Bedroom Bling

I love my "new" bedroom.  I've been working on redecorating it for two months, and I am absolutely in love with the way it turned out.  There was just one more thing it needed...

I love the gloomy blues and greens in the room, but the black bed frame was a bit heavy and bland.  There's a lot of black in the room - in some of the furniture, in the picture frames - but it's punctuated with little dots of light in gold handles, knobs, and even some of the frames.  I wanted the bed to reflect that, and I've always loved the look of a black metal bed with gold bedknobs and finials.

This scared me, I'll be honest.  This gold metallic spray paint is BRIGHT GOLD, and I was worried that it would be WAY too much.  But at this point, there was no going back.  Especially since getting the headboard and footboard masked off with tape and newspaper took me like three hours. Whew!

It was, however, all worth it.  This is just exactly the amount of shininess this bed needed, and I LOVE the way it looks!  I love the way the gold catches the light, and the way all the little points of light on the bed sort of echo the sparkle of the string lights on the standing screen in the corner.  It pulls in the frames and the drawer knobs - in fact, I feel like I might paint another couple of the picture frames, I just haven't decided which yet.

I finally feel like my bedroom is done.

You know, for now.

Ikea Hack: A Sewing Desk

This was what my sewing corner looked like last week:

The sewing machines are on that same corner desk I've had for ages and never get around to finishing refinishing.  (Also it's missing a leg ever since we moved).  Next to it on the left there are two Ikea Helmer file cabinets which hold sewing and craft supplies.  You saw the new craft room last week; this is the story of the sewing desk.  So far it works really well and I LOVE using it. 

First: a can of Rustoleum's gray automotive primer: 

I used the same auto primer on an Ikea Raskog two years ago, and it came out really well.  The primer is made specifically for metal and metal paint, and that cart came out pretty much indestructible.  I wanted to use the auto primer again for this project because of all the abuse these Helmers take while I'm sewing.  

I also sprayed the handles gold (also R's American Accents): 

Once the primer was cured, I painted both Helmer units in Rustoleum's American Accents matte finish spray paint in Coastal Sage (sort of a blueish chalkboard-green color):

When both Helmers were painted and put back together, I purchased a 2x4' birch project panel at the hardware store and used it to create a desktop to go on top of them.  I raised the height of the desktop by placing a pair of 1" risers cut from an old shelving board on top of the Helmers.  I also used sections of clear Ikea Komplement drawer liner in between the wood pieces to keep them from sliding around.  

 So there's a new desk, for the cost of two cans of spray paint and a $26 piece of wood.  I turned two small pieces of furniture into one functional one, and moved a big, bulky, broken table out of the way.  Now I have a well-organized space that's comfortable and intuitive to use.  

Bonus:  my favorite part about my new sewing desk is the power strip on the right side - see it there, with the cords sticking out?  I have all the sewing machines, the light, the iron, and the pencil sharpener run through that power strip, so that I can turn the ENTIRE workspace on with one button.  Fwoosh! Ready to work.  The power strip even has USB charging ports, so I can charge my phone or whatever while I work.  Sweet!   

Blue and Green Shadows: Bedroom Makeover

Long post warning.


When last we saw my bedroom, it looked like this:

I had a white-on-white bedroom for about six years, the centerpiece of which was my beloved Ikea Alvine Kvist duvet cover and shams.  I loved the white look, but I was getting a little bored and wanted some color, so when I moved into my current home I painted my bedroom a sort of dusty medium blue (Sherwin Williams' Silvermist) without a second thought.  However, a few months in I realized that my blue walls and white floral comforter were looking a bit little-girl-bedroom-ish.

Then about a month ago I was looking through Ikea's online catalog, and I found this spread:

I needed it. I fell instantly in love with the tonal color scheme.  I needed those blue and green shadows playing off each other.  I needed the turquoises and teals and mints and aquas and deep, dark, hunter green.  I needed them in my life.

I instantly set about converting my bedroom to a room based on that picture.  Because I'm NUTS about blue and always have been, my house had no shortage of random knick knacks to harvest to use in my bedroom.  I removed everything that wasn't blue or green, and brought in a few blue and green things from around the house.  I changed most of the feel without spending a dime.

For the bedding - the biggest part of the makeover - I ordered this duvet cover and shams set from Amazon.com.  It's a perfect medium jade green (it matches Sherwin Williams' Privilege Green (what a weird name) and it plays with the blue sheets in a really neat way.

I also created a gallery wall above/around the bed, which was sort of accidental.  I love the nude woman on the green background (artist: Matt Manley) and planned to only frame a couple of small posters next to it to balance out its height;  but before I knew it I had created a whole wall of artwork in similar colors to those of the bedroom, and I LOVE the way it turned out.

I exchanged the white Ikea curtains for a set of muted teal sheers that I ordered online.  I hung 4 panels on the window instead of two, for depth and a little more light control.  There's still plenty of light for the plants, but the room isn't flooded in glare all the time - it's nice and moody, and dark at night.

I moved the wooden jali screen from behind my bed's headboard over to the corner, and hung solar string lights from the top of it (the little solar panel hides behind the curtains in the window). I have to say, I didn't think I'd like the lights, but I LOVE them so much.  In front of the screen and below the hanging philodendron is a small Ficus tree in a blue-gray scalloped ceramic planter.

On the other side of the window, next to my dresser, sits a blue Ikea Raskog utility cart.   The top of it is filled with small plants and cuttings, and glass jars.  Lower shelves house random things that I use regularly but which don't really match the room or have a permanent home - my makeup, jars of lotion, some books, and other little things like that.

This giant silver metal tray came from Ikea a million years ag (I forget the name) - and, actually, so did the dresser it's sitting on (I spray painted the handles gold).  Also dresser-top are a green jade lotus incense burner, a small gold picture frame, a Ming Aralia in a teal planter, a couple of blue glass bottles, and, centrally, a blue-green glass vase I scored at Goodwill for $3, with a fake white peony in.

The vanity in my room is all white, and there's nothing I can do about that, unfortunately.  But I have stashed lots of blue and green glass items on it - most of them are actually useful and contain little toiletry items like swabs, cotton balls, perfumes, and so on.

On the north wall of the room is my black jewelry cabinet and dressing table,  a small window with a dusky teal sheer curtain on it.  There's also a  Tullsta tub chair from Ikea, with their "Nordvalla" light green cover. 

So that's the room so far.  I love the way it looks, particularly at night when the string lights and the bedside lamp are the only light in the room and everything is all dusky and shadowy.  I don't know that I'm done with it - there could always be more blue and green glass in my life, hehe.  I think the room needs more little pops of gold and/or copper.  We'll see.  It'll be fun to play with until I get it right.

For fun, and to check my work, I matched up nearly everything in my room with my Sherwin Williams paint deck.  The deck is a few years old, so some of the colors are have been replaced/renamed, but they still come up on a google search if you want to see them. Here are the colors I've used in this room:


Blues:
Silvermist (walls)
Rain (sheets)
Quietude (glassware/ceramics)
Tempe Star (Raskog cart and some of the glassware)
Moody Blue (glassware)
Really Teal (curtains)

Greens:
Softened Green (lotus incense holder)
Hunt Club (chair pillow, pillowcases on the bed)
Courtyard (Manley painting background, most of the plants)
Rosemary (glassware)
Comfort Gray  (glassware/ceramics)
Spearmint (Ikea Tullsta chair cover)
Privilege Green (duvet cover and shams)

Making Over the Craft Room

It was time to do a complete overhaul of the entire craft room.  Here's what it looked like before:

Cluttered, crammed full of small furniture, and with a terrible, dark paint job.  We basically moved in, shoved a bunch of crap into this room, and never touched it again.  Bad. 

This little bookshelf wasn't being put to use very well - it was crammed up against the doorway and stuffed full of random crap that belonged in the closet.  

The closet doors were missing, and nothing in the closet (or out of it, truthfully) was very well organized.

First I set about organizing the room.  There were a couple of boxes which should have been stored in the garage that I moved out there;  everything else in the closet got reorganized and re-stacked, so that it would STAY in the closet.  Surfaces were cleared, things were put into plastic bins and stored on an Ikea Hyllis shelving unit in the closet.

Next:

1. I painted the room, in a color I mixed myself by adding some yellow-gold to the SW Silvermist I had on hand leftover from my bedroom. The resulting shade matches up to SW Comfort Gray, if you're interested.  
2. I hung curtains - I moved the white Ikea Matilda semi-sheers from my bedroom into this room, once replacements for the bedroom arrived in the mail (more on that later).  
3. I found the closet doors in the garage, ordered some replacement hardware for them, and re-hung them in the room.  The doors also got a fresh coat of white paint.  
4. I hung the ironing board on the wall behind the entry door, to keep it out of the way
5. I hung a pendant lamp over the sewing table, using an Ikea Hemma light kit and a glass sconce I've had for years.  It and the sewing machines are plugged into a power strip mounted on the side of the desk so that I can turn the entire sewing table on with one button.  
6. I moved a short bookcase from the door of the room over to the corner behind the sewing desk, and moved a small dresser to the door of the room, to hold the printer and printer supplies
7. I hung new art (printed from online) over the bookcase and art table in the rear of the room

Here's the whole room, more or less, in its finished state.  It's lighter and brighter, the windows softer, the furniture balanced and the floorplan open.  I rearranged the furniture and moved that little bookshelf next to the window to balance out the art table on the right side.  I LOVE my new sewing desk, and having doors back on the closet makes a huge difference in how clean and organized the room feels. 

The desk is made from a pair of Ikea Helmer file cabinets, spray painted in "Coastal Sage" (Rustoleum American Accents), with a 2x4' birch project panel across the top - up on 1" shelf risers to make the desk height the correct height.  I've got both sewing machines, the overhead light, and the pencil sharpener and iron plugged into the power strip on the right side of the desk, so I can turn EVERYTHING on at once with the touch of a button.  

Finally, the closet doors.  There's nothing remarkable about them, except that they're finally hung (it took some doing, and I had to buy all new mounting hardware), and they CLOSE and hide all the "organized clutter" inside.  

Tada!   

New Dining Room Table

Roommate and I needed a dining room table.  We each eat in our respective comfort spaces in the living room, but we wanted to have a large space in which to work on big craft projects that don't fit in the available space in the craft room.   It took a couple of weeks of searching for the right one;  but let me to introduce you to my new $40 Craigslist special:

It's a brown-stained, bar-height table with a built-in retractable leaf which extends the tabletop out into a full square.  I've actually had three tables exactly like this in my life, so when I saw this I was like, "Hello, old friend!"  The finish isn't in the greatest shape, but I was planning on painting it anyway.

Primer

The first thing I did was cut 6” off the legs to make this a normal-height dining room table (30").  Next I gave the entire table a thorough sanding - not to remove the finish entirely, just to eliminate any protective topcoat that would keep paint from adhering, and to smooth out dings and scratches in the top surface.

For the priming coat (above) I mixed half and half Killz primer with some of the gray paint leftover from the paint job in Roommate's bedroom (done before we moved in - Previous Tenant left us all her old paint).  This gave me a tinted half-primer to use that was dark enough for the black to go over with no problem, and it used up some paint I didn't want.

Next, the entire thing got two coats of black paint (leftover from last year's Hemnes cabinet project), which is a 50% mix of semi-gloss and chalkboard paint.  Once the black was dry, the top surface and leaf got a coat of Minwax Polycrylic to give it a little extra protection.  Last but not least, I put some little felt feet onto the legs to keep them from scraping loudly across the tile.

For $40 and a little elbow grease, we now have a place to work on craft projects, cut out fabric, and serve guests at our annual Halloween party.  I suppose we could even eat at it, like normal people, if we wanted (wait what?)

You know what you don't see in any of these pictures?  Chairs.  I've got one old Ikea Kaustby (discontinued), but a dining room table needs more than one chair.  Fortunately, I found one on bulk day this year that just needs to be fixed up.  I'm on the hunt for a couple more.

Unf*cking the Living Room: Step One

This is the first of what will be several posts about fixing up the living room.  I have a LOT of work to do, and I'm starting from the ground up.  I'm excited about it, and I can't wait to see some of the new changes myself. 

The problems we're dealing with in the living room are:

1. Tall, dark furniture looming over the seating arrangement
2. Not a whole lot of natural light
3. Dark furniture in the seating area
4. Not enough seating

Today I want to talk about the first thing, and address the floor plan.  Here is is "before": 

See the line of black bookhelves across the north wall (bottom of plan)?  There's a cabinet adjacent the to west, and across to the south a large, dark tv on a large, dark stand.  Altogether, they make sitting in the room feel like being at the bottom of a big, dark bucket.  Here's the room itself: 

sorry about the text, i was experimenting

From the other side, the room looks like this:

The chair on the left there is crammed up against a bookshelf, and the chair and side table and sofa are so close together you can't walk between them. 

Here's what we did to the bookshelves: 

(experimenting with furniture colors, please ignore)

All the bookshelves slid over and around the corner so that most of them are now on the west wall.  This leaves a lot of open space in the room for the chair and sofa. 

In the room, it looks like this:

Now the bookshelves are a part of the room, instead of towering over it - they feel like a discrete piece of furniture instead of a wall of furniture.  One chair is still at the bottom of a bookshelf, but in this case, it feels like it's part of a library - or so says my roommate, and she likes it. 

The other side of the room is completely open.  Now the chair and sofa are a comfortable distance apart.  The rug isn't large enough for the seating area, but that may be one of the changes coming up. 

New things happening in the room in the next few weeks: 

• A new slipcover for the sofa
• Maaaybe new slipcovers for the chairs
• New curtains on the back door
• New lighting? 
• A couple of new pieces of furniture

I also have some updates for the bedroom in a few weeks.  Stay tuned!

A Whole New Dining Room, Sort Of

Welcome back, me.

So, someone, at some time, painted a steel blue accent wall in almost every room of this house.  You saw the one in the bedroom a few months ago.  Here's the one in the dining room:

We'll, um, we'll talk about the burlap-and-ruffles light fixture in a minute.

For now, I wanted to show you this, which took all of an hour to accomplish:

It's nothing special, I just painted the wall white like the rest of the walls in the dining room, kitchen, and living room.  It's boring, but it blends in with the rest of the house, which is what I wanted it to do.

Okay, let's talk about this.  This is a cut-corner rectangle lampshade onto which has been hot-glued burlap and strips of an OFELIA blanket from Ikea (I have the same blanket and recognized it immediately).  It's another hideous artefact of the previous tenant, who left behind other treasures such as ugly, heavy drapes, broken curtain rods, gallons of used paint, and countertop scraps.

I mean...

For some reason - maybe this is an old light fixture thing that I just didn't know about? - I had to un-wire the bulb housing from this light fixture in order to get the shade off the fixture.  So this took a minute longer than I thought it would.  But it was easy - and here's the new shade:

There.  Plain, white, unassuming, boring, blends with everything.  It's also quite a bit brighter, since the bulb isn't having to fight against that burlap to get light out.

So that's the dining room squared away, until we can get a table in there to work at and maybe also eat at.  At the moment I'm working on things in the living room, and I'll have some new bedroom stuff to show you in the next couple of weeks, too.  TTFN.

FÖRHÖJA Cart For Art: Another Ikea Hack

The new MOPPE sideboard that I built replaced this Ikea FÖRHÖJA"kitchen cart," previously used as a kitchen island and more recently as a storage piece in the living room.  It was home to a 10g fishtank (recently updated to a 20g), a potted Benjamina Ficus, four Ikea SNALIS plastic storage bins filled with aquarium supplies and other random items, and a cat scratcher nobody was using anymore.

I loved my FÖRHÖJA, I just wanted to change the color and repurpose it.

So I Did! 

Meet my new art cart/table!  Many, many coats of stain and sanding sessions went into this. People, there were problems with staining this thing.  All told I went through four different stains, who knows how many coats of each, and sanded it all down and started over THREE TIMES.  The end result of all that abuse is a cart that's a bit rustic looking, which I did not want, but it's FINE the way it IS because it's DONE.  HMPH!

Anyway. I actually do love it now that it's finished. :)

This thing has 30+ pieces.  That was a lot of staining and sanding and staining.

So! Much! Storage! 

So many drawers!  Baskets! Stuff!!

I added a two-prong hook to the front for aprons and towels; and a hanging Ikea basket (BYGEL, spray painted gold) to the side to hold large tools and bottles and brushes.


I got the water hyacinth baskets on Amazon, and lemmetellya, they're my favorite thing about this whole piece.  I looooove the way these things smell. 

The MOPPE drawer boxes on top are the ones I made in August.

I also added a 6" board to the top, on a pair of long tension hinges, so that I could extend the table top for a larger work surface, and also have some storage space behind/under the unit for large canvases and boards...but it doesn't work!

Turns out the long hinges aren't strong enough to hold up the extension when you put any weight on it (I think they're made more for holding trunk/chest lids open); so eventually I'll need to get a better holdy-uppy solution so I can use the extension.














As much trouble as the stain and the hinges have been, I LOVE it now that it's finally done!  It's taller than my old art table, which is fantastic - I'm 5'9, I have a tall easel, and I like BIG canvases.  It also takes up significantly less floor space than my old table, which opens up the "art room" behind the couch.  The extra floor space also helps with getting Shelly in and out of the back door - she's weird about her walking clearance, and won't go through anything too narrow, and won't step over, like, a SHOE that's in her path. Weird dog. (She's really old). 

More space in a tiny duplex is always welcome! 

Now I have a great new space to do more stuff like this:

Volcanic Seascape, November 2018, after a USGS photo of Hawaii's coastline back in July when Kileauea erupted

[Funko Pop] Bob Ross, patron saint of aspiring artists ❤

What's Going On

NO  DISASSEMBLE

Remember the Ikea FORHOJA kitchen cart that I was using as a sideboard type thing before  I built the apothecary unit?

This is it, all disassembled. It's already been sanded down fully, and given a first coat of stain. Judging by how the staining is going, it may need 25 coats. We'll see.

What else am I doing right now?

• Crocheting a blue shawl
• Crocheting a multi-colored sweater
• Painting the legs of a little nightstand-table I have sitting around in my bedroom (finished)
• Sewing 5 cushion covers for a friend's couch
• Working on a painting I'm making for a friend for Giftmas

What's Next After That? 

• Refinishing my bedroom nightstand
• Refinishing an old wooden plant stand
• Crocheting a rug for my roommate, as soon as we find the right yarn
• Crocheting some slippers, maybe 
• Sewing a skirt or top for myself out of the leftover fabric from a dress I made recently 

What's New? 

I finally bought myself a new sander!  My old one was a work horse, but it was too big, heavy, and high-powered for me to wield safely anymore - it shook me and hurt me so much my hands and arms would be unusable for days after, every time I used it.  I got myself a little $23 Porter & Cable in-line palm sander, and it's GREAT!  Much more easily controlled, and it does as much work as my big one ever did - surprising, for such a little, lightweight thing.  Yay!  

More news on the FORHOJA as it develops.  Meanwhile, here's a crocheted scarf I just finished yesterday: 

ooh, ahh