decor

The Weekend of Recovery

Every year around this time, I make a list of 20 things I want to accomplish in course of summer, and, of course, I usually complete about 10. Yes sir, overachiever, right here!

There is one item that has been on my list since 2004 and has never reached the summit: Reupholstering.

I have two side chairs that came to me 100% free and 200% ugly. Both are arm chairs, great lines, groan-inducing comfortable. Since paying someone else to reupholster is just about as expensive as purchasing new chairs, I have waffled between the two options for years, making up the difference in decorative throw blankets. I have now concluded that this is the summer, THIS SUMMER, Lord willing and the creek don’t rise, I am going to reupholster them myself. If it doesn’t work out, so be it, I can say I tried and won’t feel guilty for buying a new one.

Before I embark on this epic journey with my trusty steed, Thy Staple Gun, I decided to break in my upholstery skills with some basic projects. Namely, chair covers.

Weekend Project 1: The Jefferson Chair

I bought this corner chair at the Salvation Army for $13. It reminds me of one I saw at Monticello so I dubbed it the Jefferson chair. It looks weird but it’s insanely comfortable. It has straight lines and a small footprint like a dining chair, but the arm rests are made in a way that allows for lounging like an arm chair. Plus, this ain’t something you can buy at Home Goods, you know? Initially I thought I would refinish it but when I took it apart I could see that this was not a professional piece but someone’s garage born wood working project. Even better! It’s hella sturdy and I love it as is, wood glue warts and all. Just a light cleaning and linseed oil was all it needed. The cushion though, needed some work. I have a weird fetish for pine and polka dots (don’t ask), so this black and white thing just needed to happen. I am addicted to well-balanced yet non-symmetrical polka dots (again, don’t ask).

Weekend Project 2: Kiki’s Dining Room Chairs

This one has been in the works for over a year. Shows you my profound talent for procrastination!

My friend Kiki inherited the most gorgeous dining table for her Grandma Lucile (yes, the same Grandma Lucile of Beer Can Alligator fame). The table is the perfect size and shape for her dining room and comfortably seats 8 people without even adding a leaf. The wood is in near-perfect condition but the chairs, oh my, were covered in double laminated pus-colored oil cloth. The bumpy kind. Not cute. Luckily, a year ago, my friend Ann sent me a giant box of fabric, including this gorgeous floral and paisley one. Not only do the colors pick up the wood grain and look great in the room, the fabric is hefty enough to hold up to spot cleaning (if needed) and light weight enough that I could stretch it over the seats nice and tight. Also, and this is most important, Kiki’s kitty Tzeitel looks really good on them.

“Thanks Ann!” –Tzeitel

Problem with doing a big set of dining chairs is you get a bit sloppy half way through. By the time I got to chair #4 I miscalculated the staple position and it ricocheted off the table and into my eye. “BLACKHAWK DOWN,” I cried to no one in particular, “BLACKHAWK DOWN!”

Turns out the staple got caught on my eyelashes. My big honking, dipped-in-tar style mascara lashes saved my life. Okay, not my life, they saved my eye. But the lesson is to always wear mascara AND safety goggles. Or if you don’t have safety goggles (like, ahem, me) at least wear sunglasses. Even if it’s indoors. You will look like an asshat, but better a two eyed asshat than a one eyed idiot.

You can’t get that kind of wisdom in a book, y’all.

I’m still nervous about taking on the arms chairs, but I will suck it up and have some courage. If by chance anyone in the Chicago area has experience with an upholsterer at a good price, leave their name and # in the comments, wouldya?

And for everyone who wants to try at home, this is a nice one.

Next warm up: Lampshades. Get excited people!

Newsprint Cabinets

by PEACHES 34 Comments

So, this thing happened last spring wherein I decoupaged my kitchen cabinets with newspaper.

BAM!

You didn’t see that one coming did you? Newspaper and ready-made cabinets dancing together in some unorthodox swirl of muskrat love. How’s that for a Wednesday?

Okay, okay, this opens up two lines of questions…

1. Dude, wtf? Why would you want to decoupage your cabinets like some reject TGIFridays? Couldn’t you just paint them like a normal person?

The cabinets were melamine front (essentially plastic). Painting would have been awesome, but painting required sanding the melamine indoors, which is highly toxic and would be a pain in the butt, not to mention a major respiratory risk to Lola (mi gatita). No go. I tried some liquid sanding products and neither one were adequate products in my book. One wasn’t aggressive enough, the other was too aggressive, smelled awful, and left an uneven surface. So I said aloud to nobody in particular, “Screw it, let’s Mod Podge this mo fo!”

If I hated it, I had a plan B. It was called Ikea. This room will likely get a larger overhaul down the line, but for now, this is fun way to bring the funk to a boring old kitchen.

2. This is from a year ago? Why are you telling me about it now?

I wanted to be sure it would stand up to a year of cooking and cleaning before I recommended this method to anyone else. You know? That’s important sometimes. It annoys the crap out of me when DIY bloggers post about stuff knowing that the results won’t withstand the test of time. I mean, okay, that’s one thing when it’s some crafty doo-dah, but kitchen cabinets are the real deal. I don’t know that anyone reading this will actually attempt to decoupage their cabinets, but if they do, I don’t want some chunk to fall off in their spaghetti sauce. Quality counts.

One year later…

They have been splattered, scratched, picked at, roughed up and scuffed up non-stop for one year and they are just as good as ever. A month after the paper went on I sealed with outdoor Mod Podge, but that was it. I kept some newsprint as scrap in case I need to patch something someday, but so far it has not been necessary. The one thing that did change was the newsprint – it went from grey to yellow in just a couple of months – which is what I wanted, so that’s fine, although it made me switch the hardware to brass a while back. Yes, I’m a fickle one.

The Glue

This is what I used to adhere newsprint (highly porous) to melamine cabinets (non-porous) and make it look slightly aged at the same time:

Two parts Mod Podge
One part Wood Glue
One part Diet Coke (could swap for Dr. Pepper or Coffee or whatever, you could swap for water) ….Why Diet Coke? I wanted the acid in the soda to set off the acid in the newsprint and make it yellow faster. Initially I wanted to have old-looking newsprint with new-looking hardware. Then that looked weird, then I tried some stuff, then I settled on old-ish brass. Well, aren’t you glad that got sorted out?

Prepare for this project to take over your entire kitchen for at least two days.

The Doozing
This is the same as any other decoupage project only bigger; slap on the glue, slap on the paper, slap on some more glue. If you are not familiar with basic arts and crafts decoupage, please, for the love of sequins, start there there before you embark on a major project like cabinetry. It’s easy but don’t bite off more than you can chew.

Tips

Use your fingers to smooth things out after the brushes are done.
Use a lightweight paper and crumple it up beforehand (the crumples will allow the paper to absorb the adhesive better and give a smother finish).
Use a finishing sealer. I thought mixing the woodglue into the adhesive mix would stand up to wear and tear — and it did on the fronts, but around the edges it started to get a little frayed. After the cabinets cured for a few weeks I used outdoor Mod Podge (–it’s easy to control, but you can get spray-on finishes just about anywhere).

I realize 99.999995% of the people reading this will never do this, but, IF YOU ARE REALLY CONSIDERING DOING THIS…

If you really do this, the adhesive is everything. Everything. The adhesive recipe I use to attach paper to melamine front cabinets might be different than the one you use to attach fabric to poly-sealed wood cabinets, or glossy magazine paper to metal. Stuff varies. Do a test patch and let it set a week before doing the whole thing. Okay, okay? And if you do try it, send me a picture!

I Wallpapered the Fridge

by PEACHES 87 Comments

Shamalamalamadingdong! I went and wallpapered the fridge.

Annnnnnnnd it’s amazing. I take no credit in this because I didn’t make the stuff, I just stuck in on there, but wow, this is a good thing. A very good thing. I mean, I have a lot of weird and wonderful things in my kitchen but this sucker is a show stopper. You walk in the room and it hits you like a bag of Thunder Cats.

Hey now THAT is a fridge!

Can we talk about something for a sec?

Appliances. Why are they always so boring?

I don’t get it. You spend all this money on something you use every day, shouldn’t it be interesting to look upon? Honestly, not to go all femtator here, but you can tell most appliances are designed by men – they are boring and efficient and look like a blown up version of something you would find under the hood of a car. If, let’s say, washing machines, were designed by women, not only would they have figured out an effective way to keep the washer and dryer drum in one machine (HELLO), it would have a folding station on top that doubled as an ironing board and the front panel would snap on-and-off like a phone case, thus allowing for different colors and patterns like stripes and flowers and pictures of smoosh faced kitties. Is this too much to ask? I SAY, IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK?

Oddly enough, prior to the popularity of stainless steel, many refrigerators and dishwashers came with pop-on panel fronts – one side was white and one side was black. Manufacturers claimed that people were always welcome to paint one side or the other and customize to their home, but hardly anyone ever did. Why? Maybe because they never knew about it. Maybe because they were afraid. Maybe because they were waiting for a day when they could add their own awesomely patterned skin to their home appliances. Ladies and gentlemen, that day is here: REMOVEABLE WALLPAPER.

Now, removable wallpaper has been around for years. I know because I have been looking since 2002, which is the year I moved into a house with an almond front fridge with cigarette burns around the handle (don’t ask). For a long time, removable wallpaper was something plastic and weird. It came with pictures of shells and thistles and patterns otherwise relegated to mortuary waiting rooms. It was also expensive and you had to buy a 25’ roll. Whatev.

When Elizabeth contacted me about a new line of removable wallpaper – Chasing Paper – I was excited. Not only did they carry a variety of interesting patterns, they cut it into manageably sized peel-and-stick panels. No soaking in water and hoping that it sticks like regular wall paper. The adhesive is very forgiving so it’s easy to move around and take your time matching seams. The texture is somewhere between wallpaper and contact paper, which makes it 100% wipe-able – perfect for the kitchen. For a while there I thought about using the black and white stripes as a backsplash but settled on the fridge.

Also, they have a lot of cool patterns but I liked the hexagon. It’s very David Hicks and is a nice balance to the newsprint on the cupboards. Also, it reminds me of the Stanley Kubric movie, The Shining.

So now it’s just me and the fridge and little Tony (RED RUM RED RUM) hanging out in the kitchen each night. I don’t suspect I will get bored this pattern anytime soon, but when I do, I’ll be sure to pop over to check out the latest at Chasing Paper. This green Fern-a-topia has my name all over it!

###

Honest Abe Says… I did not pay for the initial sample of this product. I generally do not accept product in exchange for promotion, but this is one occasion where I felt like sharing. It’s that good. Chasing Paper is a brand new company and I hope you will support their business in delivering a great product. I know I will.

*Disclaimer: I was provided with a sample of this product free of charge, for review purposes. This did not alter my opinion of the product and the opinions I have expressed in this post are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the United States Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.

###

Update April 2015: The fridge got a new party dress. Again! Check out her new look.

Washi Tape Shelf Edging

by PEACHES 30 Comments

Here’s a simple something worth a lookyloo.

Washi Tape. It’s my thing.

It’s like…Hey, I’m Washi Tape. High strung Japanese teenagers use me to make school supplies look cool. Now you can use me to seal your envelopes and the utility company will think you are all cutting edge like that. Yeah, I’m Washi Tape. And I’m rad…

I use washi tape on all sorts of stuff around the house. Last weekend I decided to use it on the edges of some temporary utility shelves in my living room. Eventually I would like to replace the set-up with a breakfront cabinet, but in the meantime, washi tape does a good job of elevating the shelves to something more substantial than some rando melamine planks left in basement.

Decided I liked the living room set-up so much, I took it to the pantry.

…and know everyone knows my passion for Triscuits and Easter baskets.

The tape I used in the living room was new and super sticky, but the stuff in the pantry was a little older and dried out, so I dabbed some white glue here and there just to make sure it stays in place. I don’t plan on changing it anytime soon, but if I did, I could easily run a layer of removable tape between the shelf and the washi tape just to be safe.

Yeah, washi tape. It’s my jam.

PS Cool new website: Washi Tape Crafts. Oodles of ideas on other nifty stuff to make.

For the Love of Sequins: A New Headboard

by PEACHES 14 Comments

I need a new headboard.

Actually, that’s misleading – I don’t have a current headboard.

So it’s not really new.

I have never itown y’all a photo of my current bedroom because I have never really decorated it properly. It is lacking in headboard. It just doesn’t seem complete without it.

For many years I had a king sized bed and it had some big fancy modern thing…then life exploded and I downsized to a tiny apartment. For a while I slept on an old mattress on the floor that was salvaged from one of our guest bedrooms…. then I bought the cheapest double bed I could buy (big mistake – it started shredding after 4 months)…until finally, I eventually upgraded to the basic full size set I have now. And I love it. The mattress is high density foam, which is something I cannot recommend enough to people with chronic back issues. I used to have mornings where I would crawl out of bed and hobble to the shower. I couldn’t even stand up without 5 minutes of hot water to help me straighten out. Since buying this mattress, I have only had one morning like that, and that was because I was sleeping in a hotel. Once you get used to sleeping on a truly great mattress, it’s hard to go back (no pun intended).

If you are seriously looking, this place sells at a bargain price. Shipping is free. I have now turned five other friends/family members into customers, all of whom agree with me, it was the best money they ever spent.

Was I talking about sequins? Oh crap. Okay, sorry, I got distracted. So I need a headboard. I keep thinking I’ll see one at an antique fair or thrift store that I can dress up, but in over a year of looking, I have yet to find something suitable.

Problem is that I’m picky. Very picky.

I do not want wood. I do not want metal. A big brass Bedknobs and Broomsticks bed would be awesome but they don’t come around too often!

I want it to be soft, preferably fabric. I thought about making a custom piece by stapling fabric to plywood, but I want the fabric to be removable for cleaning (in addition to back problems I also have vicious allergies). Then I thought I might hang a Middle Eastern rug up, but I fear it would be scruffy and Lola would try to use it as vertical a scratching post. Then I thought I would use a quilt, but I’m having a hard time finding a quilt large enough that I can afford that doesn’t scream out for a country goose jamboree.

Like I said, I am picky.

All image sourced from My Marrakech

So now I’m thinking Morocco. A Moroccan wedding blanket to be specific. They are so soft and cuddly, but also yet so sparkly. There is an Earthen Liberace-esque charm to them that I just love. Downside: they are not cheap. I mean, for something handmade that will be treasured for a long time, I suppose a few hundred bucks is a drop-dead bargain, but for me, for something that I don’t really need, it’s a lot. Plus there’s shipping and blah blah blah.

Anyway. I’m thinking I might be able to DIY something according to my taste. It’s just white wool and silver sequins, right? How hard could it be?

Stay tuned….

Disco Giraffe

by PEACHES 36 Comments

Why is there a glittered disco giraffe in my living room?

Why the Hell not?

Giraffes are great. Glittered giraffes are especially great. They lend a certain Out of Africa meets Leslie Hall je ne sais quoi.

Plus, they look just like Donna Summer.

See what I mean?
I made this giraffe last fall but I neglected to tell anyone or take pictures because I thought she was missing a certain something. Turns out that something was false eyelashes from the Jamaican beauty supply store. So obvious. I didn’t even see until after the package was open that they are made from human hair. So now I have a fake eyelashes made from real hair on a fake giraffe. Awesome.

The giraffe is originally from Cost Plus World Market. I wish they would decide if it is called Cost Plus or World Market. The bags say the latter but I know five people who call it the former. It’s confusing. Anyway, this giraffe was hanging there on a clearance wall. Originally she was $85 but on sale for 60% off, then I saw one of her ears was damaged so I asked for a display model discount and boom…I walked out with a $25 giraffe. Not bad.

She started out this sort of glossy newsprint looking thing, so I decided she needed to be painted gold…

But then the gold just didn’t do it for me.

As with all things in life that don’t do it for me, the answer was glitter.

Side Bar Tutorial for people who fear glitter, aka: The Herpes of Craft Supplies, aka:

How to Glitter Something So the Glitter Never Comes Off

Cover the thing in a heavy coat of white glue then pour over glitter, same as always.
After it dries, shake off excess glitter.
In a disposable cup, mix; two parts white glue, two parts glitter, one part water. Mix with a plastic fork and paint the liquid all over the desired surface with a soft paint brush. When it dries, that glitter isn’t going anywhere.

Here is a glitter tip from my friend Ann: Mix two or more sizes of glitter in the same color to achieve extra depth and sparkle. Ol’ Donna here has extra fine, extra chunky, and star shaped glitter covering her skin. Now she is ready to disco!

Confetti Mirror

by PEACHES 21 Comments

I had big plans for a New Year project featuring confetti but then a Julie Andrews marathon came on the TV. There went my Sunday.

Honestly, how is one supposed to craft with Julie being all Mary Poppins and nun like and such? You can’t just Climb Every Mountain and use scissors at the same time. That’s just flat out unsafe.

Since I had already made three pounds tissue paper confetti, I decided it was going to be used elsewhere. Somewhere. So this weekend I made about five different things. Prepare yourself to get confettid out! You’ll see the rest of them later, but for now, while my carpet looks like the aftermath of a clown convention, I thought I’d start easy: a mirror.

Instructions on this are easy.

Just smear the frame in a heavy coat of glue, pour on the confetti and call it a day. The only trick is to use thick white glue (I am fond of Aileen’s Quick Dry Tacky Glue), and not the regular school stuff, otherwise the water in the glue will sink in the tissue and it will flatten out into mush and bleed pigment all over the place. Pleasant.

After letting it dry overnight, I ran my fingers all over the surface to get off the loose bits. I even grazed it with the vacuum cleaner hose just to be sure. How often does one implement the vacuum cleaner in the artistic process? Not often enough!

No-Sew Mini Skirt Pillow

by PEACHES 11 Comments

I bought a skirt on clearance thinking it would look sooooooo cute that I didn’t even bother to try it on at the store.

Then I got home and it was sooooooo bad that I sat on the couch and ate my feelings in croissants.

Then my feelings got butter stains all over the skirt and the opportunity to return my purchase flew out the window then and there.

So here we are two years later, Me and Skirt, and Skirt is still wearing her original tags.

Skirt said, “I deserve to come out and play!”

I said, “Not on my ass you’re not.”

Will any skirt work for this project? Sorta. Thicker fabric like corduroy, denim and velvet would work best, as would any skirt with straight lines. This zebra skirt is actually slightly A-lined but you don’t notice it at all once it’s stuffed. This is important: look for skirts that have a lining or inner waistband. You can glue the seams together at the bottom pretty neatly, but in order to get the top to lay right you will want it to grip onto something. By gluing the inner waistbands to each other (not the actual skirt fabric), your pillow form can eventually slide up to fill the skirt right to the top of the waist band. Gosh, I hope that made sense.

Can I use hot glue? Yes but it will fall apart after a couple weeks of regular use. I suggest Aileen’s fabric glue (about $6 a bottle). It dries 100% clear and the bond is strong enough to last through the washing machine’s gentle cycle (I speak from experience on this front).

The key here is to stuff the pillow form, pin it inside clear away from the seams, and THEN get the glue out. When you lay down the glue, run a generous zig-zag along the inner seam, but also run a thin line half an inch from the edge.

The clothespins keep everything clamped together as it dries (No clothespins? Use paperclips).

Now, let’s just get this out of the way. I know some people are going to look at this and think, A no-sew pillow? Why not just sew it? To you, good seamstress, you are right. I did it that way on a sequin skirt a while back. But not everyone knows how to hand sew or has ready access to a machine. If you can sew, awesome. But on a project like this, a good quality fabric glue is a great alternative!

I know some people also worry about removing the pillow to wash the sham. Why? Just wash the pillow inside the case. The pillow fluff is where all the dust mites and dead skin cells build up. Wash your pillows, y’all! I mean it. Don’t believe me? Watch this video.

And that’s it. Boom Chaka Lacka. Hope this makes sense. Let me know if you have questions or concerns. I know the concept of gluing fabric can be intimidating, but you’ll just have to trust me, it’s more fun than you think!

PS: Have a long flowing skirt that isn’t just right for pillow making material? Turn it into curtain in less than three minutes.

A Blank Slate

by PEACHES 1 Comment

Since moving in almost one year ago, I have been putting off decorating the dining room.

For one thing, I don’t dine in there much. It seems silly to waste time and money on something used so little.

For another thing, it had this plate rail that I didn’t know what to do about. Part of me thought about taking up a plate collection, but seeing as I need another thing to collect like I need a hole in the head, well, the plate rail stood empty.

Last winter the top band was painted a soft pink, then last month I put up some MDF strips to give the walls that board and batten look that is getting so popular these days. It looks OK. Meh. For $25 worth of materials, it looks fine, but I wish I had taken my time with measuring more carefully. The bottoms of the strips don’t blend in the molding that well. Eventually I’d like a way to patch that, but for now, it’s fine.

As of this week I have a blank slate.

But as you may know, nothing stays blank in my house very long….

Changes a foot…

Is it a foot or afoot?

Whatever.You get the point. I’m making crap.

So, the pivot point to a dining room is the dining table, right? Mine is a nice old thing with lovely regency style bamboo legs. Love the bottom. Hate the top. The top is a mess and appears to be laminate of some sort. I was thinking about painting the whole thing minty green but now I’m thinking I’ll just gold leaf the top and call it a day. I like gold leaf and if I do it right, it will hide imperfections better than a solid coat of paint. Plus, it’s gold. Enough said.

But then there is the issue of chairs. I like the idea of a contrasting wood with a different material. Metal? I see those acrylic ghost chairs all over but they don’t look comfortable. I could do fabric but then I’d spend every Saturday vacuuming cat hair off of them. So metal is good. Red metal? Maybe. Hmmm….

The pajaki is a soon-to-be TBD DIY and the portrait gallery is already in swing. I have lots of art but I like the idea of hanging nothing but portraits in one room. We had a hallway like that as a kid. Of course, those were mostly relatives. I would like to open it up beyond relatives to include, oh, say, Neil Diamond?

Anyway, all of that is to say; stay tuned!

Porch Painting

by PEACHES Leave a Comment

The back porch done and got itself painted.

The former homeowners had previously painted it hospital green with non-deck paint, so not only was it ugly, it was bubbling. The whole thing had to be scraped and sanded before the new stuff went down. I never realized how tedious and labor-intensive paint scraping was until tackling this project. Can you imagine doing a whole house? Yeesh.

The sides and railings will have to wait for next summer. I have mixed feelings about the lattice work. In some ways, they look dated and granny — like a country goose is going to pop out at any second. On the other hand, they remind me of Truvy’s Beauty Spot from Steel Magnolias (that and every other beauty parlor and nail salon I have ever known or loved) and I would hate to see them go. We shall wait to see next summer.

In the meantime, I intend to plop my butt down and enjoy it as much as possible before the summer slips any further.

Happy weekend!

Main navigation

decor