Category Archives: diy

a much more exciting entryway

For those of you who are still a little confused about the layout of our place, we actually live on the second floor of an old 1930s house. Therefore, when you come through the front door (on the ground level) you go up a private flight of stairs and then we have a landing up on the second floor and then another “front door” that opens to our living room. This landing has a cute little arched window and very high ceilings, and is pretty perfect for a little table, probably a mirror, and some hooks/storage for shoes, leashes, puppy raincoats, you get the idea.

So after we moved in it just looked like this..

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Standing on the lower landing of the stairs looking up.

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Standing inside the living room looking out toward the upper landing.

Do you recognize that roman shade (hint: it used to not be so wrinkled.. oops!) I put a black table in there that I scored at Canton back in college that I used to use as a desk. It was originally white with a matching white ladder back chair (which I also painted black). So up until this week, things had been looking like this. Boring.

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I really wanted to add some color to this otherwise very blah space. So after painting my ~~$18.50~~ $17.50 mirror navy blue, I wanted the table to pop and settled on Rustoleum’s safety red. You know I love a good oil paint as evident here and here and here and I wanted a high gloss finish for this table that would catch the afternoon sun, and sort of balance out the satin finish on the mirror.

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So I sanded everything with some 140 grit sandpaper and wiped everything down with a rag before painting.

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I applied 2 coats of paint to the legs and 3 coats to the top for that super glassy finish. I wet sanded in between each coat using 220 grit and then wiped it down with a microfiber cloth. Wet sanding is crucial to get rid of all of your brushstrokes and inconsistencies.

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This was after one coat.

After letting it cure and off-gas for 24 hours (oil is super stinky people) It was time to hang the mirror and put everything in place. But first one more before..

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I scored these striped hooks at Anthropologie with my 15% off birthday discount (woo!) Mmmmm look at that gorgeous texture (barf.)

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And the rug, ceramic dog, and umbrella holder were HomeGoods finds from a while back. Can you believe that rug was only $12?? PS: that bigger umbrella was a honeymoon purchase when we were caught in the rain on our first day in Rome. (Super awkward to fly with by the way!)

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I just love how cheery it is. I feel like it greets us every time we come home, and for new visitors it’s like a preview of what’s to come when they go through that door. I wish I could paint the banisters black I think they would look a lot sharper that way, but that’s a lot more work than I care to put into a rental.

wedding wednesday: DIY moss stone place cards

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Why yes, I do still have several wedding DIY’s that I’ve seemed to let slip through the cracks. We received so many compliments on our moss stone place cards, and they were so easy to make and super duper inexpensive so I just had to share them with you. I wanted something special and unique for our guests to find at their seat that still worked with our ceramic animals sitting in paper flower wreath centerpieces. Moss stones are my favorite filler when adding the finishing touches to a space, and I liked the whole astroturf-y garden vibe they brought to the table (literally). So I knew they were just the ticket! I picked up 25 bags each for $1 (hoorah!) at Dollar Tree. The bags each had an arrangement of five different sized stones which I really liked, it seemed more natural to me. And I had grabbed a few extra in case some of the stones were damaged (they are just styrofoam you know) and in case I messed up. Better safe than sorry right?

After sorting through my stones and choosing all of the best candidates I used these Avery business cards to print out each of our guests names on a card. I used a simple and modern typeface (Futura Std) because I liked how clean each of them looked. After printing them out I arranged them by table (because I’m OCD like that).

Using an xacto knife I cut a slit along the longest side of the top of each stone. Because they were just styrofoam I carefully spread apart the opening to place the card inside and then let go. With these stones the styrofoam was tight enough to hold each card in place so I didn’t need any glue, but you might need some if you use another type of stone.

Afterward I organized each grouping of stones (by table) and placed them in clear boxes with the table’s animal labeled on it so that my House Party would know where each grouping went. Easy peasy!

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Aren’t they so cute? We still have ours sitting on a shelf, and several of our guests ended up taking theirs home which is exactly what we had hoped for. In the end each place card cost us about .35 cents. I’d say that’s a win!

all prices are negotiable (famous last words)

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We live a couple blocks away from a street lined with several thrift/antique shops. I try to scope them out once a month or so because honestly they don’t turnover their inventory that fast, and all the new things are set outside on the street so I can just oogle it all as I drive home everyday (while almost rear-ending the person in front of me almost daily). When my mom was in town a couple months ago we saw the perfect mirror for our entryway, and it was only $18.50! I was a little worried that it was too narrow for the space, but I loved the height of it. So I did my whole “if it’s there the next time I come back, then it’s meant to be!” trick. Which is a dangerous trick. Don’t do this unless you have a good feeling it will still be there do to it’s condition/hiding place/price. Or you will cry a lot.

My parents were in town this past weekend for Derek’s thesis presentation, so on Saturday we all went thrifting and my mom and I went in hopes to buy that mirror. The sleezy guy that works there told us (again) that “all prices are negotiable” which I always think.. yay! haggling! In the past when I’d see a big piece (like a dresser or pair of chairs or something) that was marked $300 he’d take it down to $175 if I “get it right now” (which.. when else would I get it?), so I had high hopes for my (already super cheap) mirror. We headed back to it’s spot and there it was just being a mirror and stuff. It was still priced at $18.50 so after he dug it out of it’s super buried corner, he said “I’ll give you a good deal on this!” here it comes.. will he say $15? or maybe even $12?? A girl can dream. “17.50!!” What. Whatever, I bought it anyway because I really liked it and I had already planned on spending that extra dollar (plus it was meant to be). This guy.

So here she is in all of her glory.. All $17.50 of her.

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And because the frame was a cheapy faux wood plastic, I didn’t feel guilty about painting it (not that I would have anyway). Even though the frame was just plastic, the mirror was as heavy as sin, so I didn’t really want to take it apart to paint it. Instead I just covered the mirror part with paper and taped it off.

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I wanted it to be sort of a moody color because I had brighter plans for the table below it. So I ended up going with this navy-ish color by Valspar in a satin finish to compliment my super glossy table. I primed the frame first with my trusty plastic primer and then sprayed on two coats of the navy. Luckily it dried a lot darker than the lid.. I was a little nervous at first that it wouldn’t be “navy” enough.

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Afterward I removed all of the paper and tape and scraped off any excess paint from the mirror with a razor blade.

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I’m pretty pleased with how it turned out, and I can’t wait to get it hung on the wall. It was sort of funny though when I was catching up on blogs on Sunday and came across this guy. What are the odds?

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What can I say? Navy skinny mirrors with ornamentation on top are the new black. You can quote me on that.

how many times can i reupholster the same stool?

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This weekend while Derek was finishing up his Master’s thesis, I was feeling a little stir crazy. So what does one do when they are feeling like they have ants in their pants? Reupholster stuff. Obviously. Now this stool has gone from this to this, and now (yet again) it is receiving another facelift.

After de-sheepskin-ifying it a few weeks back, I kind of let it sit in it’s batting wrapped glory for far too long. I was debating on whether to use a kelly green velvet or some leftover dalmatian print from this project (and this one). So after asking Derek (who was in the middle of a nap.. seriously wife of the year over here) which fabric looked better and he murmured “the green one”, I knew that the dalmatian one was the way to go.

Don’t tell me I’m the only one that when I have to decide between two things and have no idea which to choose, I’ll ask someone who will pick one and then I’ll instantly realize I’ve always hated that item and secretly needed them to reinforce the item I’ve subconsciously wanted all along, I just hadn’t realized it yet. No? Just me?

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I won’t go into a huge tutorial on how to upholster a simple stool like this, because it’s just a lot of wrapping and stapling (like this). And yes I did upholster this on top of a yoga mat to muffle the sound. See? I do care about napping husbands (for the most part).

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I know you see that beautiful yellow cord on the ground, don’t you? Let me explain what that is all about. You see.. our office (the room next door which you can see here) has one electrical outlet, and guess what? It isn’t grounded. Meaning all of our fancy computers and other 3-prong plugged devices can’t be plugged in. So we have to use an extension cord from the back wall of our bedroom all the way around the office to a fancy power strip. Yay older homes! At least it’s yellow though. I do love a good pop of color ;)

PS: Don’t forget to enter this week’s giveaway from Simply Scissors. It ends Sunday evening!

a little roman souvenir (and no mom it’s not a baby!)

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This past weekend while doing a little cleaning I came across a very familiar little pouch covered in Italian words.

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Inside it was filled with little souvenirs we had picked up on our honeymoon. Lots of postcards that never got mailed out (oops) and this beautiful lithograph we picked up (along with a bunch of large prints we will get to later) at the cutest little bookstore I’ve ever seen. The shop owner didn’t speak a bit of English (and just might have charged my credit card twice) but we spent a couple hours with him looking at all of his beautiful prints and drawings and old Italian advertisement posters. It was a dream.

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I already had just the frame for it, but the color was an awkward burgundy and it wouldn’t look right on our freshly painted bedroom walls (what?? I know. I forgot to tell you.)

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So I primed it with my favorite primer, and then painted it with one coat of metallic gold. Ohh la la!

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I just love how it floats against our new moody walls (we went with Benjamin Moore’s Iron Mountain, which was the same as the color in the bathroom). All in all this frame revamping took me about an hour (with dry time) and I’m quite pleased with the results. I had to restrain myself though because whenever I have that can of metallic gold spray paint in my hand, nothing is safe.

PS: Don’t forget to enter our fabulous giveaway this week! It ends Sunday night!