No Sew Curtains!

I realized that way back when, I didn't show you all how I made the no sew curtains. It's so easy! When we were thinking about our downstairs doors, we didn't want to do those annoying vertical blinds. We had those at our old house and honestly I wanted to set them on fire! :) I wanted to make sure that it was bright enough during the day, but not too bright for when Tim is editing. And I wanted them to give us privacy at night. The backyard at night creeps me out so I had to make sure they covered the doors.

I wanted the fabric to be more on the neutral side. That way if we ever want to change up the room, they should match. Not gonna lie, I've been in love with the new zig zag fabric that is out there. At first I wanted the green and white zig zag but figured i have enough green and that wasn't all that neutral. So I went with the gray and white. I found it on I believe buyfabrics.com for only $6 something a yard..that's amazing! The plan was to use black out fabric behind it but I was worried I'd mess it up if I had to sew. So here's what I did.

First I washed the fabric and after it was dry i figured out what was half and cut it. I didn't wash them last time and the upstairs curtains are a little stiff. After that I busted out the no sew tape and went to town. All you do is cut the tape the same length as the side you're doing, fold it over the same width as the tape and then hold the iron on the spot, no wiggling. I only did a little at a time so I didn't mess it up. I'm a little OCD and I had to do it like this: Top, Bottom, Side, Side on both pieces. You can do it anyway your heart desires, I'm just weird. Obviously after washing them they were wrinkling, so I tried to iron them. I hate ironing! Even though they didn't come out with no wrinkles, we still love them! It gives them a more "we've been here a while" look.





I guess I should mention that I bought the rings with the clips on them. I did this because A. It's the easiest B. Child proof and C. Winston proof. He loves walking in the curtains. Weird. We went with a gun metal finish. At first it was because I didn't want black but then I noticed that our card catalog's handles had the same finish.



What's nice is we can drag them any which way we want! We are in love! I hope that this helps you make your own curtains! It's so stickin easy!!

jo

Needing Some Umph..

So I realize it's been a while since I've posted. Wedding season has started for Tim so our weekends aren't as free and relaxing as they used to be. Also I haven't really been inspired by anything lately. I feel like I've hit a wall and just don't want to do anything anymore! And I'm not going to lie..it's hard to do anything when there isn't some cash flowing in. :) But that's all about to change!

I've been saving some money so we can redo somethings in the kitchen. Like a new counter top, new back splash, new sink and faucet, and paint all the cabinets a true white (I really don't like that they are a creamy white and our appliances are white. Drives me crazy!) Tim approached me one day suggesting using that money for all the things we're wanting to get done now. Let me show you this list of things we need/want done now...

•build outdoor sectional, get cushions
•make bed
•decorate bedroom!!
•paint bedroom and do something on bed wall
•finish dresser!
•organize closet and laundry room
•make coffee table
•finish curtains downstairs
•grill

That's a hefty list for the amount of money I've got stashed. But I'm bound and determined to get as much of it done as I can. Now that we've decided we are going to do this, I need to find some inspiration. So I guess that should be first on the list...

Wish us luck!!

jo

Another Room Down...Almost.

So I've already told you all about how when we moved in Tim and I decided to do one room at a time. At that time we decided we were going to do all the upstairs and the basement would be last. Well that didn't last long! Honestly we spend most of our time down there and since Tim went full time with his photography, he is down there all the time, it made sense to start working down there. It's funny what a can of paint can do in a room! We were thinking about doing either a green or a blue, but nothing that was too bright or too dark. Since it serves as 2 rooms I had to think what would be best. Green was out. Every time I walked by the green swatch, it just didn't scream out at me! At one of our many trips to Lowes, Tim found the perfect blue. I think we ended buying a sample can that night! We fell in love! Tim wasn't sold on every wall being blue, and while watching a re-run of Project Runway I noticed one of their walls in the Lounge had a cool design to it. I thought it'd be cool to do something on the office side to help define the different areas. We both drew out different ideas but we ended up doing horizontal lines that gradually get bigger as they go up. It's so fun and it breaks up all the blue! We also rearranged the room but of course I don't have a before of that...only one of how it looked before we painted. I'm awesome.





I guess I should mention how amazing my husband is...so I painted the white wall one day to prepare for whatever design we were going to do. Tim mapped out the stripes, painted them, cut the whole basement, (because he knows to NEVER let me do the cutting) and painted the high parts...I only had to paint the lower half of the living room side...yea, amazing!



Winston thought his tail would work as an excellent brush...not so much bud!





Here's Tim mapping out the stripes. I helped do the bottom but I believe I was super tired and was having one of those slap-happy moments. I just couldn't comprehend what his plans were and why we were taping a certain way and I wouldn't stop laughing. Needless to say he sent me away. He decided that night to do the blue so he wouldn't forget what part had to be painted. He did tape the parts not to paint but he still had to do it...



And here it is now-ish. There's a lot on there since we are lacking in storage. Hopefully that will come soon.



I'll be back soon telling you all about that desk and about the new light fixtures down there!

jo

The Twins are DONE!!!

EEEEEE!!! They're done!!! Are you as excited as we are??? I hope so!!

Of course I'm talking about the chairs for the living room! They're amazing! I actually gave the upholster Sandy a hug. :) She did such a good job. She had a fight with them when she put the nail heads in. There are a few spots that I need to go back and touch up, i just haven't had time. Plus you wouldn't be able to see it unless you had your face super close to them. Oh and I guess I should mention how long it took her...3 days! We dropped them off on Sunday and she called me Wednesday telling me they were done! We couldn't get up there until Friday, so don't worry I haven't been holding out on you all!! Ok, I'll stop talking about them and show them to you!!

Here's a before..



And NOW!!





We LOVE them!! Here's what the living room was before..



And the room after...now don't judge the awfulness of the picture. I'm tired and was feeling lazy! We're making a coffee table, so once that's done I'll have Tim take a pretty picture of the room!!



Notice Winston..? That's his favorite toy, ever!! I love that dog!

What's next you ask?? Well the coffee table aaaaaannnndddd the basement!! Woo-Hoo!

jo

The Great Wall of Fleenor

(yeah, that title is courtesy of Tim...)

First...an update on the chairs!!

Thanks to my good friend Jenni..I found an upholster who is doing my chairs for...wait for it...$50 a chair!! Now compared to some of the other places I called..this is a steal. (One person wanted $180 a chair, hahahahahaha!!) Tim and I drove them up north on Sunday and met Sandy. She's awesome. She teased me a lot for what I thought I could do. I should get them sometime this week!! eeeee!! If you or anyone is in need of some upholstery, contact her! thegoodjunkshop@yahoo.com and her name is Sandy. Just one tip..if you do what Tim and I did, keep the fabric that you took off. She needs that to make a pattern out of it, so don't throw the scrapes away. Or she said she's had someone take her the chair, she rips it all off, you go back and get it so you can paint it, and then take it back for her to finish.

Ok now onto the latest thing we've finished. I'm awful and only have a before picture from when we first moved in, In the living room, all of our walls are either tall and completely empty or full of windows. So we had to decide how we were going to fill those tall, completely empty walls. We thought out a few different ideas and decided on 2 different things for the 2 walls. The one wall that goes up our stairs is getting a special little treatment that you'll have to wait for! The other wall upstairs got a shelf face lift. We really thought this through. On one of our many trips to Lowe's we checked out their shelving choices and wrote down the measurements of the 3 different sizes we liked. When we got home, Tim took a picture or the wall and loaded that picture onto photo shop and sized down the measurements of the shelves so we could visually see what they'd look like. We decided on 2 large, 2 medium, and 3 small. We went back and got them and then we put those bad boys up. I'm not going to lie, these have been up since February, I just haven't finished filling the shelves.





Pretty much everything on these shelves are from thrift stores. And anything that is an animal or a nick-knack, we sprayed painted. We didn't really have an idea of what we wanted up there, whenever we saw something we liked, we got it. (Sometimes not knowing if it'd work anywhere!) After we painted the whole area and put up the curtains, I decided I wanted to bring in some other colors other than gray, yellow, and tealish-blueish. We went with orange and that granny smith apple green that I am now officially obsessed with. Tim might have to take the spray paint can away from me. :)

One thing we knew we wanted was a big, marquee "F". We had a hard time with that...let's be honest, we are still having a hard time with that. They are not cheap and we can't find one that fits everything we want. We might make one some day but for now we are happy with the foam board "F" Tim made last minute.



I'm happy with it...for now. I'm sure I'll see something at a thrift store that would look better up there. Who knows how many times the things up there will change! Oh and that lamp will be changing very soon! Hopefully you'll be hearing from me by the end of the week with the finished chairs!!

jo

Chair Blues..

I'm kind of sad..and when I say kind of, I mean I'm really really sad. Since I've had some days off, we decided to get to work on the new chairs for the living room. I found these amazing Victorian armchairs on craigslist for $100. Now I would of barter with the lady but...I was scared for our lives. I was happy Tim was with me...The lady met us in the hallway of a creepy apartment complex and told us to be quiet because there was a sleeping baby. (Riiiight) Once inside there were a handful of medieval swords and knives all over the wall in this house..At this point you'd think we'd leave. Nope! I had to have these chairs!! She showed them to us, I said yes before she could even finish telling us about them, gave her her money and peaced out!! Now I'm sure this lady was super nice and just liked collecting medieval things but it was creepy!!



Worth it right?!?

At first, I was going to have a professional take care of the twins but one of my sister-in-laws helped me figure out how to get the back of the chair off. They were a pain in my butt...lots of bad things came out of my mouth. :) I'll leave it at that. With lots of muscle help from Tim we got all that awful fabric off and we sanded them...mainly by hand. There are a lot of intrigue areas on these chairs. It took a lot longer than I wanted!!



We decided we were going to spray paint these to avoid dripping. That was one problem we had with our dining room chairs. We put on a coat of primer and noticed that the paint wasn't sticking to those intricate little areas!! BAH! I had Tim do a coat of spray paint just to make sure it was a bust, and it was. Still no sticking. We ended up buying a quart of nice white paint and did 4 light coats.



SO PRETTY!!

Now on to why I'm sad...I had everything we needed..fabric, cording, and nail head trim. Tim and I covered the seat cushions with muslin (I didn't feel like taking off that fabric) and I got the fun, bright, new fabric out and found out that we don't have the right tools. We tried the staple gun we used for our dining chairs but the staples weren't holding the fabric. We even got out the loud compressor hoping the extra umph would do the trick..no such luck!! So now I'm back to square one. I wanted so badly for these chairs to be done! I'll be calling around for a decent upholsterer and hopefully soon I'll have the final product! If you know of anyone who won't charge me an arm and a leg..please pass along their info!!

jo

I need your help!

So yes I still suck at this whole blog thing..I promise I'm going to try to do better! Our problem is we start something and then before it's finished we have to do something else, so things aren't getting finished. And I can't blog about unfinished things!! I've been off for a few days so things have been getting done...meaning you're going to get a butt load of blog updates! woo-hoo!!

Anyway, Tim and I can't agree on something..so I thought I'd ask for some help! At the end of our hallway Tim painted a mirror we got from a thrift store ($2!!) orange and put it up and surprised me. I love it!! But I think there needs to be something else down there with it. I was thinking a book shelf. Now we would have to build it because I don't think there's a book shelf out there that matches our exact measurements. I was thinking something along these lines..



(i found this picture searching in google, not sure where it's from)

I even love the color on back. I love it so much I decided to bring in it the living room, I bought spray paint that matches and went to town on some candle stick holders and some other little nick knacks. I measured out what I thought would look good and what wouldn't be awkward when walking out of our room but my wonderful husband still isn't sold on it. I think it'd look so good down there! So I thought I'd ask you guys what you think...here's the hallway..



What do you guys think...Let me know!!!!

jo