hangin' around: the gallery wall is UP

Finally. The gallery wall is up! 

Over the last several weeks (or even months) I've collected miscellaneous items to include in the gallery wall for our re-done living room. Before the living room's transformation, the "gallery" was mostly full of pictures and random hanging items we had accumulated. However, I wanted it to be full of more "art" than photos this time around. 

To hang them all accurately, it took some measuring, pre-planning and a little toothpaste. Yes, toothpaste. I first measured the area. Apparently, you shouldn't hang items more than seven feet from the ground. Who knew? So, that's what I went with. It ended up being perfect height given the window's height. 

Once I measured the height and width (to go just beyond the buffet's width), I taped it off in the floor and started placing. After a few trial and error placements, I decided on my plan.

And then I went to work. The toothpaste came in when I needed to figure out just where to hammer the nails. I put just a dab of it on the back of each frame/item before pressing it onto the wall where it was meant to go. Nail, wipe then hang. It's easy and pretty error proof. 

So, with some old and new mixed together... here you have it (top to bottom rows). 

(1) A sign I bought at Dottie Couture Boutique, one of my favorite places to shop. Who doesn't love a good Beatles quote?

(2) This is an extra frame we had lying around that was waiting for it's place. A year or so ago we had a subscription to Papirmasse, which sends various artist's prints each month. This was one of my faves.

(3) This is the pillow to art DIY project I did a few weeks ago.

(4) Found on Pinterest, I made this framed map and key art awhile back. It was featured on our previous gallery wall, too.

(5) My mom sent me this little notecard earlier this year, which features a drawing of our cabin on the front. Since that's one of our happy places, I thought it was the perfect addition. 

(6) There are no words for this one. While it is a photo, it's also art. The Sample Gates at Indiana University are as beautiful as it gets!

(7) Each time we visit my Grandma's in Wisconsin, we always look through the things she has saved around the house. We found this print - of a church in Boston - and snagged it right away knowing it'd be perfect for the wall. 

(8) The cutting board to art DIY project here is the perfect item to mix up all the squares and rectangles up here. (Note: I'm still deciding how I want to hang this one so that it's less angled or completely straight!)

(9) My favorite quote - "The biggest victories in life are the small ones." - says it all on this piece. I made this canvas last year. It also had a home in our gallery before.

(9) This is a postcard I gave Sam earlier this year. It has a penguin on it, which is one of my favorite animals. And a cute little phrase at the bottom: "I will never waddle away from you."

(10) Thanks to my Grandma (again), we have this artwork to add in. It is a set up five, but we only hung up one. The others will eventually all be split between the kids. Vintage and very awesome.

Productivity feels so good. So do house to home projects. 

diy cutting board to art piece

Slowly, we're building a collection of gallery wall art to hang in the living room. Similar to the pillow I repurposed in a frame, I took another home product and turned it into "art," as well.

While browsing Bed, Bath & Beyond for some wedding gifts, I came across this Indiana cutting board. We don't need a cutting board, but I had another idea in mind (Pinterest inspired, of course) and had several coupons to make it worth it. With a self-made stamp, red paint, a paint pen and Modge Podge, I made a little piece of "art" to add to the collection for the  much-anticipated gallery wall I'm dying to get up.

The heart is placed over Bloomington, Ind. - where we met, dated through college and then got married. Love.

diy: pillow to art

So our perfect little boxer pup chewed the pillow corner just enough one day to ruin the zipper closure (thankfully, the pillow itself is still fully capable of being recovered!). I bought the pillow for sale at Urban Outfitters back in college, and it served its original purpose for nearly five years. While, I could have fixed the pillow cover, I felt it might be time to give it a new life. 

So, art it became. It will make its way onto our gallery wall in the living room once I get around to it. I have a few more pieces to DIY or frame up before I start visualizing it and all its glory.

How have you turned something old into something new?

diy: file cabinet re-do

You know those things you grab because you'll totally use it one day. Well, I totally did that with this filing cabinet, and let's just say, it's been sitting waiting for me for eight months. Lonely in the corner. 

I found this gem in my grandma's basement. Every time we head over there, she has us look through the basement. It's nearly empty these days, but we found some fun things that we could use at home (more on that later, probably). This file cabinet had some scuffs and was a bland tan color, so to give it new life I grabbed some spray paint. Purple spray paint. HOLLER!

I cleaned it and sanded it to prep it for the first coat. It only took one can of spray paint to get full coverage all the way around. Once it was totally dry, I put a few coats of polyurethane on it to help avoid chipping and give it a somewhat glossy finish.

Sadly, I didn't put enough tape around the drawers, so I pretty much just gave up on keeping the inside the tan color. It's all uneven in there, but hey, it's the inside!

Next up, organizing all our files in it. I know that sounds lame, but I'm totally up for it. 

long and lean: no-sew curtains

Several months ago I decided it was time to find new curtains for the den. When we replaced our dining room curtains, we moved those old, brown curtains into the den (left from the previous owner a few years ago). However, they were old and brown... so, just not our style. 

Long curtain panels are not cheap, so I went to Hancock Fabrics to snag some lightweight, white fabric to create a few of my own. Originally, I was going to hem them with my sewing machine, but I decided to give a different product: Heat-n-Bond (found at Michael's).

I had the fabric pre-cut to each panel's size at the store, so it made it really easy to get them all the same length and width when it came to hemming. With the Heat-n-Bond, an iron and an ironing board, I was done in just an hour or so. 

No-sew curtains in four steps:

(1) Iron the fabric, particularly the folded hemlines;

(2) place the Heat-n-Bond tape between the folded hemline;
(3) iron over the hemline, holding it for 30 seconds or so on each part; and
(4) done, done and done.

So, back to the old, brown curtains. The second bedroom (more of a den for us) is pretty small, so the dark curtains weren't exactly inviting. They also darkened the room quite a bit making it feel smaller. 

Not to mention we didn't have one for the side window, which just make it look even worse.

In addition to lightening up with the white curtains, we also hung them higher with new curtain rods. This little trick works wonders. Hanging them higher makes the room seem bigger, too. Double win. 

While we don't spend a great deal of time in there (hence, why it looks like a storage space!), this makes me so much happier. You have a clear view of the room from the living room and kitchen since we removed the door for the time being, too. So, having it a little easier on the eye was a must for me. 

Just another project that's been a long... time... coming!

calming down the living room

Our biggest project right now has several steps to it. After tearing down the built-ins and patching the wall, we were ready to give the family/living room another upgrade with a fresh coat of paint - from a not-so-mellow yellow to a calming gray ("Simple Gray" by Valspa Signature, #WV37006 at Lowe's).

Thanks to my sister and brother-in-law, we had four sets of hands to knock out the painting project. It was a tremendous help because this room is not small.

Here is a before shot (room has already been torn apart at this point) to really show the mustard yellow from the previous owners.

After our little helpers left, Sam and I finished out the ceiling portion of the room. I'd say we did a pretty nice job without using tape since we only had a few paint spots on the ceiling. We'll touch those up later.

Here is a fuller shot of the color. It lightens and darkens with natural light, which I love. When the trim turns white, the room will really pop!

Up next... priming and painting the trim! Yippee. I seriously can't contain my excitement. 

bye bye built-ins!

Maybe it's the nice weather, but we have FINALLY taken on another big home project. I've had an idea to paint the family room for months now, but just haven't gotten to that yet. And then, it happened. Sam shared an amazing idea.

The amazing idea means waiting longer on the painting fiesta, but I'm OK with that because it was... errr, an AMAZING idea. We have (or should I say had?) large built-ins in our family room that took up an entire wall and were bulky in size.

Family room built-ins before...

Even with the room being quite large, the built-ins always felt like a little too much. My plan originally was to just paint them and all the trim white to match the rest of the house (and ultimately brighten the space), but instead, we're going one step further by removing the top of them.

We love the storage the bottom cabinets offer, and we also love the window seat, so we kept the part we liked and said goodbye to the rest. We skipped purchasing an expensive tool and just hand-sawed each side off. While it wasn't the easiest approach, it worked just fine. Sam sawed, and I held the pieces to help keep them from moving around (again, it was cheap wood AND poorly put together, so it could be done without a fancy tool).

So, without further ado ... bye bye built-ins!

Built-ins no more!

You'll notice some deconstruction on the left wall there. We ran into a mold issue. Yikes!

At one point some water got trapped between the built-ins and the drywall. It obviously wasn't ideal, but I'm glad we found it. It was only behind the wood, so we would have never known otherwise. It hadn't gotten through the drywall or into the floor, so that was a sigh of relief.

Sam and his dad cut out the wall with the mold, and we're going to have a professional fix the drywall this week. Cannot wait to close that back up! Once the wall is done we can move on to our next step, which is painting the walls, the remaining built-ins and the room's trim. Following a good paint job, we'll add floating shelves to replace the bulky top of the built-ins.

One step at a time. More to come on this room transformation!

diy: from maxi to infinity

So, I finally learned how to use my sewing machine thanks to my sister's expertise. This was such an exciting Christmas present, so I'm happy I can put it to good use! Watch out world...

Our first project was a triangular bag. I felt quite proud of myself! If you didn't look too closely at the seams, you'd almost never guess it was self made. Next sewing extravaganza came from an old dress up skirt my sister and I found while cleaning out my parent's attic. While I would never (and I repeat, never!) wear it as is these days, I knew it was worth a repurpose. 

It was fairly simple since the size and shape of the fabric was just about right. I had to bunch up one end to event out the two sides I sewed together, but that also gave it a little more volume. It's an infinity scarf that you don't double, but the fullness of it matches that of a double-upper! Here's the before and after Instagram shot: 

This, too, has me inspired to take on more sewing projects. Up next? Curtains for the second bedroom/den.