Updated Living Room

I love this room. It's definitely my space in the house and I can't seem to quit tinkering.

I used some leftover fabric from the ottoman to make a new pillow.

I like the herringbone on the grey fabric and the way it looks on the chair.

I also added this cute 3D star to my gallery wall. It was a maroon-y red before so naturally I painted it gold (I swear I'm calling it quits on the gold). I have two more pillows to make for the couch (only one of them includes gold) and then I'm not sure I can possibly do anything else to this space.

Emerald Ottoman Take 2

Anyone remember my DIY tufted ottoman? It was green and super cute, for about a week. I had used satin fabric because it was all I could find in the right colour and it turned out to be a terrible choice. It was water marked, didn't hold it's shape and the covered buttons kept popping off. In not very long it looked like this. Notice how the pleats are all messy.

I also just couldn't ever make myself love the square, straight legs. I ended up using a Pinterest image as inspiration and painted them to add interest (surprise, surprise I used gold paint). The fabric is a much better colour and I've been using it for about a month and it looks exactly the same as when I first covered it.

I also added a little more foam and deep tufted the ottoman, it's much closer to what I had initially imagined.

Here's a different view of the legs. I love that they look curvy now even though they're just the same square legs.

I'm obviously not an expert at tufting because it's not perfect but I'm really happy with it. Here are a couple more pictures.

Look how deep those buttons are. I used different types of buttons, paired with a large amount of glue so hopefully they'll remain intact this time.

Deer Head Coaster

So how does everyone feel about the deer head trend? Have you noticed it at all? I sure have and I love it. There are an specially large amount of deer head silhouettes kicking around and I knew I wanted one for my living room.

Plus I have my awesome coffee table. Story for you, my sister-in-law came over and we had glasses of water that got placed onto the coffee table. I sat there thinking about the money I spent on that coffee table paired with the water dripping off her glass and it made me a little crazy until I finally reached over and wiped off her glass. Like a loser. So perhaps some coasters were called for.

I found these teak square ones at TJ Max for $8.00, a perfect blank canvas.

A little modpodge and glitter, paired with a vinyl stencil.

I didn't love the twine they'd threaded so I replaced it with some bakers twine. Probably not the greatest colour but it was that or red and that seemed too Christmasy.

I have four of them but it's a bit much for the coffee table so I've put two of them away.

I can now comfortably forget about the water and my coffee table and act like a grown up yet I also get to love my sparkly, deer head coasters.

Glitter Christmas Lights

This is a project I've been wanting to do now for a couple of years but I hadn't ever got around to it. Enter my Mom who of course, just happens to have the supplies on hand. I brought the modpodge, she had everything else so it cost us nothing.

It was a super satisfying project and so simple.
You just take some old Christmas lights, any colour, coat them with modpodge and then coat them in glitter. Shake off the excess and you have magic, sparkly lights. Toss them in a bowl and you have a cute Christmas decoration.

Mom went with a cute blend of brown, silver and light green.

Surprise surprise, I chose gold and emerald green. I stacked them in this cute square vase and put in on the built in shelf under the mirror in our front entrance.

They're exactly what we wanted, you should make some.

Vinyl Seagull T

I bought a shirt for Eden the other day and while it was cute it was also a little plain so I jazzed it up with some cute seagulls. I was using my silhouette for another project so I used it to cut these out at the same time but you could easily cut them out by hand.

I love this sparkly glitter. They look kind of subtle on the grey but I think they're really cute.

My favourite part is every time I point them out to Eden she makes seagull noises.

Orange to White Dresser

As with the Catie's bedside table this move brought on a need of furniture. Eden hasn't ever had a dresser because we used my in-laws.  My Mom happened to have the perfect dresser in her basement that I've been eyeing for years, the time was finally right though and she happily passed it on to me.  I didn't however love that it was a brilliant orange. This picture is after I've sanded it and started to prime and in a very dimly lit basement, it's still very bright though (I swear those drips in the back are not from us, that was from a previous paint job).

Using a paint sprayer we made it a nice clean white.

The original handles were incredibly cheap white plastic so I ordered some satin nickel pulls to replace them.  This is the project that I accidentally ordered the wrong size that ended up being used for the spice shelf which means this dresser has been handle free since August.

Here it sits, notice how the drawers are slightly open?

I should have been more irritated and ordered them right away but it just didn't seem that big of a deal.  When you wanted to open a drawer, any drawer you had to start from the bottom and work your way up, Brad hated it far more than I did and lately we've both grown especially tired of it. I finally got around to ordering the right size and installed them and we both cheered a little at the luxury of only opening the one drawer you need.

Here's a close up of the handles.

It's nice to finally check this project off my list.

Lastly, if you need drawer handles I highly recommend this website, D. Lawless. They have a huge selection and their prices are amazing.  Shipping to Canada isn't awesome but I've always been able to ship to the US.

Couch Fix

Guys, I did the greatest thing. To explain let me start by telling you about my couch. I've had it for quite a few years and before that it was my Mom's. She gave it to us when she got a new one. It's super comfy and we especially like that if you take the back cushions off a person can very comfortably sleep there. It's not necessarily my favourite pattern but I didn't have to pay for it so it was perfect.

Only over the years the cushions have really started to look slouchy, especially the love seat. There was obviously a problem there as it had grown in width and shrunk in height. 

I didn't take before pictures so I went through and found these ones from when we lived in Lethbridge but that was 3 years ago. You can imagine how much worse they've gotten. 

Notice how you can see the back of the couch above the cushion? It's irritating and not the most comfortable. I didn't think anything could be done about it though so we dealt with it. 

Flash forward and I've started to upholster furniture. I currently have the ugliest duckling of couches in my garage just waiting to be made a swan. While I'm waiting for fabric I've been researching. I plan on adding buttons to the cushion but I didn't know how to do that so I searched and found this amazing post about how a woman took her slouchy, old cushions (just like mine) and added buttons. It looked brand new! 

My couch has arm rest covers but they ALWAYS ended up on the floor so years ago I put them away. I pulled one out and was shocked at how much cleaner it was than my couch so I took all the covers off and washed them with bleach. Once that was done I cut up the armrest cover to make covered buttons. Then I used this easy video tutorial to tie on my buttons. There are buttons on the back too so the cushions are still double sided. My love seat cushion had some tearing so I added some batting and did a little mending but nothing major. 

I can't believe the change! (After this picture I took the buttons off and moved them out wider, you'll see the difference later but this shows the throw pillows well)

That left just one last irritation. The throw pillows on this couch are huge, see on the above picture? They barely fit on the couch and fall off really easy because they're so wide. They are so tall that they sort of bend in the middle and they are constantly in the way so they get put on the floor all the time. To fix them I unpicked two sides of the covers, leaving the other two as is, and washed them. I took the pillow forms (just some bunched up batting now) and cut 4 inches off two sides. Then I wrapped it in a new layer of batting. I cut 4 inches off the covers and sewed them back up inserting my updated batting. They're more full and still useful but not in the way anymore.

It's such a huge change. After someone has been sitting for some time and they get up the cushions stay just like that. It's amazing.

Some before and afters.  

It sort of feels like a brand new couch and I started and finished it in one day. 

Refinished Dresser

This dresser has been 4 years in the making. 4 years, how ridiculous.

When Brad and I were first married we had two of these Ikea Malm dressers. They were super functional. The drawers were deep and they rolled smoothly. They worked great until we moved 3 times (that takes a toll on Ikea furniture). A couple of the drawers needed some work and they were just so tall and imposing. I really didn't like how they took over the room.









I started perusing Kijiji and I firmly believe that if you look for something you'll find it and I sure did. I found this dresser for $20.

It's here where I mention that I have a very accommodating husband who is so supportive of this hobby. Sure, this dresser has 9 drawers but what you can't tell is that the drawers are significantly more shallow and just so much smaller than the Ikea one. So in the name of style we seriously downgraded the storage room in our dresser and he hasn't complained even one time. In all the time we've been using it I haven't ever regretted the change.

 I found this inspiration picture and kept it in mind for 4 years.

So we used the dresser as is for 1 year and then we moved again. In a productive push I sanded down the outside frame and then quit and we used it that way for 6 more months. Then we moved into my in-laws house and it sat in storage for two years and now finally I'm here, ready for a change.

I took the legs off, sanded them and stained them Espresso. I lined the drawers up and painted them heirloom white and replaced those awful ugly knobs. I had picked up new nobs 3 years ago and couldn't wait to reattach them.

 I have the same blue in my curtains so they're a good fit.

Then I reattached the legs and worked on the base. I'd sanded it really well previously but in the moves and in storage it needed some spot sanding in a couple places. I've stained a few things in the past and every time I buy my stain I look at the wood conditioner and wonder if I should use it so for this project I actually bought it. I'm not sure I noticed a difference but perhaps I would have if I hadn't used it? I'll use up the can I have on future projects but I don't think I'd buy it again.

Look, an actual picture with me in it! How crazy. Wish I had a little make up on but whatever.

I only used one coat of the stain and then I put on three coats of varathane. I think that's the key, I love a satin finish and the three coats gave me what I was going for. I think the picture shows the finish really well.

The wood grain is so pretty on this piece hey? The dresser turned out exactly how I wanted it too and we're loving it.

Check out the difference in the top finishes.

Here are a few before and after's

Nice to finally check this piece off my list.