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Recovering my dining room chairs

~ Christie ~ 5 Comments
diy recovered dining room chairs
diy recovered dining room chairs

I may be a tad excited about these, because…

a. I am such a beginner and novice

b. I have never had things I made with my hands turn out that great

c. when I do try a DIY, it’s at best o-kay, but never quite there.

d. I really love doing stuff like this and have been hoping to improve as I work little by little

So.

For the time ever, I am completely happy with this project.

My pictures will not include tutorial instructions. Just because I did it once doesn’t qualify me to do that. = )

Here is the best tutorial I found.

And here is my favorite video.

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My total cost was about $44.

Broken down it looks like this:

Foam: 17.99

Spray adhesive: 4.19

Batting: 10.19

Fabric: $13

Staple gun: borrowed *Thanks, C and C!* = )

It was actually less than that since I had coupons for money off the total purchase. All in all, it’s not bad to redo four chairs at about $10 per chair. Woohoo!

****

Here are my in the process pictures.

The fabric. I love it! In order to choose from the many fabrics and colors I love, I looked for blue and graphic. At most, these will last five years, so it seemed like a good time to go for something a little more fun.
The fabric. I love it! In order to choose from the many fabrics and colors I love, I looked for blue and graphic. At most, these will last five years, so it seemed like a good time to go for something a little more fun.
The chairs. This one is by far the best. They have served us well, but serving little kids had taken its toll.
The chairs. This one is by far the best. They have served us well, but serving little kids had taken its toll.
Tracing the shape of the particle board on the foam.
Tracing the shape of the particle board on the foam.
The foam has been attached to the particle board with spray adhesive, wrapped and stapled with batting.
The foam has been attached to the particle board with spray adhesive, wrapped and stapled with batting.
The first one is covered. Looking good!
The first one is covered. Looking good!
Waiting to be re-attached.
Waiting to be re-attached.
The easiest way to work on the bottom of the chair. And I didn't think of this for awhile. = /
The easiest way to work on the bottom of the chair. And I didn’t think of this for awhile. = /
They look... for real!
They look… for real!
Back in service. = )
Back in service. = )

If you’ve ever thought about trying this, I say go for it! I wanted to for at least a year.

It was pretty straightforward; definitely took some elbow grease on the removal part. The only thing that actually gave me trouble was re-filling the staple gun. = / By no fault of the equipment, I assure you.

I completed it in twenty-four hours with only six of those hours being actual work time. And there were two, three, or four kids with me most of that time.

Here are eleven things that I think might be helpful for those who have never done it before. Coming from someone who had never done it before. The tutorials don’t tell you everything.

1. Removing the old cover is the hardest part. Perhaps I didn’t have the right tools, but it was almost impossible for me to pull those staples out. I ended up using a screwdriver stuck in between the staples and just prying off the fabric, which did pull many of the staples as well. Between the screwdriver, scissors, and pliers, we got the job done.

2. It is worth it to remove the old. So many things I saw said just to leave it on and recover it, but that to me makes no sense. It’s old. It’s dirty. According to the experts the foam is only meant to last five years anyways, so it’s really worth it to just completely redo it.

3. Follow the steps exactly. I’m the type of person to skip steps that I don’t understand or see useful; however, because this was a major undertaking for me, I followed all the steps. And it turned out the best! Amazing.

4. Cut costs only in ways that will not hinder the quality of the product. From no.3, I saw no point in using spray adhesive. It was just one more six dollar something to buy. But on this end, I get it! And I have it in my supplies now for future projects. I bought my other items over a few weeks time trying to wisely use my Joann’s coupons. This helped a lot. If I had bought a non-decorator type fabric to be more cost-effective like I was tempted to, it would have been bad. By the way, I only do projects like this every couple of months, but it is so worth to get the Joann’s emails and coupons. I highly recommend it!

5. Don’t be afraid to ask questions at your local craft or fabric store. Most of this I had never done or even heard of before. I had to ask about foam, fabric, nails, and batting. And my friend had to figure out how much fabric I would need. I’m sure there will be more questions on the next time around, but I’m learning little by little. It would have been a disaster if I tried to figure it all out on my own.

6. Regarding cutting the foam: I didn’t think cutting high density two-inch foam would be hard, but I should have. Someone online suggested that turkey carvers work really well??? But seeing as I was fresh out of my turkey carver supply, my scissors had to do. What I found was that cutting only about an inch deep on the first cut, and then on the second cut cutting the rest of the way through worked fine. It just took a little longer than I expected.

7. The fact that I couldn’t perfectly straighten my batting while stapling it on worried me that the wrinkles would show through in the finished product, but they did not.

8. Everything I read said to keep it really tight when stapling the fabric so I did it as tight as I possibly could, making the staples about a half inch to an inch apart.

9. The corners you just kind of have to figure out for yourself, but I was happy with how mine turned out.

10. Backing up, when I cut the fabric, I put it all down on the table making sure it was the direction I wanted the pattern facing. Then I put all the pieces down and cut one by one to make sure it was all the same.

11. Last but not least, I need to Scotch Guard these! Especially with kids, Everything has been great so far, but I can hear the clock ticking…

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We’ve been so happy with these! My husband may or may not have said, “Wow, baby, those look better than I ever expected them to.” = ) It’s okay. They look better than I expected them to as well.

Yay for projects!

*linked up at Thrifty Decor Chick*

The Idealistic Homeschooler

~ Christie ~ 6 Comments
Idealistic homeschooling... for two weeks
Idealistic homeschooling…. for two weeks

I have a dream. It goes something like this:

I wake up early; have some quiet time to myself; exercise; and get completely ready. At this point (hopefully @7:30) I go in and wake up my children. Did I say their clothes were already out and waiting for them? They wake up, get dressed, make their beds, and come to me so I can fix their hair. We eat breakfast and clean it up. School commences at promptly anytime earlier than what it has been. Oh wait, I’m being idealisitc; school starts at 8:45. When school is done, we make sure everything is tidy from that and then go outside to exercise and play for an hour.

In case you don’t know this about me, what I just described is nothing like how our weekdays go.

But I have this idea.

Starting Monday, we have officially two full weeks of school until Christmas break. What if I just try to live my “ideal” for two weeks? Only two weeks! Can it really be that hard? And if it is…can’t I stick it out for just two weeks?

Now, in my defense, the last three weeks have been crazy and unusual. There is no way that we could have or should have tried or expected something like this to happen due to all that was happening.

Why do I even want to try this?

I know that change is better done gradually; I know have to be realistic about my life expectations with four little kids; I know the whole thing could be a colossal failure on day 2.

But it just occurred to me that I have this two-week window coming off of a very relaxing holiday break; and it might be a fun time to try.

I’m hoping for a couple of things:

1. To realize that some ideals are maybe more livable than we think if we just give it a chance. Sometimes it’s too easy to just trudge along and never actually try for anything better.

2. To get over my fear of waking my children up earlier, thinking that they won’t get enough sleep.

3. To force myself to get up earlier for the purpose of prayer and exercise, and to therefore go to bed earlier. (because if this girl doesn’t get enough sleep, she’s not gettin’ up; AND, we’ve been starting to do a lot better at this already!)

4. To bring some more structure to our homeschool routine.

5. To make more time for extra homeschool things with Hope and other activities/learning times for the little girls.

What do you think?

I just spent almost two hours cleaning up our homeschool space, organizing, and in general trying to prepare the house for a fresh start tomorrow.

And the whole point of hitting “publish” now is to make it a point of no return.

Don’t expect updates; hopefully, I’ll be in bed.

Completely unrelated: we got our Christmas tree tonight!!!!! Mmmmm…. the smell of Christmas tree could inspire me to do just about anything.

****A slight, but important amendment! I will post about how it’s going, but just on the facebook page to be faster. If you haven’t liked the facebook page, do it here so you can keep up!

The burlap wreath

~ Christie ~ 4 Comments
It's about time I made a burlap wreath after pinning so many.
It’s about time I made a burlap wreath after pinning so many.

I finished my first wreath ever. And I love it dearly.

This is not meant to be a tutorial, but a “Yippee! Look at this, Mom, Grandma, sister, and anyone else who cares!”

I expected this project to take a while, but it didn’t at all. Two nights. Could have been one long one if I’d wanted.

At this point, I was sure it would take hours.
At this point, I was sure it would take hours.

Total cost was less than ten dollars. I used an 18″ four-ring (?) wire wreath form, three yards of burlap, two pieces of felt, and some leftover fabric from these pillows.

I love burlap.
I love burlap.

Above is my first shot of the project. Burlap makes quite a mess, but I didn’t mind. It was so relaxing to just sit there cutting up strips of burlap and listening to classical music. I wasn’t quite sure if I was supposed to tie the strips once or twice around the wire, but twice sounded like way too much effort so I went with one and was happy.

halfway done
Halfway done and sitting across from my handsome and studious seminary husband. = ) Happy night.

Back in December, I tried felt flowers for the first time and was pleasantly surprised at how easy they were. It didn’t take long to make these, and I only used the kind that I liked the best.

Love felt flowers. Especially since they're easy enough for me to do.
Love felt flowers. Especially since they’re easy enough for me to do.

Actually, the only mildly creative part of this whole thing was using the leftover fabric to make a flower. I really loved the fabric and thought the colors would go nice with the felt so I went for it. It worked just fine, I didn’t change anything from what I did with the felt.

And did I say how much I love it?

I’m not going to add links to other tutorials for the burlap wreath or felt flowers because I didn’t use any specific one and didn’t find any of them especially helpful. I normally find that just searching through several pinterest links will give you a good idea of what you need to do.

Thanks for letting me share my first wreath!!

Linked to the Inspired Room fall party

cleaning my diy chalkboard

~ Christie ~ Leave a comment
So proud of this baby!
So proud of this baby!

After two solid weeks of use in school, our chalkboard was quite ready to be cleaned.

I will not be posting anything about making the chalkboard because there are so many out there already. However, when I googled how to clean a diy chalkboard, it was a little sketchy.

Hence, my sharing how I cleaned my diy chalkboard. This chalkboard is just wood from Lowe’s painted in three coats with chalkboard paint. I’m happy to say that this cleaning method did not chip or damage the paint in any way.

The best tip I could find was to use warm water and vinegar so I decided to try it.

I filled up the sink with warm water and poured in some vinegar. They suggested using a bucket, but buckets always manage to be filled with junk at my house, so the sink is a much faster option. = )

Previously, I used a dry rag to completely erase the board and then went over it again with the magic eraser (which I have been using to erase it).

After this, the water and vinegar on a rag cleaned it beautifully. Just once over and it was done.

Spotless.

That’s all.

The end.

Have a lovely day!

And now you can see why it occasionally needs cleaned. = )
And now you can see why it occasionally needs cleaned. = )

For lint trap lazies

~ Christie ~ Leave a comment

imageI used to be really good about cleaning out my lint trap. It wasn’t even a thought in my mind, I just did it.

But… oh, somewhere around the birth of our third and our big move, I completely fell off the lint trap wagon.

The first time that I waited so long to do it and then tried and had the whole lint sweater fall down in the dryer, I was demoralized. I was going to have to tell Paul that he was going to fix the dryer because his wife couldn’t seem to remember to just empty the lint trap. Rrrrrrr.

Of course, he was very sweet about it, but I still felt terrible. Then I did a little better – meaning I managed to clean it out right before it got to that point about fifty-seven times.

But, then it happened again. I was so so SO SO mad at myself!

Why?

Why can’t I just clean out the silly lint trap?

Well, this time, I decided to figure it out by myself. Paul realized what was going on… oh, I’d say when I started watching youtube videos on how to take off the back of your dryer while we were in bed.

He laughed and said, “What would drive a person to make a silly video like that?”

“Because there’s dorks like me who will watch them!” I replied.

But, there is amazing news!

It worked!

I watched this youtube video, then locked my kids in a room with a kids story and music cd (grandparent disclaimer: it wasn’t actually locked), and took the back of my dryer off, took off the lint catcher, cleaned out the lint, and put it all back together! It worked exactly like the video.

Amazing! I texted Paul with some sort of nonsense like, “I’m on top of the world!”

It took less than forty-five minutes and that included cleaning off all of the junk on the dryer (one of the original culprits, no doubt) and finagling back and forth and over and behind the dryer.

And I’m just consoling myself with this post, hoping someone else out there can relate and possibly use this, too? = )

Here’s the link again: Cleaning out a dryer with top lint cleanout

Pillows!

~ Christie ~ 3 Comments

If you follow the blog on facebook you might have already seen this picture.

fabric that took me two trips plus forever to pick out
fabric that took me two trips plus forever to pick out

Well, here is what they became!

imageSadly, I’m not the best measurer or cutter, so they were a wee bit small for the pillows I was recovering. I’m still really happy with them, though. It’s a much better match for our white spread than the warm brown and reds.

My sweet and talented friend helped me, i.e. seam-ripped the one I sewed inside out, but I sewed most everything else on her machine. Yay for sewing! It’s been a crazy long time!

fun blue and white chevron
fun blue and white chevron
This one looks a little throwback to me and I love it! It's also the one that originally was sewn inside out. = /
This one looks a little throwback to me and I love it! It’s also the one that originally was sewn inside out. = /
The bright big pattern I was looking for to pull it all together.
The bright big pattern I was looking for to pull it all together.
This fabric is probably my favorite. Unfortunately, I cut this one really small. After seeing what it looked like when we finally got the pillow stuffed into it, I gave it the nickname "fat man in a Miata." I took it out and cut off the original cover to give it a little more room. Now it's affectionately named, "Lumpy."
This fabric is probably my favorite. Unfortunately, I cut this one really small. After seeing what it looked like when we finally got the pillow stuffed into it, I gave it the nickname “fat man in a Miata.” I took it out and cut off the original cover to give it a little more room. Now it’s affectionately named, “Lumpy.”

Imperfect all, but I love them. One small step at a time, right? = )

The cover is the envelope style where you can just put your original pillow in and switch it out whenever you want. There are literally tutorials everywhere for it, and most are probably more specific than the one I used. I just searched on Pinterest for easy pillow cover.

It’s fun to see a little update in our room and think, “Hey, I did that.”

The total cost was about eleven dollars for fabric.

Hmm… let’s see if I can find a before picture here… nope.

Well, I hope you’ve enjoyed the after!

Here’s to bright, cheery colors; just in time for fall. = )

Mr. Giraffe! Paul bought him for me on the day we found out we were pregnant with Hope. It sort of looks like a pregnant giraffe. Still can't figure out why I call him Mister.
Mr. Giraffe! Paul bought him for me on the day we found out we were pregnant with Hope. It sort of looks like a pregnant giraffe. Still can’t figure out why I call him Mister.

Mixing black and brown in the home

~ Christie ~ Leave a comment

For years now I have had various frames and decor in boxes in my house. One reason was that there was very little time to decorate, but another big reason was that I really didn’t know what went together. It wasn’t perfect and didn’t fit into how I envisioned my house.

However, one day, I decided it was quite ridiculous to have empty walls and boxes of frames!

So up it went!

It still didn’t look right at first, but after playing with it for a few months, I’m happy with the results.

One of the biggest things I had to embrace was mixing brown and black. Most of what I had was given to us here and there. I couldn’t see the rhyme or reason to putting it together, but now I love it. It comes off collected and beautifully imperfect (or at least to me!) As the Nester always says, “It doesn’t have to be perfect to be beautiful!”

So if you have to choose between black and brown in your home…

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imageimageimage

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… choose both!

Have you entered the giveaway yet? It will close tonight at midnight! Leave a comment on the post, follow the blog by email or like it on facebook. You’ll love the Botanical Notebook Collection from the Rifle Paper Co. Check it out here!

pretty pink book {giveaway}

~ Christie ~ 5 Comments

I have a strong aversion to sticky notes.

At some point in the past I promised myself that I would never have them in my house and so far I’ve stuck to it. (pardon me while I laugh at how horrible that joke was)

You see, my mom was an amazing woman. I’m pretty sure she’s never forgotten a single thing in her entire life. She would make lists of the lists she needed to make, sticky notes for the sticky notes she needed to write, and plans for the things she wanted to plan. Okay, that might be a little exaggerated.

The bottom line is that she remembered everything and was and still is way ahead of the game.

Right above that bottom line is that she used endless lists and sticky notes to stay that way.

Let’s just say, at some point in my teenage years I became not a fan.

Then I got married.

I have a fairly good memory, so I did quite well for awhile just using my twenty-something old steel trap.

Then I had kids. (plural, in case you missed the “s”)

All of the sudden, the lists became vital.

The sticky notes, however, I could not surrender to.

Happily, I found a practical and pretty solution.

Barnes and Noble
Barnes and Noble

My awesome uncle and aunt who lived in Hong Kong for years would give us these beautiful journals covered in these amazing Asian fabrics. It hit me one day that these could be my perfect solution!

I now have a lifesaver notebook where I keep all my lists, schedules, plans, goals, menus, grocery lists, Christmas gift ideas… you name it. It’s in my pretty pink book.

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Now, beyond being in the book, it’s actually not that organized, but that’s just sort of how I operate. It’s not hard at all to find what I need.

Best of all, every time I pull it out (which is approximately fifty-seven times a day), I get to touch the awesome fabric. And see how pretty it is. And be excited to make a list.

Correct that, the best thing of all is that it can go with me everywhere I go.

This might not work for everyone, but if you struggle with multiple papers in crazy places, you might want to give it a try!

Barnes and Noble
Barnes and Noble
Barnes and Noble
Barnes and Noble

My favorite practical help from this idea is that I never lose my menu and grocery list on the way home from the store. Seriously, I couldn’t help but think that the bag boy would snatched it just for contempt. I always used to lose my hard-planned menu on the way home from the store!

But you can’t lose a pretty book!

Anthropologie
Anthropologie

Would you like one? or three?

Check out these beautiful prints!

imageNot only are they so sweet to touch (very important in the pretty book process) but they also have beautiful  detail on the inside as well!

imageI’m giving away a set to some potentially happy person!

imageLeave a comment, like the blog on Facebook, share the giveaway, or pin the idea to Pinterest, you know the ropes. = ) I’ll be generous with entries.

Here’s to being more organized with less clutter!

Contest ends Saturday night at midnight!

Monday Morning Mystery!

~ Christie ~ 4 Comments
Green marker found scribbled on wall: approximately 9 am
Green marker found scribbled on wall: 9 am
Green marker without lid: found: approximately 9:15 am
Green marker found without lid: 9:15 am
Suspect spotted with green marker on cheek: approximately 9:30 am
Suspect spotted with green marker on cheek: 9:30 am

Solved!

I do apologize for the poor quality of the evidence photos; but after all, most suspects don’t stand still.

Take two: DIY Canisters

~ Christie ~ 2 Comments

Well, you might have seen my previous post about turning plastic Folgers coffee cans into DIY canisters. They looked like this…

IMG_1341

… Until I put them in the dishwasher; and then they looked like this.

image

Boo-hoo!

But I tell you tonight that project redemption has begun. It’s a little crazy how much better the spray paint worked. I wish I would have done it like that from the beginning, but when you have four little kids it seemed so much easier to do it inside with craft paint after they were in bed, then to take the whole operation outside. Anyways.

I’ll know for next time.

Here are pictures of the progress so far!

imageimage