Reupholstered Ladies Armchair

Heya Nesters!

Now, I promised I wouldn't just write about wedding stuff, so today I am keeping to my promise.  Today is back to my bread and butter … my roots … my thats right, upholstery.

 

Love, Like, Loath: The New House

Heya Nesters!!

I just realized that it's been over two years that we've lived in this house and you guys have barely seen anything at all.  {All those other "responsibilities" have taken over.} But there is SO MUCH I want to share with you all! The rest of the house is really coming along nicely, a natural progression of bettering... except the master bedroom.  I don't know what it is.  I feel like I hit a roadblock when I chose a color I ended up loathing. Remember Wasabi Powder?  So, I am bringin' back the oldie but goodie "Love, Like, Loath" post. Which ironically, was also about my last bedroom.

It's lovely-- in this picture. But frankly. In other lights its kind of a bummer color.  May I say, slightly poop-ish.  And its a difficult color to work with others.  I have bought plum glass lamps to try to work those kind of muted shades but it just looked muddy.  I was thinking of adding some gold/brass accents in here to look a little vintage. But I just keep hating everything.

See how as you turn on the yellow light bulbs, it looks much more yellow?? Poop-ish!  Who has two thumbs and is a Debbie Downer about this room?  THIS GIRL!

The thing is, I'm a color gal. And while this is a color.... I like mixing complimentary colors together. I don't feel like I'm doing my job if I'm just doing black, white and the one color on the walls.  Which is exactly the rut we've fallen into in the master.  In fact, I'd rather have white walls and be able to put some awesome colors in the bedding and accessories!

So, first loath: paint color. But lets not be pessimistic here, lets follow the title and really get into it with the Love's first. {But seriously, I have a LOT to say about this room so bear with me.}

LOVE:
I LOVE our bed and bedding.  Our bed is the Hemnes King size bed and the mattress is also from IKEA and is the most. comfortable. mattress. ever.  I currently have our Home Goods white and beige Moroccan Medallion print/variegated stripe reversible quilt on the bed for the Summer.

The throw pillows are kind of a mishmosh of finds.  The 4 pillows we use while sleeping are Ralph Lauren from Home Goods.... and I only use white sheets.  I love white sheets. The "Performance Sheets" from Target are affordable, wrinkly resistant and super comfy. The euro shams are from IKEA. Then the velvet lumbar pillow I've had for ages. And I saw the raw cut pillow at BB&B on sale and it was still insanely expensive {even if I had used a coupon!} but without even searching, I found the exact same one on clearance at Home Goods for a quarter of the sale price!

So, I love our bed in general.  The other thing I love is the little set up on my dresser. 

If you cant quite see, I've got 3 containers on a mirrored tray with my favorite perfume, Stella McCartney Nude. And then my little frog box.  I got her as a present from an old friend for Christmas many years ago and I just love how whimsical she makes this otherwise very adult space. 

It's nothing wild, but it makes me smile.  And that's all that matters, right?

LIKE:
There are quite a few things in this room that I like.  And I am okay with keeping and improving upon them, or replacing.

First is all the lamps. They're all okay. They're a crackled glass globes.

I want to paint a bit of it with my beloved gold paint. Just an uneven, drippy bit on the inside.

And I thought I could compliment the other set of lamps by painting the inside of the shade kind of like this.  But do I want to do the gold and silver together? Not particularly.  Maybe the answer is to spray the base a fun color also!  Who knows!  But for now, they're "okay".

I also like the mis-matched night stands.  I've had them forever and I like that they don't match the rest of the Hemnes furniture.  I normally loath matching bedroom sets. But this one was simple, inexpensive and worked for us.  Another like!

Lastly, the simple white curtains. I like them. They were non-committal, white cotton, cheap curtains from Target. They're fine. *shrug* I like the way white curtains look in crisp rooms.  What I would like to ultimately do, is get a longer curtain rod that will allow the curtains to go all the way to the ends of the bed, almost as if its a secondary headboard. Would I like to upgrade to something with more pattern and color? You bet! But that comes after I get a clear vision of what this room should look like. 

LOATH: 

Ohhhhh there are so many things...  But this is a new addition.  

We originally had a GIANT AC built in circa 1969.  It worked great but sounded like a steamroller in our room at night.  It had to go.  Since we just had our windows replaced and we are siding our house in a couple weeks, the team that did the windows, also removed and patched the hole the AC left.  Doesn't it look lovely??  

It's going to be mudded and fixed up like new soon!  That wall over Matt's smaller dresser will have an interesting mirror.  We don't want just a standard every day mirror.  We want something funky and a tad ornate.  I'm thinking something like this....

Then the big blank space {that looks totally engulfed in flames from the poor images I took} over my dresser is going to have a nice big TV mounted so that we can snuggle and watch movies in bed.  I'm a big fan of watching movies in bed. 

Another loathsome moment in our bedroom is the space between our dressers that holds our laundry basket. 

The basket is too small for the space.  And it is constantly overflowing. I had a brilliant idea that may never come to fruition, but I want to add moulding to the base of these dressers and connect them in the corner.  Something like this..... 

Ignore my horrible photoshopping job. But you get the idea.  That way, we can have the laundry basket  in the corner still but hide the "dirty little secret".  Brilliant, right?! It's just a matter of figuring out how to do it all.  That would be one serious IKEA Hack! 

One of the last things I loath are the sliding wood doors to our closets. 

Yikes! Talk about dated.  But it's nothing a good couple of coats of white paint won't fix!  And I can spray the little knob-thingys with ORB and it will work perfectly with the wood of the furniture. We may even affix a full length mirror with some moulding on the second door from the right.  It's got the 

best space in front of it and it will never slide behind the other. 

And the very last thing I will gripe about tonight is the art.  We've got the front half of the room figured out for what will happen down the road. But its all the other "art" that's at the other end, near our bed that drives. me. nuts. 

This is sentimental.  I drew Matt a version of "George Lasso's the Moon" from It's a Wonderful Life for our first Valentines day, it had only been a month and was too soon for a real present.  And it's sweet and I love it, but it doesn't hold its own over the night stands.

I feel the same about this canvas art I made long long ago.  It just doesn't fill in the space well enough. I would love to do something like this.

Then there is the biggest point of contention.  The degrees. I love my boyfriend and I love that he's smart. {Maybe even smarter than me ;)} But he has both his undergrad and masters degrees hanging on the wall. He has his own office... the perfect place for a degree! After broaching the subject with him about possibly moving those to his office and maybe adding a piece of art to that wall instead, he got offended, saying that it's his only truly proud thing he has hanging in a shared space {aka not his office}... and he wants to keep them there...

*sigh*... I love him and his happiness is more important than the "balance" in our bedroom.  But They just look so empty there. So, I think what we may compromise on, is utilizing those sentimental pieces that currently hang over the nightstands and over Matt's dresser, and making a little gallery wall of sentimentality. Maybe I'll coin the name Sentimenwall? Eh? Eh? Like it??  

So there you have the longest winded blog post in the history of man-kind. Thank you for keeping up with my blabbering.  But now, I'm dying to hear your thoughts on what to do... whether you like what I like or hate what I hate. Let me know your thoughts, Nesters!

xoxo

G

She works hard for her money!

So hard for it, Honey!

Since I work so hard... I think I deserve a nice space to work, dagnabbit!  And let's be real- I am kind of over my office desk right about now.

I've had this desk since the beginning of time.  Okay, well, at least since the time I started using a desk for homework. {Kindergarten?}   It's done me well and withstood a couple smaller makeovers, and despite my best efforts to make it work, it just doesn't tickle my fancy anymore.

It's gotta go.

DIY Filing Cabinet Makeover

Heya Nesters!  Well I finally had a chance to put the finishing touches on a project I've been working on for a couple months.  I alluded to it in this post but I don't think anyone really picked up on it. It really was only a few days work, but with nice long gaps in between.  I guess it was somewhere between laziness and being busy.  I had about hit my wits end when it came to file organization...

Painting the town... gray?

Matt and his brother started in on the serious job of painting the entire interior of the house.  That's a whole lot of paint.  Not to mention, a whole lot of paint choices.  I met them at Home Depot to pick out the last few colors.  And boy oh boy was it an adventure....

DIY Project: Girlie Bookshelf

Heya Nesters!  Well I have to admit, I kind of forgot to post about this DIY.   It's not entirely done but I thought it was dramatically different enough to show you the "during" portion. A while back {so far back that they were taken in the old apartment!!} I introduced you to this bookcase that my dad and I made when I was a kiddo. It hold sentimental value and I am a total sap so there was no way I could get rid of it. But at the time I made it I LOVED pink, flowers and Hanson. {I know... I not only dated myself but I made myself "that girl"}

Mid Century Addition

Heya Nesters!  I made a little detour on the way home from work last night and trotted over to pick up my newest Craiglist find.  Check out the snapshot that lured me in...

 

Ooolala... pretty enticing, right!?  I'm just pullin' your chain. It looks pretty dated but I had a vision.

Hang Your Hat...

Heya Nesters!  Now that I've cleared out those two Ikea bookshelves and replaced them with this one. I've found the space around the TV stand unbearably empty. 

I want it not to feel empty anymore, but I also don't want to feel cluttered.  I've already started contemplating the space under the clock which I'll highlight in another post. But the other side next to the door deserves a warm, welcoming addition since its the first thing you see as you open the door. 

Click READ MORE to see some off the hook ideas....

Temporary Wedding Nest...?

I work for Priscilla of Boston, a bridal gown manufacturer, in a character-filled building that has been here probably since Paul Revere was trotting through Boston.

Just kidding! ...But the brick factory was probably built somewhere around the turn of the century.  Being that our company is one of the oldest {and still going strong} bridal gown retailers in the country, we have also been renting this monstrosity since the 1960's.  Yes, you read that right: renting. Through various owners and changes of hands, we have always had our name over the front door. 

Love's accents

Hey Nesters! I hope all of your enjoyed some BBQ'd meats {or veggies!} yesterday in celebration of this fine Memorial day! Well, while I was stuffed to the gills with grilled goods, I did a mini DIY project that looks great hanging next to my newest LOVE image. 

Yesterday I showed you the how this piece hung on the wall in the kitchen.

But somehow this just looked so empty to me.   In this post I mentioned covering some small canvases with the lemon printed fabric. But with the idea of making my own kitchen towels, I think that fabric can be put to better use as towels, rather than wall hangings.

So I decided to paint on the canvases.  I know- old school, right?  I have an affinity for polka dots so it seemed natural for me to choose a Chuck Close-esque take on polka dots. 

So here's the how-to:

Step 1: Choose the size of your canvas according to the size of your frame. I got four 8X8 canvases for around $5.00 each.   If you get even smaller ones, you could layer 3 on each side.

Step 2: Choose the size of your "dots".  I used a smaller cereal bowl. I decided I wanted the space between the dots at the edges to be about 1" apart, so I measured each of the 4 sides and marked the center, and then 1/2" on either side.

Step 3: Grab that bowl that you picked out and lay it over the corner of the canvas face down, lining each side up with the 2 closest marks and trace lightly in pencil. 

Step 4:  Once all your markings are finished choose what color you'd like to paint! This is the fun part! for a little girls bedroom it would be fun to do a pink and green. Or for a dark master bedroom, maybe you would want to do a chocolate brown and a beige.  Since I'm in love with yellow, I chose a canary and white. Since I knew I wanted the white to be the inner color, I started with the yellow on the dots.

Step 5: Once the dots are completely dry, paint the inside color carefully to clean up anything that that may have gone outside of the lines. 

Step 6 (optional): Once I finished painting and cleaning everything up I wasn't totally happy with the pop of the yellow/white. I busted out my trusty black Prismacolor marker and went in and traced each of the dots with as steady a hand as possible.  {Think Greys Anatomy} But since this can be done with any color this part is totally optional. Maybe your pink and green will pop enough  that you won't need any tracing! That's the beauty of DIY, you can make it suit your needs.

Step 7: Hang and enjoy!

So here's the breakdown:

The Love image: $0 printed by Daddio. 

White Frame: $14.99 on sale at A.C. Moore

Canvas: 4 at $5 each-- $20

Paint/Marker: Already owned.

All in all this entire wall decor cost $35. 

 

The yellows aren't exactly the same and I'm happy that it turned out that way because it makes it a little more dynamic.  So, what do you think? I want to hear your thoughts!

PS: Now you can be a friend of Temporary Nest on Facebook!  So come on over and become a fan!!