creative little daisy

Really??

How did I not know this? I was nominated for an Apartment Therapy Homie Award and I didn't even know it. I was doing a little more blog tweaking this morning and noticed a referral to my blog from the Everything Typepad blog. That peaked my interest so I clicked over to see that I was one of the Typepad blogs nominated under the DIY category. I'm really bummed. Not that I would have won, but I could have let my readers know and shamelessly begged asked you to vote, pretty please with a cherry on top.

Oh well, a day late and a dollar short, I guess. Thank you to the three people who voted for me anyway. Had I known I could have managed at least three more votes from Alyssa, Kelli and Mitch. I'm sure my sister would have voted for me too. Unless you have to have a blog to vote. I don't even know the rules.

I'm happy to have been nominated, and so bummed that I didn't know. I definitely would have campaigned. Maybe next year.

I've been a little under the weather for a few days and have felt like doing little more than sitting on the couch. I've taken advantage of the down time by giving some attention to my neglected blog, uploading photos to my forgotten flickr account and also taken a few trips down memory lane by reading some old posts. It really made me appreciate having this little journal and reminded me how important it is to just blog. Stop worrying about who is reading and how it will be accepted. Some of the posts that meant the most to me, may not have been the most "popular" in terms of hits or referrals, but I'm so glad to have captured those moments.

On one of those personal notes, I have a proud mama moment I can't let get by without mentioning.

I think you all know that my son Casey is a Marine. His job involves maintenance of this big bird, a V-22 Osprey. He and his dad teamed up and did some painting.

 

The quality of some of these photos isn't the best. Casey took them with his phone and he said he got overspray on the lens.

I'm super proud of both my talented guys and so glad they had this opportunity to work on such an amazing project together.

My blog got a makeover

It's something I've wanted to do for a while,  just haven't had the time to sit at the computer for several hours straight, and that's what it took. Hours. I'm sure the little tweaks I made could have been knocked out in no time by someone who actually knows what they are doing. I am not that someone.

At one point considered paying someone to do it for me and even contacted a couple of  blog designers. It turns out they don't design for typepad blogs. When I started Creative Little Daisy in 2006, many of the blogs I read were on the typepad platform and those that were with blogger seemed to complain of frequent problems. The typepad bloggers weren't complaining about blog issues and they had nice looking blogs, so I went with Typepad.  Knowing absolutely nothing about blogging, other than how to read one, I jumped in blindly, fumbling my way around. In the past few years, there has been a shift. The number of blogs using blogger far exceeds typepad blogs (those that I read). If you google search anything to do with blog design tips or tutorials, you will find most are aimed at a blogger supported blog. That made the task of giving CLD a face lift a little more challenging, not impossible, just more challenging.

By now, y'all know, I love a good challenge, right?

What I really wanted was to streamline things. My sidebar was beginning to be a jumbled mess of various  links and buttons. I wanted a set of icons that matched and were pretty, making it easy to subscribe to CLD and find my facebook, pinterest, email... Finding the icons was easy. There are many sources for free downloadable icons, but clueless me didn't know what to do with them, how to get them on my blog. Then I found this that led me to this. Pretty buttons and easy to understand instructions for installing them. I had a little time on my hands, so I got down to business. It would have been very cut and dry except, like I mentioned before, I have a typepad blog, so I'm not one of the cool kids. The steps are a little different, but I was able to install the icons.  Here are some instructions for inserting images in your sidebar if you have typepad.

All was good, except that the pretty new icons made the rest of the blog look bla. One thing led to another and then another. You know how that goes. By the time I called it quits, because I was too cross-eyed to see anymore, I added the buttons, made a new sidebar image, a new header and new navigation bar. I also changed the colors.

I not going to go into great detail about what I did, because I would probably just embarrass myself. Most of you probably know these things already, but if you have specific questions, ask and I'll try my best to answer.
I did want to provide a link for the tutorials and tips that I found very helpful.

First, I would like to thank The Academy {snicker, it sounds like I'm making an acceptance speech} Not that Academy, this Academy for providing the free social media icons and Kira for providing the easy to understand instructions for getting those buttons on my side bar.

I wanted a cohesive and coordinated look and found the Instant Eyedropper tool very helpful. An icon is installed in your system tray that allows you to determine the HTML color code of any object on your screen.

The blog header and the navigation bar graphics were created in Picnik.

I used these instructions for adding the images to my navigation bar.

I think that's about it. It was a fun challenge and a way to get creative without getting paint in my hair, for a change.

I just lost a really long post!!

Oh my goodness, I hate when that happens.Wow, that really stinks. 

If you are reading this in a reader, please click over to see what I've been up to.

My blog got a little makeover. It took me two days because I have no idea what I'm doing. I will (re)post the links to some tips and tutorials that helped me immensely, but it will have to wait.My brain is mush.I can't believe I lost all that work.. grrrrr!!!

I have checked things out on my laptop and desktop in firefox and IE and things look OK. If anything is screwy on your screen, please let me know.

 

Right now, I have to step away from this computer before my backside roots itself to the chair.

Wall to wall table from a hollow core door

A little reminder, tomorrow, Google Friends Connect will no longer work with non blogger blogs like mine. If you subscribed through GFC and would like to continue getting my updates, please choose one of the other methods on the right sidebar. Thanks!!

At the beginning of this sewing room adventure, several years ago, this was my cutting/work table. A hollow core door blank (no holes cut for knobs) resting on various closetmaid organizers. It was a good plan and made a nice table for not a lot of money.

The only problem, I like to be able to access the table from either side and couldn't do that. Also, this is a big table, so the back corner ended up being wasted realestate, as it was too far to reach.

So, I moved the table away from the wall.

This was a better working layout and I actually had no problems with this, other than the fact that it's large and left very little floor space. The computer also felt cramped in the corner and while I was using what I had for furniture, it was just too much. Too many pieces.  Those clever curtains beneath the cutting table? A mistake. Don't create a space for hiding things. If you hide them, you forget about them and then when you aren't looking they get all crazy and messy.

I didn't really need a cutting table that was that big (nearly seven feet long and 36 wide).  I don't do that much large scale sewing and usually only needed about 36" of cutting space. I started searching pinterest. I had in mind what I wanted. Something rustic and industrial looking. I wanted a wood top with galvanized pipes for legs, like this. Then I went to Lowe's and priced the hardware. It was going to cost somewhere around $150 dollars just for the metal pipes and fittings for the frame and legs, wood not included. I had to let that dream go. I started discussing options with Mitch and said what if I use the door I already have, cut down the center. It would be exactly the size I need and would be free. He likes free, he was all for that plan. He also priced the pipe for me at a plumbing suply store, instead of Lowes. It was cheaper, but still too much to make a whole frame for the base.

A little side story about my convo with the plumbing supply guy.  So, Mitch calls up the guy and tells him what I want. He says no problem, I'll pull what you need and call you back with the price. About an hour later he calls me back to tell me what he's come up with and the price of each part. He says you'll need six flanges and three nipples. Right then and there I realized living with a man with a middle schooler's sense of humor for 25 years has affected me negatively.  I nearly snickered when  the guy said nipple. Like Beavis and Butthead or something. I'm a forty-three year old grandmother, and I almost snickered at some guy saying nipple to me on the phone. Geeze.

It turns out, he was talking about the pipe.  It's galvanized plumbing pipe, why call it a nipple?

Where was I before I revealed how immature I really am? The door. Right, the door. Mitch cut it down the center.

Here is the door cut in half. Hollow inside except for some cardboard support pieces. I have seen folks make floating shelves with hollow core doors by mounting the door on a board, the hollow part just slides over a board that is mounted to the wall. My table top was going to be too wide for that to work, plus it needs to hold quite a bit of weight, so we wanted something sturdier.

Mitch put some extra support into the hollowed out places, just some scrap wood cut to fit and wedged in place.

I wasn't home when he did this, and that sweetie had the forethought to get a picture for me. He's officially a blog husband.

The above picture shows support pieces he attached for attaching the flange and nipples. I mean legs.

Next he mounted 2x2s along the length of the wall and the side walls screwing it into the studs.

Since the door was in two pieces, he created a brace to go under the seam and to attach the center leg.

You can see it looked a little rough before all the finish work was done. I filled in the screw holes and the center seam with spackle and gave it a couple coats of primer.

I used this inside corner trim to hide the gap at the wall.  It worked perfectly for this. I caulked all the seams and gave it three coats of white paint followed by three coats of  water based poly. I wanted it to be very smooth and easily to keep clean. 

I used a hole saw to make holes for all my cords to go through. I just have to come up with a method for concealing them underneath. I hate a mess of jumbled cords.

Everything but the materials for the legs (six flanges and three nipples) we already had. So this table cost less than fifty dollars. All the storage underneath was already here, just being used differently. You don't always have to use things as intended. This whole thing just sort of evolved. I didn't have a definite plan, other than the measurements for the table top and height requirements for the shelves I had to fit.  I didn't give much thought to all the computer stuff that would need a place to live. I was about to move the desk out and started taking the desk apart to see if I could reuse any of it. It was too tall to fit under the new table as is, so I took the top off and removed the feet. It was built by my friend Kelli's husband, Norman and was put together mostly with screws. That made disassembling it very easy. I wish I had pictures, but I really had no idea it would work, it just sort of happened.

Here's a photo of the desk before.

You can kind of see it there in the corner. I pretty much removed everything that was screwed on and put some of it back in different places. There was a pull out tray for the printer, I moved that to use for the keyboard.

The keyboard is too wide to fit on the tray with it pushed in, so I just sit it on top when not in use and pull it down to the tray when needed.

I put two of the closetmaid bookshelves on either side. One houses more computer stuff the other has sewing machine paraphernalia. One last one was turned on its side to hold the printer. The large IKEA boxes hide yet more computer stuff, discs, extra cables, manuals...

I know the little shelf my Silhouette is sitting on isn't much, but I made it, start to finish, alone. So, I'm proud. I finally got my Kreg jig out of the box and used it. I see a new addiction hobby  in my future.

I left a blank spot on the table top, so I could use the Silhouette without clearing a bunch of stuff out of the way. There's a basket up there now, but it's mobile. It has my nebulizer inside for breathing treatments. I like having it out of site but easily accessible.

The other end I wanted to keep a bit clearer underneath for sewing. I have a few things down there temporarily, until I can come up with a better solution. Rome wasn't built in a day, right? Overall, I'm thrilled. I know, I have said that before, and I was thrilled then too, but I believe each time I've learned more about what did and did not work. I hope this time I've gotten it right.

Here's a collage of the before and after.You can see it's the same stuff, just different.

Easy-peasy thread rack

I knew I'd seen someone use pegboard to make a thread rack. Maybe, no probably on pinterest. I had some pegboard and I wanted a thread rack, so I googled Pegboard Thread Rack, found this tutorial and did exactly what she said. Except her dowels were placed in straight rows, using every other hole. Mine ended up being staggered, not intentional, it just happened that way. 

I bought 1/4" dowels like she said, and even tried the dowel in a piece of pegboard at Lowe's. Fit perfectly. When I got home, the dowels didn't want to fit in my pegboard.

I was going to sand the ends to make them a little smaller, but that was a lot of dowels.

So I just dabbed a little wood glue on the end,

and forced it in with a hammer.

Worked like a charm and they aren't going anywhere.

Glued some trim around the edges (forgot to get a pix) and spray painted it all glossy white.

I loved the aqua blue frame Mandy used for hers, and I considered painting my frame, but I decided the thread was going to be plenty of color. Also, I had a full can of white paint, so that really made my decision easy.

I love this project because it was cheap, I didn't buy a thing. Even if you didn't have the supplies on hand, it would still be cheap to make, and you can customize it to any size or color you want.

I used wire to hang it. Just two pieces run through a couple of the holes. If you look closely between the pink and gold thread on top, the wire is there. There is another on the other side but it's under the white thread. I used plastic drywall anchors and screws in the wall. I didn't know how heavy it would get with all the spools on, so I wanted to be safe.

It's kinda like functional art, isn't it?

I like to bring you easy and inexpensive projects

this one will not fall under either of those categories.

It's a sewing room project, the cutting table.  Not a tutorial, just me sharing  what I did to dress up some cheap cabinets. It happened to be cheap for me, because I had the stuff on hand. I kept thinking though, while I was working, should I share this or not? I guess what made me question was a comment I read on a blog recently. I don't remember the name of the blog, I followed a link from somewhere else. It's a blog that talks trash about other blogs. I didn't read much, mostly because I don't  read any of the blogs they were talking about. Kind of like hearing gossip about someone you don't know. I did read some comments about a few home dec blogs. The one they seemed to have the most to say about was Young House of Love. (which I happen to read and enjoy) The one comment that stayed with me was about the play kitchen they made for their little girl just a few days before Christmas. The commenter was like who has the tools or know how to throw together a play kitchen in a few hours a few days before Christmas. Well, readers of YHL, that's who. I mean if you follow their blog, you likely have some interest in DIY and home decor. I have the tools and a little know-how, so I could appreciate such a post. Now, I would not have the same interest in a post about professional baking or expect to read one and be able to go into my kitchen and make an intricate wedding cake. I don't have the skills or tools. All that to say, you may not have a junky garage full of scrap pieces from left over projects and you may not have access to a circular or miter say. If not this project might not be for you. If you do have some scrap and want to dress up a cheap piece, you might be interested in what I did.

I'm not saying it can't be done inexpensively, but if you had to buy all the pieces involved, it would end up being a little pricey. I think to buy the cabinets, the molding and the beadboard, you would end up spending what you could on a nicer set of cabinets and save yourself a lot of work.I didn't say a nice set, I said nice-er.

That said, I already had the closetmaid pieces. They function well for my needs and the size is just right. I also have a junky garage full of scraps, so lets dress 'em up. The cabinets I'm working on are from Lowe's. On one end is a cabinet with doors and shelves inside.

The other end is actually two units that stack containing two drawers each.

Some flat-pack, put together at home furniture looks nice. Alyssa's bed for example, it came from IKEA and had to be assembled, but it doesn't look cheap. These peices are dorm room cheap. Not the least bit attractive right out of the box. 

I tried dressing them up a bit by changing out the hardware and that was fine when they were under the ginormous cutting table. Now, they are front and center in the middle of the room, first thing you notice when you walk in and they screamed cheap and ugly. At least, that's what they screamed at me.

Just looking at them from the front they aren't awful, it was the sides that really bothered me.

And the cardboard backs. Something had to be done about those backs. Beadboard wallpaper was my solution. I would use it on the sides and back.

First I had to do something about those huge screws sticking out on the sides. Wallpaper wouldn't cover that.

I removed each screw and used a countersink bit to make a hole so the screw head would be well, countersunk.

After they were all sitting below the surface a bit, my assistant and I filled in the holes with some spackle.

See the screws now? What screws?

The next step was beadboard wallpaper. I put it on the sides and proceded to do the back. Well, silly me! I didn't consider how that cardboard would react to having wet wallpaper placed against it. It didn't like it, that's how it reacted. It warped and did all kinds of ugly stuff. Of course it did. It's just layers of paper after all. Duh.

So, I had to pull it off, the wall paper and the angry, wet cardboard underneth, then pry out each nail that was holding it on.

I thought a trip to Lowes was in my future, but I went out in the garage to dig around for something that might work. Much to my surprise there was a piece of bead board-ish stuff. It looks like beadboard, but it's slick and shiny. Some sort of pressed board. I just needed it to be solid and to be at least four feet wide by 30.5 inches tall. It was my lucky day, it was exactly 4'x3'. Mitch wasn't home so I was going to have to wait or cut it myself.  Wait? Heck no.  I cut it myself, beautifully, I might add. I'm not bragging, just passing along my delight and surprise. Until very recently, like the past couple of weeks recent, I was scared of the circular saw. It's awkward to hold, maybe cause I'm a lefty, and dang near impossible to cut a straight line with.  I clamped a straight board to piece I was cutting to serve as a straight edge to guide the saw and got a straight line. Then I did a little celebratory dance. Right there in the yard.

The beading is not the same pattern as the wallpaper, but I don't care. I slapped that found-in-the-garage, cut-by-me stuff up there and was pleased as punch with myself.

The camera was in Jacksonville with Mitch (remind me to share with you why), so I don't have pictures of each step. No pictures? What kind of tutorial is this? It's not a tutorial, remember? Just me sharing how I pimped my cheapo cabinets.

In the junky garage, we had some baseboard left from the attic project so I put that around the bases. The only thing left was the corners. I needed some sort of trim to hide the gap between the wallpaper sides and the beadboard on the backs. I promise, I'm not making this up, we had some corner trim in the garage, only not enough.  I got Alyssa to pick up  2 more sections (8' each) at around 6 dollars a piece.  Then like all my molding projects, caulk, caulk, caulk to hide my many mistakes, one coat of primer two coats of paint and I had a couple of respectable bases for my cutting table.

Oops, looking at this photo, I see I forgot to mention that trim at the top, I don't know what it's called, but it was cheap. I bought it when I did the cabinets in the attic but didn't use it. It's 3/4" wide and has rounded edges. I think it's called screen molding.

So, since I was using cabinets I already had and materials left over from other projects, this cost me around $40.  That's for the corner molding and the half sheet of plywood for the top.

The top is birch plywood. I bought a 4'x4' piece and had Lowe's cut one foot off one end. I wanted the table top to be 3'x4'. It was twenty something.

My cousin,  (the one who gave me the stool) did this to the edges for me using a shaper. I think I said a router before, but he said it's called a shaper. Different tool. 

I stained it with this

about three coats, wiping off the excess and letting it dry between coats. Then I mixed some dark walnut stain with the sun bleached and gave it another coat. I was going for that Restoration Hardware color. I sealed it with several coats of Minwax wipeon poly in satin finish. I attached it to the top of the cabinets with screws from inside the tops of the cabinets.

You can see, I didn't finish the underside of the table top.

I just did a quick calculation of what I estimate it would cost to do this without having the materials on hand and I'd say it would run me somewhere around $200.  $90 for the cabinets, $18 for the corner trim, $6 for the screen trim, around $15 for new hardware, maybe $10 for a the backing piece- a complete guess there, and $35 for the wall paper, (including shipping). You can buy it cheaper at Lowe's, but the quality isn't as realistic looking. You can order from Home Depot (they only carry it online) but what they carry is now under the Martha Stewart label and is not pre-pasted. Since I last bought some from HD, I've  learned you could order the pre-pasted realistic looking stuff from the lady who made it a blog sensation in the first place. Rhoda of Southern Hospitality sells it in her blog shop.

Now that I've looked at the numbers, I guess even if I had to buy everything $200 isn't that bad for two custom cabinets. I surfed around a little and found this at IKEA for $79.00. The dimensions are right, but I don't see a matching one that is a cabinet with shelves.

I guess the purpose of this long and rambling post is... I'm not sure, I've been writing this so long now I've forgotten what the point was.  I guess I'm trying to say that DIY projects aren't always cheaper than buying new, in fact many times they are not cheaper. You have to look at your own situation and weigh all the factors. For me, I had cabinets that worked, why buy new? I just wasn't happy with the look of them and by using left overs I was able to make them look more custom and less dorm room.

What are your thoughts? Would you rather buy or DIY in a situation like this?

For me taking the money comparison out of it, I actually enjoy doing this kind of thing. I loved getting a chance to improve my miter saw skills. I feel much more confident using a circular saw and I kept two ugly cabinets out of the landfill.

 

Sewing room makeover take... three?

I've lost count to be honest. You have to live with a room a while to learn what works and what doesn't. Especially so for a working room.

While Casey was away becoming one of the few and the proud, I took over his room. I figured the Marines owned him for at least four years, he wouldn't be needing it. At the time it seemed like the perfect arrangement, but it wasn't.

About a year later, I moved things around again. It was better, but over time, it just wasn't working either and eventually became a junk hole. Not at all conducive to creativity. I just wanted to close the door and pretend it wasn't there. Except it was. It was there, and I may have had a bad dream or two about it. 

Think I'm exaggerating? Brace yourselves folks, what you are about to see isn't pretty.

Are you ready?

Now you know why I haven't posted any sewing projects. I'm not sure I could even find the sewing machine.

Yea, bad. Real bad.

Let me say one tiny thing in my defense, I had already started some of the reorganization when I took these photos. You know, things get worse before they get better.  I had pulled things from under the table and piled them on top. The other stuff, like mount lampshade over there, that was there already.

Then it got even worse. You see, to implement my plan, most of the furniture in the room had to come out. There was a lot of stuff hanging out on that furniture

Enough ugliness, it's giving me the heebie-jeebies.Lets get on with the afters.

Wall to wall work table and all it cost me was the price of the legs. It's the same hollow core door I'd been using as a cutting table, only now it's fourteen feet long instead of seven

No new furniture was purchased. Almost everything was reused and repurposed. I did purchase a new plywood top for my cutting table and legs for the work table. I also purchased tissue paper for the pom poms and a small amount of molding. It was a use-what-you-have makeover for sure.

I reused the computer desk by taking the top off, turning it upside down and putting wheels on the new bottom.

All the closetmaid components that were below the cutting table were reused in various ways. The book shelves were placed under the work table.

This one was turned on its side to hold storage boxes and the printer. I made the little shelf to hold my silhouette with a scrap of plywood from the new cutting table. Did you catch that? I said I made that shelf. Yep, me and my kreg jig. It ain't much, but I did it, start to finish, all by my lonesome.

That's not all folks. I also made this thread rack. Alone. Just me.

These shelves? I hung 'em.

I recovered the chairs with fabric I bought a while back and never used. (Hancock Fabric)

I also pimped the closetmaid cabinets that serve as bases for the new cutting table.

I added beadboard backs, beadboard wall paper to the sides and baseboard around the bottom. Oh, and some corner trim on all the corners too. 

You're looking at my stool aren't you? I know you are. It was free. Yep, free. Don't hate.

I was at my cousin's, next door,  he was finishing the edge of my plywood table top with his router and I spied that stool in the corner, dusty, stuff piled on top, and I shamelessly begged him for it. Not really begged, but I let him know if he didn't love it to pieces, I'd give it a happy home. And he said OK.

I spent hours, no joke hours, trying to get the placement of those two cabinets right this morning. I measured and moved, measured and moved. I just knew the first thing Mitch would say when he walked in the room would be,  the table isn't straight. He has one of those eyes. He picks up the slightest offness and it drives him crazy, and when he points it out to me, after I've slaved over some project, it drives me crazy. Like I want to beat him to death with a level or something. I kid.

So, in an effort to keep him from pointing out my nonsquareness, I measured. A lot. I even got the laser level out. Not that I knew what to do with it, but it was there. Moral support, I guess.

One of the bases has drawers and holds my patterns.

The other one has doors to hide crafting necessities.

My books were in the closetmaid book shelves under the cutting table before. Now I can see them all.

I made the cover of this one. Well, not me, but one of my projects.

I was already storing yarn in this bushel basket. I just stained it gray and recovered the little top.

The pegboard was just moved from one wall to another.

Same plastic jars for ribbon storage.

I think I am going to paint the doors on this cabinet with chalkboard paint and I have an art piece planned for the wall above the work table, so it's not 100%, but I couldn't wait any longer to share.

I'm thrilled that I got a new room without going out and buying a bunch of new stuff. I forced myself to used what I had and I couldn't be happier.

I lined my bamboo roman shades

I tried to share a few of the changes I've made in the masterbedroom, but Willie stole the show. That's the honest truth. I went in there to snap a few pictures, and suddenly I was taking pictures of him. Just him.

If you did happent to get a glimpse of what was going on in the backgound, you were probably thinking to yourself, hmph, nothing special there. And you'd be right. I don't have any show stopping before and after pictures. I've just made a few small changes over several months. That goes completely against my typical method. I'm a vicitm of the trading spaces mindset. You know, you get the urge to redecorate and want it done now, but I've had to change that way of thinking. 

I've been pinning ideas, mulling over the feel I want the room to have, and implementing changes gradually.  One of those changes was the window treatements.  My color palate is going to be blue, white and some light sand/linen tones. 

The room is void of architectural details. The ceilings are not high, there is no crown molding. A pretty boring box of a room. To add some interest I stencilled the wall behind the bed.

It gave the room so much interest. Stenciling gives you so much bang for your buck. Even without a headboard, the room looks so much better.

The stencil I used is the Anna Damask stencil from Cutting Edge Stencils. I'll talk more about that later this week.

Today I wanted to share what I did with the windows, hence the post title. Sometimes I get sidetracked.

Pay no attention to the ginormous used to be in the bathroom mirror leaning against the wall. (Unless you happen to need a ginormous mirror, then look closely at it and email me. It's yours if you want it and live close by.) Also ignore the comforter draped futon at the end of the bed. Like I said, no stunning after photos here, it's a work in progress.

Where was I? Oh yea, the windows. The curtains are simple white panels from Target. I doubled them up because they aren't very wide and look a bit wimpy with just two per window. So for these two windows there are actually six panels. Good thing they were on clearance when I decided to double up.

What I'm here to talk about are the bamboo shades. I love the look of bamboo shades, but they provide no privacy and let in lots of light. Not really great for a bedroom. Especially when someone who sleeps here sometimes works nights. If you've ever worked nights and tried to sleep during the day, you know light blockage is essential. Even a sliver of light peaking through can seem like a spotlight. I'm telling you, we go to great lengths to block light. Not only did we have room darkening roller shades, but over that I made from black-out lining a panel that is removable and covers the whole window. It has grommets and velcro and completely covers the window and blocks all light.

But again, that's not what I'm here to talk about. Those roman shades. Remember I said I had room darkening roller blinds? Well, my friend Kelli recently hung roman shades in her daughter's room in a front facing window. She wanted to keep visual uniformity from the outside of the house, so she left the white roler shades she had and hung the bamboo shade outside the roller shade. You can't see the roller shade from inside the room and you can't see the bamboo shade from outside the house. Sneaky and smart huh?

Well, my widows aren't deep enough for that to work so I had to come up with a different privacy/light blocking solution. I googled how to line roman shades and found this tutorial. Woohoo. So, I proceeded to do just that. I decided to reuse the roller shades for the lining.

I opened the bamboo shade out completely, laid it on the living room floor, placed the shade over top and followed the tutorial. I was quite pleased with myself. It's easy-peasy. Just glue the liner to the shade at the top and cut slits for the metal rings, oh wait, back up. You have to untie the strings from the rings first and pull those out of the way. After that you glue the liner to the top and cut slits for the rings. Then run the string back through the rings and you're done. Be sure to follow Jane's tut at the Borrowed Abode. She goes into more details and has good pictures.

All was good. It was easy. I hung my lined bamboo shades and was quite pleased with myself. It should be noted I did this at night. It was dark when I hung the newly lined shades.

I woke up to the strangest sight.

In the photo it's dots of light. In real life it was as if rays of sunshine had pierced the shades and were invading the room.

Well, that had to be remedied ASAP.

Think, think, think...what to do. I pulled the shades back down and tried to think of what I could do. I thought to myself, I need something like those stickers that reinforce the holes in notebook paper.

So, I got myself some white silhouette vinyl from the craft room, which by the way looks like a war zone right now, but that's a post for another day. I used a circle punch to cut circles from the vinyl then punched a hole in the center with a regular hole punch.

Then I cut a slit in my little vinyl donut and covered the slit in the liner.

 

As usual, being supervised every step of the way by the foreman.

And his less hands paws snout-on sidekick.

Some of the slits were larger and required a little extra vinyl to completely cover over, but once it was all on, the shades went back up and all was good. No more darkness piercing beams of light shooting through my shades.

*This photo was taken before I doubled up the curtains.

 

Such a ham

I've been so busy with all the apartment happenings I've not even thought about making any changes elsewhere in the house.

 

 

Ha! I had a hard time even typing that sentence. My severe case of decorating ADD doesn't allow me to be reasonable and recognize that I have too much going on. Oh no, I don't seem to grasp the concept that if I would just step away from the paint brush, put down the drill, and for all that is good and holy, stay the heck away from Pinterest, if I would do those things, I might find myself relaxing in a calm and un-chaotic surroundings. It isn't meant to be my friends.

As I type this I am in various stages of unfinishedness in no less than three rooms, besides the apartment.

I've been making some small gradual changes in the master bedroom. I tried to take a few pictures but a certain little weenie kept hamming it up for the camera and upstaging my bedroom decor.

Look at him, trying to look all casual and uninterested in the camera.

What? Me? I'm just relaxing. Being handsome. I can't help it if I'm irresistible.

Go on, take your pictures. Don't mind me and my big beautiful eyes. 

I really don't like the attention, I'll look away. 

Don't you have a stencil to talk about?

Are you going to say anything about that mirror with the  shish kabob sticks?

Did you tell em your idea for a headboard? You know you really do need to get a headboard, slacker.

Excuse me.... hey, I'm talking to you. Back over here with the camera.

That's better.

You didn't even mention the furniture. Remember when you were painting it and I got paint in my hair? Do you have a picture of that?

 

Such a camera hog! I'll share more when a certain little diva boy isn't around stealing the spotlight.

 

 

A few details

When we built this house 16 years ago, we had to cut many of the extras that were included in the plans. One of those was a finished bonus room over the garage. Over time Mitch put sheet rock up and had it wired, but for all those years it was just an overflow from the attic. Particle board floors, bare bulb lights, untrimmed window... bare bones.

The only access to the room was by pull down attic stairs in the garage.

I won't go into the details of how Alyssa's marriage ended, it's not my story to tell. But as a mom, I didn't want my child to stay in an unhappy situation because she felt she had nowhere else to go, no other options. Without thought as to how we would make it work, I told her we would turn the bonus room into an apartment for her and Bayleigh. A little to my surprise and much to my relief she accepted the offer.

We began work last summer. It was slow going as we did most of the work ourselves. We hired a carpenter to build the stairs and frame in a bathroom and a friend of Mitch's helped him with the electrical work. My nephews helped with some of the painting and a friend of Alyssa's did some sheet rock work. 

We didn't have a very big budget to work with. The biggest chunk went to getting the stairs built. Alyssa chipped in on much of the expense, but ultimately, finishing the room will add to the value of our home, so we covered the structural stuff.

Mitch built this book shelf that serves as a divider between the room and the stairway.

And now

He also did the plumbing on  a small powder room that is at the base of the stairs and this little kitchen area. We found the cabinets at the Habitat Re-Store for 15 bucks each. We saved our old counters when we installed butcher-block and one section fit perfectly on the cabinets. Alyssa purchased a sink and faucet from O.com, and a friend gave her a fridge. A couple of shelves and some pretty dishes and they have a little kitchen. 

Alyssa purchased the Hemnes daybed from IKEA because it has three huge drawers for storage, can serve as seating during the day and also pulls out to become a king-size bed. Yes, I said a king-size.

Here it is during the day,

and at night.

Surprisingly , the room doesn't feel claustrophobic, even with the bed pulled out.

The "built-ins" on either side of the bed started out as this

Two laminate cabinets from Lowes.

I added some trim and beadboard wallpaper.

Left over stair treads were used for the tops.

A little more trim to bridge the gap between the cabinet and the wall, and a little white paint to finish it off.

They provide quite a bit of storage and don't take up much floor space.

The dandelion wall art was made from leftover wall planks, painted by Mitch. It was inspired by Bayleigh's love for dandelions and the design on our matching tattoos.  I knew we needed something large for that wall and I wanted it to tie in with the plank wall opposite. When I came across this on pinterest, by DIY Diva I knew that's what I wanted.

You can read about the wood plank wall here.

Lighting is from Lowes.

Flooring is Allure vinyl planks in hickory from Home Depot.

There you have it, our journey from an unfinished bonus room to a little attic apartment.   

If you see anything I didn't cover, just ask. I'll be glad to answer any questions.

 

I'll be linking to some of these parties.