Various projects on my list

I've got an unending list of small projects for the house. So fun! It's like my own personal playground in there. Here's a sampling.

See that clear acrylic table in front of the couch in my office area? It's part of a set of 3 cheap nesting tables I got on eBay. I picked them because I liked how they didn't look bulky and I can rearrange them all the time. The problem: I keep running into them because they're clear and I'm a klutz. So I plan to draw some sort of design on them with a white Sharpie paint pen.


It could look cool, right? Here's an example of something related: the Timber Table from Gus Modern. (Photo from Gus.)


Next. A confession: I created an art forgery. I had a Rifle Paper calendar sitting around and decided that something flowery and patterned just like that would be precisely the thing to add to our patterned dining room. Except no Rifle prints come in 2 ft by 3 ft, so I painted one. Er, as artists like to say, "it's an homage to" Anna Bond? Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery?

I don't know what came over me since I don't even LIKE really flowery things that much. The room made me do it. I'm having second thoughts and maybe I'll put something else there. Not flowery. More modern. Either that, or this canvas needs a frame. On the to-do list: solve this problem.




And then I have this parrot fabric. I'm thinking it could go on the folding chairs we'll pull up to the table when we have extra guests. I could spray paint the frames and reupholster the seats; people can sit on the parrots. OR I could decoupage them onto a tray and set a vase of greenery on those birds.

Those are three projects from my list of 500.

Geometric lamp shade with tape

After swapping out this dining room light fixture for this one I love, our room got a lot dimmer. We needed extra lighting in a corner, so we bought a shelf floor lamp at Target. It was looking a little Asian, though, which is not part of the plan. So to distract myself from that, and since we're going pattern crazy in this room, I decided to give it a little sumthin' sumthin.' There are more than enough swirly lines in there already, so I made geometric shapes with this 3M 1/8" vinyl tape.


It's repositionable and removable for when I get tired of it.


I'm really pleased with how good it looks. You wouldn't even know it's tape until you put your nose right up there to inspect it.

Drawer pull

Happy Friday! I leave you with this photo of my ugly dresser drawer handle (it goes on this guy). The two hardware stores I stopped by last night didn't have any sleek, modern pulls that would fit the current holes (which are very large, and I'm not ambitious enough to try to fill them and drill new ones). So I'm stuck with the original "fancy" ones. The only gold/brass metallic spray paint I found, other than Krylon I don't like much, was Rustoleum's Universal Metallic in Pure Gold. It looks like this. Nope. I'll paint them some other color tomorrow.

Have a great weekend!

UPDATE: Now they're navy. I'm calling it a day.

Painting the dresser

I've finally gotten around to painting the Craigslist mid-century Drexel Touraine dresser for the dining room. It looked like this before:


I primed it with Zinsser Cover-Stain oil based primer and then tried out Sherwin Williams ProClassic Waterbased Acrylic-Alkyd Enamel. It's one of the new "hybrid" paints that acts like oil, but is actually water based. The paint store assured me it has great leveling properties so brush strokes will disappear, but that didn't prove to be the case for me. The surface looks quite brush-strokey despite my efforts to lay it down quickly and not over-brush it. It's driving me crazy, but maybe I'll forget about it once the dresser is in place in the dining room. I tried researching online whether I could add Floetrol to a water based alkyd to help it level and gave up in confusion— and, let's be honest— laziness.

I'm moving on.

I want to spray paint the hardware.


Should I make it look brassy? Pretend this statue lady's arm is a drawer handle.


Or let's get crazy: Hot pink.


Here's a hasty Photoshop mock-up with brass.


Here's a hasty Photoshop mock-up with pink. Heck, let's paint the fancy trim around the bottom, too.


But remember, it's going to live in this room with nutty fuchsia wallpaper. A vintage lamp with a sleek brass cylinder base will sit on top.

My gut tells me it would be pink overkill. After all, a respected colleague once informed me that restraint is the second rule of design. But man, that pink is FUN. Maybe in a room that wasn't already swathed in pink.

I was going to use the original hardware, but the mocked-up rectangles are making me want something simple, modern, and less fussy. I wonder if I could find something like that.

What to do, guys?

UPDATE: I couldn't find new drawer pulls, so I tried for a brass paint job and didn't like the spray paint I used. So they're navy.

How to make an industrial pipe floor lamp

I really have a thing for lamps. I roam thrift stores admiring them— the weirder, the better — and pause on catalog pages with cool fixtures. Today I'm happy to share a guest tutorial on how to make your own industrial-style floor lamp out of pipes. Set this baby in front of your exposed brick wall and sip a craft cocktail while you admire your handiwork. You built a lamp!



The how-to is by Matthew Lyons, self-proclaimed handyman and blogger for HomeDaddys.com. Here's what Matthew has to say:

- - - - -
Like most red-blooded Americans, I love industrial pipe lighting. There’s a certain derelict nostalgia about lamps and chandeliers made from old metal plumbing that just makes me feel all warm and fuzzy and manly inside. Unfortunately, that feeling isn’t shared by my wallet.

I’ve been lusting after an industrial pipe floor lamp for years now but the price tags people attach to these things are utterly ridiculous. The majority of multi-bulb floor-length pipe lamps available online or in stores sell for $400 - $1,000. As a guy on a lower middle-class income with a wife and a kid to support, I just can’t justify spending that kind of money on what amounts to a few lengths of pipe, some wire and a couple vintage light bulbs.

So, considering how simple these things are, I figured I could just build my own pipe lamp for half the cost of buying one. Having never wired anything before in my life, I was a little worried how this project would turn out. Surprisingly, though, it was super-easy to make. The entire lamp can be assembled by hand like some sort of awesome adult Erector Set. As I predicted, the wiring was by far the hardest part of the entire build – but even that took less than two hours and I didn’t even set the house on fire when I plugged it in. This made my wife very happy.

Here’s how you can build one of these awesome industrial pipe lamps for your own house or apartment or office or whatever dark corner of your life begs illumination.

Continue reading »

How to make a decorative picture mat

I'm getting a huge kick out of this funny linocut of Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes. The portrait is an original print by Nick Morley; read more about Nick's work here.

If you've seen the TV show, you know Sherlock is right at home amongst wallpaper, so I decided his picture mat ought to be patterned. I used a sheet of Rifle Paper gift wrap I got at Poeme, a charming little stationery shop in Cincinnati.

Covering a mat with paper is simple. You can cut a piece of chipboard to size and cover it, or cover an existing mat— one that came with your picture frame or a plain one purchased separately.


You'll need fancy paper cut roughly 1/2" larger than the mat, spray adhesive, and a scissors or craft knife.


Spray the back of the paper with adhesive and center the mat on it. Cut out the excess paper in the center of the mat, leaving around 1/2" to wrap around the edges.


Make diagonal slits to the inside corners and trim the outer corners at a 45 degree angle. Don't trim right up to the edge of the mat; leave enough extra paper to equal the thickness of the mat board so no board is exposed when you wrap the corners.


Bend the tabs around the board, sticking them down.


Put the print, mat, and frame back together and hang.


Sherlock must reside in the parlor, of course, where he'll scowl at me every day and make me happy.

Use a magnifier as a tiny photo frame

We spotted this gizmo in a curiosities shop last weekend. It's a magnifying glass on a stand with two adjustable arms with clips. It's for repairing watches, jewelry, and electronics, but it's even cuter as a tiny picture frame for photo booth shots or old yearbook photos. It magnifies about 4X.


This doodad would make a cool gift for somebody who's into industrial decor, or who just likes weird things. Here's one like ours on Amazon: Helping Hands Soldering Hobby Station, $7.

Removable wallpaper in the bathroom

Here's a look at our upstairs guest bathroom. Last night I covered an accent wall with removable wallpaper. I love it!


This bathroom has a peculiar layout. You walk in past the shower stall on the right, and when you hit the sink, you turn right to get to the toilet. Which is under a lovely arch at the end of a passage that is almost long enough to feel like a hallway. The paint color in there doesn't bother me (hard to capture in photos under electric lights) but that wall under the arch was begging for something interesting. I considered these drops wall decals at Walls Need Love, but after browsing their site some more, I was taken by the Waves of Chic print. Nice and watery for a bathroom, and I can't resist a pattern.


The kind folks at Walls Need Love sent the product to review. Cute packaging, eh?


Like the Sunburst wallpaper I designed last year, this paper is essentially a giant self-adhesive wall decal, and it's easily to peel off and reposition. Unlike our dining room wallpaper, the traditional kind, it was easy to put up by myself. Much to Alex's relief, I'm sure. The material is Fab-Tac, which is a textile coated with an adhesive on one side and backed with paper you peel off.

I measured the wall and cut a length of paper that would leave a little extra overhang at the bottom. I peeled off about a foot of backing from the top of the piece and stuck the paper to the wall along the ceiling. I held a level to the right edge to test the straightness (the corner was a little wavy and unhelpful, so a level worked better).


After a couple tries I had it, and then it was just a matter of peeling off the backing paper gradually while smoothing down the paper with the tool provided.

I cut another piece to place next to the first panel, overlapping the seam by a quarter inch to match the pattern.

Then with a craft knife and straight edge, I trimmed off any overhang that wrapped onto the adjacent walls and baseboard.


This stuff is really forgiving if you accidentally get it stuck to itself. I had a crumpled up ball of excess sticky paper I'd trimmed off the baseboard and wondered if I could untangle it. Yep— with patience you can straighten it back out, and since the substrate is fabric, it doesn't show any crumple marks in the pattern.


Now I just need an awesome picture to hang above the toilet, and we're in business! Or rather, people can do their business.


A huge thank you to Walls Need Love for making my bathroom cuter! Check out their other products: besides wallpaper and traditional decals, they offer anatomy prints, map stickers, and adhesive taxidermy, too. You know you need a buffalo head...

I hope I don't kill it

I brought home a biggish $16 palm from Home Depot this weekend and put it in the parlor. I had hoped to find something tall that was not a palm for a good price, but all the other plants they had were much too small. IKEA and Lowes didn't have anything better, and the greenhouse I tried was closed until spring (whenever that is). This guy kind of makes a big difference in the coziness factor, doesn't it? See corner before. Alex was impressed, too.

The Home Depot lady said that after 20 years of killing plants, she has finally learned not to water them from the top, but to let the plant suck up the moisture from the bottom. Her formula is: keep the plant in the cheap plastic container it came in. Put that inside a clear plastic liner tray from the garden center or cheap disposable party bowl from the dollar store, and set both of those inside the pretty decorative outer pot. Every week or so, put water in the clear liner tray for the plant to absorb. Give it Miracle Grow once or twice a month.

We'll see. I'm starting with this guy, and then I'll branch out (har har) into some of the other plants you guys recommended in the excellent comments on this post.

Also note the cute curly fig on the table, too. Best wishes for a long life, little fella.

Update: as requested, here's the pot I put the palm in. It's from Kroger.

Experimenting with liquid gold leaf

I'm still shopping for enormous plants, but in the meantime, I operated on some lamps.

You know how IKEA's model living rooms always look so inviting because there are little light sources everywhere? Or in movies, the libraries and dens are always so cozy? Lights on the bookshelves seem to add a lot, so I was determined to put some on our shelves in the parlor. Like a less glorious version of this.

I shopped online a bit, and brass picture lights are expensive. So I bought a couple of these NON lights from IKEA. But I wanted them brass or gold to go with the parlor light fixture instead of the silver color they came in.


I considered spray painting them, but was worried about the paint making a mess and going inside the lamp's little holes. It seemed easier to brush them with something, so I tried out some Liquid Leaf I bought at Michael's. Sort of like gold leaf in a jar.

I shook up the bottle to mix the paint and then brushed it on with a small craft brush. Because the lights were very slightly textured (they're plastic), it adhered beautifully. Brushstrokes evened out and disappeared. It was like brushing on fingernail polish, and smells the same, too. In minutes the paint was dry to the touch. In an hour it was hard and set.


The coverage from one coat was almost enough, but I put on two for good measure.

I cleaned my brush with mineral spirits— not sure what you're supposed to use, but that worked well.

This color is Florentine Gold, which is more coppery than straight-up gold. The store was out of bronze, which would have been nice, but I'm pleased as punch. You can't even tell I used any from the little bottle, so there's plenty left to gild Alex's computer when he's not looking. Now I just need to put up the lights!

House plant ideas

It's starting to seem a little more spring-like outside, which turns my thoughts toward our yard that I don't know what to do with. And plants. At Lowes this weekend I bought a couple small houseplants and put this one in a pot I had. But I need more!

A smart designerly friend suggested I put a great big palm in the dining room, Downton Abbey style. It would look awesome. But I hear palm and immediately picture this.

I might take her suggestion for a philodendron instead. And a pencil plant for the office. Love it. I use pencils there, so that makes sense.

Now, I understand that if you're a blogger and/or want your house to look like a magazine photo, it's required that you own a fiddle leaf fig.

Got any other suggestions for potted plants that could stand on the floor, grow really tall, don't require direct sunlight, and are hard to kill?

Dress up plain furniture with fretwork

In my travels around the internet today, I came across O'verlays fretwork panels. They're made from PVC and are paintable, lightweight panels that add decoration to your furniture. Designs include Greek keys, quatrefoils, figure-eights, and other geometric shapes. They're especially great for adding ornamentation to plain IKEA furniture— you can choose kits specifically for the model you own. For inspiration, visit the Facebook page or the project gallery, and learn about painting options here. An interesting resource for DIY furniture makeovers.

Tricky trompe l'oeil pillows

These photo-realistic throw pillows are whimsical and fun. I'd be curious to see how the three dimensional illusions hold up in person, but they look very cool in photos. Maybe we should try a DIY version– take a photo, print it on transfer paper, and iron it onto fabric. Or for higher quality, print the fabric at Spoonflower and sew it into cushions.

1. Succulent by Plantillo.
2. Chesterfield sofa by Morondanga
3. Oak tree by Nicklas Gustafsson
4. Geogami by Snurk
5. Art deco detail by Tammy Winand
6. Pug by Benwinewin
7. Leaf by Plantillo

We gift wrapped the dining room

The dining room wallpaper is finished. It almost killed us, but we prevailed. Remember when my plan was to do just an accent wall? After living with it for a couple weeks, we decided the rest of the room looked too stark and incomplete. So we bought more.

We painted the white ceiling light gray and added paper to the other walls. It took two Saturdays and a couple late nights after work to do the remaining three walls, because we are possibly the slowest wallpaper hangers in history. And one of us is an annoying perfectionist. This room has two windows, a fireplace, and five doors to maneuver around, with rosette blocks that stick out on the corners just to add some extra pain and suffering.


Painting the ceiling was a challenge since we didn't want to get paint on the wall that was already done. I had nightmarish visions of turning it into a Jackson Pollack mural, so we tried to tape a plastic sheet over it. The painter's tape wouldn't stick on the painted walls, however; the plastic was too heavy. Alex had a roll of plastic film from work, so we decided to try that, thinking that taping up strips would be easier since they'd be lighter. To our amazement, the stuff clung to the wall with static electricity alone. This discovery was the greatest moment in our entire project. We couldn't stop high-fiving. It was how Ben Franklin must have felt.

With a tiny brush I carefully painted the ceiling along the edge of the wallpaper, and then the rest of the painting was easy. We didn't spill a drop on the plastic. Figures.

Then came the marathon wallpaper application, and here we have it:


It's cozy and pretty and dramatic. I love it. I'm more of a minimal girl at heart, but in a Victorian house, you have to have some fun.

For Valentine's Day Alex bought me flowers that match the paper. That might seem like no big deal, but God and I both know how much he detested doing this project with me. Trust me: that gift was an amazing act of self-sacrifice.

A more modern light fixture is in the works, along with some artwork and a painted dresser. We're coming down the home stretch in here!

P.S. The paper is Sophie Conran's Balustrade in Claret. It was on sale when I bought the second batch, so if you need to have some, maybe a discount will come along.