Designing and decorating a little girl's room

     Today I spent the day compulsively scrubbing the entire house.  It looks really great but I know it won't last long.  While I cleaned, my husband managed to injure himself, put together an Ikea bed, realize that after Christmas he has to take apart the bottom of the bed, and to top it all off he did tons of laundry.  What a great guy! Anyhow, I'm trying to ready the house for the onslaught of new stuff coming in.  I did manage to give away a few things, tried to sell others, and had to toss some things that were missing pieces.

     Progress is being made in my girl's room.  For starters the bed is together, well sort of.  After putting it together, my husband realized he installed something backwards but it shouldn't be a big deal to correct it (or so he says).  We purchased the twin size mattress at Ikea, but after the holidays we will be getting her a better quality mattress.  We still need to get one more bed for daughter #2.  

     I wish I took before shots.  We've been in our home for 7 years, but in the 6 years it's been her room, it's undergone a few makeovers.  Her nursery was shabby chic, her toddler room was Lilly Pulitzer, and now this room is a little more grown up.

     Here's her crib converted into a toddler bed, which is the best investment ever. 

I took the bedding off and placed the baskets on top, just so I could mop the floor.  

Here's the new bed.  I don't iron sheets as you can tell, actually I don't iron at all.

As you can see the drawers don't quite line up...oops.  I was pleasantly surprised with how much the drawers can fit.  This will be perfect as the girls get older.  We are also going to be upholstering a head, foot and side board for this bed as well as the other one.  I haven't fully committed yet to a fabric.  More on that later with no doubt, a "how not to upholster these things". :-) Here's a look at what my inspiration page looks like.

 The owl is being moved around as well as many of the other pieces of furniture.  The room is in an L-shape which makes things difficult as well as having this one odd wall. 

The print on the wall is her initials.  It was a free printable I found online.  Wish I still had the link.  I made 2, 1 for each girl and hung them in frames I already owned.  I'll be adding more artwork to the walls over time.  I've found some really wonderful abstract paintings on Etsy with the perfect colors. 

This is one of my favorite DIY pieces I have ever made.  I used hot pink vinyl cut outs of various breeds of dogs from craft cuts.  I put them on melamine plates I purchased at Target over the summer and hung them with command strips.  The original inspiration came from here.  This project took less than 10 minutes to do once the vinyl came in and was around $40 for both the plates and the cut outs. 

You will notice I used the same vinyl cut outs here as well.  And yes I moved "Hootie" once again.  I still need to dress up the hardware, unfortunately the new pulls came with the wrong size screws.

Inspiration for this piece was found here.

Check back this week for a part 2 on the progress.  I just have to keep reminding myself that the room will come together eventually, and I am making a space that is truly lovely and unique for my special little girls.

Have a wonderful Holiday with family and friends!!

Please have a seat....

     Yay!!!! I did it....I finally finished my very first upholstery job on my french chair.  Would I do it again?  I have too, I still  have it's ugly sister and the grain sack fabric I purchased is on its way.  It was a long process and I ran into lots of surprises on this chair. Here's where it all started.

Here's my assistant.  I think she has decided this is her chair, with out without the seat.  While I was taking the chair apart this is what I found.  Also, each of the arms had crumbled packed, red clay.  I had to thoroughly vacuum everything out.  I did remove the straw and the batting material. It was coming off in pieces just from handling it.

I finished cutting the material, using the original fabric on the chair as my guide.  These were my tools.  I purchased the tacks that come on a roll and a special hammer to nail them in.  The hammer was around $15 and the rolls (I purchased 2) were expensive,(I used a 50% off coupon) and as I later found out, not necessary.  More about that down below.  This part of the project was my least favorite.  I found it very difficult to get most of the tacks in straight. Even though it didn't look perfect (I had NO expectations of that), I was feeling confident about how it was turning out.

The brassiness was bothering me, so I took my rub and buff and hand painted each one to tone it down.  You can see the difference in the picture down below.  

Again here is the brassiness.  It just stood out even though I am using gold accents in my bedroom.

Once it was completed, I lived with it for about a week, and I just wasn't falling in love with it. 

 I am a faithful reader of Miss Mustard Seed.  If you haven't read her blog, you should definitely check it out.  Just when you think she is "done" with a space and it looks amazing, she goes and changes things up to look even better.  Plus I have a weak spot for ironstone and she does too.  It was destiny that right around this same time her post on  her slipcovered chair came out.  I fell in love with the french gimp she used.  I checked online and found something very similar at Joann's, unfortunately the day I was there, they had NONE left in the color I needed.  Fate intervened once again, because I fell in love with a beige trim with pink dots.  I bought all they had at a price of $3.49 a yard.  I ended up using approx. 9 yards and still have a couple left over for other projects.  I really wasn't sure how much I would need, and  I just wanted to avoid making a second trip and also possibly running into an issue of it being out of stock.

Off went the roll of upholstery tacks.  This wasn't as painful as pulling off individual tacks, but still a little time consuming.  I used my glue gun, and went through a lot of glue sticks to attach the trim. But in the end, I now have a chair that I LOVE.  

I've created my own little reading nook in my bedroom.  

     I have a much better understanding now as to why it can be pricey to have a chair covered.  It can be time consuming and difficult when removing tacks.  Attaching the actual fabric doesn't take as long but working around any curves can be tricky.  

As you can see my rugs from Furbish studios, came in and I love the pattern and colors.  I did purchase 2 to make them a little longer, much like a runner.  My needle point pillow came from Ebay, and the small wooden, milking stool was purchased from the Sundance catalog a long time ago.  If you read my post here, then you will recognize my little $2 owl. I noticed underneath the owl it had a "Jonathan Adler" label.  After doing a little research via Google, I found the same owl as mine here.  Still being sold online for $88.  Super score for me.  Here's a better picture of this cute little owl.

It now rests on top of my own copy of Miss Mustard Seed's book.  And no, I haven't been paid for any of the sites or businesses I've mentioned.  These are people or items that I have found on my own, and love for my own home.

Leave me a comment below and let me know if you think the fabric trim was a much better choice?

Half off already half off items...

     I just had a major score this morning....I wanted to find a fun little side table for either my daughter's room or something for outside on my front porch.  My poor porch has become just a catch all space.  Any how, I just happened upon this 50% off sale at Urban Outfitters both online as well as in stores for all their sales items.  That's right a further discount on already discounted items.  

You can find it here.