A Juvenile Sense of Humor

More Mom Cave projects! Woo hoo! It's really coming along.

Quick question for anyone who has a preschooler/toddler, or knows a preschooler/toddler.

Besides "No", what is the one word you hear most in a day?

For this project, I picked up some white letters at Joann. They were on sale. I spent $6 for 4.

A couple quick coats with Mediterranean Valspar spray paint, and hung with Command Strips let's everyone know this space is...

MINE!

It's mine! Mineminemineminemine!

ha!

Have a good one.

Linking to some of these great parties.

Now go make something!

Striped Post

There's a support post in my mom cave.

And apparently if something stands still long enough, I'll put a decorative paint treatment on it. Like here. And here. And here.

This time I decided on horizontal stripes.

Taped.

Finished!

Pretty!

Mixing three different wall treatments in one room... too much? Plain, painted wallpaper and stripes. Do I need a decorative-paint-treatment intervention?

Eh, the colors are subtle. It's working for me.

Since I have to work around this column anyway, I have a plan to add a gift wrapping station, made from wood scraps and a dowel. But it will require some minor building. Maybe Mr. RBR will give me a lesson.

Stay tuned!

No go make something!

Room with a (Fake) View

Work continues on the Mom Cave. If you've been following along, you know the mom cave is in the basement.

Our basement is a "true basement". No walk out. No full size, light filled windows--no egress windows even. All the windows are glass block and very small and high. It makes it a little claustrophobic. At best it's just very basement-y.

Mr. RBR dumpster-dived some old windows for me. What a guy. :) Honestly he's regretted it ever since because he found a bunch, and they've been laying around for years as I've slowly been finding uses for them.

I think two windows would made a perfect addition above the couch in the mom cave. Here they are, waiting in the "cool junk pile" in the basement ready for their makeover.

I used two windows that (I think) were a pair. A top and a bottom. After a decent cleaning, I sprayed the back of the glass with Krylon Looking Glass spray paint.

Looking Glass spray paint gives a mirror like finish to glass. You simply give a few coats to the BACK of the glass. That's it!

Looking Glass spray paint has the perfect level of reflection for this project. It's not super highly reflective like a mirror. It's almost old and smoked looking. Perfect for these old windows.

I found this spray paint at Hobby Lobby, but you can find it at other craft stores or online. The cans are pretty small, and I used 2 cans--one for each window.

Then I painted the front side of the windows black because there are a lot of black accents in this room. I removed the latching hardware from the bottom window, so I could get the windows as close together as I could. The latch was in the way. Next I attached the windows together with some reinforcing hardware (got this at Lowes).

Hung it up behind the couch with some wall anchors....

Ta Da!

A room with a view! Sort of. It's kind of fun, don't you think? It certainly brings a sense of lightness to the space.

Soon I'll add some curtains, and you won't even recognize this wall! It's already an awesome transformation. Take a look at this progression. It's all the same wall.

Looking for another window project? Check this one out.

Linking to some of these great parties.

Now go make something!

Easy Peasy Chevron Pattern

101 followers?! Who are you people? I only told 4 people in real life about this blog (and not even my own mother). To think there are 101 people who don't know me, but who are interested in what is going on here is mindblowing. HOORAY! Welcome!

On to the good stuff...

Check out how I made this tray over with a chevron pattern.

I found this tray at Goodwill for $5.99.

Those ottomans had a makeover too. Check them out here.

This is what the tray looks like now.

After a light sand, I painted this sucker with some turquoise paint. It was just one of those $3 samples I used for some other projects.

After a couple coats I had a bright, pretty, clean slate.

This tray is going on my heavily patterned ottomans, so I wanted this chevron nice and large so it wouldn't compete. A smaller pattern on a smaller pattern would probably be too busy.

I came up with a pretty easy way to do a chevron pattern. Let's get to it.

I cut out a section of posterboard that measured 3" x 9".

I thought it might be fun to angle the pattern a bit, so I placed my template randomly on my tray.

I outlined the rectangle lightly with pencil.

Next I flipped the template 90º and traced again.

I did this over and over until my tray was filled with the chevron pattern.

Next I decided which areas I wanted to be my accent color (my favorite green, Meadowlands by Valspar). I used FrogTape brand painters tape (super duper awesome stuff) to tape inside the lines I wanted to remain turquoise.

Then I painted the areas I wanted to be green.

Let it dry and painted again.

While the second coat was still damp, I removed the tape. I am really impressed with this tape. The lines are really crisp.

I let my tray dry overnight. The next day I used a damp cloth to remove the pencil marks.

Then I gave it a coat of Flat protective spray to preserve my hard work. After all, before too long this will probably be used for cocktails in my mom cave.

ha! Yeah, right. It's probably more like this.

Sippies and bottles.

Ah well. Let's pretend my life is glamorous for 2 seconds and that I have people over for cocktails.

Give this chevron technique a try, then tell me how it went!

One more before and after.

Linking to some of these great parties.

Now go make something!

Work Table Makeover

Here's another hand me down. Just like the chair from yesterday, this drop leaf table was in our house growing up. I remember it being in our living room.

When I moved out I totally stole it.

No, no. My mom was happy to cast it off on me. Promise.

Back in the day (13ish years ago?) I painted it two different shades of sage green to match the chair.

But now I think it's begging for something more bold.

A black top and white legs suits it well, don't you think?

Here is the pair together in my work area in the mom cave.

Looking good! (except that faded denim pillow. How'd that get in there? That's not staying).

What I like most about this table is the versatility. With the drop leaves down, the table and chair fit snugly side by side.

I can flip out one leaf for more room, and sort of a desk.

If I have a project that requires lots of room, I can flip both sides out.

And then put it all aside when I'm done.

Nice!

Before:

After:

Linking to some of these great parties.

Now go make something!

Chair Makeover

This could also be called "Seat Recovering 101".

Here's a pretty chair that has made the rounds.

It was originally part of a set that my mom bought for our dining room when I was a young teenager. She found them in the classifieds section of our local paper.

They served us find for years. My mom eventually bought a new dining set right around the time that I got my first apartment, so the old dining set (a 70s table and 5 redone antique chairs) came with me. Shabby Chic was just become the thing at the time, so I remade the chairs with distressed minty green paint and softly colored plaid seats.

Eventually I bought a new dining set, so the table and 4 of the chairs went in a garage sale. But I kept this captains chair (the other 4 were armless). I use it primarily at my crafting/sewing work table. It still sports the paint scheme I gave it 13ish years ago.

I gotta say, I'm pleased it's not that out-of-date. It still looks ok to me. But my tastes are changing slightly. I still like time-worn finishes, but I like bolder and more modern things too. So it's time for a makeover.

True confessions time. I bought too much black and white fabric.

I only needed 3 1/3 yards for my ottoman makeover. I was nervous about that project and bought 5 yards. Normally I'd pick out a new fabric for this chair, but the cheap side of me is just going to use what I already have. I'm sure it will be fine, it will just be a little more matchy-matchy than I originally wanted.

(channeling my kids' whiney voice) But I don't like match-matchy.

I'm trying to get over it.

Have you ever recovered a chair with a fabric seat? Don't be intimidated. It's super easy. Flip the chair over. You'll see 4 screws.

See the black dots in the cross braces? Those are the screws.

Take out the screws, and the seat will pop right out.

Cut out a piece of fabric large enough to wrap around the back.

You'll be wrapping the fabric around the back and stapling it.

I alternate opposite sides when stapling. For instance, I'll do a row of staples across the top, then I'll staple the bottom (while holding the fabric taught). Then a row across the left side, then the right (stretching fabric taught again).

Alternate sides when stapling.

Leave corners for last.

When you're finished, just screw the seat back in. A couple coats of white semi gloss finish off this chair makeover.

Before:

After:

Did you notice my work table got a makeover too? More on that tomorrow.

In the meantime, linking to some of these great parties.

Now go make something!