The Story of a Chair

This summer I had plans to do some decorating for my mom.  I made her a quilt for Christmas and so I originally was going to work on her master bedroom but somehow it morphed into curtains and chairs in her living room/dining area.  My sister-in-law came to help me, and thank goodness, because this is not a one person job!!  Pregnancy saps so much of my energy so we didn't get nearly as much completed as I had hoped but we did finish one of the two wingback chairs in the living room!  I used Tiffany's blog post for inspiration and tried to follow in her footsteps of using as much of the chair as possible.  We used some of the tack strips and the piping and all of the padding and cushioning.  I think that saved us a lot of money and a lot of headaches!  Here's how it all went down:

We started by removing the back.  Its important to remember how the pieces are attached.  We did the whole project in four days so that made it easier, but if you were going to spread it out over time: pictures, pictures, pictures!

Then we removed the sides.

Lots and lots of staples to remove!

You might also want to have a small vaccuum ready.  There was a lot of dust and pet hair (from the former owners, my mom doesn't have pets) from years of use built up in there.  Fun.

My dad thought we were making it look to hard.  Then he found out how hard it really was! 

Eventually we got the chair down to this.  Our padding was still in really good shape, so we didn't mess with that.  Other tutorials will tell you to take it down to the bare bones and build up with all new padding.  I say, if you don't have to don't do that!  I can't imagine how much harder that would have made this project.

This is when the project started getting exciting.  We could see the beauty start to shine through the mess and exhaustion! 

From the front you almost couldn't tell it still had a long long way to go!

 And we ended right where we started, by putting on the back of the chair.

From the side.  One thing I love about this chair is the piping.  We did it in a coordinating solid blue.  Its a little hard to tell but it really makes it pop.

I feel bad we only had time for one!  We're going to have to do the other at Christmas time (joy).  In the mean time my mom is keeping this one covered so they don't wear unevenly. 

  

We made a lot of mistakes a long the way!  But thankfully no one will ever know but us.  If you have any questions about this project feel free to email me at kimmisue22@gmail.com (yeah, yeah, my email is weird.  I'd change it if it wouldn't be such a huge hassle.)

Linking up here!!

Design Star All Stars!

I have seen every season of design star. . . more than once (we'll just leave it at that).  So yeah, I was excited to see a Design Star All Stars show!  My first and biggest hope: Sparkle Josh!!!  I said, "YES!!!" out loud, complete with punching the air when he showed up on screen.  I may not love his POV (point of view) but he is SO.  FUNNY.

Here is what they had to start out with:

But!  They said this is not a white box challenge.  Don't be confused by the white box in front of you.  This time you're going to shop at an actual furniture store.  I guess the difference is that you get to buy actual nice things instead of trying to make stuff from a grocery store or Asian market?

So here is Dan's room, the winner of this and every white box challenge ever.  (Actually, I liked his white box from his original season where they shopped at a grocery store just a tad bit more)

Everyone raved over his idea to cut out a high boy silhouette and turn it into a bookshelf.  It was just a little too crafty for me.

And here is Hilari's room, third runner up from season 7 (which aired 1 or 2 weeks ago)

Hilari knows what she is doing, especially when it comes to shopping for nice things.

That being said, her style is not my style.  I like more clean lines and she likes more luxury and glamor. 

I do think this chair is rad, though.

 

You could probably guess the designer of this room.  In fact, that would be a fun game to play.  Too bad I already watched the show and know the answers!  This room was designed by Sparkle Josh (named because there were two Joshes on his season) He was the fourth runner up on season 2 (if I remember correctly. . . )

Does anyone else feel like they need sunglasses in this room?  

I have to agree with the judges, his sofa choice was a bit off to me.  A little too frumpy for such a glam room.

This room designed by Kellie, fourth runner up on season 6.

They went on and on about these book sculptures.  Probably because that was the only thing they really liked. . . 

Yeah, too crazy for me.

This room was my personal favorite, designed by Leslie.  Leslie was also in season 6 with Kellie, but I can't remember when she went home and the internets are not being very helpful!

Vern kind of hurt my feelings when he talked about the awesome shopping center they had available so there wasn't any need for "homemade art".  I love making my own art!  And I think this piece by Leslie is modern and bold.  I would pay for it.  

I do not remember this chandelier from the episode.  Why didn't they focus on it more???  Its so awesome!

And I love this sculptural art piece.  I bet I could make something similar with rulers and pray paint.  Hello homemade art! 

Tom's room, which had the most lived in, real life design feel I think.  The space planning was something you had to be inside the room to appreciate.  From the outside I just feel like an intruder.

Loved these little sketches he hung on the wall.

In the end Kellie went home.  It was between her and Sparkle Josh and I did NOT want him to leave just yet (too funny!!) so I was glad it was her.

Which room was your favorite?

If I have a boy next

So I've been a long time in between posts because I'm pregnant and I get very sick at the beginning of my pregnancies.  But things seem to be looking up for me (despite a little set back yesterday morning when I lost my breakfast) and I've been feeling much better!

So I've been thinking about what to do with the nursery if I have a boy.  The crib set I have for Olivia is pretty high end and its theoretically gender neutral (despite the fact that I chose it because was the most girly design at the time.  Now they have a beautiful pink set that I'm super jealous of!) so I don't want to replace it.  I've really styled Olivia's room to be more on the girly side, even though there is still a ways to go as far as decorating, but I just don't see it as a boy's room (in fact, Olivia and baby will probably have to share a room, so it really should work for both boy and girl)

But inspiration struck from the strangest of places (as it always seems to) and as I was dressing Olivia in a ruffle tank top with some orange shorts I realized how much I loved the orange against the aqua and how lively and boyish it made the aqua feel.  So here are a couple of ways I could incorporate orange into the nursery if this baby turns out to be a boy.

See how cute these colors are together??

Source: zurcherspartysupplies.com via Nic on Pinterest

I could change up my changing table (hahaha!) by maybe spray painting the baskets orange, or making my own throw pillow using orange and aqua fabric.

I would love to find an old lamp base at a garage sale or thrift store and spray paint it orange with this lamp shade.  How cute would that be??

This picture doesn't show the crib ties, but I could easily remove the aqua ties and sew on some orange ones just to tie in the crib set with the new color scheme (my goodness, I'm not even trying for these puns!)

Source: oilostudio.com via Kimberly on Pinterest

And lastly, I really want this super cute plushie from IvieBaby (currently on vacation so I can't order just yet).  She makes it in a range of colors and I would have to get the aqua with an orange bow tie.  Or an orange one with an aqua bow tie?  I just don't know! 

Source: etsy.com via Kimberly on Pinterest

What do you guys think?  Which would be the funnest ways to add a little orange to the nursery?

Don't think I haven't been paying attention, Pinterest

As a kid, I loved wrapping gifts.  I would double fold the paper so you wouldn't see any raw edges, I used double sticky tape so you couldn't see it, and the ribbon!  I could use almost a whole roll of curling ribbon on each gift.  But have you noticed the new trend in gift wrap is less is more?  So here are some gifts I gave as going away presents to the teachers I worked with and the daycare coordinator that's taken care of Olivia every day for the past school year.

These brown boxes were just $1 at JoAnn and the baby rick rack was too cute to pass up!!  These were some tile magnets I made for their brand new classrooms they'll have in the fall!  (Our department is getting a remodel this summer!)

This mason jar was $1.50, but if you have some laying around you wouldn't even have to buy it!  The flower was also from JoAnn and I cut off the stem and hot glued it to a magnet so you can use it on your fridge instead of throwing it out!  And a small scrap of tulle finished the look.  This was a super yummy smelling body scrub I made with just sugar and body wash.

New Lamps

When my sister-in-law, Annalisa Thomas, started Oilo I think the original idea was to have all the prints available in all the colors.  But that turned out to be very expensive.  So they have a lot of samples that they don't actually sell just sitting around their office.  I asked if they had anything in aqua that they would be willing to sell me and they actually just gave me these two lamp shades!  I love them.  They add some great personality to the space, and I love that they are the same color as Olivia's crib set!

Aqua Cobblestone (only available for purchase in taupe)

They also gave me several yards of an aqua stripe fabric they didn't end up using.  Trying to decide what to make.  Should I cover her chair or make a play blanket or both?

PS if you check out her website, notice the cute baby in the blanket and changing pad pictures.  That's my baby!!

Olivia's Mobile

Its been a long time since I wrote this post!  And I've changed almost everything I thought I would do.  But not this.  I fell in love with this mobile on Elizabeth's blog and finally got around to using the tutorial she posted here.

It was a labor of love, that's for sure.  I first cut out all my circles using two small nesting bowls from IKEA but after it was assembled, I decided that they were far too big for the dowels and spacing.  It just looked terribly jumbled and the circles didn't have the scattered look I was hoping for, they all just kind of laid flat against each other.  Soooo, I cut all the big circles into smaller ones, and the small circles became the big ones.  Make sense?

I re-cut them one day during Olivia's nap and restrung the whole thing while my husband and brother watched a fight.  My sister-in-law and I chatted and she worked on grading papers.

Two weeks after it was finished I finally got around to hanging it, and would you believe that I was too short to reach the ceiling even with a step stool!?!  So a few days later my husband did it for me. 

 Still so much to do in this room, but I think I'll be sad when its done have plenty to do in my own room when its done!

Paint Colors

That is what I googled just now: paint colors.  I wanted to look at some paint options for my parent's bedroom and the first website that pulled up was Valspar.  Click, click and I'm hooked!  Look at all the colors palettes you have to chose from!

I love how clicking on a color brings up a room and shows how the paint would look on the wall, along with other colors that will compliment it!  You can also save your color to your "my projects" tab.  So I saved a few different blues to compare and see which ones my mom and I like best.

I started with Cool Whites because my mom's inspiration room are lots of blues and whites.  Here were my three favorite:

 Next I looked at the Neutral Blues and picked these three:

Now that I see them all together I know that Blue Whisper, Sea Side and Dreamy Clouds are out.  They all have too much green in them for the look we're going for.

So try to be productive today, but I know if you're like me you're going to want to just sit and click on paint colors!

I think Air Kiss is my favorite.  We'll have to see if my mom agrees!  Which one is your favorite?

*Not a sponsored post