Closet & Craft Organization: A Before & After (or, In Progress & More Progressively In Progress)

Remember the baskets I made this week?

They were part of my greater goal of organizing my closet. I figured that there is no excuse for it not to be neat and organized. My husband doesn't live in there, my littles don't play in there, my cats don't wrestle in there, so all of the little excuses that I use for my house being messy and disorganized absolutely does not apply to my closet.

I have been weeding out, and slowly simplifying it for some time now. So my "before" photo is more of an in progress...(eek, just imagine an actual before photo).

After adding some command hooks to the door, weeding out clothing that I haven't worn in months and swapping, eBaying, and Good-willing them, and sewing the buckets to store my yarn, and stacking up my Scrapbooks so that they are accessible, here is what it looks like today:

I am still hoping to replace the hangers with wooden ones. Any other ideas for my closet? I'm no Benita Larsson, but the difference makes me a little bit giddy.

I have also switched up the shelving over my desk. The boxes just weren't working for some of craft supplies, and this crate has been perfect:

Here is what it looked like before...almost too clean, huh?

And so that has been what I've been up to lately on my long journey to an organized life. What do you think?

Ombre Dresser Makeover

Our white dresser on our white wall in our master bedroom was just really really, well, white. So I decided to brighten it up a little with a distressed, whitewashed ombre look:

I love it, & it was a free makeover. So, obviously, that makes me love it even more.

Are you loving ombre?







P.S. I linked up at The Weekend Wrap Up!

Gliding

The latest addition to the master bedroom is both aesthetic and incredibly functional. We received the most comfortable glider, ever, as a baby gift: and Damon & I are both loving it. Especially considering how much time we spend nursing (plus pumping!) every day.I almost want to sleep in it.

 Where I spend a lot of my time...currently:

click for larger view

The arrival of the glider also means that I am incredibly close to the complete reveal of the master bedroom! I'm excited to call it "done."

Also pictured:

DIY Jewelry Holder

No Sew Curtains

Pillow- Liberty of London from Target (on sale a while back)

Click for more of the Master Bedroom 

No Sew Curtains

Our house is full of naked windows, so one of my main goals has been to DIY some window treatments. I started with our Master Bedroom, using Young House Love's No Sew Curtains as a guide. Seriously, if you can iron, then you can make your own curtains! I have fallen in love with Stitch Witchery. It's amazing! Plus, there is no way that I could have bought curtains for the same cost that I made these.Here is how they turned out:

 

 I love them. They make such a difference in the room; and they block out a lot of light (even though they are unlined.) I also have more of this fabric for some pillows & my other window. Here are a few details:

Fabric: Tonic Living Sweet William Teal ($10 / yard - a 10 % discount)
Measurements: 110" x 52" per panel
Hardware: Wal-Mart ($35 for the rings & the rod)
Total Cost: $95

If you haven't tried making your own curtains, don't be daunted! It's as simple as heating up your iron!

To see more of our master bedroom, click here!

Fabric: A Late Pregnancy Depression Fix

Being 38-weeks-pregnant and the usual complaints associated with being rather large and hormonal, coupled with midterms, has been a poor combination for my sanity and blood pressure. There has been an unusual amount of tears and gelato consumption around our house these days. However, a package from Toronto did quite a bit to cheer me up this morning because it contained this:

That's 12 yards of yummy fabric from one of my favorite Fabric companies: Tonic Living. They are incredibly reasonable, have a fantastic selection, and great customer service. My only complaint is that it takes a while for shipments since they are in Canada; but it is always worth the wait (and really, it's not that slow; I'm probably just impatient).

The fabrics pictured are Sweet William Teal & Bodega in Maize/Linen.

And hopefully these will become window treatments for some very naked windows soon.

I have to thank Jennifer at Rambling Renovators for introducing me to Tonic Living; I absolutely fell in love with her Master Bedroom Curtains (or more specifically, her entire house; you must check it out) and had to have the same fabric when I realized how perfectly it matched our own Master Bedroom. I am not the least bit ashamed of admitting copy-catting; I mean, have you seen how gorgeous they are?!

Have a favorite window treatment tutorial? I'm excited about trying out a few different DIY designs and I'm open to suggestions!

The Nightstand Addition: Or the table that Goodwill would not even want

As we've been pulling our master bedroom together, I've been looking around for a nightstand to sit beside our bed. (When we were sleeping on the floor, we had no use for a nightstand. Haha!) But, a new nightstand was not in the budget right now (nor was it the highest on our priority list), so I had resigned myself to lustfully imagining being able to turn the bedroom lamp on and off without even getting up (at 32.5 weeks pregnant and averaging 4 bathroom trips/night, with excruciating round ligament pain, I hate getting up unnecessarily). Until I took a look around our living room, and there it was: the almost-perfect little nightstand.

Where did it come from and why was it sitting in our living room? Well, my manager, when I worked at a gift shop in downtown Athens, found it in the dumpster behind the store and gave it to me. It started out yellow and I painted it off-white, and used it as a little table in our living room in our former apartment. However, our incredibly destructive yellow Labrador chewed parts of it up, so we planned to get rid of it. But we never had. 

And that brings us back to it sitting in the living room, waiting to be taken to Goodwill (or the wood pile...since Goodwill would probably not take it. Have you ever been refused by Goodwill? That's embarrassing...). David took the table and cut off the chewed up parts with our jig saw. He proceeded to cut a new piece of wood out of scraps to replace the old chewed up piece, and attached it using wood glue, nails, and then wood filler. I knocked off the old wooden handles and filled in the holes. And then it got a good dose of green spray paint (the same paint that we used for my shelves).We added a cute little Anthropologie-esque knob that we already had from a collection of mismatched knobs that we were sampling for our kitchen. And now for some photos because that's what really matters:

 Keeping it simple

 A wider shot

With the fur

And that is the story of how we got a nightstand for our room for free. 

Sources & Costs

Nightstand: Dumpster, then Living Room: Free

High Gloss Spray paint: Lowe's: $4

Lamp: Target: Already owned

Picture Frame: Target: Already owned

Knob: Hobby Lobby: Already owned (However, they only cost about $2!)

Total: A whopping $4....I spend more on the Sunday paper than that!

I linked up at Show Me What You Got!

A Room of My Own

And by room...I mean, corner.But, it's all mine! To craft, sew, scrapbook, coupon....and by "all mine", I mean it has all of my supplies stored at it. Dmitri thinks its a jungle gym designed just for his creative exploration, and in the last day he has dumped out an entire bottle of glitter and broken one of my favorite Christmas presents...sigh. But I digress, I am loving the transformation that my corner has taken...Here is an embarrasing before shot pre-master bedroom renovation:

Chaos

And now....

 So crisp and organized!

 David built the shelves

 I made tags for the boxes: "Remember," "Tie a Bow," "Write," "Stamp," "Embellish," and "Paint"!

I could not be happier. It makes me want to start a scrapbooking marathon (which is what I need considering I have 18 months to scrapbook before baby # 2 arrives...yikes), sew 7 different window treatments, and match-up my coupons for my shopping trip. ALL at the same time...

A few details:
Desk: Pier 1 on sale several years ago
Shelves: Built by us using a 1x10, trim, brackets, and green spraypaint
White boxes: Ikea (2/ $4.99)
Pink crates on bottom shelf: Liberty of London for Target (on sale a while back for $9)
Galvanized lantern: Ikea
Pink orchid: Gift

I linked up @ The Weekend Wrap Up; The Saturday Nite Special at Funky Junk Interiors,
Saturday Soiree @ a little lovely, & The Sunday Showcase at Under The Table and Dreaming !

With the fur....

Fur has taken over the design world. Be it rugs, pillows, throws, Christmas tree skirts, boots...(ok, hopefully the boots will stay in Hip Hop music), it's everywhere. And I love it. I love the texture, the warmth, the softness.

However, this has created a personal dilemma for me, especially as a vegetarian. Now, I definitely don't claim to be 100% consistent. I do my best, but I'm not perfect. Nonetheless, having animal skins laying around my house would probably be a little blatant, and just weird.


So I have been looking for alternatives that rest well with my conscience, my budget, and look great too. Young House Love posted some DIY versions here and here. But before I got around to trying my hand at making my own, Ikea was one step ahead. They must have realized that their consumers would eventually catch on to the fact that there $25 sheepskin rugs were real, and while most people would be shocked at how inexpensive they are, others would also be a little dismayed. So they created a faux version for half the price.

So this past weekend, we did an Ikea quickie and picked up a few of their faux fur rugs. Side by side, real vs. faux, they won't necessarily fool anyone as for which is which. But I wasn't going to buy a real one to lay right beside it, anyways. Here it is in our Master Bedroom...

Not bad for $12.99, right? At that price I couldn't buy just one...so be on the look out for them popping up all over my house.

Master Bedroom Update: Bedding & Stencil

We started our Master Bedroom overhaul with our highest priority: getting our mattress off of the floor and into a bed. But as in love with our bed as I was, it was almost impossible to enjoy it while staring at a room that looked like a little punk ate an orange creamsicle and puked all over our walls. Here is Dmitri demonstrating his disgust:

I couldn't agree more, Dmitri. 

Not only were the walls pretty gross, but we were using trash bags as interim window treatments and my desk had become an orphanage for things that did not have a home. Not exactly the kind of ambiance that sings "master suite." Nor was it the kind of place where I would want to have a home birth. It actually made me want to scream, "take me to a hospital, NOW." And that's saying a lot, since I am not a huge fan of hospitals or their decor choices.

A picture to demonstrate:

That's embarrassing.

So we (and be we, I mean David and a friend of ours)  painted away the tumultuous puke-orange color and replaced it with a crisp, clean white. Then they got down with a stencil from Sunny's Goodtime Paint. It was just what the room needed. A mixture of peace and funk. We threw on our Anthropologie bedding (after cleaning it from the previous diaper incident), and hung faux-wood white blinds. So without further ado (if you haven't already skipped this rambling to get to the good stuff), photos of our master bedroom:

Love.

A view of the bedroom from the entry door.

 

The other side

 A space of my own

Full frontal

Cue the "We've come a long way, baby..." I'm loving it. I might never leave the bedroom, as opposed to only going in there with the lights out to sleep. I obviously have some accessorizing, window treating, and organizing to do. But I could not be more thrilled with the progress we've made. I sleep better at night, and my crazy hormonal nesting monster is appeased, for the moment.

Sources:

Stencil: Bea Stencil Size Large from Sunny's Goodtime Paint - $40

Bedding: Guru Paisley from Anthropologie: King Size Duvet and shams via eBay - $110

Throw Pillow: Liberty of London from Target: $12

Paint: Olympic No-VOC from Lowe's 

Green: -Emerald Isle

White: color matched to Valspar's Homestead Resort Jefferson White

Can't get enough?
-Click here to see how we built our bed
-Click here for FAQ's!

I linked up at the DIY Parade & Metamorphosis Monday!

The Master Bed: How We Built It

These are the details on how we built our master bed! 

Ana White at Knock-Off Wood wrote up plans for how to build a Queen-sized Fancy Arched Bed, inspired by the Gustavian Collection by Viva Terra. However, we needed a King-sized bed, so I modified the plans. Here are the details of what we bought and how we built it. If you would like to build the same bed, follow Ana's directions, but this should help with the details of modifying it from a queen to a king. Also, we chose to build a platform installation since we do not have box springs. If you plan to use box springs, the bed frame/platform part will be different from ours.

Shopping List

All boards are 8 ft. except the 1x6s. They can be 6 ft.

13 1x6 boards (We upgraded to white pine boards, as opposed to furring strips)
2 1x3 boards (for headboard)
14 1x3 furring strips (for slats: we did a platform installation)
5 1x2 furring strips (3 for the headboard and two for the slat supports on frame)
3 1x10 boards (for bed frame)
1 1x8 board (for bed frame)
1 2x6 board (for center support)

2" screws (1 box)
1 1/4" screws (2 boxes)
wood glue
wood filler
stain/paint/finish of choice: We used Minwax Dark Walnut stain and Polycrylic in Clear Satin.

Tools We Used
Miter Saw (any saw will do)
Jig Saw (we purchased one for $30, for the occasion)
Drill
Level
Tape Measurer
 Square
Sander
Paint brushes


Cut List

Headboard:
9– 1x6 @ 57 3/4"  (Inner Panel Pieces)
4 – 1x6 @ 47 3/4" (Outer Panel Pieces)
2– 1x3 @ 47 3/4" (Legs)
2– 1x2 @ 10" (Headboard supports. We waited until we had the bed frame and front legs completely built before we made the cut for the back legs legs to make sure it was completely level)
2– 1x2 @ 75" (Headboard Panel support)
1 – 1x2 @ 60" (Headboard Panel Support)


Bed Frame:

2 – 1×10 @ 81 1/2″ (Side Rails)
1 – 1×10 @ 76″ (Foot Rail)
1 – 1×8 @ 76″ (Headboard Rail)
2 – 1×4 @ 17 1/2″ (Outer Leg)
2 – 1x2  @ 80" (Support rails for slats or box spring, depending on preference)
2 – 1×3 @ 8 1/2″ (Inner support leg)

Platform:
1 – 2×6 @ 80″ (Center Support)
14 – 1×3 @ 76″ (Slats if building platform, DO NOT build if you use box springs)

Total Cost: < $200 including the purchase of a jig saw

Building Photos:

Here is what the bed frame and slats looks like before the legs are drilled on.

Installing the legs

It's got legs!!

We laid out the boards for the headboards and then attached 2 -1x2s to hold it together. We then traced our pattern and jig sawed the headboard. After wards, we attached the third 1x2 at the top.

 

This is the finished headboard (the back of it).

 Time to finish! Dmitri knows how to use a paint brush.

We finished the wood by sanding it (using 50 grit, 80 grit, and 120 grit sandpaper in that order). Followed by three applications of Minwax Dark Walnut stain. We applied with a brush and wiped it off with a cloth. We then applied two coats of Mixwax Polycrylic in Clear Satin. Let dry! And then we assembled the whole shebang.

And here it is again:

Yep, I still love it!

Questions? Check out FAQ's here!

Doubts? We are definitely not building experts! We are just two parents and college students on a budget, who don't even like math. This is only our second building project, and it's the first time we have ever used a jig saw. If we can do it, I'm pretty sure anyone can do it. Just go for it!

 

The Master Bed

Our Master Bed has been completed, and I have been counting the hours until the sun comes up to show you. We could not be more ecstatic about no longer sleeping on the floor after a year of doing so. And at 29+ weeks pregnant,  those frequent nighttime bathroom trips were daunting. Let's just say there was a lot of awkward rolling, tripping, falling, and waddling involved...

It all started when I fell in love with this bed:

Gustavian Bed from Viva Terra

At $2,095 plus tax and shipping, it was obviously not an option. Even Ikea prices were questionable for our college-student-budget. But, Ana White at Knock-Off Wood (who might as well be called Wonder woman) was to the rescue, once more. She worked up some plans. Which I modified from a queen to a king and made a few small preferential changes (don't worry, I will tell you exactly what we did.) And then David bought some wood, which happened to be pretreated. So he returned it, and bought the correct wood:

This is supposed to be a bed? Really?

And he went to work:

Dmitri helped. Especially with the power tools.

Six days, five trips to Lowes, a gazillion screws, countless measuring, over one hundred cuts of wood, free-styling with a jig saw, three applications of stain, two applications of polycrylic, and a lot of impatient waiting during dry time...

And here is our bed:

I am in love.

 It's so huge.

Look at those legs.

I'm calling him Gustav, and he's pretty much swept me off my feet (and off of the floor- thank God!). Enjoy the photos for now, and I will be posting every building detail tomorrow. Might I add, I had our Anthropologie bedding set up on the bed for not even thirty minutes. And Dmitri managed to leak his poopy diaper all over my new sham. Ooh, shit. Got to love life with babies. So a bedding post will be coming at a later date, after a visit to the cleaners.

These photos were taken in the middle of our massive master bedroom redo, hence the blue tape and other random stuff lying about. So forgive the weirdness. I look forward to sharing more Master Bedroom updates in the next few days.

Total cost: < $200, including the purchase of a jig saw
If we had bought it: $2,095 + tax & shipping

For details on how we built it, including measurements, click here!
For FAQ's, click here!

I linked up at The Weekend Wrap-Up & Make it 4 Monday.