secure the fabric to the back of the plywood. See this post for detailed instructions. The cording around the perimeter of the headboard is made from an inexpensive fabric that I bought to coordinate with the houndstooth.

The headboard isn't attached to anything. The weight of the bed holds it in place against the wall. Since the plywood goes all the way to the floor, you could certainly screw the bedframe to the headboard if you like.

After making the headboard, I still had a good bit of fabric left over, so I made a few other accessories for the room.

I found a spray paint to match the houndstooth fabric (Secluded Garden by Valspar). I spray painted an old chair I had stashed in my attic, then recovered the seat. Since I already had the chair and the fabric, all I had to buy was a couple of cans of spray paint.

I found matching nightstands for just a few dollars at a local consignment store. They were nice cherry tables, but their tops were damaged (hence the small price tag), so I spray-painted them with Restoleum's Heirloom White and then lightly distressed them.

I found two matching metal lamps at TJMaxx for about $20 each. I didn't like the metal, but I liked the price, so I spray painted them with the Valspar Secluded Garden as well.

I found a cute little table at the same consignment store for $50. I thought it would make a good dressing table, and I found a stool on clearance at Bed Bath and Beyond that was just the right height to slide under the table. The taupe upholstery on the stool wasn't very pretty, but it was a good match for my houndstooth fabric, so I just hot-glued a strip of my houndstooth fabric around the base of the stool. I folded and pressed the fabric to be the right size, hot glued it in place at the top, used a staple gun to fasten the fabric securely underneath, then stapled on a bit of cording I had left over from the headboard project. I also sprayed the legs with the Valspar Secluded Garden. Now it's a sassy little perch, I think.

And I like the way it looks with the table:

The mirror shows the artwork I found for the room: six vintage-looking bird prints I ordered from Decor Steals. Have you ever ordered from DecorSteals.com? If you register for an account, they'll send daily emails with decor items for sale. I like the fact that shipping is always $5.00. (No affiliation; I just like the service!) You could achieve the same look with free printables or pages from a vintage book. But I was glad to find this set, since the prints were already framed and ready to go. And I used my own picture-hanging tip to hang these so they never get knocked askew.

The last two touches are the most expensive and cheapest parts of the decor. I had enough fabric left over to make a custom dust ruffle to match the headboard, but I knew that this project was beyond my meager sewing skills. So I had a local shop make it for me, using a wide band of the same fabric that the cording around the headboard is made from.

I paid over $100 for the bedskirt, but I think it was worth the cost for the level of detail it adds.

And the decorative pillows cost me nothing, so that helps to make up for the cost of the bedskirt.

I used some fabric from my stash to make the simple knife-edge pillows for the bed (tutorial here), then I used the last of the teal fabric to make a new-sew bolster pillow (tutorial here). The bedspread, by the way, was once a king-size coverlet. It had shrunk so badly that it could never again be used on a king-sized bed, but I liked the coverlet so much I kept it. I washed it in hot water and dried in on high heat to get it to shrink a bit more, and now it's a great size for this queen-size bed!

I'm tickled with the way this room turned out, and all the guests who have stayed in it have commented on what a lovely retreat it is. Isn't it nice that with some ingenuity and a few hours' time, you can create a beautiful space on a small budget?

I'm joining these parties:

Project Inspired at The How-To Home
Inspire Me Tuesday at A Stroll Thru Life

DIY fun old-fashioned Christmas ornament

I had so much fun making a Christmas ornament from one of my mom's handwritten recipes (see that post here) that I decided to do a little more Christmas crafting.

I pulled an old technique from my Christmas memories and made this pretty stencilled ornament:

An ornament like this is super-easy to make and very inexpensive--perfect for gift-giving!

Here are the supplies you'll need (affiliate links provided for your convenience):

plain fabric
masking tape or painter's tape
small wooden embroidery hoop
craft paints in your choice of colors
stencil brushes
Christmas stencils
felt or fabric batting
sharp scissors

To start, you'll need a tiny embroidery hoop, like this 4" one.

You can usually find these at craft stores or sewing stores, or you can order them online. They should cost less than $2 apiece.

You'll also need a small piece of fabric. Unbleached muslin works well. I had a few scraps of grainsack cloth, so I used that.

Use your embroidery hoop to measure a square of fabric. You'll want your piece of fabric to be a bit larger than the hoop.

Next you'll need a Christmas stencil. To make this ornament, I used a stencil that I've owned for many years. But there are lots of Christmas stencils available; you'll just need to find some small ones. I found several at amazon.com that would work well for this project, like the ones in this little book:



If you can't find a stencil that strikes your fancy, you can always cut your own! Use a small piece of plastic or a piece of stiff cardstock (an old manila file folder works well). Use an exacto knife to very carefully cut out a design, and voila! Instant stencil!

I use acrylic craft paint for stencils. These are easy to find at craft stores, usually for less than $1 per bottle. No special paints needed.

One special tool you will need: a good stencil brush or brushes. I like the kind with bristles. You can use a foam pouncer, but I think the brushes with bristles are easier to control. The supply list above links to a great inexpensive set, or you can find them at your local craft store.

Tape your stencil to the fabric with masking tape or painter's tape. Be sure to tape the stencil down securely so that it won't wiggle while you're working. And cover all sides of the stencil so that no paint can escape over the sides of the stencil.

If you're using more than one color in your stencil, mask off the sections that you don't want to paint with the first color. For a project this small, you may have to tear tiny pieces of tape to cover up little bits of the stencil. For my ornament, I covered up the portions I wanted to be green and painted all the red parts of the design first. Then I removed the tape from the portions that needed green paint and taped over the red portions. Don't assume that you can carefully stay within the lines: you can't. Tape over anything you don't want painted with a particular color.

Squirt a bit of paint onto a palette (for this, I like to use an old plate). Dip your brush lightly into the paint, then brush off most of the paint. Seriously, this is the most important step. You want your brush to be almost dry before you start applying paint to the fabric. You might want to practice on a scrap piece of fabric first.

Now hold the stencil brush straight up and down and pounce paint onto the stencil. Pounce, pounce, pounce, pounce, pounce, straight up and down. You're adding just a teeny tiny bit of paint with every pounce of the brush. Do not stroke the paint from side to side; go straight up and down. If you need more paint, dip your brush again, but be sure to remove most of the paint before touching the fabric.

These three techniques—taping off parts of your design, removing most of the paint from the brush, and pouncing straight up and down—are the most important tips for ensuring that your image stays within the lines of the stencil.

Repeat the technique until you've used whatever colors you like and completed the entire image. Then carefully remove the stencil from the fabric and admire your work!

To frame the ornament in the embroidery hoop, first place the hoop on top of the design, like so:

Center the design in the frame. You can make a couple of small marks on the fabric if needed. (You can see that I really should have cut a larger square of fabric for this project; I barely had enough fabric to fit the hoop!)

Now cut a piece of felt or batting to place behind your painted fabric. This will make the painted fabric look nicer from both the front and the back.

Slide the larger portion of the embroidery hoop over the smaller portion of the hoop and tighten the screw so that the image is pulled taut.

Hint: if the screw is hard to tighten with your fingers, use pliers. You want to be sure that it's screwed together nice and tight!

When you're satisfied with the tautness of the image, trim away the excess fabric with scissors. Then tie on a ribbon or a piece of twine to serve as a hanger.

Ta da! You will have created a beautiful ornament in less time than it took me to write this blog post!

This technique is especially useful if you need to make several small gifts—you can get an assembly line going and make up a bunch of these in very little time. And they look so pretty hanging on the tree!

Do you like to make Christmas ornaments? I'd love to see your creations!

I'm joining these great parties:
Inspire Me Monday at My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia

Wow Us Wednesday at Savvy Southern Style
Fabulous Party at LouLou Girls
Sew It Cook It Craft It at Sew Historically
Creatively Crafty at Life Beyond the Kitchen
The Creative Circle
Thursday Favorite Things
Flaunt It Friday at Chic on a Shoestring
Share It One More Time at The Everyday Home

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Master bathroom update

It's been quite a while since I've written about what I've been doing in our home, but today I'm glad to share with you the updates that we've made to one of the rooms we use the most: our master bathroom.

Isn't it funny how long it can take us to get around to working on spaces that aren't in the public eye? Yet room like this play a major role in our daily lives.

Here's what our bathroom looked like before. Not horrible, but a little dated and a little too much on the brown side.

The tumbled marble tile work was fine with me, which was a good thing since our budget wouldn't accommodate such a big change.  But I wanted to de-emphasize the brownish tones, so I painted the walls with Benjamin Moore Revere Pewter.  This "greige" color still works fine with the tumbled marble; in fact, it's a close match to the groutwork in the tile. 

Once the room was lightened up with new paint, we could move on to other changes. The one element of the old bathroom I really disliked was the shower door, so changing it was the biggest priority.  I really like the new glass door.

Unfortunately, replacing that door ate up most of our budget, so we had to prioritize other changes. I would have loved to have a beautiful claw-foot tub, but decided that the existing jetted tub was fine for now. I still love the Lichtenstein-style portrait of me that my husband had made (you can read the story behind this portrait here).



I also considered replacing the countertops, but ultimately decided that the Corian was fine. It's in excellent shape and is very neutral. But the sink faucets were in pretty bad shape, so we replaced those with these lovelies:



The new faucets are from the Cassidy line by Delta, and we're very happy with them.  The faucets for our shower and tub were fine, so we just replaced the sink faucets. We stuck with brushed nickel so that the new faucets would play nicely with the old ones.

The other big change was the mirrors.  As you can see above, we had huge expanses of plate-glass mirror. They were in fine shape, but I was ready for a change. I considered framing the old mirrors, but ultimately decided against that. I was especially tired of the L-shaped mirror over my sink and vanity area. After measuring three times to be absolutely sure of the dimensions, I chose a fairly inexpensive but substantial-looking molding and had the mirrors custom-made at my local frame shop.  I think the new mirrors make a big difference in the look of the room.



The other changes I made were all very inexpensive or even free.

I simplified and updated the accessories around the tub.  I filled one of my apothecary jars with gorgeous lavender bath salts that a friend made for me; aren't they pretty? They smell heavenly. The white soap dish I found at the dollar store.



I re-used some of my old houndstooth fabric to cover an inexpensive X-leg ottoman from Target's Threshold line.



My vanity chair got recovered with some fabric left over from another project, and  I re-used my old lamp after spray-painting it with Valspar's Secluded Garden.

I'm so happy with our lighter, brighter space! The only big-ticket item in our mini-remodel was the shower door, but I think we succeeded in updating our space significantly with several small changes.

What do you think?

I'm joining these fun parties:

Wow Us Wednesday at Savvy Southern Style

Brag-Worth Thursday at Bless Er House

Create a welcoming garage entrance

One of the things I most like to do in my home is to create a feeling of welcome.  I especially enjoy making the front porch say "Welcome!" to everyone who visits here.

Unfortunately, those of us who live here seldom use the front door.  We enter through the garage door, which greeted us with dingy paint and not much else.  So I decided to do something about that.

Of course, I knew that whatever I did needed to be extremely practical.  This is not the spot for decor that can get in the way when we're bringing in bags of groceries!

I started by putting a fresh coat of white paint on the door and giving the steps a good scrubbing.  I also bought a plain coir mat for the foot of the steps.

Then I used my word processing software to create lettering for the front door.  I simply printed off the words I wanted it in the fonts I liked, flipped the pieces of paper over, scribbled on the back of the lettering with a lead pencil, and then taped the papers to the door and traced the outline of the words onto the door.  (Click here to read all about that process.)  Here's how the lettering appeared on the door:



If I had a craft cutter, I would have cut vinyl letters for the door.  Or I could have ordered custom vinyl lettering.  But I like this process because it allows me to choose any fonts I like and to print them in any size I like--the options are endless!--and it's free!

I'm afraid that I'm not very good with a small paintbrush, so I colored in the letters with a black Sharpie marker.

Then to give the steps a little pizazz, I found a tan craft paint that was about the color of the coir mat I'd purchased.  I painted a "runner" on the steps with the tan paint (the dark brown on the sides is the original color of the steps).  I used three of the tiny bottles of craft paint, which was my only expenditure for this project other than the coir mat.  When the tan was completely dry, I used painter's tape to mark off 1 1/2 stripes on each side of the tan runner and painted those with black craft paint. This process was painstaking but easy.  Here's a close-up:

Since I had simply painted the steps with craft paint, I figured it wouldn't be very durable.  So when the paint was completely dry, I sprayed the steps with clear urethane.  

It's not perfect, as you can plainly see, but it doesn't have to be perfect to be great, does it?  Here are the steps with the coir mat in place:

The mat is great for wiping our feet, and I love the way our humble steps look with their painted runner!  

Now when we get out of our cars to come inside the house, here's our entrance:

Not bad for less than $20 and a few hours' work, I think.  Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home!

Do you do anything to make your garage door a welcoming entrance?  I'd love to hear!

I'm joining these parties:

Inspire Me Tuesday at A Stroll Thru Life

Wow Us Wednesday at Savvy Southern Style

Your Turn to Shine at Bless 'Er House

Frugal Friday at The Shabby Nest

My updated kitchen

If you're like me, you really enjoy peeking into bloggers' homes.  Inspiration abounds, good ideas flow freely, and besides--it's fun to see what your online friends are up to!

But if you're like me in another way, it's sometimes discouraging to see into bloggers' homes. Projects appear to be completed overnight.  It feels as though no one seems to struggle as much with real-life interruptions as much as I do.  Sigh.

I started a kitchen mini-remodel last spring.  Spring of 2014, you understand.  And though I made great strides in just a few weeks, I did not complete the task until now.  15 months later.  Does this happen to anyone else?

Here's how things looked before I started.

And here's the same view today, with all updates complete:

This was not a dramatic makeover by any means, but I wanted to add more of a farmhouse feel to this big kitchen.  So here's what I did.

Changed the wall color.  This was the easiest project, of course, and I'm enjoying the new, light look.  The color is Sherwin-Williams Liveable Green.  Although my kitchen doesn't have a lot of wall space, I like this soft green color.



Changed the faucets.  I really like these faucets, which are from the Cassidy line by Delta.  They're nice and heavy, and I like the way the two faucets coordinate without being exactly the same.

Changed the tile backsplash.  I swapped the tumbled marble for a crackle-finish subway tile.  The new finish is lighter, brighter, and much easier to clean.  I also took away the stainless steel backsplash from the stovetop.



Painted the kitchen island.  This may be my favorite change.  The color is Oakmoss by Sherwin Williams, and I love the way the green island breaks up the sea of brown.  I also changed the knobs and pulls on the island to polished chrome ones (Gilmore by Restoration Hardware).

Added a beverage fridge to the island.  This was the most complicated and expensive part of the update, but we've enjoyed this so much.  I chose a ULine fridge, which is wonderful--it's part wine cooler, part cold beverage storage. Fitting it into the island required more extensive cabinet surgery than I expected, but I found a good carpenter who got it done.  All the details of that makeover are here.

Changed the lights over the island.  This was as simple as the fridge was complicated.  These pendants are from Ballard Designs, and they simply screw into existing recessed fixtures.  I especially like them with Edison bulbs in the sockets.

Painted and recovered the barstools.  They'd been black for a long time.  I spray-painted them and recovered the seats.

Created faux grain sack covers for the chairs around the table.  This was a fun project.  I simply cut a canvas drop cloth into squares large enough to fit my chair cushions, then just used painter's tape to create the stripes.  First I taped each square like this:



I painted that stripe with craft paint, then applied tape like this.  (You can see that I used tape to mark spaces on my plastic ruler, which is how I made sure that the width of the stripes was the same on all chairs.)



The painted stripes looked like this:

Then I simply used my staple gun to attach these to the chairs.

Changed the window treatment.  I liked the look of my faux grain sack chairs so much that I created a new faux Roman shade for the window over my sink.  I cut a drop cloth to the right size for my window, then used the same tape method to create stripes down the length of each side of my fabric.  I was very diligent to measure carefully from each side to insure that the stripes were straight, which was a little tedious but not hard.  Then I followed my own faux Roman shade tutorial (click here for that) to create the new shade.  I like it a lot!



And with that, I think I'm finished.  And it only took me about 15 months to complete this project. Here are some more views of the new space:

So what do you think of the changes?  And do you ever struggle to get projects finished?  Please tell me I'm not alone!

Details:

Cupboards: maple beadboard

Granite: Santa Cecilia

Drawer pulls and cabinet knobs are from Restoration Hardware

Major appliances: KitchenAid

Beverage refrigerator: ULine

Light fixtures: Ballard Designs

Faucets: Delta

Wall color: Sherwin Williams Liveable Green

Island color: Sherwin Williams Oakmoss

Table: Pottery Barn (no longer available)

Kitchen chairs: Bassett Furniture

Upholstered chairs: Pottery Barn

Barstools: T.J. Maxx

Window treatment: No-sew faux Roman shade (tutorial here)

Let me know if you have any questions!

I'm sharing at these wonderful parties:

Inspire Me Monday at Sand and Sisal
Fabulous Party at LouLou Girls
The Scoop at Worthing Court
Inspire Me Tuesday at A Stroll Thru Life

One Project at a Time at A Bowl Full of Lemons

Wow Us Wednesday at Savvy Southern Style
Your Turn to Shine at Bless 'Er House