Curtains - DIY

The credit for this idea has to go back to my mom...well played Mama, well played. I never would have thought of using a standard drop cloth used for painting houses as curtain material but it is a great idea and I love the final result. 

Project Cost: Under $50.00 for three windows. I'm a fan. This includes the cost of the sheers I picked up at Goodwill.

Here's what you need: 

- 9x12 Drop Cloth - you can get a large canvas drop cloth from Home Depot or Lowe's for about $20.00 and I got 6 panels out of one drop cloth, allow me to do the math for you...that's six 2 foot panels which isn't the typical width of a store bought curtain panel but it served my purpose. Cut it to whatever width makes you happy. 

- 1 inch dowels, a 6 foot long rod trimmed just a little fits a standard window well. Also...the diameter of this thing isn't super precise either, I think I have a 1 inch rod and maybe a few that are 1 1/4 or 1 1/2 inches. For anyone confused by this, this is what you're looking for more or less, I could only find these at Lowe's.

- Sheetrock screws/anchors 

- Drill 

- Two wooden curtain brackets per window, I couldn't find a link for these on the Home Depot or Lowe's website but I know they have them. Here's a picture of what you're looking for... 

I had to paint mine, it's under $5.00 for a set. 

- Optional - curtain clips and rings. There are a few ways you can do the hanging portion of installing these curtains, if you're going for the cheapest route then you'll need to pull out your sewing machine. Your third option outside of clips and rings or sewing is to cut small slits in your panel at the top and string something twine-like through and knot it the way I did in the picture above.

 Not my favorite simply because it's time consuming and not as cute as it was in my head. 

Let's get to it...

1. Iron your drop cloth, it will take you forever. Get comfortable. Put on a movie. Prepare to get bored. Let me know if I'm the only one who smelled Wheaties while I was ironing...I really want to know if that was in my head. 

2. Cut your panels, I found it easiest to cut a straight line by folding and ironing a crease into the fabric to use as a guide. Again, for standard windows I cut two foot panels. Do your own thang. 

3. Hem your panels - I used the ironing trick again for this one, fold your cloth over just a little and put a good crease in it so you aren't fighting to keep a straight line 

Don't be super concerned about having a pretty hem...or do, just remember that I wasn't and probably never will be in any of my future sewing endeavors. 

4. This is where you get to decide how you want to hang your curtains...this is my favorite method. 

Make a 6 inch fold at the top of your panel and stitch along the edge to make a loop of fabric at the top to thread the dowel through. 

5. Paint or stain and install your wall brackets - I love the way a floor to ceiling curtain looks just because it seems to lengthen a wall visually so I installed the brackets at the very top of the wall. The width again is your call but if there isn't a wall close to the window I'll install the brackets about 8 inches wider than the window on each side. 

6. Paint or stain your curtain rod...slide your curtain, curtain rings and clips or loops of twine onto the rod and hang it up! 

I'll update with a better picture of the finished product when I can get some good light but you get the idea.

Notes 

- Length...this canvas is 9x12 so if you have standard 8 ft ceilings it's going to be a bit long even if you hem a loop into the cloth to hang it with. I actually like how it bunches a little on the floor but if you don't, just hem it a few more inches.

- Curtain sheers, you can install a whole new rod separately to put sheers on if you like that look, I chose to just put them on the same rod for now since the whole point of these curtains for me was form not function and my curtains looked a little naked. The sheers I purchased were too short so I ended up sewing another strip of the same fabric onto the bottom in order to make them the same length as my drop cloth panels. I found the sheers at Goodwill - they're there a lot if you keep your eyes open for them. 

Happy Sewing, 

Rae 

Chalkboard Room *DIY*

I've always wanted a studio...a play room packed with clay to sculpt and paints to smear and fabric to cut and sew. A studio with massive windows stretching from floor to ceiling where natural light can spill in and florescent bulbs aren't allowed. A sanctuary to create and build - to see mistakes and try again.

     I don't have one of those, not the kind I see in my head - but I do have a house and it has served as the best canvas for creative endeavors, mistakes and learning processes to date. Perhaps I need to work out a few kinks before I'm set loose in a room with too many pairs of scissors.

The latest project taking up my time is the music room. Chalkboard paint was a must, with all the lyrics, chord progressions and ideas that fly around it helps to be able to just put 'em on the wall. Have you ever written on a wall, as an adult, on purpose? It gives you the distinct feeling that you should probably be appalled. It's fun.

I chose to do the room in chalkboard paint starting from the chair rail. This room has been serving as a catch-all closet and so it was quite an undertaking to clean it out for painting. In fact it was such an undertaking that I eventually gave up and squished some things into the middle of the room. 

See? 

Sort of scary. 

Materials Needed: 

Latex paint - 1 gallon 

Unsanded grout 

Paint brushes

Fine grit sandpaper 

Chalk 

1. Combine two cups of unsanded grout with one gallon of latex paint in any color - the ratio for a smaller project is two tablespoons per cup of paint. Make sure you combine the two substances very thoroughly, no grout clumps. 

2. Paint your walls, the paint will be very thick and tends to cover well - just go slow enough to be thorough and not have your old wall color showing through. Allow your paint to dry completely... 

3. Go over the dried walls with an extremely fine grit sand paper, just a light brushing - don't get too excited about it or you'll sand through completely to the old color, no bueno.   

4. Treat your walls with chalk, turn your piece of chalk on it's side and cover the entire surface of the painted area with a light coat. After you finish, take a cloth and dampen it slightly and then dust off the walls again to blend the lines from the chalk. Don't skip this step! 

Here's a sneak peek of the music room today... it's coming along. 

Fun stuff, really. 

xoxo,

Rae 

Distressing Furniture *DIY*

I almost wrote that I have a love/hate relationship with stained wood furniture.

In fact, I did write that and then my conscience started bothering me because I feel like I probably need to be truthful. Honesty is the best policy and what-not.

I hate glossy wood furniture.

It just looks humiliated to me.

Maybe I'm exaggerating a little bit, I have plenty of stained and sealed furniture in my home - it's just really not my favorite. It's at the very bottom of the list of things that didn't make the cut on my favorite list, somewhere between cold showers and canned asparagus.

Just let it be rough and natural or paint the stuff.

Anyway, our bedroom (which is still a major work in progress) was filled with nothing but shiny stained wood furniture and this weekend we did something about it.

We ended up sanding, priming, painting, distressing and staining the living daylights out of three pieces over the weekend including a small bedside stand/thingy, a desk, and our bed. We still have a dresser to do but since Brad left me alone this morning (he said it had something to do with providing for our family...?) and since I'm not strong enough to haul the 500 lb monster downstairs to the garage alone (I know... it's a real shock) that thing will have to deal with me another day.

Here is the only picture I had the presence of mind to take before we tackled the bed. 

Let's go ahead and make a best friend pact that you're going to ignore the mass pandemonium in the dark recesses of our garage captured in this picture and several more coming up. 

Pinky promise and cross your heart and junk. 

Here's a tiny peek at the end result: 

Ah, the desk. 

Before:

After: 

Last but not least, this...thing. Not sure what to call it. Truth be told, I debated leaving this the way it was, it didn't have any stain or sealer on it at all and I really liked the rough wood. I needed to practice distressing something though and this was the guinea pig. 

Before:

After:

I really like the way all three pieces turned out, the bed is my favorite for sure but you'll have to wait to see more of that until a little later... 

So how does one distress furniture? Well, as a totally amateur painter and do it yourself kinda girl, this was my method - it has its flaws I'm sure so feel free to tweak it and make it your own. 

1. Sand The Stuff  - Sand down your furniture if it's been stained and sealed so that it will accept a new coat of paint, some people sand it down totally but really you just need to rough up the surface enough to grip the new coat of paint. 

2. Prime - You need an oil based primer - again this is only necessary if you're working on a piece that's been stained before...

Prime the furniture and let it dry - be prepared to throw away your paint brush unless you enjoy tedious cleaning jobs. I don't, so I just used a cheap brush and tossed it. 

3. Paint - Choose your paint color and go to town! You can use latex or oil-based if you've primed the furniture with an oil-based primer. I picked a cream for my bed and that other piece of furniture that I simply can't find a name for - can anyone help me there? What is that thing called? 

Anyway, I picked a Behr paint, the color is Moon Beam and it covered really well. 

The color I chose for the desk is Hosta (I think?) and it's a Behr color as well. It's just a basic teal.

4. DISTRESS! This is the fun part, this is when you really make the piece your own. There are a lot of methods used to distress and antique furniture so you have a lot of flexibility there in how your furniture turns out. 

Sanding - yep, you get to sand again. Hit the edges, areas where your furniture would wear out naturally. Use a finer grit sand paper for this portion and make sure you've allowed the furniture time to dry completely, it may even take a few days. 

Beat it up - ok, this is where I deviated from the typical distressing method. I beat up a small portion of my bed (a side board) with a chain, hit the edges a few times with a pair of pliers and honestly it's just a bit too much for me. I think it would look better like that on my dresser but since the lines on my bed are very feminine I didn't want to overwhelm it with the amount of distressing I did. 

Use your own judgement there but remember that less is better with distressing - you can always beat it up more later but once you take a chunk out of the wood with a chain you can't do a whole lot to repair the damage. 

Stain - I used this... 

I used two rags, one to put the stain on, one to take it back off (wax on, wax off...) and I coated the furniture completely. I did it one portion at a time though so that the color would be even and one part wouldn't be more stained than another. The stain wiped almost entirely off of the cream paint -  but it made the sanded edges and distressed areas in the wood stand out much more. Make sure you give those areas a chance to pick it up before wiping it away. 

The desk isn't entirely natural wood, there are portions of particle board so the sanding and staining process didn't work as well which was no big surprise. It still turned out nicely though. 

This is lots of fun, and is a great weekend project - I know I said you may have to let the paint set up for a few days but if you aren't dealing with super high humidity you should be able to do the whole process in a day. 

xo,

Rae 

  

Highlights For Blondies *DIY*

Highlights, for those of you who are interested in damaging your hair, for cheap!

I jest. Really though, if you give this a shot - less is more. I tended to pull more hair through the cap than necessary and ended up lifting my whole head of hair to a lighter color which sort of defeats the purpose of highlights. Just start slow!


Just as a reference point - this is one of the only relatively recent photos I could find of  my natural hair color, I'm recovering from a recent bout with hair color insanity and I had to chop it all off.

Naturally I'm sort of a dark blonde.

This is the color I ended up with after highlighting for a few months... 

Very light, I liked it for a while but it made growing my hair any longer pretty impossible. 

And lighter still, after a few more months of bleaching... 

Anyway, onward and upward! 

xoxo,

Rae