Hi hi!! Man I have missed you guys! Apologies for the radio silence, I have been travelling and spending some much needed quality time with my mom and sisters. But now I am home, and I have so many things to tell you about!!
If you have been wondering what is happening with The Nugget, don’t worry, I haven’t given up on it! In fact, its just the opposite. I needed to take a step back for a little bit and really look at it critically (without wanting to burn it to the ground). After really thinking about it and going back though all of the projects and design choices it became clear that the problem I was having was with the backsplash. I LOVE the green penny tile. But. It just wasn’t working with the other things that I loved more.
So this happened.
And this.
And now I am ready for tile round 2.
I also ordered some half-round molding from homedepot.com for the cabinet doors. I think I found a solution, that makes the little knob a bigger part of the design vs just being a teensy knob on a door. As soon as I hit publish on this post, I am heading outside to get to work so hopefully I will have an update for you by Friday!
As Ashy’s room is coming together, I am FREAKING excited to pull this awesome couch out of the storage unit. I found it at the DI (Utah’s version of Goodwill) for $65. It is the prettiest green velvet and in excellent condition. The skirt is coming off to update it and possibly some new legs are happening.
Shall we take a gander at some of the other amazing #colddeadfingers couches that are causing chronic drool-itis? Yes, lets.
I feel like we need to do some internet stalking and find out where Katie lives so that we can all camp out at the thrift stores that she frequents. This girl is a freaking thrift store all star. Check out the couch. It is amazing.
Hey guys!! Ashy’s room is in full chaotic makeover mode as we speak (its fine….do you want to bring me some chocolate? Because that would be lovely.) We talked about the fun retro diamond wall treatment last week, but I wanted to share the other paint jobs that have happened.
The entire room got a coat of my favorite white. At my local Sherwin-Williams they call it High Hide White. It is an ultra (or extra) white base with 3 oz of white pigment added. It is my go to white for everything. In fact, every room I do gets this mix on the walls because I love it that much.
Lets chat about the closet. Closets are not that fun, right? Some might say that they are even a little boring.
Well. Boring isn’t a word in our dictionary anymore.
Remember in Macie’s bedroom when we painted the ceiling? We are taking that effect and moving it inside the closet.
The color that we used was Naval by Sherwin-Williams. If you are looking for an amazing deep navy, good news, your search can come to a stop. It is a really rich dark blue, and doesn’t go too “little boy’”. (Does that make sense to anyone but me?)
Do you know how wonderful it is to have a sister that will paint with you? I think it is the gift this holiday season.
If you follow me on Insta, you got a sneak peek at what we are doing for the closet doors…if you don’t, its ok I’ll tell you anyway (come closer!) DIY Bypass Barn Doors! So stay tuned for that fun tutorial and a whole lot of what not to do (like put 600 feet of rope in the dryer…its “knot” a good idea.)
Also tutorial for that amazing light is happening this week too! Just for fun, does anyone recognize the wood pieces?!
You know those nagging feelings that certain things give you? Like every time your dishwasher finished the cycle, and your dishes only look 50% cleaner? You know you neeeeeed to get it fixed, but instead you just shut the door and run the cycle again? (Don’t lie, you do that too.)
That is how I have felt about my mattress. It is so old and broken in and not in the sweet spot way that Uncle Jesse talks about on Full House. It has been the thing on my list , you know, the list of stuff that needs replacing but always gets pushed down when stuff like dentist visits and new tires come up?
I may have jumped for joy when Sleep Innovations emailed about sending me one of their mattresses. Sleep Innovations Memory Foam Mattress comes in a box so I will admit, I was a little bit skeptical. I mean, a mattress in a box? But after doing some research about the quality, I was really excited to witness it for myself.
When it finally came time to open the mattress, the entire family was present because of the coolness factor. I even caught it on video for you guys.
You guys would never guess by laying on it that it came from such a humble albeit genius beginning. Transport was simple. It is a 2 person job to pull it out of the box (ok. lets be honest, Court could have done it by himself, but I made it a 2 person job…)
Then all you do is remove the plastic packaging and it grows into a comfy king sized mattress before your eyes. It took about 30 minutes before all 4 corners were laying flat against the box spring but it is mind boggling to think how it fit inside the box in the first place. And although it comes in a box, it is super high quality and feels just like one of the expensive memory foam mattresses that are thousands of dollars and giant to move around.
Getting good sleep is crucial to my busy life, and I am happy to say that this awesome new mattress is responsible for at least 4 out of the 7 z’s that make up ZZZzzzz the last few weeks.
2 things, if you are interested in trying a Sleep Innovations mattress out for yourself, you will want to do that here. Also, Sleep Innovations is giving away a mattress on their facebook page as we speak, so get on that too!
For more info check out their website, and this video:
I teamed up with Sleep Innovations for this post, all opinions are my own, as well as the drool on my pillow.
Happy Friday! Quite a few of you have asked about the paint colors in the Retro Diamond Wall project, and I promise I wasn’t ignoring the fact that they were left out, I just thought they needed a post all their own. Finding inspiration on Pinterest and online is simple, I mean, there are literally billions of beautiful images that are everything you’ve ever hoped and dreamed for in a color scheme. But matching those colors is an entirely different beast. How do you know that the colors on your walls will match the colors on the screen?
(Insert Sherwin-Williams Chip It stage left.) Chip It! is an incredible tool for gathering data on your inspiration and turning it into something tangible. Its a simple button that you install on your browser toolbar. It works on any page that your browser has open. When you find an image that you love, hit Chip It! and by the magic of technology, you will have a swatch of colors that are found in the image.
My inspiration for Ashy’s room was this painting by Kenneth Noland. While I love the overall style and colors of it, I wanted to customize it a little more before I decided on the paint colors. I adjusted the picture in Photoshop and uploaded it to Chip It! to get a jumping off point. (Chip It! swatch before I made adjustments)
After a few color adjustments:
I took the best of both.
Then I headed to my local Sherwin-Williams store to pick up the paint I needed.
Because Chip It selects 5 colors, I had to go out on a limb and pick the orange in my palette. (It turned out pretty good!) I also went with a really dark navy, to match the fabric that I put on the walls here.
Pretty impressive right?!
If you are like me and you want to color match everything on the interwebs after this discovery, you can download Chip It! here!
Huge thanks to Sherwin-Williams for teaming up with me on this room makeover!
Hey guys!! So Ashy’s room is in full swing and I am loving the way that it is turning out, but most importantly she is loving the way that it is turning out, which makes me love it even more!
I love when you stumble across something that just strikes a chord with you (tell me I am not the only one!) that jumping off point of inspiration is so powerful. Last week I fell head over heals for this little peg project by Orlando Soria (you guys read his blog right? He is hilarious.) It got the ol’ wheels turning for a way that we could do something similar, just on a large scale.
I felt like the shelves themselves needed to be thick and a little bulky. The best option was to create hollow shelves, that way they could be 2 1/2” thick and not weigh 5,000 pounds.
To make this project you will need:
11 feet of 1” copper pipe Cut to (12) 11” pieces
(3) _____”x36” Wooden Dowels (they are the ones that have the dark orange on the end) cut to 12”
(6) 5/16”x 3 1/2” Dowel Screws
(6) 1/4”x 2 1/2” Dowel Screws
(6) 1/4” drywall anchors
(3) 2×2’s the length of your shelves
(6) pieces of 1/2” MDF cut to the width and length of your shelf. Mine are 10” wide by 60” long.
(3) pieces of MDF cut to 2” x the length of your shelf. Mine was 60”
(6) pieces of MDF cut to 2” x the depth of your shelf minus 1/2”. My shelves are 10” deep so these cuts were 9 1/2”
Wood Glue
Wood Filler
Nail Gun
Pipe Cutter
Drill
Sheesh that was a long list right!?
Ok. So first things first you need to decide where you are putting your shelves. In Ashy’s room we put them on the wall that the headboard used to live. I love using painters tape to visualize what I want them to look like. That way I can work out the spacing etc. without doing permanent damage.
Start by finding your studs and marking the spots that the dowels need to be drilled into them. If you are using 4 pegs per shelf like I did, take the measurement between the 2 studs and divide it by 3 and mark (you are dividing it into 3 sections by using 2 pegs. (for example if the width of your studs is 60”. 60/3 is 20. Using your tape measure mark at 20” and again at 40”. The last mark would be at 60” which is where your stud is.) Make sense?
Most likely your middle pegs will not hit studs, that is totally fine.
Now its time to drill the actual pegs. You should have cut your wooden dowels into 12” pieces. Using your drill, drill a hole down the center of the dowel making it as straight as possible.
When you have all of your dowels drilled its time for assembly. They have these awesome screws just made for a project like this called Dowel Screws (genius name, I know) Also, you can totally do this part with pliers if you need to, but I used my drill. Pre-drill the holes in to the studs for the end pegs, making sure that they are straight (so your pegs aren’t wonky, but if they are a little wonky like ours were we will show you how to fix that too!)
For the dowels that are going into the studs, you will need to set the screws into the studs before you put them in the dowels (because the studs are stronger than the dowel, the screw will just spin deeper into the dowel instead of drilling into the stud as you are twisting it on.)
Clamp your drill around one end of the dowel screw (make sure it is TIGHT) and drive 1/2 of your screw into the predrilled hole.
Then unclamp your drill and twist the dowel on to the other end.
For the center pegs, you can use the same method to drive the screw into the end of the dowel. Its just a lot faster than using a pair of pliers. Hold off on attaching the center pegs for a little bit.
Put the copper sleeves on all of the pegs that are attached to the wall.
For the shelves themselves, we are using a basic floating shelf build, we are just assembling them a little differently to compensate for the chance of wonky dowels. Take your 2” pieces and attach them to one side of the 10×60” boards with a nail gun. (this is going to give you a shelf with a lip around the 2 short sides and one of the long side.)
Do this for all 3 shelves. Use wood filler to fill along the seam, let it dry and sand it smooth. Learn from my mistake!! I used drywall putty for this part, and it was pretty impossible to make the seam disappear, so that is why I am recommending wood filler, I just didn’t have any on hand and didn’t want to go to HD again. It is also a pretty great idea to paint at this point. I used Sherwin Williams Pro Classic in Ultra White using this mind blowing technique. I also painted the other 3 10×60” boards that will be the top of the shelves.
When you have all 3 shelves built and painted to this point take them, and the 2×2’s inside, its time to assemble everything!
(Typically when you are building a floating shelf you assemble the entire thing except the back piece. That space is where the 2×2 that is bolted to the studs slides in, but we wanted to be able to straighten any pegs that might be struggling a little, that is why we are assembling it on the spot.)
Put your shelf bottom on the pegs and put the 2×2 against the wall. Screw it into all of the available studs.
Now its time to attach the center pegs. Drill the holes for the drywall anchors and attach the dowels so that they are sitting flush with your shelf.
Using a small drill bit, drill down through the copper sleeve and into the wooden pegs, then drive a small screw into the hole. This will straighten out your pegs if they are a little off and is an extra security measure to make the shelves sturdier.
Attach the top of your shelf (including along the back to the 2×2 that is now inside of your shelf) using finishing nails.
Because I used the wrong kind of filler, I ripped a 1×3 down to 1/8” on the table saw to use as a face plate. I think that using a different filler would have made it so that I didn’t have to do that, but you can always use an additional piece on the front to cover your seams if you need to. Some of you might be wondering why I didn’t just put the smaller piece of MDF on the front of the shelf top and bottom instead of in between them. I was worried that the weight of everything on the shelf would compromise it, if it was being held up by finishing nails, instead of a board that supports the entire perimeter. I may be wrong, but that was the conclusion that I came to.
Fill any remaining holes and touch up the paint.
I love the way that the white shelves look against the white wall with the little bit of wood and copper, This is absolutely my favorite shelf build to date.
UPDATE! I have had a few emails and questions in the comments about how strong the shelves are, so I thought I would give you a little more info! Usually when I get the same questions its because I didn’t do a great job explaining it (sorry!!) The main strength comes from the heavy duty piece of wood that is screwed into all of the studs on the wall. The hollow shelf fits snuggly around this piece and the shelf is attached to it. This is the standard way that floating shelves are build. Adding the pegs gives it even more stability because the end pegs are screwed into studs as well, and the center pegs are anchored to the drywall. And then the pegs are screwed to the shelf bottom, so it is one giant piece that is (in our case) mounted to the wall in 9 different spots.
This is what it looks like when the shelf is removed. The heavy duty board is mounted to all of the studs in the wall and holds the weight of the shelf. The pegs make it look adorable, and give it extra stability. Hope this clears up any questions, if not, leave them below and I will do my best to answer them!! xo
You guys!! I have been wanting to post this tutorial for.ev.er. When I was working on Cara’s Office a year ago we did this to one of the walls and while the technique was awesome, the fabric choice made it look like Angela Lansbury’s summer cottage. It was bad.
I finally recreated the project In Ashy’s Room (but did it differently so that I can offer opinion on the 2 most popular options!).
Sticking fabric to the wall is nothing new. It is perfect for those that rent (like Cara did) or for those that like to change things often (like me). There are 3 main techniques for sticking fabric to the walls in your home. 1. Staples (like YHL did here) While I am sure this works out great, its not one of the things I am going to be talking about today. When I say sticking to the wall I mean, it looks like actual wallpaper sticking.
A quick Google search brings up 2 options 1. Corn Starch and 2. Fabric Starch. In Cara’s office we used Corn Starch, and in Ashy’s room we used fabric starch. Here is how you do both:
Bring about 4 cups of water to a boil, mix 1/2-3/4 c of Corn Starch in a bowl with a small amount of room temperature water. Take the boiling water off of the heat and add corn starch mixture slowly, stirring the entire time.
While the mixture is cooling use pushpins to attach the fabric to the top of the wall by the ceiling.
When the mixture has cooled use a paint brush or a small roller to apply it to the wall, then smooth your fabric down over the top of it.
If you have big globs, they will discolor the front of your fabric by making it a little lighter and chalky when it dries. So a nice even coat is what you want.
And here is the best part! Because we didn’t keep the fabric, I can tell you all about removal too! Taking the fabric off was relatively simple. There was a good amount of washing to get the corn starch off of the walls before we could repaint, but it wasn’t horrible!
Fabric Starch is the method that we used in Ashy’s Room. I found this awesome Nate Berkus fabric at Joann’s (its new, seriously go and check it out. That Nate hits it out of the park every time!)
We started by pinning the fabric to the top of the wall. We poured fabric starch (you can get a gallon at Walmart for $3.00) into a paint tray and used a roller to apply some onto the wall.
Then we smoothed the fabric down. The biggest difference between the two methods is at this point. Next, you use your roller and roll over the top of your fabric, saturating it with the starch.
So while both techniques work well, if I had to choose one I think I would go with the fabric starch. It is easier to work with and has less prep. Also your room smells like laundry when you are done, so that is nice. We obviously still need to finish it off, but I thought you would love to see what we have been working on!
Have you tried either of these methods? We all would love to glean wisdom from your experience!!
Then all you do is remove the plastic packaging and it grows into a comfy king sized mattress before your eyes. It took about 30 minutes before all 4 corners were laying flat against the box spring but it is mind boggling to think how it fit inside the box in the first place. And although it comes in a box, it is super high quality and feels just like one of the expensive memory foam mattresses that are thousands of dollars and giant to move around.
