It's a process- Stage 1: Cutting the Seats

So about a month ago I mentioned that I scored some wonderful free chairs!

Since then I've been slowing making some progress on finishing these puppies, but man there are a lot of steps involved. So I figure let's go ahead and talk about it in steps.

Now let's talk the first step- seats! The chairs didn't have any when we snagged 'em so I decided I would buy some 3 or 4-ply particle board, cut it to size, sand em down, get some foam and batting for cushion, and finally upholster them! Shoo- and that's just the seat part! Granted, that is by far the most time consuming part of the whole thing.

So off to Lowe's I went and man was I in for a treat! I went to the lumber section (albeit I feel a bit weird whenever I go to that part because I get these funny looks from burly men- What? A girl in an Ande's mint green trench coat and grey faux suede boots doesn't belong in the lumber section!?) Anyways, I just couldn't find the dimension I needed- either I would have had to buy a bazillion little pieces which would have meant big monies or one big 8'X4' slab that would have left me with over half left in extra wood. Again, not necessary. So I pulled the cute card and asked if they had any in between pieces. TA-DA! It worked- they took me out back and cut down a perfect 4 ply board to the dimensions I needed and instead of paying 20$ for wood, my grand total = 3$! Yesss!!

Then it was time to cut. Fortunately Josh's work has a band saw that I could use and after taking many measurements I drew out a seat matched to each chair frame, and went to work. I made sure to measure and measure and measure! One thing I also recommend is to err on not cutting off enough, that way once you put the seat in the frame, if it doesn't fit you can trim a bit more, but if it's too small... well you can't add the wood back on.


Here's my 'workshop':

(Safety first- my husband wanted to point out that glasses are required. Fortunately-I complied.)

One thing to note- it is extremely important to measure each chair (I used a numbering system where I numbered the chairs 1-6 and matched their seat 1-6 to them.) Each chair although, very similar, is unique in it's shape for the seat and thus needed individual tweaking.

So after hours of cutting, here is the end result for Stage 1- Cutting the Seats!

(It looks like they're having a pow-wow discussing their seats. 'yah dude, ya look good.')

Up Next- Cutting the Foam

Painting Party!

Today was fun!

Despite the fact that it was a dismal, foggy, damp day- it was tons of fun inside my older sister's bathroom! Her birthday was about 2 weeks ago and for it, the ladies on my side of the fam decided to give her a bathroom re-decoration! What a fun idea. So what I decided to contribute was a paint job complete with painting services!

And today was delivery day. =) So at 10:30 I showed up with paint, paintbrushes, roller, and a pan and we got crackin'! April, my older sister, sent me the paint color she wanted yesterday and I knew from the name it was going to be good-

Brandied Pears!

It's a great cream based color with a pear undertone and it makes the whole bathroom feel relaxing, warm, and open! Three great things from a paint color. I can't take any credit on it though- it was all her expertise color picking. =)

Unfortunately I didn't remember (durr holly) to take any before shots of the bathroom but here are the afters!

(Here you can see the color to its truest. It's a tad lighter than the light towels which makes for the best kind of depth to the bathroom!)

I bit the bullet

and finally ordered some fabric for our chairs! Yes yes, indecisive I know because it only took me about 2 weeks to finally pick a fabric! (but in my defense some of the fabrics I would have ordered were out of stock, so I had to debate if I wanted to wait for them, or keep searching)

SO I decided to keep searching and tonight I finally just picked one. I can't wait to get it, and even snagged a lovely online coupon to use for fabric.com so I saved myself another $1.50 in this project , more on the overall savings to come later.

Want to see what I went with? Here it is!

I know you may be thinking, huh that looks tan- but it's not. It is light grey and dark grey, to put it simply and I'm excited for it to come in a few days! I figured that since I'm painting the chairs an off-white of sorts, to not risk it by putting it with any other variation of white fabric.

To give you an idea of the scale, this is what it looks like in 'real life' in pillow form (except in black and white):

(image from kfddesigns.blogspot.com)

So we shall see.

In other news, I'm really excited because a friend of mine is going to let me borrow her staple gun to upholster the seats once the fabric gets here! How wonderful is that? Yay!

So Many Choices!

In my last post I told you all about a fun project I have to work on, and now I'm digging in!

Last Sunday, my husband and I were able to spend the afternoon at his office where he worked on some electronic stuff while I was able to use the band saw they have at his work to make seats! (more on that to come later)

One of the next steps I've been working on this week has been trying to find fabric for covering the seats I've made. And that is so much easier said than done. Why you ask?! Because there are SO many wonderful options!

One of my new favorite places to dig for fabulous fabrics is fabric.com. It has a huge selection of fabrics and here are some of the tops for me, however some of them are unfortunately OUT of stock. Poop.

Anyways, here they are:

(My top choice: Dwell Studio Bella Porte Charcoal, but out of stock.)

(Premier Prints Chipper Slub Texture Charcoal- out of stock.)

(Not quite sure about going this route- but it's really pretty!)

(Ty Pennington's Home Decor Impressions Lace Gray.)

(Or a totally different route, Amy Butler Midwest Modern Optic Blossom Linen)

(Or maybe the black and white route- Waverly Sun N Shade Chippendale Fretwork Onyx.)

And these are all just my top choices! Because if we wanted to look into what I just found pretty,
or neat- man there are like ten more!

Just for kicks- here are a couple that I am storing away in my memory for the future:

(In a kids room some day!?)

(Or something totally random, for who knows what! But I like it!)

So yes, while it's good to have so many good options- it's a problem too! Who knows what I'll end up picking,
but hopefully it will be something a bit out of the 'comfort zone' for me that I end up LOVING!

New Project~

Hooray! I can't tell you how excited I am to start a new project that is a total - just happen to stumble upon type! What is it you ask?

Well friends, last weekend my husband and I went to Rockbridge, a camp out in Goshen, VA to help out some friends by volunteering for work-crew (basically kitchen staff). As we were heading out the camp's windy, dirt road we came saw a random pile of stuff laying in a field. (really that's the best way to describe it.) 

See: Random pile o' stuff

Here's a closer look:

Once we realized that there were chairs in there that were obviously throw outs from their dining hall, we turned around. Credit here is definitely given to my husband as I was somewhat reluctant to go digging through this random pile, but once we did- we scored big time!

After a little rummaging we decided on 6 chairs we deemed fix-up-able. (Yes that's clearly a word, especially at 11 pm on a Friday night) We also managed to pick up a few random boards that we'll use as bases for the seats (since all the seats are missing on these chairs). Complete with huge grins on our faces we loaded all 6 of those bad boys in our little Honda civic and headed on home!

Now here they are all lined up, waiting patiently for their make-over.

I have lots of ideas running through my head, especially after looking online for some inspiration from others who have spruced up outdated dining room chairs. What I've come to realize is I love subtle and soft neutrals! They just read classic, relaxing, welcoming, and yes, admittedly safe. 

So my first thought is to paint them white, cream, or a soft grey, with perhaps a similarly neutral cushion.

Something like these:

(Image from: inspiredhomedesign.blogspot.com/2010_02_18_archive.html)

( Not with a yellow cushion though. Image from: beachbungalow8.blogspot.com)

Or maybe neutral color chair with a pop in the fabric for the cushion: 

(Image from: homesteaders.wordpress.com )

Perhaps with this fabric from JoAnn's fabrics: 

And then I thought, well maybe something more dark, black or funky or...something I don't instinctively go to first like any of these:

(Image from: apartmenttherapy.com)

(Image from: theoldpaintedcottage.blogspot.com)

(Image from: inspiredhomedesign.blogspot.com)

Oh choices, choices! =) 

Come In and Stay Awhile

Seeing how my blog name and the whole reason I got started in loving decorating was to encourage people to stay a while, I figured it only appropriate to actually give you all a tour of our lovely little abode. My husband and I got married a year and a half ago and found ourselves settling into a great 3 bedroom apartment since then. While we don't see it being our permanent residence for much longer (increasing rental rates made that decision easy), we are happy to say it's been the first place we've called 'home' since starting our life together.

Here is the layout of our place, to give you a feeling of where you are in the apartment as you look through the pictures of individual rooms in this post.

Here we go:

When you walk in the front door you immediately face the dining room and kitchen area as seen here:

We love, LOVE that island counter space! I can't tell you how spoiled it has made me when I prepare dinner, am baking, or just working on something that needs a lot of table surface! It's fabulous!

Immediately to your left is this little dining nook if you will:

There's not a lot of space so when we do actually eat around the table, you have to pull it away from the corner in order to let people slide on in, but hey- it's better than no dining space at all!

As you turn immediately to your right from the front door, you can make yourself cozy in our living room.

Don't mind the ginormous TV over there in the corner- we're 'storing' it for a friend while he is traveling internationally. Not really my favorite to have in such a small room but I certainly can't complain when it comes to entertaining friends with it!

Now let's head on back to the hall and the back bedrooms.

I'm not gunna lie: I LOOOVE how much natural light comes in our apartment. It certainly helps on those cold, long winter days to have the sun flooding in, in the afternoons. As you look in this picture, the first door on the right is our bedroom. 

I apologize for the darkness of the bedroom pictures, I took these at night after having cleaned up for company and just haven't had time to take 'day light' pictures yet.

As you can see there isn't much space in the bedrooms, they're all about 11X10 which is why we had to turn our bed catty-corner in order to squeeze 2 nights stands, a full-size bed, and a dresser in the room. My husband is 6'4" and let's just say I think he's a saint to be as patient as he has been trying to squeeze both of us into that bed every night. A bigger bed will definitely be first on the wish list when we find ourselves in a bigger bedroom.  A new addition now though, is a BEAUTIFUL full length espresso framed mirror that we lean against the wall next to the closet. (Pictures to come soon.)

Now let's head over to the bathroom diagonally across the hall. 

A bit on the small size, ahem side but it lets us get the job done. One thing I do really love about our bathroom is the black and white damask print shower curtain. I love damask print (including variations of it) and actually have to try to restrain myself whenever I come across the chance to add it somewhere in our place. So far I've limited it to four places: 

(My cooking apron, the backs of our bookshelf, pin boards in the office, and the shower curtain)

Anyways, I digress. Onto the guest bedroom.

(I LOVE these silly feather, iridescent turquoise pillows!)

This bureau is a beautiful family heirloom from my great-great grandfather. Look at that wood!

And the guest bathroom:

Now last but not least: where the magic happens (well... maybe not... but maybe so), our office!

(My side, complete with a beautiful LCD monitor Josh bought me for my last birthday!)

(Josh's manly side, where he mixes music recordings both he and friends make! He's very talented!)

The Musical Side of the room:

That concludes our apartment tour! I hope you enjoyed and perhaps even felt as though you could come in a stay a while.

Yah that whole blogging thing

So friends, when I said that I would be tweaking my blog- I wasn't joking. I can be a bit OCD about design and projects. I would say I have been my whole life. When it came for science fair board time or when power point first came out, I was the one who obsessed more about the appearance of the presentation than the actual content. Don't get me wrong,  I care about the content a lot but what can I say I love presenting things well.

With that said, take this blog. There are SO many options you have when designing a blog, and while that means you have LOTS of selections it also means the potential for indecision and confusion. It also allows for a great sense of accomplishment once you do reach your desired change or product. Mm hmm.

For example, here a couple screen shots of my WIP (work in progress) of a banner, and these aren't even the really rough ones.

Numero Uno:

Here you can see that the banner is off center. I can't tell you how many iterations I went through to try to get this guy centered. It was only when I stumbled across a helpful link on one of my favorite websites for blog backgrounds that I mentioned yesterday, www.thecutestblogontheblock.com that I finally found the solution. See here if you too have been having trouble centering your own header.

Phew, so once I got that taken care of then it was down to minor tweaking. I decided on my blog name a while ago after I thought long and hard over why I like decor and 'nesting'. I realized I LOVE when people come into my home and tell me they feel like they just came home. Or when they apologize for staying so long but they just felt so comfortable they didn't want to leave. That to me is what makes it fun and worth while.

Anyways, my husband pointed out that he thought this:

perhaps just looked a little too crowded. And even though I didn't like him correcting my efforts (how prideful I know), I realized he was right.

SO I moved my tagline:

And for now, I think I'm content with how things are looking on here... for now ;)