The Casablanca Transformation

Bathroom finishing touches

2012-02-28T08:34:00.001-08:00

So I have been out treasure hunting almost daily since there are A LOT of things we are suddenly in need of as we finish our basement. One of which was bathroom sconces. I recently saw these ones in a Pottery barn magazine and loved them. I need two of these babies to go over the mirrors in my boys bathroom downstairs and each costs $100.

Then one day at Lowes I spotted these in their outdoor lighting area for just $25!!!!!! (Just because someone thought they should be outdoor lights doesn't mean they have to be, mine will be bathroom sconces!).

The finish is great "as is" however I was itching to spray paint them glossy white like the Pottery Barn ones (any color would be darling really). Here's the final results.

Once the bathroom is done and the lights are hung I will determine if they are staying white - like I said I think they would be cute any color - so I just might try something else on them.

The other treasure I recently came across was the bathroom vanity countertops.

I came across this blog post at just the right time. Apparently Formica has recently figured out a way to duplicate the look of marble (can you believe the picture above is of Formica!). Layla from "The Lettered Cottage" blogged about how she had recently gone to her local Home Depot and seen these countertops and found out they were just $16 a sq. foot (installed)! For my bathroom countertop that equals out to be just over $200. I was sold. I love a great look at a cheap price! Sadly the people at my local Home Depot weren't really sure what this product was and laughed when I told them the price (they said for something like this it would be more like $30 a sq. foot) - same thing at Lowes. I read through the comments from different people that posted on the Lettered Cottage and some of them were running into the same problem - my guess is that it just hasn't gotten to every Home Depot in the nation and maybe when it does get here they will run it at that great promotional price? I don't know. Thankfully this story has a happy ending. I went on Formica's website and found a list of distributers in my area, called one of them up and was able to get the countertops - "Calacatta Marble" Formica 180fx for $266 (I paid a little extra to get a "fancy" ogee edge - the basic waterfall edge would have cost me only $175 - and yes that is installed!). So if you live in the Salt Lake area "Top Haus" is where I found my countertops, if you live outside of Utah try your local home depot - you might get lucky, and if that doesn't work then check for other distributors on Formica's website.

Lastly - I found a great deal on the tile floors (thanks to the blog Young House Love). I wanted a white penny tile floor and my local tile stores wanted around $15 a square foot for the same stuff you can get online at The Tile Shop for just $5.59 a sq. foot! (plus you get 10% off right now if you use the promotional code YHL10). Yahoo!

I can't wait to see it all come together!

Trim work - 3 times as fast and 3 times as easy!

2012-02-23T14:05:00.000-08:00

So workers are here finishing the trim work in my dining room. Here is a picture of the windows that they framed out. I just about died when I saw this header molding. The reason - because that is one piece of wood - not 3!

Here is what it looks like - I think this size is 4" and you can get it in 5 and 6" sizes as well.

My husband and I had no idea this product existed - see below where my husband went with a similar look for our Master Bath. Notice the top of the door and the horizontal piece that wraps all the way around the room on top of the vertical boards. ONLY that is 3 PIECES and 3 times the WORK!!! I'm sure it was more money too. Had we known! I guess the reason we didn't is because we have always picked up our wood at Home depot or Lowes to do our home trim work projects and I don't think they carry this stuff (unless I somehow just missed it). Obviously it is something the Pro's know about and probably use all the time.

Just thought I would save you the time and headache incase you are into DIY trim work. I'm really excited because I have always wanted an additional header at the top of every door in my house, just like we did in the bathroom - and now that is definitely looking like an easy and doable project!

I am so excited to show you all the dining room when it is finished - hopefully just another week!

SURPRISE!!!

2012-02-21T12:16:00.000-08:00

As much as I love decorating -

I am thrilled about not having to change a thing in these two rooms!

IT'S A BOY!!!

In July I will officially become the proud mother to 4 boys!

(this is the bedroom and bathroom our baby boy will inherit since the other 3 boys will be moving downstairs into their newly completed rooms - the downstairs should be all done in just a few more weeks!!!)

Liquid Magic!

2012-02-16T14:42:00.000-08:00

So recently I saw this product on Pinterest. Some lady was showing how it cleaned up her white dishes really well, they had marks all over them from her silverware. I immediately thought of my white porcelain sink.

I picked up some at Lowes and gave it a shot. Here is the BEFORE:

And the AFTER!!!! NO this is not a brand new sink - it just looks like new again!

I was so excited - don't you just love a great cleaning product, especially when it doesn't require a lot of elbow grease to make it work. This stuff was so fast and easy! It was like the day I discover the magic eraser - that was such a great day!

I have always liked a plain white traditional porcelain sink but always hated the one draw back - the permanent (or so I thought they were) black marks that appear when metal objects scrape it. When I showed my husband he said - "have you never cleaned the sink before?". I just laughed. Every other time I have cleaned the sink (in over 10 years of owning homes with porcelain sinks) everything has cleaned up great EXCEPT those black marks so I always figured they were permanent and I always tried to be so careful when washing metal objects to try to not let them scrape. Apparently the stuff works great on stainless steel sinks and metal cookware too (I'm sure there are a lot of great uses for this product). It is like Liquid Magic!

Nice that some of the time I have wasted on Pinterest has now paid off!!

Master Bath Toilet Room Transformation!

2012-02-13T16:01:00.000-08:00

It feels weird to have the word "Toilet" in my title,

should I have said water closet instead to dress it up a little?

One of my New Years Home Resolutions can be checked off my list!

This was my inspiration photo. I am in love with trim work but a "faux trim" done in paint is a much more affordable way of getting that look. I wasn't about to spend the money on trim for a toilet room but the area still needed some dressing up so this was a perfect soloution.

All it took was the cost of some painters tape - I used 1 inch thick tape so that would be the width of my lines. It took some time and a level to get it all taped out but it was a small area so it wasn't too bad - maybe 3 hours (and I was able to spread this part out over a few days). To get the corners of the tape perfectly crisp I used a razor blade.

For the curved corners- I drew those in using the two templates below cut out of card stock paper. I left those curves "un-taped" and then painted in those curves by hand later.

I had the silver paint leftover from my dining room (the color is "tin" from the Martha Stewart Metallic line that is sold at Home depot).

The painting part probably took about 4 hours. The most time consuming part might have just been taking the tape off and carefully wiping up any spots that had seeped behind the tape. I painted over all my tape lines first with the same white that is on the walls hoping that it would stop the seeping problem - and it may have helped but I still had lots of areas that needed cleanup. Overall the project was probably the same amount of time that it would have taken me to paint all the walls a solid color and I like this look a lot better - so definitely worth the effort!

It would be even cuter in a room that doesn't have a toilet!!!

Happy Blogiversary!

2012-01-27T08:51:00.000-08:00

Today marks the 1 year anniversary of my blog! One year ago today I started this blog with a reveal of our newly completed Master Bathroom project (click here to see)

and my painted Secretary desks (click here to see that first post!).

We had been in our new home for just 5 months and my mind was racing with ideas of things I could post about. Thankfully the whirlwind slowed down and I don't have a "backlog" of ideas - now I just post as they come. From the get go I decided I did not want blogging to feel like a "job." I don't ever want to advertise on my blog or worry about getting posts out as often as I can for people. I am trying to do my best to keep this blog fun for me with no stress involved! I have always enjoyed sharing my decorating ideas and showing people my home and projects and this just gave me an easier way to do it.

At first all my visitors and comments were from local family and friends, but eventually I had readers showing up in Italy, Malaysia, and Canada. Although I only had 2 followers (yes that's right :) I was getting an average of about 30 hits to my blog a day - and that amazed me.

THEN last October I came up with this idea - painting leather chairs with a stencil

And EVERYTHING CHANGED!

My blog up to that point had received a total of 5,000 hits. As of today I have surpassed 100,000! The main reason being, I submitted this project to different blogs that I like and many of them featured my chairs and sent me LOTS of traffic. The first blog to feature them was "4 men 1 Lady" and I about had a heart attack when I received 5,000 hits in one day. The next feature from "Emily A. Clark" brought 10,000 the next day. As of Yesterday "Young House Love" featured them and sent me a record breaking 25,000 hits in one day (I can't imagine how they keep up with a blog that gets sooo much traffic!) A big thanks to all the blogs that featured me and this project - so many kind comments and emails! It has been crazy but fun!

So now my 2 followers has grown to 76 and my daily average is about 300 hits a day with visitors from all over the globe. The top post visited is obviously the barstools with my "RH sofa table knock off" coming in at second. Believe me when I say I know I am still "small time" but I kinda like it that way, and I never imagined one year ago when I started this blog that it would ever amount to even this much!

Thanks to all my Readers!!!!! I am looking forward to another fun year of blogging!

Treasure Hunting

2012-01-24T13:03:00.000-08:00

I have mentioned in a post before that my cousin Jess has a store in Orem, Utah called Alice Lane (click here to see that post). They carry all kinds of BEAUTIFUL items of furniture. Yesterday I checked out her blog and they were having an inventory sale. I fell in love with this little item (6 of these little items I guess). The sold tag is happily for me and they should arrive later today! Click here to go to the Alice Lane blog and see the other great items in the inventory sale. My current dining table worked great in our old house but I had plans to replace it with a larger one once we moved, along with the chairs, so now I'm halfway there!

I need to put some more time and effort into shopping for tables but for now I am liking this one from Restoration Hardware - The size is what we are looking for, LARGE.

I ran up to "Down East Home" in Layton today and found some great little treasures there as well. Pottery barn sells these pretty antique door mirrors (for $600 each). Down East has some in their store right now and they are in perfect condition. I snagged one and with a coupon and it was just $240! Yeah!! There are still two left at the store if anyone is interested.

Finally if you follow my blog you know how much I love the Restoration Hardware sofa table that looks similar to this. I ended up making a knock off (click here to see) because I loved it so much. Well, Down East has a great knock off in their store right now for $450 - Restoration Hardware's is $1300 so if you don't want to pay that - or tackle making your own you could just go pick this one up. The finish on it is a little darker than Restoration's but still very beautiful and a great knock off. My terrible phone picture doesn't do it justice!

Field Trip - Jon and Kori's NEW house!

2012-01-14T16:29:00.000-08:00

My brother Jon and his wife Kori moved into a new home last fall and I waited until now to post pictures since I knew the longer I waited, the better the house would get. Kori has had some time to put her individual "touch" on the house and it is looking great. First I have to show her stencil projects she just completed (I'm a little partial to these since they are my stencils that she borrowed and I love how they turned out!).

The Laundry Room - Trellis stencil from cuttingedgestencils.com

Family Room - Casablanca Stencil (in the arched niche) from cuttingedgestencils.com

Love this collection of clocks in the built in shelves

The Kitchen

I love this little niche and the blue dresser that fits perfectly in it!

The Living Room

The Master Bedroom

Master Bath - the darling light is from shades of light

The girls rooms are also darling (of course!)

The Exterior

Robert McArthur was the builder of this home (love his style!). Some of the beautiful furnishings are from our cousin Jess's store Alice Lane. Other furnishings are just lucky finds from TJ Maxx and elsewhere (Kori has a nack for that!). If you would like to see my post on their previous home click here.

New Years (Home) Resolutions

2012-01-04T21:36:00.000-08:00

1. Update the Front Door
after seeing this post (and dying) I decided I am definately going to look into it this year!

2. Paint the Master bathroom toilet area. It's small I know - but I still spend time in there and can't stand the plain white walls. Hoping it should be a fairly quick and easy project. Something like this maybe?

3. Stencil some new white leather barstools (since I had to return the other ones to overstock). I'm hoping these ones from Target will work?!

4. Finish the molding in the Dining Room and on the Kitchen soffit.
(Tired of looking at this unfinished look).

5. Finish all the unfinished areas downstairs (3 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, a workout room, Kitchenette, and storage room)! I am really looking forward to this project getting done - I am not looking forward to the upcoming mess that is ahead! I am collecting lots of inspiration photos on Pinterest for what I hope the rooms will look like - here are a couple teasers!

6. While workers are here and creating a mess anyway I think we'll have them complete some work upstairs as well - like the fireplace and built-ins on our blank living room wall that the couch faces.

I'm hoping for something like this-

Like I said - BIG CHANGES are coming this year. And actually I am hoping to get all this done by July since that is when we are "expecting" another big change!!! Maybe I will even get to decorate a girls room this time- (yeah right! :)

Christmas Pillows

2011-12-21T13:32:00.000-08:00

I decided to make some Christmas pillows this year. After "pinning" a bunch this is what I ended up with! For the first one I already had this plain red pillow and decided to add a white felt poinsettia to it. I followed the tutorial found at centsational girl. She sewed on her petals, but I just used hot glue since the pillow was already put together.

Very easy! I love the pop of white against the red.

For my next two pillows I used the fabric I had leftover from my fabric poster board Christmas Trees (click here to see them). I also got the great tip from Mandi over at Vintage Revivals to use feather pillow inserts from clearances pillows at TJ Maxx. I found some clearance pillows for $5 and after throwing away the ugly cover, kept the feather inserts to use in my new Christmas pillows!

Here is my inspiration photo for a deer pillow I decided to try my hand at.

The full tutorial is on the Sew Homegrown website (click here to see it).

Here is how mine turned out-

I did buy have to buy some red fabric for the deer head, I found it at Ben Franklin's. The "inspiration" pillow looks a lot better than mine but I was afraid that if I tried my hand at zigzagging all the way around the deer head I would only make it look worse (not to mention I think it would take forever!). So I just went all the way around the head with just a strait stitch. Hopefully that is good enough!

Finally I used this picture from Ballard designs for my last pillow inspiration.

Basically, the same idea as the deer head. I did zigzag around the ornaments on this pillow. I found it a bit tricky, it's definitely far from perfect (but looks ok) - thankfully I made this one first and as a result decided NOT to zigzag all around the deer head!

And with that, I am wishing you all a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Look forward to BIG CHANGES next year - we're planning to finish the basement (and more upstairs too)! I'll keep you posted - see you in 2012!

Decking My Halls - Part 7

2011-12-17T13:48:00.000-08:00

Christmas touches in the Kitchen and Dining Room

I added some red dishes to my kitchen hutch (I found them at TJ Maxx).

In the dining room I hung two wreaths together in each of the far windows. Also I finally got a rug!!!! It is my Christmas gift and I'm not about to wait to unwrap it!

Here it is close up. It has a grey tone with different shades of blues and tans. I love it - it ties in great with the colors I already had going on so that is nice. It is from Ballard Designs (click here for more details).

Decking My Halls - Part 6

2011-12-14T14:00:00.000-08:00

At Christmas time I like to switch out the pictures in my frames for more "Christmasy" ones along with red mats. I keep the christmas photos and mats stored in the picture frames all year long then just rotate them to the front at Christmas time, then rotate back to the regular pictures once Christmas is done. Same frames and same hanging arrangement so that makes it very easy!

Before

After

These ones are my favorite! The bottom picture is of the LDS temple in Salt Lake City, we go there every Christmas time to see their beautiful light display - it's gorgeous!

Before

After

You can find the Christmas Subway Art Printable from this website. I like that it has blue in it that ties in with my secretary desk. The snowflake is one of my ornaments that I took a picture of, I played around with it using some picture editing software and then printed it out at Costco.

Decking My Halls- Part 5

2011-12-12T07:45:00.000-08:00

We just got out house lights up. I know - we are on the slow track this year!

Our Elf is having fun around here too.

I am getting my elf ideas from Pinterest! Or check out these two websites for lots of ideas.

(blossom bunkhouse, design dazzle)

I think on Christmas Day our elf might be holding our camera with this picture beside him for our kids -

check out this website.

Decking My Halls - Part 4, The Christmas Tree!

2011-12-07T20:33:00.000-08:00

We finally got our tree up on Monday. I had to wait for it to ship since I just purchased this new tree from Home Depot on line the day after Thanksgiving. We needed a new tree for this house since our old 7 ft. tree looked way too short with our 10ft. ceilings (plus our old tree was not of the "pre-lit" variety, I'm excited for that upgrade!). After some searching I decided on this one because it had good reviews, a good warranty, a lot of lights and branches, and it was a decent price (on sale it was $297 and they offered free shipping!).

Years ago I bought a red berry garland from Target and then cut it apart to create a bunch of berry "sprigs" that I could poke in the branches all over the tree. Most of the balls on the tree are silver, some are large jingle bells. I also have quite a few large metal stars that I spray painted red and use for ornaments. The last thing I add to my tree are about 12-15 of these wire star strands, it adds some subtle sparkle.

at the end of the season I wrap them around my hand to create a small wire circle, then the next year when I pull apart the wire circle it has a nice curly-cue effect that works well to stretch between the branches of the tree.

I'm not going to lie, it took FOREVER to spread all the branches out to make the tree look natural, I am hoping that since it is brand new -this year was the worst that process will ever be! Otherwise I am really happy with it!

Decking My Halls - Part 3

2011-12-05T15:46:00.000-08:00

Well this was fun while it lasted!

Unfortunately after only 2 days of misting the garland with water to try to keep it alive - the command hooks started popping off the wall. They do not like water misting!

So I am converting to fake garland for my indoor arches!

For now I decided to use the live garland elsewhere. Since it seems that live garland has a tough time indoors because of the dry heat that is constantly blowing around, I decided to move it outside. Hopefully it won't dry out as quickly. On the plus side, now I don't have to constantly clean up the droppings!

For the rest of the outside decor I hung lit wreaths in the windows. They were on sale for $5 each at the end of the season last year from Walmart.

The wreath above the entrance way I got at Taipan for around $25 then added some sprigs of red berries and ornaments that I had on hand from end of last season sales as well.

It is so much cheaper to buy a plain wreath and add stuff to it yourself rather than buying one with ornaments or berries already on it. At taipan the same wreath I bought with berries added doubled the price to over $50 (sprigs of berries don't cost that much and they are very easy to add to a wreath with some floral wire).

Decking My Halls - Part 2

2011-12-02T15:43:00.000-08:00

Many of you already saw my fabric covered poster board Christmas trees (if you wan't instructions here is the original post). Anyway they look great with some live garland on the sofa table.

Here is another favorite Christmas project I did a few years ago. I got some Styrofoam sheets from the craft store then cut them out in the shape of letters. For a pattern I just printed out the letters on my computer.

I then covered the letters in moss (just hot glued it on), and then glued berries on the fronts of the letters. I love this star Christmas tree topper just sitting in the window next to it for some sparkle!

It's an easy project you could adapt for lots of different holidays and spell out lots of different words. They now sell wood letters of all shapes and sizes which would make the project even easier - but it may be cheaper to go the styrofoam route!

Decking My Halls - Part 1

2011-11-30T15:13:00.000-08:00

I am busy decorating for Christmas (still not done). It is taking a lot of time since I am only able to do a little each day. Rather than waiting until it's done to blog about it all - I'll post little by little just as it is going up!

So come on in!

Ballard designs has this beautiful picture of a home at christmas time with garlands lining the arches and I was inspired!

I have been on the lookout for a nice fake garland that is simple but real looking. When I saw that Costco sells 25' of live garland for just $14.99 I flipped. It smells and looks wonderful!!! There is nothing that gets me more excited than beautiful cheap decor!

Each arch took about 20 feet of garland and I cut off the remaining 5 ft to use on my stair banister. So for $30 I got two large arches and my stair banister covered in beautiful live garland - what a deal!

This is how I hung the garland - those are command hooks lining the arch (six hooks for each arch).

Here is the entryway bench looking festive with a couple Christmas pillows added to the mix.

Here is the banister. Ignore the droppings on the carpet - I should have vacummed BEFORE the picture!

You may be able to tell that the garland on the left is fuller than the garland on the right. I only bought one garland from costco last week to try it out then went to the store again yesterday to buy the second one. So obviously there has been some significant shrinkage and drying out in just one week. :( I am now misting the garland with water every couple days in hopes that it will last until Christmas. I'll let you know my verdict at the end of the season - I may be searching for fake once again!

My Barstool Saga Continues

2011-11-25T13:06:00.000-08:00

My barstools were such a dissapointment that some friends encouraged me to try to return them to Overstock. The quality is obviously not good since these chairs have only had 30 days of use and already look like this.

I called Overstock and they were happy to help me out and I am able to return them!!!! I am so impressed with their company now - their customer service really was great. I will definitely work with them again on other purchases.

As far as new barstools, I decided to try these ones from Target. Mainly because they have a 90 day return policy (unlike overstock's which is just 30 days). And they are easy to return since I can just return them to a store if needed. So these ones are on the way.

The backs are not as tall which I am sad about but I couldn't find any other white leather chairs with a high back. This time I will be leaving these chairs unpainted for at least a 90 day period to test the quality of the chairs. If they pass the 90 day test I will then be investing my time and painting these ones (same paint and pattern as last time). I think this time I will not be using the acrylic finisher and test how the paint holds up on it's own. Hopefully the results on these ones will go a lot better! By Valentines I'll let you all know - Ha Ha!

Even More Painted Leather Barstools!

2011-11-15T15:08:00.000-08:00

BEFORE:

AND AFTER!

This particular stencil comes from olive leaf stencils. I love the look of this stencil - but I'm not going to lie, it took about 3 times as long to do these barstools as it did to do mine (click here to see). This pattern is a little busier than mine and each of the lines are thicker so both of those things meant that this was a much bigger project. They probably took about 15 hrs. to complete. The paint is once again from turtlefeathers.net and the color we used is called "avocado green."

These chairs did not come apart so I had to stencil them "as is" which was also a little bit more tricky. Once again I lightly sanded the chairs first so the paint would grip a little better. I tried using a foam roller brush this time but went back to my good old "spouncer" because I found I had better control and the paint seemed to get a little better coverage with the spouncer. The areas of the stencil that bled cleaned up fine with a wet wipe.

And here they are at "home" in my brother Eric's kitchen.

I'm biased but I think they turned out Beautifully and that they look great in their kitchen!

Once again a worry free solution to dining in style!

To see all my painted leather chair posts click here.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly!

2011-11-14T13:51:00.000-08:00

THE GOOD:

I touched up my red painted chairs with some white paint so there aren't pink smudges everywhere. The white paint is not an exact match to the white leather however I still think it is an improvement! The stencil job looks a lot cleaner and better now.

THE BAD:

I don't recommend the quality of these overstock chairs. I gave them a great review on the website and can no longer change that review so I am giving you the real review here! Only one month of use and the cushion on the chair looks pretty sad! You can paint lots of different kinds of leather chairs so just find ones that are better quality than these bad boys!

AND THE UGLY!

The "Acrylic Finisher" product from turtlefeathers.net that I put on the chairs is rubbing off in areas on the seat and looks pretty ugly. I am not too pleased with this finish product. I like the idea of putting something on the chairs to protect the paint but can it really be protecting it if it comes off easier than the paint? It also seems to make the little lint hairs from my boys jeans stick to the seats so I am constantly wiping them off and my wash cloth is covered in blue lint - yuck! I don't know exactly what to recommend to anyone doing this project but maybe you could try a leather conditioner instead? Or maybe only 1 or 2 very light coats instead of the 4 that I put on these chairs. The paint itself is holding up great - I have even used a magic eraser on the chairs to clean them and the paint was not bothered by that at all! I almost wonder if you could get away with no finish product?

Thankfully they still look great from the back, the paint is holding up well, and the ugly parts of the chair are hidden under the countertop!

Just wanted to pass on these tips for anyone else attempting this project!

Built-in Shelf Lighting

2011-11-08T18:39:00.000-08:00

I love our new built-in shelf in the kitchen nook, but I felt like it created a bit of a dark cave. I figured out how to easily add lighting (without calling an electrician). Here's how:

I went to Home depot and found a these plug in puck lights. A pack of 3 was $20. It also came with an extension cord which was nice since I needed one for this project.

Using a power drill with the pictured attachment I drilled a large hole in the wall at the top of the shelf. Don't worry you can't see the hole since it is so high up.

Then I fed the extension cord into the hole and down the inside of the wall.

I placed the puck lights in front of the window like so, again you can't see any of this from below.

Next I drilled a hole in the wall near the electrical outlet and fished the plug out, then plugged it in! I plan to get a timer as well so I don't ever have to reach back there to plug it in or take it out. That way the lights will come on all by themselves. The hole is conveniently covered by my secretary desk (which now can never move out of this nook!). I figure in the event that we ever sell this house the secretary desk will just stay with the house.

And That's IT!

More Painted Leather Chairs!

2011-11-03T14:18:00.000-07:00

I don't know if anyone else is interested in seeing more, but my sister was! These are her chairs that she has owned for a while (she got them on clearance a few years ago for just $20!). She was excited to give them an update especially when she realized the stencil and paint possibilities for leather!

Same basic process as before - you can read my detailed painting and stenciling instructions in this post. The stencil is from Cutting Edge Stencils. It's called the "Zinnia Grande Flower Stencil," we used the x-small and small size stencils for these chairs. The paint is once again from turtlefeathers.net and is called angelus paint (made specifically for leather). These chairs are not real leather but the paint works well on whatever the imitation may be! The colors we used were mustard (since I already had that on hand) and a custom "rust red" color (made by mixing cognac color with scarlet red). The paint colors didn't give me any problems - mistakes wiped up pretty easily (YEAH!).

After doing a few stenciled flowers my sister commented that she was pretty surprised by how easy the process really is - she said that after seeing my blog post when I did my barstools she thought it looked pretty complicated - but it's not! Really! For the smaller flower I used a sponge "spouncer" stenciling brush and for the large flower stencil I tried out a sponge roller - both ways worked great. Again the trick to stenciling is in using very little paint!

We even stenciled the backs!

And here they are in her Living Room! The colors and pattern tie in great!

If you want more detailed instructions for stenciling leather chairs remember to check out this post.

*If your not sick of painted chairs - there will be another set of barstools done soon for my brother's house. A whole new stencil and color so I'm excited! *UPDATE* (click here to see how my brother's chairs turned out and all my painted leather barstool posts)

Living Room Lighting

2011-11-01T16:11:00.000-07:00

I'm slowly replacing the "builder grade" lights throughout my house with nice chandeliers and I am loving the one that I just hung in my Living Room. It adds such a great amount of sparkle and glam without being over the top. I also like that it adds a little separation and distinction to the

piano side of the Living Room. I purchased a celling hook so that I could swag the chandelier a little closer to the piano. They sell these hooks at home depot near the other chandelier parts.

I purchased the chandelier (on the left) from overstock.com ($175) and is a pretty good knock off of the $400 pottery barn chandelier on the right. You have to attach all the glass parts yourself - but that's worth the price difference in my book!

Here it is both turned on and off so you can see it both ways.

Although it's a slow process - my house is transforming!

Giveaway Winner and Barstool Reveal!!!

2011-10-28T00:07:00.000-07:00

And the winner of the Cutting Edge Stencil is......

#19 Katie Anderson
(I'll be sending you an email!)

CONGRATULATIONS!!!

And Now the

New Barstool Reveal:

Obviously this chair is a totally different look than my other barstools,
which is what I wanted to give you all!

This particular stencil is from Cutting Edge Stencils "designer series" and is called Damask by Diane Papro Studio. For my original barstools (click here to see) I wanted the majority of the chair to still be white and so I chose a stencil that had small areas that would be painted. For this one I decided to try the opposite and went with a stencil that had large areas that would be painted. As a result this stencil was a little harder, used more paint, and took a little longer. The reason this stencil was a little harder was that when you bend the stencil around the curve of the top of the chair, it is hard to keep the stencil edges flat since the openings are larger on this stencil. It was a lot easier to bend the stencil on my first chairs and keep the lines clean and straight. However I really like the look of this stencil - just keep that in mind when picking a stencil if you are planning on painting a chair of your own.

I decided to paint this chair red so that if I ever decide to stencil a couple more I can have a Red Christmas Set of Barstools. However after doing this chair I am having some reservations about the Red paint. When I used the light grey paint on my first set of barstools I was able to very easily wipe up any mistakes and clean up any smudged lines so that they ended up looking very clean and exact. I was sad to discover that the red paint does not wipe up easily, once wiped it leaves a pink smudge that will NOT come off for anything! Sadly my results were far from perfect since I couldn't clean up any mistakes. I have ordered some white paint from turtle feathers which is now on its way and I am hoping that with a very small brush I will be able to clean up any smudged pink areas. This stencils pattern isn't one that requires perfection - it looks good even with little mistakes, however some of my mistakes were large, so I hope the white paint will help that. From far away it looks great but you can see in the close up pictures below what I mean. Although I ended up with a lot of smudged lines with this stencil if you were using a grey color paint you would easily be able to clean up those smudges and end up with a beautiful and crisp pattern on your chair - so don't rule out this particular stencil.

When I learned the red paint couldn't be wiped off (picture above) I decided to use tape to make sure the paint on the top of the chairs didn't accidentally carry over onto the sides. The tape worked great for that problem. When I painted my first set of chairs I didn't use tape on the sides of the chair since the grey paint wiped away easily while it was still wet.

I have a couple different family members that have asked me to paint some chairs for them so I am curious to see how things turn out with the paint colors and stencils they have chosen. My guess is that Red is one of the hardest colors to wipe away cleanly - I suspect that most colors are a little more forgiving than Red. Navy blue may be a hard one as well -but I don't know that for sure. I'll definitely be posting more painted chairs so check back to see how they turn out!

Lesson Learned: I guess I could have used the same stencil on a red leather chair with white paint and ended up with the same look and no problems! I love the chair and how it turned out but My Advice-- stay away from Red paint!

Last Chance to Enter!!!

2011-10-26T06:40:00.000-07:00

Today is the last day to enter the Cutting Edge Stencil GIVEAWAY!!! Be sure to fill out a form at the bottom of the "giveaway" post below (click here) and if you "Like" Cutting Edge Stencils on Facebook you can fill out a second entry form!!!

Remember to check back this Friday, October 28th for another Painted Barstool Reveal and to see if you won the Stencil Giveaway!

Also - just in the last week Cutting Edge has added some NEW stencils to their website, click here to see what's new!