More Art in the Dining Room

OCTOBER.  It's October.  Who can believe that?

This project was long overdue and made such a huge difference when complete: I -- gasp! -- hung stuff on the wall.  Although, in this case, I managed to create a little artwork too!  

My dining room is one big room with the living room. It's also got a really long wall that has confounded me - I didn't want to overwhelm the space with tons of stuff on the wall, but it definitely needed more than what I had up there.  I also felt the wall over the buffet needed something.  The mirror looked good but I felt that it could use something more.

Here it is after a little work!

Easy one first: the buffet.  I found a set of three mirrors at Target months ago (like around Christmas) and picked them up. They've been waiting patiently to be hung up in the house.  Initially, I thought I would use all of them in my stairwell, but I realized it would work better to use two in the dining room flanking the mirror.  I still have one left, and that one will definitely go in the stairwell among the art and frames.  But here are the two matching mirrors now:

The addition of the mirrors makes that corner so much lighter!

Now for the long wall.  I didn't want to take away from the pretty prints in my oversized frames.  So whatever I used had to work, and not compete, with those.  I settled on two pieces: (1) a gold LOVE print from Made By Girl (I really love this print - it's in Little's rooms and I bought one for the old house) and (2) I made my own watercolor art!  That's right.  I made my own art. 

First up: the LOVE print.  The LOVE print was easy: I just popped it in an IKEA Ribba frame, a white one, of course.  Done.  Made By Girl's prints are all designed to fit nicely inside IKEA frames.

The watercolor art was also easy. I saw the piece (and followed the tutorial) on Style Me Pretty and it seemed simple enough.  It was!  I really liked how soft the colors were and how it brought in more of the gold, which I have peppered throughout the space in the LOVE print, in the candleholders and even in my little upholstered bench/coffee table.  Anyway, I bought a canvas at Michaels and just followed the tutorial in the SMP blog.   All in all, it cost very little (probably about $25 for all the supplies and the huge canvas, which I scored for 50% off thanks to a sale) and took an hour or so. 

Yay!  Instant gratification!  This room is looking so good, though I really want to get a rug for under the dining room table to break up the not so wonderful grey carpet.  Rug aside, all that's left is to refinish the dining room table.  As you can see, it's a sort of reddish wood right now.

I love the look of the table but not the color. At all.  So I am debating whether to do a dark stain on top and paint the legs white like this:

Or do a more pickled top and paint the legs white like this:

via

Or just paint the entire thing white:

via

Any suggestions?  At the very least, I think I will strip the finish off the top, just to see how that looks. And then either stain or paint it.  But the legs are definitely going white!

See you swoon,

Stairwell Gallery: stage 1

Finally.  Finally!  I finally got started on my stairwell art gallery project.  

My stairwell is right in the center of my home and is very open.  It is begging for something on the walls, and I felt a gallery of frames filled with art, kids' art and family photos would be perfect for the space.

For the better part of the last year, I've been going back and forth on whether to paint the house first and then do the gallery or do the gallery and then figure out if I should even bother painting the house.  I went with the latter.  I'm hopeful that once this space is transformed, I won't feel that overwhelming need to paint the house.  That's wishful thinking, of course, because this paint color is awful and I want to murder it every time I look at it.  You know ... if one could actually murder a paint color. 

It's also taken me awhile to get to this point because I had to buy a bunch of frames of varying sizes.  Rather than drop hundreds of dollars and do it all at once, I have been buying a few here and there on my many trips to Target, Home Goods and Ikea.  I also bought a gallery set from Pottery Barn right around Christmas when there was a big sale with free shipping. Behold: Frame City:

I stored the frames in my dining room for the better part of this year.  My thought was if I saw them sitting there, I would be inspired to get the wall hung sooner, since they would sit and taunt me.  This was a good idea in theory, but a little thing called Ironman demanded all of my time and energy.  So the frames sat until the week after Ironman.

I decided to break the project into two stages: (1) stage 1: I would hang the frames and (2) stage 2: I would fill the frames.  I had a handful of things that I knew would go up, but by and large, I had a bunch of empty frames.

I had some pieces that I knew I'd use: the picture of the kids and their cousin that my mom drew and framed for me:

The awesome print I picked up at the Hatch printing company in Nashville:

I framed one of my favorite literary quotes ever:

I incorporated the adorable art that Little made out of a coaster:

As for the rest, I had a bunch of kids' art work and prints and figured I would decide which photos to order and put in the frames once everything was up on the wall.  I got started by placing all of my frames on the floor in groups.  I had four walls to work with, but I only worked on three, because I want to have a shadowbox of my Ironman pictures, medal and race bib professionally framed, and will base that wall around that piece.

It took a little trial and error, but that's the way these things go.  Once I made my arrangement on the floor and liked it, I traced the frames on paper and used painters tape to hang the paper on the wall, following the steps that I used in this tutorial from a few years ago.  It's also key to measure on the paper where your hook is, so you can simply nail through that, remove the paper and put up the frame.

Here are my three walls!  The first wall I did was the one at the very top of the steps.  Ignore the artwork in the two white frames at the top. I'm going to switch them out.

I mixed things up a bit.  I felt that four walls with tons of frames may have been a little much, so I did two walls with a lot of frames and one wall with four oversized IKEA Ribba frames, which have my very simple and easy DIY art that I blogged about last week.  That wall was the tallest one and the hardest to hang the frames, so I wanted to do it just once.

The one wall on the main floor leading to the downstairs playroom has the DIY canvas that I blogged about last week and the picture of the kids my mom painted.

Next up: I have to get my Ironman shadowbox done!  Once that is done, I can hang that final wall and then I can figure out what goes in each of the empty frames!  That's the fun part! 

See you swoon,

DIY Art: easy and chic canvases!

Hey hey! Happy Friday!  I don't know about you, but the shorter weeks always feel the longest.  I am so ready for the weekend!  Long run, ocean water swim, kids' first soccer games and projects! 

I think I've mentioned on the blog that once Ironman was behind me, and once I took a week or two of just enjoying doing nothing, I was ready to get back to my project list.  I've put everything on hold basically all Summer so that I could focus on training, and now that I am done the race, it's time to get back to the projects! 

One of those projects is to hang a gallery of frames and art in my home's massively tall, three floor high, stairwell in the center of the house.  It is a lot of unused wall space and pretty cavernous.  A total blank slate that definitely needed something.  This is just one of the walls (and yeah, that's popcorn ceiling.  it's really great #sigh):

So for this big wall, which is the tallest one, I knew I needed some large art for the wall.  I am doing a gallery of frames on the wall adjacent to it, and I thought adding a bunch more frames on this wall would be a little too much.  Not to mention ... I wasn't sure how I would be able to actually hang the frames on this really tall wall.  So, I decided to buy four oversized square Ribba frames from IKEA and create my own simple, chic artwork.

I was inspired by the home of the blogger Monika Hibbs (formerly The Doctor's Closet).  Her house is amazing and exactly what I want to do in my own home.  It's like she opened up my brain and my Pinterest boards and was able to do in her house exactly what I love and want.  Amazing.  Ahhh-maz-ing.   I fell in love with, well, everything, but in particular in this case with the simple abstract shape art prints and the tone on tone striped painting over her fireplace.

First, the prints.  My frames were silver, but I liked the silver and gold mix, so I decided to replicate those shapes using gold paint.  It was very simple.  I bought two pieces of heavyweight poster paper from Target ($.49 each) and cut them in half.  Then I lightly sketched the shapes in pencil and brushed on the gold paint.  And ... done!

I had to hang them, which was daunting for several reasons: (1) it's one really tall wall and I don't like heights and (2) hanging Ribba frames (because they are hung by a cable in the back) is a pain in the neck.  I found this incredibly clever suggestion on the View Along the Way blog -- I used a paint stirrer and screw to do it!  You've got to click over to see the ingenious idea.  I am sold! In any event, hanging them wasn't bad at all.  Only the top right print was scary but I managed to do it.  Here they are in place on the wall with my apologies for the poor lighting.  

I will eventually replace them with actual art, but for now, I'm really happy with how they look!

I had another canvas to do - one that will hang on one of the stairwell gallery walls.  I wanted to keep the canvas very soft, so I drew my inspiration from the same photo above.  This was super simple and Little helped.  We taped off a canvas with painters tape in two inch segments.  

Then we used a champagne metallic paint on the white spaces.  We brushed it on and before it dried, we pulled up the painters tape.  Then I used the same metallic paint and added a bunch of white to it, and we brushed that on the stripes that had been covered with the painters tape.  We also brushed over some of the painted stripes, just to soften the look.  Here's the finished product:

I'll be sure to add a picture of the canvas among its friends on the wall soon.  Just like the prints above, this isn't a forever piece - it's a temporary solution that will blend in nicely with the rest of the photos and art.  Stay tuned for more progress on the stairwell walls! 

Have a great weekend, all. 

See you swoon,

Outdoor Living: some patio spruce-ups

Hold on to your hats ... a home post!   A real, live home post!  A non-training, non-race, non-IMLP post!

I absolutely adore my outdoor spaces, so when I found myself on a gorgeous weekend day with nothing to do and my training done for the day, I set to work.  I have two outdoor spaces: my upstairs deck, which overlooks a gorgeous, private green area and my downstairs patio, which is fenced in and has a perimeter of plantings.  Up today are some updates I made to the downstairs space.  

Downstairs Patio

This wasn't too bad to start: a few weeks ago, I had taken an hour or so to do a little weeding and lay fresh mulch.  I also planted some hydrangea (please live - please!) and a handful of other flowers in the beds.  I pruned the bushes and generally tidied up the space.  Last year I made a ton of progress and did a ton of work and I had plans to do more (as evidenced by the "part 1" in the title of the post), but I eventually shelved the space.  I really don't use this space that much, and I want to change that.  Here are some "before" pictures, which is how my patio looked when I started on this particular day.
   

What needed to be done, and what I did, follows:

* Cleaned the Bricks *

The first thing I did was clean the bricks.  I bought a commercial deck cleaner last year and mixed up a batch and used that for the bricks.  It did a great job.  I do not like these bricks.  Weeds get in between them and they are a mess to keep clean. But I do my best to keep things looking nice down there.  Cleaning the bricks wasn't fun or pretty: I used a scrub brush and worked in sections, kind of like Cinderella in the movie.  Actually it was exactly like Cinderella.

Only, I had a mean face and was wearing neon.  But at the end of the process, my bricks looked pretty darn fine.

* Replaced the Hose *

Oh that is right:  I replaced my garden hose.  I bought the one above last year when I did my major patio clean up, but I bought one that was insanely long.  I do not need this much hose ... so I will give this one to my parents and bought a smaller one, much more appropriately sized for my space.

* Cleaned the Chairs *

Then it was time to clean my Adirondack chairs.  I bought these years ago at Home Depot.  They're wood and I assembled and spray painted them.  But they were looking a little worse for wear ...

Cleaning was easy.  I just used warm water and Dawn dish detergent and a scrub brush.  And ... voila.  I also added a pillow.

* Decoration! *

Once the chairs were cleaned up, I decorated a bit.  I brought my indoor/outdoor rug outside.  I got this for a steal at Overstock a few years ago, and it was originally intended for my kitchen.  But it was too big for that space.  I moved it into the playroom, where it lived for awhile.  Now it's outside, and I love it out here.  I moved my two outdoor navy and white trellis pillows outside on the chairs.  I think they look great!  And finally, I brought out a table, which I'll eventually paint a different color.  The Adirondacks are not the best quality and I'm probably on borrowed time with them.  I may do a quick swipe of white paint when I have it out, but I'm not going to invest in much time or money with these chairs.  I'll eventually replace them with better quality chairs instead.  But for now, they work and look pretty cute.

I'm happy with my outdoor space!  I just have to keep the plants alive and pruned and add a handful more white stones to the bed where the hose and air conditioning unit live.  But now it's time to break in my patio with a cocktail and a good friend :)

Have a great weekend! 

See you swoon,

More Progress in the Playroom: art table, pillows and art on walls

Ah good morning! I hope you're having a great day so far.  

I'm making even more progress in the downstairs playroom!  It's almost ... almost ... done.  I've already blogged about the first few steps of this room: cleaning it up and then organizing and decorating it.  The hard part of this space is done!  Now it's just a few loose ends.

1.  Little's New Art Table.

I bought Little the Sansad table from Ikea.  It was about $50 and what sold me on it was the adjustable legs as well as the nice large size.  What I didn't like was the table came with red and blue plastic feet.  

I tried to spray paint them but did not have luck: the paint scraped right off with a fingernail. I think it's because I did not use spray paint primer before I painted.  So I grabbed my regular Zinsser oil based primer and used a coat of that, followed by a coat of my Sherwin Williams Dover White and a quick swipe of poly on top.  Now look at those legs!

Here's the space now, which needs a rug under the table so Little can let her creative spirit soar and not have to worry about getting paint, marker, or whatever other medium on the carpet.  

2.  Pillows in the TV area.

I went to Home Goods over a few Saturdays recently without a shopping list.  Danger!  But those are the days that I tend to stumble upon good deals.  I found all of the new pillows and love them.  I'm really happy with how they lighten up the space.  And pillows are so crazy cheap at Home Goods! Way cheaper than Target.  

I thought working with pretty shades of green and blue would look good in this space.  I liked how all of the prints worked together too.  

3.  Art on the walls.

I still have a lot more art to hang, but I got started.  I had this modern print hanging in the kids' bathroom before I changed it up.  I bought a big frame at Ikea and hung it up.  I thought it looked nice over the sofa table.

4.  Clean Up Craft Area.

My little craft area became a big dumping ground for frames (for the stairwell project and the playroom), my triathlon gear, extra furniture, bags for Goodwill and stuff to store.  Here it is before.  

This was just a matter of moving things around and putting them in the right spot.  A lot of the "stuff" is now in my storage room, which I absolutely need to organize ASAP and I won't show you because it kind of looks like an episode of Hoarders.  But this space looks fantastic now: nice and neat.  All that is left here are the frames that are going in the stairwell and around the playroom. 

5.  Baskets for Big's Trains & the Big Red Bricks.

This was more of a "wanna" versus a "haveta" project in the playroom: I wanted new storage bins for Big's trains and the big red bricks.  Big's trains were a gift from my family a few years ago and he loves them.  They're a really nice train set.  I've stored them in a big open plastic bin from Target:

I bought a fabric bin  from Home Goods and the trains live in it now.  I'll find a new space for them but for now they're good here. 

The big bricks are a total throw-back to my own childhood. My sister and I had bricks just like these when we were kids, and I remember playing with them all the time, making forts and houses, and having a ball.  So when I saw them when Big was a baby, I put them on his Christmas list.  My kids adore them too, which is fun to see.

I am not crazy about the storage bins for them.  They're laundry hampers from Ikea and have worked pretty well, but they aren't that attractive and take up a lot of space.  I'm on the hunt for a large basket or maybe trunk to hide these in.  

6.  What's Left?

Whew!  I really don't have much more to do in here.  The biggest project left to tackle is to paint the furniture and pegboard: I have to paint the dresser that holds the TV, the sofa table, a big wall shelf, and the piece of peg board for behind Little's kitchen.  I'm going to do all of this at once very soon - probably Easter weekend, when I'm hopeful it will finally be warm enough to open up the sliders while I paint.

Once the furniture it painted, I need to hang the pegboard, hang the wall shelf and hang the last pieces of art around the space.  I also need to hang a smaller shelf and some hooks near Little's baby section.

I also need to update that lamp on the sofa table.  I need to spray paint it (and figure out what color to use) and buy a new harp and shade for it.  I'm waiting until the weather turns to do that, since I'll need to paint it outside.

Finally, I'll have to decorate a little: the sofa table, the big wall shelf near my bike and any other remaining spots. I need to get something to hold the bricks and pick up a blanket or two as well but that can wait.   

So close!  It's my goal to have this space completely done by the end of April.  

See you swoon,