b-a-t-h-e

Last post I went into what was in my head and on my Pinterest board for the kids’ bathroom.  Today, I’m here to show you a little bit of progress. 

A quick refresher first though.  Here’s what this bathroom looked like when we moved in (picture from the real estate listing prior to our purchase):

And, after having a little bit ‘o fun in there last week, here’s what it looks like right now:

I know decor can make a huge difference but really, the huge difference in the before and after of this little room can really be attributed to paint and better/brighter/more neutral lightbulbs (my favorites are these from Lowe’s…we use them everywhere we can).  It’s pretty amazing, no?


Last week I transferred the yard sale watercolor find to a thrifted frame (post to follow) and hung the letter hooks on the biggest (but still little) wall.  At the last minute I grabbed the burnt orange pom-flower-things onto the light fixture (even though I kinda want to spray paint them yellow…)

While out hunting for a new frame for the watercolor, I found this white ceramic and and wood vase at Goodwill:Eventually I’ll probably just grab some fake flowers to toss in there but right now, the trees in our yard are in need of some pruning and so I thought I’d start.  ;)

But let’s talk about the ‘bathe’:
I got the letter hooks on clearance from Pottery Barn* a couple of weeks ago using a gift card I had had for four years and, after wanting to spell ‘love’ but realizing that the letter ‘v’ was sold out, I sat at my computer and played something like a game of anagrams with what was left to finally come up with ‘bathe’.  Bathroom appropriate, no?

So, along with the hooks, I’m going to dig into the trenches called “boring home improvement stuff” and write about…wait for it…how to use dry wall plugs to hang stuff.  Why Sheena?  Whyyyy?  Because five years ago, if there was ever anything that I needed hung that was just too heavy-duty to hang on the simple nail-in-the-wall, I had to wait for Anthony to do it because I had no clue how to use a dry wall plug.  I would’ve eaten a post on how to use them up like chocolate on Easter.  Maybe, just maybe, some of you feel the same way or maybe you’ll just file it away for later.  Here goes…

The letter hooks came with screws and dry wall plugs.  I thought the included plugs were overkill though.  They were huge and metal and I felt like they’d hold up an elephant plus just the kids’ towels I was only planning on hanging on them. 

So, I stowed away the hefty plugs and grabbed some plastic ones we had in our stash.  I made sure they would fit the screws that came with the hooks though (there are different sized plugs for different sized screws).

Before I even began hanging hooks, I needed to remove the towel ring over the countertop.  My plan was to have the ‘b’ replace it as hand-towel holder so it needed to go to make room.  (White I was at it, I removed the matching towel bar above the toilet too since we only used it for decoration purposes which is silly because who hangs decorative towels anymore, right…wasn’t that done in like the 70’s and 80’s?)  Once unscrewed and off, I filled in the holes with spackle*, waited for it to dry, did another coat, and sanded everything nice and smooth before I laid paint over it.

When all evidence of the towel ring’s presence was obliterated, I did a ‘dry-run’ placement – I hung everything on the wall where I thought I wanted it with some small nails.  I didn’t want to go straight to the plugs only to find out the placement I had in my head didn’t translate so well to reality and then have a ton of huge holes in the wall to repair and start again.  Here’s what my practice came out to look like:
I wanted a hook for each kid plus one additional to hold a hand-towel to serve those at the sink so centering the whole phrase on the wall seemed to be the best plan.

To hold the letters in place for the practice round, I just hung each one on a nail from the top screw hole and stuck some sticky tack on above to keep them from going topsy-turvy.

When I had each letter straight and exactly where I wanted it, I held each on the wall so that the small nail was centered in the top screw hole and then I traced the bottom screw hole with a pencil to show where the bottom plug and screw needed to be.

Once I was good on placement, all the screw holes were marked, and I was ready to begin plugging away (pun intended), I took everything down and was left with marks like this for each letter:

Next, I grabbed our drill and the appropriate drill bit for the dry wall plugs I was using (the plug package will tell you which size drill bit to use).  Using my marks as my guide, I drilled two holes; one for each plug and screw.

Then I plugged those holes up.
With just a gentle hammering, all the plugs were in and ready to hold screws.

Last, I held each letter up onto the wall and drilled the screws into the plugs.
 
I was a little disappointed that the letters came with black screws, I have to admit.  These letters are the very first purchase I’ve ever made from Pottery Barn and the place just oozes glamour and quality but at the original asking price of $24.99 per hook (I paid around $7 each thanks to a clearance plus a coupon), I feel like maybe they could’ve made matching screws?  Maybe it’s just a look and maybe it’s just not my look and that’s cool too.  But, either way, I didn’t like the black so I grabbed a tiny paint brush and went over each with my favorite Martha Stewart gold paint (I bought this paint a couple of years ago in-store at Home Depot for $6 but it’s looking like it’s not in stores anymore and is only sold by the case online). 
And the perfectionist inside her cheered.

And that, my friends, is how easy it is to hang something using a dry wall plug.


I’ll be back next week with details on the watercolor and how to hack a thrifted frame but until then, feast your eyes on what I started working on this week:

And then feast your eyes on this goofball:

I had to lock the doors of the bathroom to keep him out for quick blog pictures and when I finally let him in, turns out all he really wanted to do was feed his understandable and very justified vanity with a few mirror faces.  :p

*affiliate link to products I purchased

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My Couch Baby

Ever since the screened-in porch on the back of our house was just an idea, I’ve been keeping my eyes peeled for a great wood or bamboo couch to settle in back there.  The tough thing though, is having the idea and then actually finding something that would be perfect, only to realize that you have zero room in your house to store a couch to put in a space that may or may not happen.  Sometimes I feel like that’s the story of my decor life, I find something that would be perfect in some space in my mind but a space that I don’t have or don’t have yet in my house.  Womp.  Two years ago when we were searching for the perfect entertainment center to turn into the girls’ play kitchen, we stumbled upon the coolest wood frame couch in a thrift store in town and man, I wanted it for the porch we had just started saving up to build.  Like, I wanted it bad.  It was marked at $60 and it had clean lines and a concentric, cut-out circle pattern in wood on each side and in white, it’d would’ve been amazing!  I left a piece of my heart with it when I walked out those thrift store doors that day.

But it all turned out okay and I have no regrets because right after the screened-in porch was built, I was at another of my favorite thrift stores here and out on their front stoop they had a wood frame couch with a piece of computer paper taped to it that said “Please take.  I’m free!” 
I guess they had tried and tried to sell it but nobody wanted it.  I can’t imagine why…

It wasn’t my style at all – too many big curves – and the springs holding the bottom on were broken.  The fabric was awful (but I planned on reupholstering whatever I bought anyway) and the wood faded and in need of a good sanding and paint job.  But, it was FREE.  I was so torn.  Either way, at the moment I saw it, I had all the kids with me and no way to get it home so I snapped the picture above and home I went to later bring it up to Anthony.

Then, as fate would have it, we drove by a few days later on our way to church and the couch was still there.  We decided that, since we really wanted to get our porch put together, that’d we’d go grab it and see what we could do about making it look more ‘our style’.  Better than in a landfill, right? 

Here she was, home and in all her vintage glory:

And this is the story of how we made her a little, or a lot, happier…

First, Anthony removed all of the springs/metal rails that held the bottom in.  Like I said above, many of them were broken which made sitting in this thing impossible or dangerous at very best.  Then, I unscrewed all of the metal loops that held the springs in place along the inside of the couch. 

Now since there weren’t any springs, there wasn’t anything besides the two support bars left to hold seating.  This is where holding onto pieces of construction material for long periods of time comes in handy.  We have had a sheet of plywood stored away from our previous home (yes, we moved down the country with it) just in case we ever needed it.  Well, that day came.  Anthony cut it to fit down into the recess of the couch seat where it sat snugly atop those two wood support bars.

It’s so much more firm and sturdy than springs; nobody’s falling through now.  Stay away Dumbo.

To reign in slivers and to keep up appearances though, I grabbed some thin cotton fabric at JoAnn Fabrics and upholstered the side of the plywood that would be facing up.  It was as simple as laying my fabric out on the floor, cutting it so that I had a few inches of extra fabric all around, wrapping it around the plywood, and stapling it down.Since no one was going to see the underside of the couch lest they were a feline or pup, I wasn’t too particular about making straight cuts.

Lazy?  Maybe.  Efficient?  I vote yes.  ;)

Next up was prepping for paint.  After I had all of the looped screws out, I had to pry the fabric-covered piece off the front of the couch.  I didn’t know what it looked like underneath but there was no way on God’s green Earth I was keeping it there so find out, I would.

A flathead screwdriver did the trick nicely followed by a needle-nose pliers to get any remaining nails pulled out.  Luckily, all that remained was the flat piece of curved wood at the front of the couch and some nail holes.  After filling all the holes left behind by those nails and giving the entire couch a good sanding (a workout, let me tell you) to roughen it down to a matte finish, I was ready for paint.

Because it was wood and wood can bleed through latex paint, I opted to prime the couch with two cans of RustOleum spray primer in white.  Spray paint is typically oil-based (or maybe it’s all oil-based?) and better at inhibiting wood-bleed.  (Don’t ask me where I read this little rule but I’ve found it to be true in both following and not following that direction.  I’ve seen wood bleed through latex paint and primer and so I’ll stray from that combo as long as I live.)

To paint, I used a latex paint (Swan White by Glidden in an eggshell/satin finish) sprayed on using this paint spray gun*.  My friend Jesse let me borrow her Critter paint gun I had read great reviews about and then, at Christmas, I used some gift cards to buy my very own on Amazon.  It’s really as awesome as I had heard!  My favorite part is that it uses mason jars to hold the paint so, if you’re doing a big job, all you have to do is have a few mason jars lined up to be screwed on and you’re good to go until you’re done.  There’s no stopping because you have to refill the paint canister.  My other fave part is that it doesn’t cost an arm and a leg…it’s under $50 (I paid $41.97).  (However, it does need an air compressor to run so if you can’t borrow one from someone, you’ll have to tack that onto the cost.)

A few days after painting, I ruined the paint job.  Okay, not really.  I just upped the ante by distressing it a tad.  This part was the most fun of all.  I grabbed a hand-sander and some light-grit sandpaper and went around sanding down some of the edges of the couch.  Nothing to crazy.  Just a slight distressing for a slightly old piece.

So, the couch was painted and distressed and looking quite jolly but the cushions?  Even though the white couch made them look like they might convert to a cute outfit (distressed white jeans below with a plaid button-down up top), they did absolutely nothing to help aesthetics on the couch.  Plus, they were so old and worn that if you rubbed them, they’d start crumbling into tiny pieces.  Ewww…

I’d never reupholstered couch cushions before so the task ahead of me was very (very, very, very, very…) daunting but then I found this tutorial on how to sew box cushions by Christy from Confessions of a Serial DIYer.  I ordered 5.5 yards of this Robert Allen outdoor fabric (it’s says chocolate but after seeing it in person in JoAnn Fabrics, I’d say it’s more of a charcoal gray) from fabric.com and I followed Christy’s directions almost to the T; the only difference is that I wanted to make mine zipperered so I removed the zippers from the old cushion covers using a seam ripper and re-inserted them into my new covers.  I inserted the zippers first and then sewed the side seams and corners.  The foam cushions were in good shape, albeit a tad smelly and minus a large stain one had that looked like a big glass of wine was spilled (or at least I hoped it was just wine or coke or something not gross).  Oh the foam; cleaning it all was an ordeal.  I scrubbed and swelled with soapy water and squished and repeated that process with each individual cushion in our bath tub and then, when I was done scrubbing, I threw each one into the washing machine with some clorox.  My guess is that they had never been washed (because who washes couch cushions?  I know.  Not me.) and, even though they still held their shape, I didn’t want to recover them with brand new covers much less sit in them without knowing they were oh-so-fresh-and-so-so-clean.  Washing those was a labor of love, let me tell ya.

After washing, I cut the top cushions so that they were a tad shorter and only just hit above the back of the couch by sawing a few inches off the bottoms with a serated knife.  The bottom cushions, even though in good condition, had seen fluffier days so I wrapped some one-inch thick batting (from JoAnn Fabrics) around them to fluff them up.
Butttt also, I made the mistake of sewing the covers for the bottom cushions a little too big so the fabric was really loose and wrinkled once on.  I tried to figure out a way to resew and take them in so that they fit more snugly but, with the zippers, I couldn’t, so batting was the answer for that too.  Win, win.

Anyway, in case I lost you on all the details ten paragraphs ago, here’s the 1000% better after:




It’s not pictured outside in the screened-in porch because, in the time that’s passed since I finished this piece, we found a bamboo set for $40 on a resale sight and that couch and loveseat are currently waiting to be snazzed up.  I love you old, vintage, wood couch, but the bamboo really has my heart and so my heart I must follow.  We don’t really need the loveseat from the set so my plan is to fix that up and sell it but the couch will be my resting place all summer so you can be sure I’ll have all the details on that makeover.  I’ll be sure to write some better tutorials on how I sew the new cushions and wash the foam (if need be) on that since my first try was successful and now I kinda know what I’m doing...kinda.  Stay tuned.

As for this wood couch, we staged it for a blog and sale picture and sold it within four hours of listing it.  It’s a little bittersweet but the sweet lady who bought it is putting it in an old building in her backyard that she’s fixing up to be a little retreat; pinterest-style.  It sounds so delightful and this mom’s happy my couch baby went to a good home.  Okay, couch baby Sheena?  I know, forgive me of my unhealthy attachments to furniture…

But, it’s yet another furniture project in the books; quite possibly the most demanding furniture project to date.  I’ll be taking a short break from those to recover and working on some simpler stuff.  If you’re sitting back wondering how I got this thing done with three four kids under my belt, know that this took me weeks to finish.  I know it all looks like I did this in a day or a weekend but let’s be realistic, shall we?  Things around here happen slowly.  Just ask Dwija.

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So, let’s talk Labor of Love’s:  Home Edition?  What’s been yours recently?  Maybe painting a room?  Sewing?  Remodeling?  Give me all the details!  It’s my love language.  This week I’m deep-cleaning the kids’ bathroom and you know what that means…project in the bathroom time!  Here’s a sneak peek if you’re interested.  :)

Have a fantastic week eeerbody!

*affiliate link to paint sprayer gun I purchased

The Kids’ Room–Before & After

Done in my best game show host voice…

IIIIt’s time for another rouundd of BEFORE ANNNND AFTER! 

We’re zooming in on the room that was our home office prior to kids and became the very first room of each kid once they came along.

Back when it was our home office, it was made up entirely of hand-me-downs except for the duvet (a $7 TJ Maxx clearance find) and maybe some of the diy-ed pillows.  I put in under $100 to get it to girly status for the girls and then maybe another $50 to de-girlify it for Sebastian.  Those numbers would be a lot higher if it weren’t for the numerous hand-me-downs and thrift store finds that fill the room.
 

So basically, over the past three years and from left to right, there’s a $150 difference.  I used a lot of stuff I had on hand, like the paint for the wall stripes, to get it from start to currently, but even if I had to buy the on-hand stuff initially, it would still be under $200.  I know it’s not something that you’d see in a home magazine but I love that it’s cute and I didn’t have to spend an arm and leg to get it that way.  :)