(Becca just brought to my attention that it looks like 3 trees at the beginning - its actually a fake tree that comes in 3 pieces. Now you don't have to wonder what happened to the other 2 trees haha!)
Monday, November 28, 2011
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Family room projects - mirror and ottoman
As promised here are the 2 family room projects I worked on while my brother was visiting.
I have always liked the Eagan mirror from Pottery Barn, but not the price tag:
$699.00??? There's no way I would pay that much for a mirror so I had the great idea to make my own. (I have since realized that my idea wasn't that original and found quite a few good tutorials online. Too bad I didn't find them BEFORE I reinvented the wheel!)
I didn't take many photos of the process so here are my steps in fast-forward:
1. Buy mirrors. I got mine at the Dollar Tree but you can get them at a variety of places. Actually I got them at 5 Dollar Tree stores because I needed 30 mirrors and each store only had a few. I almost scrapped the project at this point.
2. Decide what you are going to use for the wood strips between the mirrors. I used screen molding from Home Depot.
3. Figure out what size to cut your plywood backing so that it fits your mirrors and wood strips perfectly. Its a good thing I like math because calculating this was kind of a pain. I wanted to use scrap plywood we had lying around so I had to attach 2 pieces using flat brackets. Cut and glue on all the little pieces of wood. Surprisingly this wasn't the worst part of the project!
4. Prime and spray paint. It took quite a few coats to get a nice, even finish.
5. Gather your mirrors and start picking off the little foam pads on the underside. This took FOREVER and was by far the worst part of the project.
6. Glue the mirrors on and wait patiently for everything to dry.
Hang on the wall and admire:
I love how it turned out and I especially love that I saved hundreds and hundreds of dollars by making it myself (even if it was a little time consuming)!
************************
Next we have the ottoman. I was looking for a big, tufted ottoman but couldn't find exactly what I wanted in stores. So because I'm crazy I decided to build my own. Here are my steps:
1. Build a frame and then screw on the top piece. Mine is pretty big - 36 x 36 inches.
2. Mark where your buttons will go and drill holes.
3. Glue on foam. We used 3 inch so it would be nice and soft.
4. Cover with batting and staple into place.
5. Get your fabric ready. I couldn't find the exact fabric I was looking for so I decided to use a fabric drop cloth and dye it. I was going for dark gray.
6. Here you can see the dyed drop cloth compared to pre-dyed. Unfortunately it didn't come out nearly as dark as I'd hoped. Cover the batting and staple into place.
7. Cover buttons with left over fabric and attach.
8. Attach the legs (after painting or staining them).
9. Victoriously place your snazzy new ottoman in the family room and realize its the exact same color as the rug - ooops!
I should probably post a pic of what the room looked like with a coffee table for comparison but we have some other changes going on in the family room so I'll post another update soon.
I have always liked the Eagan mirror from Pottery Barn, but not the price tag:
$699.00??? There's no way I would pay that much for a mirror so I had the great idea to make my own. (I have since realized that my idea wasn't that original and found quite a few good tutorials online. Too bad I didn't find them BEFORE I reinvented the wheel!)
I didn't take many photos of the process so here are my steps in fast-forward:
1. Buy mirrors. I got mine at the Dollar Tree but you can get them at a variety of places. Actually I got them at 5 Dollar Tree stores because I needed 30 mirrors and each store only had a few. I almost scrapped the project at this point.
2. Decide what you are going to use for the wood strips between the mirrors. I used screen molding from Home Depot.
3. Figure out what size to cut your plywood backing so that it fits your mirrors and wood strips perfectly. Its a good thing I like math because calculating this was kind of a pain. I wanted to use scrap plywood we had lying around so I had to attach 2 pieces using flat brackets. Cut and glue on all the little pieces of wood. Surprisingly this wasn't the worst part of the project!
4. Prime and spray paint. It took quite a few coats to get a nice, even finish.
5. Gather your mirrors and start picking off the little foam pads on the underside. This took FOREVER and was by far the worst part of the project.
6. Glue the mirrors on and wait patiently for everything to dry.
Hang on the wall and admire:
I love how it turned out and I especially love that I saved hundreds and hundreds of dollars by making it myself (even if it was a little time consuming)!
************************
Next we have the ottoman. I was looking for a big, tufted ottoman but couldn't find exactly what I wanted in stores. So because I'm crazy I decided to build my own. Here are my steps:
1. Build a frame and then screw on the top piece. Mine is pretty big - 36 x 36 inches.
2. Mark where your buttons will go and drill holes.
3. Glue on foam. We used 3 inch so it would be nice and soft.
4. Cover with batting and staple into place.
5. Get your fabric ready. I couldn't find the exact fabric I was looking for so I decided to use a fabric drop cloth and dye it. I was going for dark gray.
6. Here you can see the dyed drop cloth compared to pre-dyed. Unfortunately it didn't come out nearly as dark as I'd hoped. Cover the batting and staple into place.
7. Cover buttons with left over fabric and attach.
8. Attach the legs (after painting or staining them).
9. Victoriously place your snazzy new ottoman in the family room and realize its the exact same color as the rug - ooops!
I should probably post a pic of what the room looked like with a coffee table for comparison but we have some other changes going on in the family room so I'll post another update soon.
Saturday, November 26, 2011
Birthday dogs!
November is birthday month for both of our pups (Zeke was born on the 4th and Zoey on the 26th) and its become a tradition to torture them by making them pose for birthday photos.
The chalk board in the loft + a small ottoman + fabric from my stash = perfect photo spot!
Zeke is a good boy and will stay put until excused. Zoey is wild and every other photo looked like this:
Which lead to Zeke thinking it was his turn again ...
Love them so much!
Sunday, November 13, 2011
We're still here
After two and a half months of being lazy and not posting anything on the blog here's a quick recap of what we've been up to:
1. I finally cut my hair after almost a year. I don't think I've ever gone that long and I'm not sure why I did but it was so nice to get rid of all the dead ends. I probably could have cut it all off and donated to Locks of Love but I already tried the short hair thing in high school and again in college (apparently I didn't learn my lesson the first time) and it was a bushy mess!
I also haven't highlighted it in a year. I kind of miss the light blonde color - you can see how its darker up near my roots - but I don't hate my natural color so I'm going to see how long I can keep it au naturale.
2. My boss picked up 2 hideous chairs from a thrift store and I made a muslin slipcover template for her to use to make real slipcovers for them. All the pets thought the chair was for them.
Love Zoey's expression in that one!
Amazing how much better the chair looks with that yucky fabric hidden. Zeke was sad when she took the chair back to her house.
3. I started dealing with my clothing hoard. I can't stand clutter and love getting rid of things but for some reason I hold onto clothes. It was getting out of control so I forced myself to get rid of a few things.
Okay so maybe it was more than just a few. Because I'm wierd I decided to sort everything by clothing type and fold into piles.
I gave it all to Goodwill - hopefully the fact that it was all organized was helpful to them or I wasted a couple hours for nothing!
4. We celebrated Josh's birthday (and forgot to take a photo).
5. My brother Paul came out to visit. The dogs love their uncle!
6. While my brother was here I worked on 2 projects for the family room - an ottoman and a knock-off Pottery Barn mirror. I just realized I haven't taken any photos of them so I'll have to post about them later.
7. We celebrated our 4th anniversary. This is not a great photo of the 2 of us but its the most recent one I could find.
8. I threw a baby shower for my dear friend Erin. It was a lot of fun and we played a game where each guest was given a balloon and had to make it into a baby. This is Erin posing with all the babies that didnt burst:
9. We celebrated 3 years of living in our home. Its hard to believe its been 3 years already!
10. Had out of town visitors: my freshman roommate Sasha, her hubby, and sweet little 3 month old Lucas.
I think that about covers it. Its finally cooled off here so I'm getting in the mood for the holidays. Cant wait to bust out all the Christmas stuff!
1. I finally cut my hair after almost a year. I don't think I've ever gone that long and I'm not sure why I did but it was so nice to get rid of all the dead ends. I probably could have cut it all off and donated to Locks of Love but I already tried the short hair thing in high school and again in college (apparently I didn't learn my lesson the first time) and it was a bushy mess!
I also haven't highlighted it in a year. I kind of miss the light blonde color - you can see how its darker up near my roots - but I don't hate my natural color so I'm going to see how long I can keep it au naturale.
2. My boss picked up 2 hideous chairs from a thrift store and I made a muslin slipcover template for her to use to make real slipcovers for them. All the pets thought the chair was for them.
Love Zoey's expression in that one!
Amazing how much better the chair looks with that yucky fabric hidden. Zeke was sad when she took the chair back to her house.
3. I started dealing with my clothing hoard. I can't stand clutter and love getting rid of things but for some reason I hold onto clothes. It was getting out of control so I forced myself to get rid of a few things.
Okay so maybe it was more than just a few. Because I'm wierd I decided to sort everything by clothing type and fold into piles.
I gave it all to Goodwill - hopefully the fact that it was all organized was helpful to them or I wasted a couple hours for nothing!
4. We celebrated Josh's birthday (and forgot to take a photo).
5. My brother Paul came out to visit. The dogs love their uncle!
6. While my brother was here I worked on 2 projects for the family room - an ottoman and a knock-off Pottery Barn mirror. I just realized I haven't taken any photos of them so I'll have to post about them later.
7. We celebrated our 4th anniversary. This is not a great photo of the 2 of us but its the most recent one I could find.
8. I threw a baby shower for my dear friend Erin. It was a lot of fun and we played a game where each guest was given a balloon and had to make it into a baby. This is Erin posing with all the babies that didnt burst:
9. We celebrated 3 years of living in our home. Its hard to believe its been 3 years already!
10. Had out of town visitors: my freshman roommate Sasha, her hubby, and sweet little 3 month old Lucas.
I think that about covers it. Its finally cooled off here so I'm getting in the mood for the holidays. Cant wait to bust out all the Christmas stuff!
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