Whistle While You Work...

the frame project continues....

and I'm SUPER excited to finally have found a pillow set up on the bed that I like.  I've been playing around with various throw pillows for months.  I think, for now, we have a winner with these shams I purchased from West Elm this weekend.

I felt bad about tossing the blue pillows from the bed so they are on the ottoman in the meantime.  Looks so much better.  I also rolled down the duvet so the bed wouldn't be as puffy looking.  Still a work in progress but I like it 10 times better than how it looked before.

Okay, back to work. Time to do some measurements on the wall!

*whistling*,

SG

Writings on the Wall...

The next bedroom project is underway--the wall gallery!  While in Charlotte for work on yesterday I made a trip to IKEA to pick up one of each size of the RIBBA frame.   The goal was to make newspaper cut outs of each size and determine what layout I want and then go to IKEA next week while in Atlanta to purchase the exact frames that I will need.  

I've become semi-obsessed with wall galleries thanks much to Pinterest and a few blogs.  

Super cute right?  Anywho, here's an iPhone sneak peak at what's going on over here:

It's coming along!

Yay for Projects,

SG

p.s. all wall gallery pictures above can be found on my "Frame It" Pinterest album.

Wanna Know How To Paint Curtains?

Well you've come to the right place!  Recall, that I planned to paint curtains using a stencil from Cutting Edge stencil.  My right hand is sore and my legs are too, but the curtains are done and I'm excited to show you how it all went down!

Materials:
2 packs of IKEA Vivian Curtains [each pack has 2 panels]
Cutting Edge Stencil [Missing Link Allover Stencil]
Acrylic Paint [I chose silver]
Fabric Medium [to keep paint from being all crackly when it dries]
Paint Roller
Drop cloth for floor
Painters Tape [to hold everything down]

The pictures will speak for themselves from here on out...

fd

Each panel looked better than the one before since I learned a few tricks with each panel. My first panel took me 2 hours to paint but the fourth panel took me only 50 minutes.  I let them dry about 2 hours each and then hung them.  Tada!!

I was trying to be fancy with the camera by tilting it when taking the picture.
 Day Time View.

 Night Time View of Other Window.

I like how the squares on the curtains play off the squares on the duvet.

And the color of the curtains ties in with the ottoman at the foot of the bed!

And really, these pictures (and my not high quality digital camera) really do not do the curtains justice!! They look so nice in the room and bring us one step closer to slowly bringing this room together. Next up, I need to get some things up on the walls! 

Off to ask Troy for a hand massage,
SG

How Many Posts Can I Make About Our Bedroom Makeover without Actually Showing the Bedroom?

No more. "After" pictures are finally here!  But first, an explanation on what has taken me so long and why I gave up and decided to go on and post now!  I wanted to do a proper before/after entry last week but I've been waiting to upload old pictures of our bedroom.  However, due to some technical difficulties (my computer is keeping me from accessing my external hard drive which has all old picures--appointment at Apple Store on Saturday) I'm having to resort to two pictures that I happened to have saved to shutterfly in order to give you a look at the "before" of our bedroom and a peek at a few "after" pictures.  Once I get some better "before" pictures I'll update this post.

Okay, now! Where'd we leave off? Oh yes, we painted our room, got rid of every single piece of furniture and the mattress (and the TV) and basically started over from scratch.  The only thing that stayed was the carpet (which is in our room because the master bedroom is not original to the house, so no pretty hardwood floors). 

Here's what the room looked like when we viewed it in January 2010, days after being on the market.  Gotta love staging:

Pretend that there are pictures here of the room right before we painted.   

And here are a few "after" pictures thus far...  

Isn't the paint color close to some of the inspiration pics?!  I'll be back with more details on some of the plans for the immediate future, like my stencil curtain project which I hope to work on while on vacation in September!!! But, for now, we're loving the new room! And, yes, the plastic is still on the TV per Troy's request.  The man is odd!  But, I love him!! 

Hope you enjoy the before/after.  There's still so much more I want to do in here but the biggest parts have been done!! Whaddaya think?!

Finally some "after" pictures, 

SG

p.s. please hope that I can get access to my external hard drive.  Otherwise, I will be sad for about 3 minutes.  And then I will move on.  :-)

IT'S HERE!!

The bed is up and the media console is next. . . I'm washing the new duvet as we speak and so excited to make the bed up once everything is finished!!! Stay tuned for sneak peek pictures!

Why does new furniture excite me so much?,
SG

TWO MORE DAYS!!!

Furniture arrives on Wednesday morning!!  Electrician just left putting in an outlet on the wall that the media console & tv will sit in front of.  We're all set!!  AND, I purchased white curtains this weekend for my curtain DIY project.  Now I'm just waiting for the stencil to come in.  So much to look forward to! Stay tuned!

I'm so excited. And I just can't hide it!!,
SG

DIY Pillow . . . Again. But Easier.

Remember when I made pillows last year?  Well, I'm at it again but this time it took me less than 20 minutes and I didn't need a sewing machine!!  AND I didn't even have to go to a fabric store and gauge how much fabric I'd need.  Basically, this was so easy anyone can do it.  So here's what you'll need:

2 20x20 dinner napkins (got mine from World Market)

sewing tape

iron

scissors

pillow insert or filler

that's all folks!

And here's all it takes.  Take your two napkins and set one to the side (Napkin 1).  Take the other and cut it in half evenly (Napkin 2). See Napkin 2 cut in half below.

Place the cut portions of Napkin 2 side by side with the design of the fabric facing down (as pictured above).  But, unlike the picture above, place the cut middle of Napkin 2 on the outside, this will allow the non-cut sides to be your flap on the back, nice and even.  (If that doesn't make sense, basically, look at the picture above.  turn each of the two sections so that the white cut edges are on the outside and not on the inside as shown above).  Place Napkin 1, fabric down, over the cut napkin.  It will look like this.

Now all that's left is to seal this sucker with some no-sew tape.  Before you begin no-sew sealing the the pillow, bring one of the halves of Napkin 2 over some of the second half of Napkin 2 so that you will have an overlap on the back of your pillow. Then simply close the outer sides of the napkins with no-sew tape and an iron.

Cut off the  small piece that is left hanging on the side.  And once it's all taped together flip that sucker inside out.  You can then stuff it with a pillow insert, a pillow, or, what I did here, any type of stuffing.  I used the stuffing to give the pillow a "down pillow" look.  And here she is.  Less than 20 minutes. It took me longer to try to find the proper wording to explain what I did than it took for me to actually make the pillow!

And in back I just used some velcro strip from Target that just keeps it sealed all purdy in back.  Here's picture of the back.

isn't she a beaut?! I can't wait to see how she looks on the new bed with new bedding.  All of which should take place on August 17th when the furniture arrives!!  So, there ya have it. Quick and easy way to turn inexpensive napkins into an expensive looking "down" pillow! Quick recap:

The napkins were $3.99 each. So total cost for the pillow was $7.98 (I already had all the other items). Can't beat that! 

DIY fun continues,

SG

p.s. all pictures taken with my iPhone because my camera and computer are having a love/hate relationship right now. minus the love.

While I'm Waiting...

While waiting for the arrival of our new furniture (August 17th is delivery date!!), I've been hit by the DIY (aka "do it yourself") bug!!  Thanks to my newest addiction known as Pinterest, I've been motivated to DIY our curtains for our room.  But, I want to wait until the furniture is in the room and the new duvet is on the bed before I make any other big decor steps.  So, in the meantime, I can share with you what I'd like to do and my inspiration.  

You see, I realized that I didn't want just plain white curtains in our room since the bedding is solid white.  So, I decided on white curtains with touches of blue. Not too little. But not too much.  Thus, I turned to Target, West Elm, Pottery Barn, Ikea, World Market, Overstock, etc... and NOTHING!! Not one thing that I liked and there were very slim pickings in the category that I was looking for.  That's when I turned to my trusty friend Pinterest and typed in "painted curtains" and look at these two in particular that turned up in my search:

You can't even tell they're painted right?!! So yeah I'm inspired and I think I'm going to take white curtains and paint them with stencil in this pattern.  I'm pretty excited about it!! Here's the stencil on a wall for visual effect.

Welp, that's the plan! Stay tuned to see how it unfolds.  But, the DIY bug doesn't stop at the curtains.  This week I did a small little project that I'm pretty pleased with.  More about that later!

Excited about my curtains,
SG

p.s. the two painted curtains are from here and here.

It Is Finished!

Sorta.  The painting of our master bedroom was completed on Friday and geez o' pete it looks good! BUT, I won't be able to show you pictures of the room all nice and empty until Sunday or Monday when we move out all of our old furniture (we're giving it to a friend who is moving into a new apartment).   Once the room is all empty I'll snap some pictures and show you!!  It'll be empty for a while... that is, until our two new pieces arrive!  Well, three new pieces.  We've ordered a bed, media chest, and a new mattress.  

So, now that the paint is done, let's talk furniture!!  It's going to be a piece by piece process because I have a few projects I want to do with the room.  But for now, we've ordered

This bed:

And this Media Chest:

I'd also love to add a (1) storage ottoman at the foot of the new bed, (2) a small table with a cute lamp on it and a wall of frames above it on one of the side walls in the room, (3) a nice chair for relaxing, and potentially (4) one more chest if the media chest and storage ottoman don't provide enough storage.  Oh, and of course we'll need (5) a new TV to sit on the media chest.  So yeah, a step-by-step process for sure because like momma used to say, "Money don't grow on trees!" 

In the meantime, I'll just keep looking for inspiration on pinterest and finding more ideas!

One Step at A time,

SG

Teaser...

The painting is coming along quite nicely!! It's blue, it's bold, and it's beautiful!!! Very close to a lot of the inspiration pictures!!  Here's a picture that I snapped on my iPhone today on my lunch break!



Stay tuned,
SG

p.s. you can't tell but the paint is Night View!! It was much less bold in the sample square seen here.  But it's a pleasant surprise!! So far, we're loving it!! Painting should be done by this evening!

PAINTING BEGINS TODAY!!!

So excited to see what it looks like when I come home from work!!...if it doesn't look a hot "I'm not done yet" mess, I'll post a picture!!

Super excited,
SG

Which Blue Hue...

...should we do?

Night View on top and Pitch Cobalt on bottom. 

Missed the entries talking about the bedroom makeover--check them out here and here.

Getting excited,
SG

So The Inspiration Has (Slightly) Changed...

Yesterday, I told you that we're finally moving forward in our bedroom re-do!!  Last March I shared two pictures that would serve as inspiration for our bedroom makeover.  Well, things have changed just a bit.  Instead of a light to medium blue paint, we've decided to GO BOLD with a deep blue or bluish gray hue.  So now, meet some of our new inspiration:

 

So, to review, the master bedroom game plan is as follows:

• deep blue walls (Night View or Pitch Cobalt both by Valspar)
• bright white trim
• dark wood furniture (more on that later)
• light crisp bedding 
• white curtains (with some type of pattern)
• silver accents (lamps, knobs on media chest)

Stay tuned,
SG

p.s. all pictures and sources can be found on my Pinterest page here!