from HGTV.com
You know what I’m excited about? Secrets From a Stylist! Design Star winner Emily Henderson’s new show premieres tomorrow at 9pm/8c on HGTV. Can’t wait. I’ll be watching, will you?
P.S. Emily has a super cute blog
Archive - February, 2011
Horror Story: Bathroom
In the words of Cher Horowitz, our bathroom is a “full-on Monet.” “It’s like a painting, see? From far away, it’s OK, but up close, it’s a big old mess.”
Exhibit A. Not so bad.
Exhibit B, C, D and ugh. “Hagsville.”
Click to see the images larger, if you dare.
If it can peel, it’s peeling. If it can stain, it’s stained. It’s been a downward spiral in this room. The more we try to clean it, the more it falls apart. Maybe the most frustrating thing is that nasty painted over drain. As you can see, the cover doesn’t lift out like any normal tub. That means when it clogs, it’s nearly impossible to unclog. Nightmare. It needs a complete overhaul. There are two catches with that. Catch #1, it’s our only full bathroom. How will we deal without a shower for days, weeks? And Catch #2, money. Ugh. We’ll DIY as much as we can, but this one is gonna cost us. So sadly, it’s off in the future. For now, I’ll just look at it from afar and be amazed that the floral valances aren’t the worst thing in the room.
And, I can dream about beautiful bathrooms. Like these.
via Design*Sponge
via Design*Sponge
via Lonny
Oh, and I’ll tell you one more thing.
Our bathroom will have marble hex tile, even if I have to sell a kidney to get it!
DIY Craft: Felted Fingerless Mittens
What to do when life gives you moth eaten sweaters? Why, first you make tiny felted sweaters out of them and then out of the tiny felted sweaters you make fingerless mittens!
I needed some gifts and I’ve been sitting on some old sweaters for some time wondering what to do with them. I saw this on WholeLiving.com and thought it was a great idea so it was time to get crafty.
On a side note, I was a little concerned about felting the sweaters in a front load washer as I had read it can be tough due to the lack of agitation. First, I put both sweaters in their own zippered pillowcases so the fuzz wouldn’t damage my washer. I threw two tennis balls and an old towel in with them and set the washer to hot wash, cold rinse and no spin. The spin cycle can cause creasing in your item so it’s best to turn it off if you can. If you don’t count my washer not draining (a little sink clog issue) it totally worked!
Diapers No More!
No, this isn’t a post about potty training my cat. It’s actually a quick Friday before and after! When we signed the contract for our house we had requested the previous owners leave the existing window treatments. Great tip from Mom that we wouldn’t want to have to decide on curtains as soon as we moved in. Anyway, it didn’t really process that they’d be leaving us with these.
Oh my God, they’re gorgeous.
We fondly referred to them as “the diapers.” Though they’ve also got sort of a pantaloon thing going on. Sadly they hung around much longer than anyone wanted them to.
After many, many swatches from Smith + Noble and The Shade Store, we decided to go with a simple roller shade in a neutral color and natural texture. So now our windows look like this.
So the diapers are gone! Yay, everyone cheer!
How to Paint an Ikea Billy Bookcase
Ahhh, the Ikea Billy. It’s everywhere. And it’s been in my life for at least 10 years. When they moved with us to the house I just wasn’t feeling their beech veneer anymore so I decided we should paint them. We still wanted to use them as bookshelves so we were very concerned about the painted shelves sticking to and ruining our books. Luckily our friendly neighborhood Home Depot paint man had a suggestion on how we should do this. Here are the steps we took.
How to Paint an Ikea Billy Bookcase
Step 1: Rough up your Billy with some sandpaper. This will help the paint stick better.
Step 2: Start with a coat or two of a good water based primer. We used Zinsser Bull’s Eye 123. We were pleasantly surprised at the mild smell of this but be you should still do this in a room where you can open some windows and use a fan.
Step 3: After the primer is dry apply a couple of coats of Porch and Floor paint. Mr. Paint Man suggested Behr Porch and Floor Low-Lustre Enamel. He said this was because we still wanted to use the shelves for books and that the floor paint would stand up to us pulling books on and off. Makes total sense and made all the difference. The color we used matched our walls, Behr Natural Linen. We were hoping it would help them blend into the room better.
Step 4: Let everything dry for a few days, we waited a week. When we felt they were dry and not sticky we put the shelves back in. I’ll warn you that 2 coats of primer and a few coats of paint will make the shelves fit tighter than they did before. We wound up having to sand the sides of the shelves to make them fit. I suppose you could paint them completely assembled but you’d have to be absolutely sure you were comfortable with your shelf placement.
Step 5: Put your books back on and enjoy Billy’s new look! So far so good on the shelves. We haven’t had a problem with sticking or the paint peeling off. At 70 bucks each and with more than 10 years of use Billy’s holding up pretty darn well.
