Desert Domicile

Our Office: Before

2013-05-23T01:00:00.000-07:00

I have a confession to make. I think I might be a semi-hoarder. Is that a thing? Case in point: this room doesn't look too bad, right?

Wrong.

This is one of our spare bedrooms AKA the room where decorative accessories, mirrors, artwork, lamps, and extra furniture goes to die:

It's ridiculous.

I can't even believe I'm sharing these photos with you guys haha

In my defense, we still have a bunch of untouched rooms and all of these things can be used to decorate them. Yay for not buying more stuff! Lies. We all know I'll buy more crap haha

Anyway, after about 45 minutes, everything in the room was completely cleared out except for the heavy dresser that's storing more decorative accessories you can't see. I'm out of control...

It's a pretty tiny room, measuring around 10' 4" x 11' 7":

It gets good light:

So we're turning it into an office and then we'll eventually turn the room that was our office into the guest room:

So far we've only moved our desks in but I've got some plans brewing:

I'd like to line a few bookcases along this wall so I'll have space to display all my crap haha

I was originally thinking of getting some Billy bookcases from IKEA but now I'm thinking of getting some Vittsjo units instead.

The original plan was to buy 4 bookcases + 8 extenders (2 per bookcase) so the Billy's would span from floor to ceiling. We would add moulding of some sort to make them look like built-ins. I like that idea but I think it might be too overpowering in such a small room and I don't know if I have enough stuff to fill 40 shelves.

The Vittsjo's are open and airy and wouldn't be as overpowering as a built-in set of Billy's. The only negative I can see about them is the glass shelves. They're tempered but I'd still be worried about them breaking from getting bumped into or being overloaded with stuff. There's plenty of hacks for them out there though so I'm sure I can figure out another solution!

Moving on...

I'd love to add a gallery wall above our desks. I also want to turn my boyfriend's desk into a campaign style one like mine:

I was originally thinking about painting the entire wall with chalkboard paint and then layering a gallery wall on top of it but I couldn't think of anything I'd write or draw on the wall so I scratched the idea. I still love chalkboard walls though :)

I'd eventually like to replace the lovely boob light:

I'm not sure what we'll replace it with but I'm looking forward to the day it goes away!

Other to-do items include painting the room, maybe figuring out a solution to hide my boyfriend's computer tower, getting some curtains for the window, finding some artwork for the other walls, putting a rug down, and cleaning the rest of my hoard out of the closet.

I have a 5 day weekend ahead of me so here's to hoping I can get a lot done!

New Patio Furniture

2013-05-22T03:00:00.000-07:00

Thank you to everyone that's taken my reader survey so far! If you haven't had a chance to take it yet, there's still time to do so! Click here to get started :)

Last Friday I mentioned that we bought some new patio furniture. It's still sitting in boxes in our garage (more on that in a minute):

I thought I'd show you what we got anyway because I'm so excited about it all!

Admittedly, we went a little crazy haha We ended up getting enough furniture to have a complete outdoor lounge area as well as a complete outdoor dining area. Everything we got was on sale and I was able to use a few coupons and promo codes to bring the prices down even more. After everything was all said and done, I think we only spent about $500 more than the Target set we had to return! Not bad for furnishing two spaces if you ask me!

The lounge area will look similar to this after all of the pieces are unboxed and assembled. This is before any styling/finishing touches take place, of course :)

[ 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 ]

All of the pieces (minus the rug) came from World Market. They were having a 30% off sale over the weekend and we pounced all over it. We're still waiting on the rug to arrive but it should be here tomorrow!

The dining area will look similar to this after all of the pieces are unboxed and assembled. Again, this is before any styling/finishing touches take place, of course :)

[ 1 / 2 / 3 ]

All of the pieces (minus the chairs) came from World Market. I swear this isn't a sponsored post, I just love their stuff haha

We got two benches that match the table but I'm still on the fence about them because I don't want everything to be matchy-matchy or to look like a picnic table set. I got the set of chairs (also on sale!) as back up in case we decide to return the benches (most likely happening). We also need to get an umbrella to block the sun but we've got some time before we need one.

We can't set the dining area up yet until we figure out some plans for our yard but I'm thinking about having another concrete slab poured here:

I'd like it to sit away from the house and fence wall a little bit so we can plant some things in front of the window and where the (now dead) agave is. I'd like it to not only have space for the table and chairs (or benches) but to also have extra space for our grill. I'm still thinking of a few other placement options though so we'll see where we end up!

Anyway, back to why we can't set up our lounge furniture now:

We have baby hummingbirds occupying a nest that their mom built on top of one of our globe string lights! I have no idea how old they are or how much longer they'll be around but they're so little and cute!

We can't set anything up because, without sounding too disgusting, we've been finding little birdie droplets all over our patio lately and we don't want to put our brand new furniture and rug outside only to have it get pooped on.

As soon as the babies have fled the nest, we'll remove the string lights and replace them with something that doesn't hang down so no other birds can make a home or poop on our patio. In fact, we already removed half of the lights last night:

I can't believe how much taller the patio ceiling looks without them! I never really liked how they hung down anyway so I'm happy to see them go although I do feel bad for this one bird that hangs out on the strings every night. We're thinking of a solution for him though :)

We'll be replacing the string lights with rope lights or a strip of LED lights if we can find some that aren't super expensive. We're planning on mounting the new lights flush along the perimeter of the beams and then maybe hanging a pendant light in the middle! I can't wait to get started!

Desert Domicile's Reader Survey

2013-05-20T02:00:00.000-07:00

We're going to be celebrating our one year housiversary next week and I'd love to open the blog up to any questions you might have!

Maybe you're wondering where I got something, what I have planned for the untouched spaces in our house, or what my favorite color is? Leave a comment with your question(s) and all reasonable questions (please don't be creepy haha) will be answered next Monday :)

Speaking of questions, I'd love it if you could help me out by answering the questions in my reader survey!

There's only 10 simple questions and it's completely anonymous - no names or IP addresses will be recorded. Your answers will help me understand what you guys like about the blog and what you want to see more/less of which will (hopefully) make the blog better in the long run!

Thanks in advance for helping me out! :)

Friday Few

2013-05-17T03:00:00.000-07:00

I think April burned me out a little bit because I have no desire to do anything around the house lately. I don't know if it's the rising temperatures or the fact that I simply don't know what to do but whatever the case may be, I thought I'd update you on a few of the little things that have been going on around here.

#1: Ceiling Fans

Our ceiling fans were delivered on Wednesday and we've sort of started to install them. We ran into a bit of a problem when we didn't realize where to drill the mount into. Thankfully I had my one year walk through yesterday and our construction supervisor showed me what to do and got the one mount screwed into the living room ceiling.

We were going to attempt to hang the fans ourselves but they're like 100 lbs. Not really, they're only 28 lbs but still. We don't want to mess anything up and have them come crashing down on us at night so we're going to pay our guy $45 to have them installed. Not too bad if you ask me!

#2: Patio Furniture

Bye-bye old IKEA furniture! We bought some new patio furniture last night! We actually went a little nuts buying stuff haha

We took the money we had saved from the refund Target gave us and bought two chairs, a coffee table, a dining table, and two benches for the dining table. When we got home, I ordered a couch that matches the chairs (it was online only) and a different set of dining chairs because I'm unsure of the benches and they may be going back.

I'll share all of the details next week along with the plans I have for our new outdoor dining area :)

#3: Dining Room 3.0?

Speaking of dining rooms, I'm thinking about re-doing our dining room. Again. I know, I'm crazy haha

I don't plan on buying any new furniture, just maybe a new rug and a new piece of art (DIY something?) to replace the crystal one with. These feelings may be caused by the summer season that's upon us but I don't know, I'm kind of just feeling something a little brighter and a lot less neutral. I haven't really thought this decision through though so we'll see what happens!

What's happening in your neck of the woods? Any fun weekend plans?

How to Remove Rust From a Stainless Steel Sink

2013-05-14T02:00:00.000-07:00

Speaking of rusted things...

I left a baking sheet sitting in our sink too long and was left with a bunch of rust marks after I put it in the dishwasher:

This one in particular was really bad:

So was this one:

I've had this happen before so I turned to my trusty method of removal. There's many tutorials on how to remove rust stains from stainless steel sinks out there but none are very detailed. While this tutorial isn't new or original, I thought it might help someone else who is a visual learner like me!

Gather your supplies:

Then pour some baking soda in a bowl. I used two tablespoons here but you can eyeball it if you want:

Slowly add a little bit of vinegar to the baking soda so it doesn't explode on you like a 3rd grader's science experiment:

Mix everything together until you get a paste that's a little runnier than toothpaste. If your paste is too watery, sprinkle in a little more baking soda and mix again. If it's too thick, add a little more vinegar.

When your paste is ready to go, spread it onto all of your rust spots:

I let mine sit for about 10 minutes:

And then I gently rub the paste into the rust stains with the back of a spoon (fingertips work too!):

After I've rubbed the paste into all of the spots, I let them sit for another 10 to 15 minutes (depending on how bad the stains are) and then I rinse everything off with soap and water:

This is what one of the really bad stains looked like after about 30 minutes:

It was looking better but it wasn't completely gone so I mixed up some more paste and went through the process again:

When the final stain was removed, our sink looked brand new!

Minus the scratches of course haha

Everyone loves a before and after :)

What's your go to rust remover?

Landscape Updates

2013-05-13T00:30:00.000-07:00

Happy Monday! How was your weekend? Ours was pretty busy! We spent a lot of time outside doing some yard work which involved "planting" this bad boy:

Say hello to our new 8' tall, rusted metal saguaro statue! I bought it for myself as an early houseiversary present :)

It looks great with our rusted metal gate:

It'll look even better over time as it gets more and more rusted and weathered from sitting out in the sun and the monsoons. Whenever I'm happy with how rusted it's become, I can add a clear coat to it so it won't rust anymore!

We may have to move it to our backyard if our HOA says it's too tall but we'll cross that bridge when we get there. I didn't exactly ask for their permission first. Oops!

Anyway, after we got the saguaro standing, my mom helped me trim up the tree in our front yard:

I wish I had a before picture to show you guys! It was so overgrown that it didn't even look like a tree, it just looked like a giant bush that was having a really bad hair day haha

I love the tree but we think it's lined up with our sewer line. We're not 100% sure but if that's the case, we're going to have to move it to our backyard before it gets too mature and starts to grow into our pipes.

Speaking of our backyard, I sourced some ground cover at the place next door to where we got the saguaro from!

It turns out that it's going to be much cheaper than I had initially thought which is awesome! We're going to be going with the light pea gravel (on the left) which is $29 a cubic yard.

We still need to figure out the square footage of our yards and how thick we want the ground cover layer to be but for example, if we needed 10 cubic yards, it would only be $290! I had originally thought it was going to cost around $2,000 to $3,000 for ground cover so that's a BIG difference and a huge relief!

What'd you guys get done this weekend? How did you celebrate Mother's Day?

#DBStar Week 1 Winner

2013-05-10T10:00:00.000-07:00

I WON #DBSTAR!!!

I won, I won, I won! I can't believe it! Is this real life?! Ahhhhh :D

For those of you that may be scratching your heads wondering what DBStar is, I'm here to explain! Last week David Bromstad (winner of Design Star Season 1 and my design idol) gave up-and-coming designers an opportunity to get their names, and creations, out there.

To enter, all you had to do was submit a photo to him on Twitter or Instagram using the hashtag #DBStar. I submitted the photo of my DIY chunky wooden floating shelves I had previously posted on Instagram that were also part of my styling tips and tricks post:

And then I waited. And waited. And waited. I casually checked the hashtag #DBStar here and there to see the entries and holy. crap. I thought I didn't stand a chance!

Legit, have-a-degree-and-actual-paying-clients-and-lots-of-real-world-experience designers were submitting photos of the gorgeous rooms they designed and I submitted a picture of shelves. SHELVES! What was I thinking?! I thought that was it for me but it turns out it wasn't!

David has a sweet little write up on his blog that includes my shelves, my name, AND a link to my blog is on there. I'm hyperventilating a little bit, not gonna lie! Click over and check it out while I send virtual kisses to David all day long! In a non-creepy way of course… ;)

Thank you David! ♥

Random Thoughts

2013-05-08T00:30:00.000-07:00

The project train has slowed down significantly around here since my boyfriend was away in California most of last week and weekend. When he got back, we were busy celebrating a friend's engagement and saying goodbye to an out-of-town guest so needless to say, nothing got done which was fine with me! I mean, who wants to work on projects when they come back from paradise anyway? Not I, I mean him…

Since we don't have anything going on at the moment, I thought I'd give you a glimpse into my mind by sharing a few of the random thoughts I've been having lately:

Thought #1
Should I paint the EAT sign in our kitchen?

Now that we've hung our new glass globe pendants up, the kitchen is pretty much done. We may add a backsplash and some under cabinet lighting but other than that, there's not much left to do. However, when I was looking at all of the photos I took of our new pendants, I couldn't help but feel bored by the room. It's all very neutral with black, brown, and gray/silver tones throughout.

I don't do color very well but I was thinking that maybe a little pop of it couldn't hurt! Enter my attempts at embracing a colorful EAT sign here:

The hot pink would tie into the art in our living room, the navy would work with the drapes in our dining room and the console table in our living room, the orange is just fun, the black is boring but bold, and for the white, I was thinking it would fade into the wall kind of like Kelly's latest artwork. It's a bland idea but I could paint the sides of each letter a color for an unexpected surprise!

What do you think?

Thought #2
Ceiling fan update

I ordered three new ceiling fans yesterday! You may remember the great ceiling fan debate (not really haha) back in March. Well, I found a whole new batch of fans I wanted last month and finally decided to get 3 of these guys from Home Depot:

I really, I mean REALLY, wanted a fan that shall remain brand/nameless but the cost of 3 of them (how many I need) was going to be more than one of my mortgage payments sooo, I passed. Well, in all honesty, I thought about it for a few weeks, contemplated selling a kidney, and even came close to hitting the "submit order" button a couple of times but when it came down to it, I really couldn't justify the price of them.

The ones from Home Depot are Energy Star certified like my house (yes, I live in a "green home") and I figured they'd do a better job at lowering my A/C bill than the gorgeous ones would and isn't that ultimately the point of a ceiling fan?

If I win the lottery or if the kidney requiring fans ever go on a super mega sale, I might order them for our future dream home but who knows, I may love the Home Depot ones more! We'll see what happens when they get here :)

Thought #3
How much do built-in outdoor kitchens cost?

[ Image via Garden Design ]

This is a stretch and a big one but it's something I've been contemplating for a day. I know, I know, that's not much time to make a decision on something but the idea of having an outdoor kitchen makes me all giddy inside!

In sticking with the theme of lowering our A/C bill, we'd like to grill out a lot more this summer. We're talking 5-6 nights a week since heating up an oven heats up your whole house and makes your A/C and fans work harder making your bill go up. It's already as hot as a furnace outside most days during the summer here so you can imagine how hard our system is working already.

[ Image via Houzz ]

If we could afford it, I'm thinking we could have it built in between the house and patio column, kind of like how it is above.

I'd love to have a grill, sink, mini fridge and maybe a small countertop space included so all of the prep work could be done in one place. This is of course another one of my "if I win the lottery/for the dream house" ideas but if we can make it a reality in our current house without selling a kidney, that'd be cool too!

That's what I've been thinking about lately, what have you been thinking about?

Glass Globe Pendants

2013-05-03T00:30:00.000-07:00

If you've been reading my blog for a while now, you may remember the string globe bar pendants I made to replace the builder-basic shades on our bar island pendant lights:

A few months later, I tossed one of my dogs toys over my shoulder and this reenactment happened:

Yep, the toy hit the string globe which fell into the sink and landed directly in a pot of spaghetti sauce that I was soaking. Needless to say we were pendant-less for a while. Well, the pendant arms (?) were still hanging, but they were shadeless.

Fast forward to last month when I received a 20% off coupon code from West Elm. I had been eyeing their globe pendant lamps for a while but didn't really have the money to get them. The 20% off deal was too good to be true though so I pulled the trigger and voila!

I don't have any installation pictures because the installation kicked our ass. Pardon my French. Basically the trouble started at the very end, when we had to shove 6 1/2 feet of cord into the ceiling box that was, oh I don't know, maybe 6" in diameter and maybe 2" deep? Nightmare.

You see the cord the pendant's come with is 116" long which is great if you have vaulted ceilings. Even though our ceilings are 10 feet tall, we only needed the pendants to hang down 38.5" which means the rest of the cord had to go into the ceiling.

I told my boyfriend to just cut the cord a little after where we needed it but we weren't sure if we could just pull the wires from the cord out and then connect them to the ones in the ceiling box or if we'd run into other problems so we cussed and fought our way through packing the excess cord into the ceiling until the last screw was tightened.

Thankfully they're pretty to look at (ignore our sad living room) :)

Have you ever had an installation take twice as long as it should?

The Final Countdown

2013-04-30T00:30:00.000-07:00

This is it you guys! It's the last Monthiversary before we celebrate one year of living in our new house! Where does time go? Didn't we just move in?! Craziness!

I know it seems like we've gotten a lot done around the house in the past 11 months (we have) but we still have so. many. things. to do! 7 rooms have barely been touched, 14 windows need drapes, 9 light fixtures need to be replaced, 2 mirrors need to be framed out or replaced, lots of walls need paint and artwork, our yards need to be landscaped, etc.

Anyway, I digress. For those of you that are new here (Heyyy!), a monthiversary is where I recap all of the projects we've done around our house in the past month. This month's projects included:

• The wood monogram letter we made for our front patio's mini makeover

• The large $7 typographic art we made for our loft

• Our patio furniture failure :(

• Chair choices for our loft

• The chosen chairs we got for our loft

• My "day off" AKA my birthday + sites I've been featured on lately :)

• Our new barstools

• The rug we got for our loft

• Our finished powder room

• The gold leaf ampersand art we made for our powder room

• Our updated staircase landing

• Our second set of DIY chunky wooden floating shelves

• 10 shelf styling tips and tricks that Emily Henderson "LOVED" :D

• Our Mother's Day gift guide

We got A LOT done in April and I have no idea how we're going to top it all in May but we're going to try!

I'm planning on celebrating our one year anniversary the entire last week of May and have some pretty exciting things lined up so here's to looking forward to that :)

What was your favorite project this month? What would you like to see me do next month in preparation for our big one year housiversary?

Mother's Day Gift Guide

2013-04-29T01:00:00.000-07:00

There's only 13 days left until Mother's Day (Sunday, May 12th)!

In honor of the upcoming occasion, I've put together a little gift guide for those of you that may still be looking for that special something:

Mom: there's no spoilers here - you're safe, keep reading :)

[ 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 ]

1. I gave my mom Andrew Zuckerman's book "Flower" for Christmas and she LOVED it. I loved it too! The book is filled with nothing but beautiful photos of, you guessed it, flowers! The photography is amazing and every page is frame-worthy material. Not that I'd rip the book apart or anything haha

2. Urban Outfitters camera lens mug blows my mind! It'd make a great gift for your mom if she has a long commute to work or simply likes to take her coffee to go. Bonus points for you if she's also into photography!

3. I don't know about your mom but I don't think mine would hate to receive one or two of Wrist Soiree's cute tassel bracelets! She has a ton of colors to choose from like mint, coral, and yellow (shown) + others like pink and teal!

4. I may or may not be partial to CB2's gold pig bookends because I own them but they'd make such a great gift for the mom who loves to read. Pair them with the Flower book and you can't go wrong! Well unless your mom hates flowers and cute pigs...

5. If you're going to be giving your mom jewelry this year, she might need something to store it all in! West Elm's patterned jewelry boxes would be a good choice :)

Psst: they'd also be an easy DIY project if you're up for that instead! Handmade gifts always earn mega brownie points!

6. Hedgehog measuring cups. I mean, it doesn't get much cuter than these, does it?! They'd make a great gift if your mom likes to cook/bake. She might not be able to use them due to their cuteness though so be warned! Pair them with a nice recipe book or a yummy recipe you found on Pinterest ;)

7. A is for your Awesome mom! Speaking of awesome, this little monogram metal letter from Urban Outfitters would make a great gift! Each letter has a different cut-out pattern and can be hung on the wall or placed on a shelf.

There's one catch: it's backordered until May 9th so this is only an option for those of you that have a local Urban Outfitters you can shop at. Sorry about that!

8. Still can't make up your mind? Give your mom a little bit of everything this year! A gift subscription to Birchbox will deliver a different selection of hand-picked beauty and lifestyle items to your mom's door every month! Sounds like a good time to me :)

Have you finished your shopping yet? Do you and your mom have any Mother's Day traditions?

10 Shelf Styling Tips & Tricks: Go from "How?" to "Wow!"

2013-04-26T00:30:00.000-07:00

UPDATE: This just in: our styling tips have received the styling queen's seal of approval!

Happy Friday!

I think it's safe to say by now that we can affectionately refer to this week as "Shelf Week." It's kind of like the Discovery channel's "Shark Week" but with a lot less blood and terror. And sharks. There's no sharks here, just floating shelves ;) Anyway, are you ready for the third installment of "Shelf Week?" Here we go!

A lot of you left sweet comments (thank you!) about the styling on the chunky wooden floating shelves we built for our updated staircase landing:

I had mentioned that every time I style something I think to myself "Self, that's the best styling you've ever done!" but then I go and style something else and I think the same thing but these shelves? These are the best I've ever styled!

That being said, I'm no styling expert (far from it) but like anything, I'm getting better and better the more and more I do it. Practice makes perfect, right? Let's hope that's the case because today I'm going to be sharing a few styling tips and tricks (complete with photo examples) that have been working for me!

Let's get this party started!

STYLING TIP #1
Vary the height of your objects

Style your shelves with a combination of short, medium, and tall objects to keep your eye traveling up, down, and across the entire display/vignette. If you want to showcase a special piece, try stacking it a little higher than the others. If it's not tall enough, use a decorative box or a stack of books to lift it up more.

STYLING TIP #2
Use objects of similar sizes

Notice how the rusted metal orbs on the top shelf are about the same size as the white bull on the second shelf? Bigger accessories stand out more and have a bigger impact than smaller ones. They also take up more space than small ones which is helpful if you don't have a lot of things to decorate with or if you don't like dusting ;)

STYLING TIP #3
Repeat the same color

I try to stick to a color scheme for most of my vignettes but sometimes that doesn't work out based on the items I want to use. No matter what though, I always try to repeat one or more of the same colors throughout the styling if I can.

The photo above is from Christmas but it's a perfect example of repeating colors. Both sides have red, white, and silver pieces but I've also included a gold piece which is a little unexpected but still interesting.

STYLING TIP #4
Incorporate a mix of different things

Including objects that are old and new, high and low in price, and a mixture of books and sculptural pieces, etc. make your styling more interesting.

For example, the deer on the top shelf was a bit of a splurge at $60 but it's exactly what I wanted so I bought it. Some of the other items were much less expensive like the books came from the thrift shop and the dollar store. The other accessories were purchased over time on clearance or under $20.

STYLING TIP #5
Create good eye movement

When you're styling anything, the last thing you want is for your eye to stop on one area because that means some of your hard work isn't being seen.

In the photo above, do you see how the ceramic antler on the left pulls your eye into the middle of the vignette and up the back of the swan bank? Well the swan's nose points down towards the ram's head on the right. The ram's horns swoop around in a circular motion and kind of shoot your eye back up towards the orchid. The orchid is leaning over to the left towards the bottles which draws your eye down towards the antler again making the movement process repeat again. Does that make sense?

STYLING TIP #6
Group objects in odd numbers

Odd numbered groupings are easier on the eyes because they give them a place to rest. They're also more interesting than even numbered ones. When you're styling a shelf, strive for groupings of 3, 5, or even 7 or 9 if you have a larger span of space.

STYLING TIP #7
Include personal touches

See that little black and white vinyl toy above? That's a Big Kid toy from Johnny Cupcakes. It may seem silly or childish to some but Johnny's my idol (you may remember when I met him) and I'm a huge supporter of him and his brand so I included one of his toys on my shelves.

All of us having meaningful things that we've saved, gotten as a gift, brought back from a trip, collected, or had passed down to us. Style your shelves with objects that mean something to you like a wooden or metal initial, something you brought back from a recent vacation or your honeymoon, a gift you received, a photo of your grandparents, etc.

STYLING TIP #8
Create layers of objects

Try avoiding the temptation to line objects up in the same row like a bunch of decorative soldiers. When you do this, your your eye will go down the line of them and then stop. All eye movement is dead after that.

When you layer objects by putting some in front of the others, your eye has little nooks and crannies to peek in and out of which keeps it moving throughout the rest of your vignette and keeps things interesting!

STYLING TIP #9
Arrange items both horizontally and vertically

Placing objects horizontally offers a landing spot for other smaller things to be stacked on top of. This can give them more height and presence which keeps them from getting lost in the rest of the mix.

Placing objects vertically also adds more height to your vignette. It helps draw your eye up to the top of your object which can bring your eye over to another object causing the eye movement I mentioned earlier.

STYLING TIP #10
Practice, practice, practice

[ Image via Yeyendesign ]

Like I said above, I'm not a styling expert and still have trouble when it comes to creating a new vignette! 9 times out of 10 I end up styling and re-styling things over and over again multiple times.

My typical styling process involves moving things around and swapping objects in and out until I eventually get to a point where I like the overall look. When this happens, I take a quick photo of it and either leave things as is or re-style them again. Taking a photo helps me to see what I had before in case my re-styling turns out worse than how I had it! You should see how many photos I took when I styled our new shelves ;)

BONUS TIP!
Don't be afraid to move things from your other vignettes

If you scroll back through the photos, you'll see that I've moved several objects around from the different areas I've styled. I have duplicates of some of my decorative accessories so I can use them in a couple of different places but for the items I only have one of, I don't hesitate to take them from one vignette if I think it'll work better in the new one I'm working on.

Do these tips give you the confidence to become a styling superstar? Do you guys have any other styling questions you'd like me to try and answer?

DIY Chunky Wooden Floating Shelves: Round 2

2013-04-24T00:30:00.000-07:00

Who's excited for today's tutorial?!

I'm typing this post out with one hand (I burned my other one - long story, no biggie) so if it's alright with you, I'm going skip the small talk so we can get the building started :)

Head's up: this tutorial is super long but the pictures are pretty self-explanatory! Also, the lighting changes throughout the photos because we worked on the shelves during the week at night after work with no natural light and then on the weekend when there was natural light.

Before you start your shelves, you'll need to gather your supplies. We used:

Don't let this list scare you! It looks like a lot but it includes info on the cuts you'll need to make :)

LUMBER LIST //

• Front pieces: 1, 1 x 6 x 6 whitewood board
We cut our boards into 2, 36" long pieces (the length of our shelves) and then we ripped each board down down to 4" (the height/thickness of our shelves).

• Top and bottom pieces: 2, 1 x 10 x 6 whitewood board (or you can buy a 1 x 10 x 12 piece)
We cut our boards into 4, 34 1/2" pieces (2 for each shelf). Note: the top and bottom pieces are cut smaller than 36" (the total length of our shelves) to account for the 3/4" thickness of each side piece. 34.5" (top/bottom piece) + .75" (left side) + .75" (right side) = 36".

• Actual side pieces: 1, 1 x 6 x 6 whitewood board (we had 1/2 of it leftover)
We cut our board into 4, 9.25" pieces (2 sides for each shelf). The total depth of our shelves is 10" so we cut the sides .75" shy of 10" to account for the thickness of the front piece.

• Hidden inner frame, back pieces: 2, 1/2" x 3" x 36" piece of craft wood (furring strips work too)
We cut our boards down into 34 1/2" pieces (2 for each shelf). See top/bottom piece note for reasoning.

• Hidden inner frame, side pieces: 2 1/2, 1/2" x 3" x 36" piece of craft wood (furring strips work too)
We cut our boards down into 4, 9.25" pieces (2 sides for each shelf).

• Hidden inner frame, middle support pieces: 2 1/2, 1/2" x 3" x 36" piece of craft wood (furring strips work too)
We cut our boards down into 10, 9.25" pieces (5 supports for each shelf - feel free to do more or less).

OTHER TOOLS //

• Miter saw
• Table saw

Stop here. If you don't have any saws at home or access to some at a friend's house, both Lowe's and Home Depot will cut and rip your wood down to size. Some stores charge a small fee like 50 cents/cut but some don't so it could be free!

Now continue :)

• Drill
• Tape measure
• Pen/pencil
• Level
• Stud finder
• Nail gun -- if you don't have a nail gun, regular old nails and a hammer work just as well, it'll just take you a bit longer :)
• Nails for nail gun
• Wood screws
• Wood filler

MISCELLANEOUS //

• Stain
• Polyurethane
• Some good music :)

We started the shelves by building two hidden inner support frames out of the 2 1/2, 1/2" x 3" x 36" pieces of craft wood we had leftover from another project. If you don't have wood scraps, furring strips work well too!

After we had the sides and center support attached to the back piece, we started attaching the rest of the middle pieces:

We screwed each piece into the back of the back piece like so:

We repeated the same steps to make the second hidden inner frame support:

After the frames were built, we did a dry fit of all of the pieces to make sure everything matched up:

Here's a color-coated diagram to help you understand how each piece fits together:

Red: Actual side supports
Blue: Front piece
Green: Hidden inner frame
Orange: Bottom piece
White overlay: Top piece

After we found our studs (3 to be exact), we started to mount the bottom hidden inner frame:

Since we could only find 3 studs, we decided to use some extra metal anchors that can hold 50 lbs each - the four silver holes at the top of the photo.

To get the perfect anchor placement on the wall, we held the frame in the location we wanted it and then screwed a screw through the back piece and into the wall. We did this 4 times, once for each anchor. Then we took the frame down and screwed the anchors into the screw holes we just made in the wall.

Once the anchors were in, we put the frame back in place and screwed the screw that came with the anchors back through the back piece of the frame and into the anchor in the wall.

I'm sure 4 anchors was overkill but I didn't want to risk having the shelves rip out of the wall when I loaded them up with accessories.

Anyway, after we got the first frame up, we repeated the same process on the second one:

Notice those big holes?

That my friends is what happens when you decide last minute to lower the bottom shelf so you'll have an extra 2" of space in between them:

Double check your distances! It's easier to adjust the placement of the hidden inner frame than it is to move the finished shelf :)

Anyway, after both frames were up, I stained my top, bottom, front, and side pieces dark walnut:

Then I spray lacquered everything. FYI: skip this step. You'll find out why in a little bit.

Once the spray lacquer had dried, we began boxing in the hidden inner frames:

We nailed the top piece in place with our nail gun and we screwed the bottom piece in place with wood screws cause gravity hates nails apparently...

After we had the top and bottom pieces secured, we started on the side pieces:

In case you're wondering, the actual side piece on the top left isn't stained because we had to cut it down just a hair since it was a tad too long.

We used our nail gun to nail the sides directly into the side pieces of our hidden inner frame:

Our hidden inner frame side piece was a little warped so I pinched it close to the actual side piece while my boyfriend nailed it in place.

Next came the front piece:

Again, we used our nail gun to attach it:

We moved onto the second shelf when the first shelf was finished:

We boxed it in the same way as the first one:

After everything was all said and done, I filled the holes and marks our nail gun made with some wood filler:

When it dried, I wiped the shelves down and used a stain pen (in dark walnut) to cover up the wood filler marks. I'll be honest and say it didn't look very good :(

Since I had previously used spray lacquer on the wood, the shelves were glossy in some parts (where we didn't nail) and flat in others (where I used the stain pen).

To fix this, I covered the carpet and taped off the walls before I broke out my can of polyurethane and applied a thin and even coat of it to every side of the shelves except the bottoms since they won't be seen unless you're lying on the floor:

I let everything dry for 24 hours before I touched up the marks we made on the walls, hung the art above the shelves and added all of my accessories:

What do you think of this new version of our chunky wooden floating shelves?

Disclaimer: I can't guarantee that your shelves will turn out just like mine. Differences in materials and tools used, and your skill level, will yield different results. I cannot be held responsible for a failed project or an injury of any kind so proceed with caution and build at your own risk. Remember: always use caution when working with power tools and read any instructions before beginning any project.

I'm sharing this project on House of Hepworths and Home Stories A to Z!

Updated Staircase Landing

2013-04-22T00:00:00.000-07:00

UPDATE: Click here for the full DIY shelf tutorial :)

Happy Monday! What'd you guys do over the weekend? Something fun I hope!

We did this:

Yep, we changed our staircase landing! I'm sure the post title gave that away though ;)

If you've been a reader for a while, you may remember it looking like this back in October:

I liked the console table we built for the space but we moved it behind Chester when we were updating our loft which left us with a blank wall:

We built another set of chunky wooden floating shelves (tutorial can be found here) to fill the wall and take the console table's place:

Anddd I'm pretty much in love with them:

I'm in love with everything actually:

The styling was ridiculously hard. Like took-me-an-entire-day-to-do hard. I don't know how people like Emily Henderson do it!

Just for fun I put together a little GIF of the styling so you can see how I did it:

Granted that was taken after I spent an entire day fidgeting with practically every object I own haha

I challenged myself to only use things I had in my decorative accessories hoard rather than going out and buying more stuff:

I think I did a pretty good job!

Not to toot my own horn or anything but every time I style something I think to myself "Self, that's the best styling you've ever done!" but then I go and style something else and I think the same thing but these shelves? These are the best I've ever styled!

Take a look :)

Fun fact #1: 3 of the 8 books came from the Dollar Store and 2 of the others came from the thrift shop!

Fun fact #2: the only book I've read on the shelves is Nate Berkus' book. I take that back, I got 30 pages into Spent but gave up and I've paged through Design*Sponge, Decorate, and Shelter Dogs. That counts for something, right?

Fun fact #3: I finally got around to painting my pig! I spray painted him Rust-Oluem's "Lobster Red" since it kind of tied in with the color of the books on the first shelf and since I had the spray paint on hand haha

For those of you wondering how far the shelves stick out, they don't stick out very far:

The depth of the shelves are an inch less than our console table but the fact that they're floating makes it look like they take up a lot less space than before:

Ready for some before and afters?

Big difference, right?!

So. Much. Better.

I try not to be one who begs for pins, shares or tweets but I'd love it if you could help me get this project seen! A lot of blood, sweat, and tears (literally) went into it and I'm really proud of the work we've done. It's also taken me 6 hours to pick and edit all of these photos, edit and create the animated photos, and write this post so that's another reason I'd like it to be seen haha

Anyway...

What do you think of our updated staircase landing? Much better, right?!

DIY Gold Leaf Ampersand Art

2013-04-19T03:00:00.000-07:00

If you saw our powder room yesterday, then you probably saw the ampersand art I had hanging on the wall:

I mentioned that it was based off of one Brittany Makes did for 6th Street Design School last week. I loved the piece she made so much that I had to make one of my own!

Her ampersand was a little smaller than I wanted so I opened Illustrator and started playing around with a larger size:

I made my document 20" x 20" because that was the original canvas size I planned on buying. I enlarged my ampersand until I liked what I saw and then I printed it out on two pieces of paper (it was too large for one). I slowly cut it out with scissors, matched up the edges and taped it together:

As you can see, my canvas is 24" x 24". Like I said above, I had originally planned on getting a 20" x 20" canvas. I actually did get one but when I brought it home and hung it in the powder room, it was a little too small for my liking so I took it back to Michael's and exchanged it for the 24" x 24" one. It happened to be 50% off so I paid $13.99 for it!

The gold leafing supplies (adhesive size AKA glue, sealer, gold leaf, and a brush) I had on hand. If you don't have these supplies, they'll run you around $10 to $20 depending on where you shop and if you use a coupon or not:

After I cut my ampersand out, I placed a few pieces of tape on the back so I could figure out its placement on the canvas:

There was a lot of measuring and stepping back and staring to make sure it was centered:

Once the placement was perfect, I stuck my ampersand template to the canvas and began to trace:

I found it easiest to focus on a little part at a time. I would hold the paper template down and trace all around a section before letting go of it just to make sure it wouldn't shift and cause my line to be off.

The bumps in the canvas made the lines a little less than crisp but it's to be expected since the surface isn't smooth to begin with:

After the entire ampersand was traced, I removed my template:

And started applying the adhesive size AKA glue:

I applied one thin and even coat making sure to be extra careful around the edges:

When the glue became tacky, I started applying the gold leaf:

As I applied the sheets, I gently smoothed them out and tried to avoid getting creases:

I'm letting you know this now so you don't panic like I did: things are going to look pretty ugly for a little while!

Let your glue dry for about a half an hour to an hour before you start removing the excess gold leaf:

Be gentle when you're pulling it away from the edges and use a soft artist's brush to remove the tiny pieces you can't grab with your hands:

When you're done, your ampersand will look like this:

You can stop here if you'd like! I didn't because I had a few spots that were missing some gold leaf (mostly around the edges) so I applied tiny amounts of glue in those sections:

And stuck on scraps of gold leaf:

I waited until the glue had dried again and then I gently ran my artist's brush along the edges to remove the excess gold leaf:

After I few more hours had passed, I erased my pencil marks and applied the gold leaf sealer:

Then I hung the canvas up in our powder room:

So shiny!

What do you think of my gold leaf ampersand? Will you be making a gold leaf letter/symbol of your own?

I'm sharing this project on House of Hepworths!

Finished Powder Room

2013-04-18T02:00:00.000-07:00

UPDATE: Click here to see the DIY gold leaf ampersand art tutorial :)

In addition to "finishing" our loft, we've also "finished" our powder room!

In case you're wondering why I'm putting finished in quotes it's because a room is truly never finished to me since I'm always constantly tweaking things. Case in point: I'm still considering swapping out the pedestal sink for a vanity sink to gain some storage space but I digress...

You may remember the mirror:

It used to be emerald green but the paint job I did was horrible. I removed the mirror from the frame, wet sanded the paint off until all of the brush strokes were gone and the frame was smooth again, and then I spray painted it oil-rubbed bronze. It's not perfect but it's far better than it was when it was green!

The mirror is the perfect size and ties in nicely with our DIY chunky wooden floating shelves:

You may or may not have seen these guys before ;)

The bottom shelf has been restyled since the last time you saw it:

I don't know if you've seen them but Target is selling a set of silver metal orbs like my rusted ones on the top shelf! They're part of the Threshold line and are $9.99 for the small one and $14.99 for the big one which is about what I paid for mine from HomeGoods last fall. Just thought I'd toss that out there since a lot of people ask where I got my orbs from :)

One more styling shot for good luck ;)

Speaking of DIY projects, click here for the full DIY gold leaf ampersand tutorial!

It's based off of one Brittany Makes did for 6th Street Design School last week. I loved the piece she made so much that I had to make one of my own!

How about a before and after shot?

The changes aren't major (mostly cosmetic) but it's crazy to see how much different the room looks now:

What do you think of our powder room?

Alvine Ruta Loft Rug

2013-04-16T03:30:00.000-07:00

My heart goes out to those affected by the bombings in Boston yesterday.

Last Monday I mentioned that I was planning on getting IKEA's Alvine Ruta rug for our loft. Even though I thought it'd be a couple of months before we got it, we actually brought it home with us two days later on my birthday!

I took the day off from work so my boyfriend and I could head up North to Phoenix. We stopped for breakfast at a place that was featured on Diner's, Drive-Ins and Dives and then we made our way over to IKEA to get the rug and some other things.

I L-O-V-E it! I've wanted this rug for a while now and I'm so happy it's finally mine:

I wish I could pan up higher in this shot but we're working on a secret project behind the chair on the left! I hope to have it finished by this weekend so I can share it with you next week :)

This new addition means that the loft is now 90% complete! The only thing we still need to add is a ceiling fan and then the room will be done! Did I just say that?!

What do you think of our new rug? Can you believe the room is almost finished?!

Arlo Barstools

2013-04-12T01:00:00.000-07:00

I've been searching for barstools for what feels like forever.

I started the search before our house had even been built and thought I was going to end up with a set of Dalfred barstools from IKEA, as seen in my original kitchen plans (which obviously changed):

Things changed when we tested them out in the store and realized how wobbily they were when they were fully adjusted to 30" high. Insert sad face here.

Plan B involved Wisteria's tall Smart and Sleek stool:

[ Image via Wisteria ]

I loved the shape of the stool and the mix of metal and wood but ultimately passed on them because the price was too high and the wood was too light for my liking.

I've been looking at a bunch of different options here and there but none of them worked out for whatever reason. That all changed when I met the Arlo barstool:

[ Image via World Market ]

I happened to notice them while we were out buying our Elliott Wingback chairs. I liked the size and shape of them as well as their matte black finish. They were nice and sturdy and the $55, 50% off price tag was very appealing :)

The store we were at only had one in stock but two other stores a little further away had 4 of them in stock:

It was too late to go and get them that night so we waited until Saturday to pick them up. By we, I mean my mom and I. Hauling these bad boys home was the first furniture load she had in her brand new car! :)

Anyway, like I said before, I love the matte black finish and the fact that they're intentionally roughed up in some places:

Admittedly, I'm still adjusting to them. I like them, I do, but after not having barstools for 10 months, it's a little weird to have them. Does that make sense?

If you've got a keen eye, you may notice the similarities between the Arlo's and the extremely popular Tabouret barstool Overstock sells in about a bajillion colors:

[ Image via Overstock ]

The only difference I can see is that the Arlo's are missing the hole in the seat (one reason I preferred them over the Tabouret's), they're roughed up already so I won't melt down when they get their first scratch, and they have a matte finish instead of a glossy one. Other than that, they look identical to me!

What do you think of Arlo? Has it ever taken you 10+ months to buy something?

Desert Domicile's Day Off

2013-04-10T02:00:00.000-07:00

Like Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Get it? ;)

Anyway, I'm turning the big 2-8 today so I thought I'd take the day off of regular blogging to "treat myself" as Tom Haverford would say.

Since we're celebrating (you mean, you're not?), I thought I'd share some of the sites that have featured my little ol' blog lately:

Centsational Girl included our DIY $15 chunky wooden floating shelves in her "Best of DIY" section. Mind. Blown.

Jen @ IHeart Organizing also featured our shelves in her Monthly Organizing Challenge round-up for March:

Eighteen 25 featured our shelves in her Friday Five round-up:

Fabric Paper Glue gave a little shout out to my DIY agate coasters when she made a set of her own. You should definitely go check her coasters out when you get the chance because she includes a great source for buying agate slices :)

Deco Crush in France featured our DIY $18 console table back in February. I don't speak French but based on the two exclamation points, I'm assuming the mention is good? Let's hope it is anyway haha

I think that's all of them! Ah, warm fuzzies :)

It may sound cheesy but one of the best birthday gifts I can get is knowing that the rest of blogland enjoys our projects as much as we do!

That being said, I'm off to eat these delicious chocolate covered strawberries my man got me:

While trying to figure out the master Kreg Jig set (!!!) my mom got me:

[ Image via Lowe's ]

28 is looking good so far :)

Elliott Wingback Chair

2013-04-08T02:00:00.000-07:00

Happy Monday!

Ready to see which chair I chose for our loft? Let's go over the choices one last time:

Drum roll, please!

.
..
...
....
.....
......
.......
......
.....
....
...
..
.

I chose chair #3!

It's the Elliott Wingback chair (in caper) from World Market:

I'm in love with them and how they fit in with the rest of our loft:

Sidenote: would you add a console table under the 1207 art, a mantel-like shelf, or leave it as-is?

The olive green color is perfect and the chairs themselves are super comfortable:

Hi boys :)

I fell in love with the chairs back in November when I bought our dining room chairs (also from World Market!) but I couldn't afford to get them then.

After we added our DIY typographic art, I started to think about chair options and the Elliott's popped into my head. They're sold out online but I decided to call my local store to see if they had a pair and they did! I had them put them on hold for me until I could pick them up after work Thursday night and, well, the rest is history!

I love how the arms flair out a little bit at the ends:

Aside from adding our new chairs, I also hung our Federal mirror from our DIY pipe curtain rod:

And I updated our the styling on our DIY console table:

I didn't plan this but Chester, both Elliott chairs, and the camel ottoman have nailhead trim. Our military trunk coffee table also has studs/rivets on it which are kind of like tiny, baby nailheads :)

My boyfriend and I joked about placing a fake glass of scotch (we don't drink) and some fake cigars (we don't smoke) on the coffee table along with a monocle and an encyclopedia since our loft looks like an old man's lounge. I love it though! Maybe I was an old grandpa in a past life haha

We never used to hang out in here but I spent a lot of time lounging around reading on Chester over the weekend. More proof that I was a grandpa in a past life ;)

We still need to get a rug:

I'm thinking the oh-so-popular Alvine Ruta from IKEA:

Hopefully it'll look better than my Photoshopped version haha

UPDATE: We got the rug! Click here to check it out :)

We also need to replace the light fixture but we're almost done!

What do you think of the new chairs? Were they your choice?

Loft Chair Choices

2013-04-05T03:00:00.000-07:00

I casually mentioned the fact that we'd like to get two chairs for our loft on Wednesday:

You may remember the pair of black ones we had in there way back in September:

Those were temporary and only for photos since they're our desk chairs which means our loft has looked like this:

For quite some time:

Hello, no one...

I didn't think I'd find a set of chairs so fast but I happened to pick two up last night and they're PERFECT! Sorry for using all caps, I'm just really happy they worked out since our patio furniture didn't. I needed this win :)

Anyway, for some Friday fun, I threw together a quick little round-up of the chairs I had been looking at to see if you can guess which ones we got:

[ 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 ]

Good luck guessing! I'll be back on Monday with the reveal :)

Which chairs do you think I chose?

Patio Furniture Fail

2013-04-04T05:30:00.000-07:00

Our new patio furniture was delivered yesterday. You may have seen me Instagram a sneak peek of it while we were in the process of unboxing it:

Despite the fact that the local delivery company just left the massive box out on the curb without so much as a knock on the door, a ring of the doorbell, or a telephone call to let us know they were there, it felt like Christmas morning when I got home and saw that my boyfriend had dragged the 232 pound box into our courtyard. Thank God he's strong haha

It took us 45 minutes to get everything out of the box and freed from its packaging materials:

Everything was packaged very well and nothing arrived damaged, which was good:

Unfortunately, the "good" stopped there. We ended up re-packaging everything back up about an hour later:

We're returning it. Bye pretty cushions :(

After we moved everything from our front courtyard back to our back patio, we started to assemble the easiest piece first - the coffee table.

We were aligning the silver base to the wicker top getting ready to screw it in place when we realized that the holes were off - by 1 1/2". My worst nightmare came true. I wish I would have taken a picture of it but I was in the process of trying not to burst into tears or curse at the top of my lungs.

We tried rotating the base around but that didn't help. We loosely screwed the one side in and then pulled the skewed base over so we could get one of the screws in the other side just to see if we could make it work. We tightened everything down, flipped the table over and noticed that it wobbled like a plate of Jello. I composed myself enough to call Target and start the return process. Everything went surprisingly smooth and I'll be issued a full refund in a few weeks.

I honestly don't know what to do now. I'm so disappointed and frustrated and just generally sad. I really wanted this furniture to work out. I felt like it was our first big "grown up" purchase for the house and it failed. I wanted to have dinner outside on our patio last night but instead we spent the evening trying to Tetris the pieces back into their giant box so the local delivery company can come back on Friday to pick everything up.

Ugh, sorry for being a Debbie Downer. I just wanted to fill you guys in on what happened so you're not wondering about the lack of updates in a few weeks. Let's talk about chairs for our loft tomorrow, okay? See you then :)

DIY Large $7 Typographic Wall Art

2013-04-03T03:00:00.000-07:00

UPDATE: We finally got some chairs and a rug for our loft! Click those links to see them :)

I've said it before, and I'll say it again -- we need a lot of art for our house. Unfortunately, sometimes a lot of art can equal a lot of money and since I just became credit card debt free (finally!), I decided to make a few pieces over the weekend:

I chose a set of numbers that have meaning to me but you could always choose letters or symbols instead. Maybe your address, your child's birthday, or your anniversary? Or maybe the initials of family members? Pick whatever you'd like, there's no wrong answer!

You'll need the following supplies to make some art of your own:

• A cutting mat
• A ruler
• An X-acto knife (or something else to cut with)
• Your glue of choice (mine was rubber cement)
• Canvases (18" x 24") // Feel free to buy a smaller size :)
- I got 2, 2-packs of canvases at Michael's. They were originally $14.99/pack
but Michael's was having a buy one, get one 50% off sale so I paid $22.48 for both 2
packs.
• Black and white prints (18" x 24") // Adjust this size if you buy smaller canvases
- $1.65 each at Office Max, 4 x $1.65 = $6.60

TOTAL: $29.08 or $7.27 per canvas wall art

To start, I created an 18" x 24" document in Illustrator that I laid the numbers out in. I enlarged the numbers to 1200 pixels before outlining them so I could make them even larger:

I wanted the numbers to be placed 2" from the top and bottom of each canvas so I made sure they didn't go any higher/lower than that in Illustrator. I saved each number as a separate PDF, copied them to a USB drive, and then took them over to Office Max to have them printed on their black and white printer for $1.65 each.

If you don't have Illustrator, you could always create your numbers/letters/symbols in a Word document or even Paint Shop Pro. Just remember to make your document size the same size as your canvases so your prints don't end up too small/big!

I used my ruler and X-acto knife to cut a tiny bit on the inside of the number's edge so none of the white paper would show on the final cut out:

You're #1! ;)

Keep cutting everything out:

Until you're left with solo, background paper free numbers/letters/symbols:

If you want your canvases to have spacing at the top and bottom, measure that out before you start gluing things down.

Once you have that spacing marked, place a glue-free number/letter/symbol on the canvas and move it around until you have the right amount of spacing on the left and right hand sides. This spacing will differ from canvas to canvas depending on the width of the number/letter/symbol.

When all of your spacing has been determined, start gluing things down with your glue of choice:

I chose to use rubber cement because it's pretty much all we used in college and I'm comfortable using it. It's also very flexible and gives you plenty of time to make adjustments before it starts to dry:

If you decide to use rubber cement too and happen to get some excess glue on your canvas outside of your paper print, don't worry, it's easy to fix!

Let the rubber cement dry a little bit and then gently rub your finger across the glue spot. The rubber cement will start to ball up so you can wipe it away, kind of like this:

Repeat the same process until your canvas is rubber cement free!

After you've glued all of your numbers/letters/symbols to your canvases, hang them up and photograph them for your blog! ;)

I hung ours in our loft:

The numbers ended up being a little wrinkly:

But it doesn't bother me too much! I just say they have character :)

The canvases help fill the big blank wall space and look better than the single mirror we had hanging there before:

Wouldn't you agree?

I flanked the canvases with two new candle sconces I got at HomeGoods over the weekend:

They were only $15 each and their brassy/gold color looks great against the navy:

We're planning on adding a slim console table below the art:

We'd also like to add some chairs, a rug, a new light fixture and maybe some additional art for the other walls in the room. Hopefully that'll all happen soon! Until then, we're enjoying our new art :)

What do you think of the art? Not too bad for a little more than $7 each, huh?!

I'm sharing this project on House of Hepworths!

DIY Wood Monogram Letter

2013-04-01T03:00:00.000-07:00

Happy Monday! How was your Easter weekend? Get anything good from the Easter bunny? I hope so :)

If you stopped by on Friday, you probably saw the updates we made to our front patio:

They included a large wooden "M" monogram that we DIY'd:

We made it out of 4, 1/2" x 3" x 24" pieces of craft wood:

We got them from Lowe's for another project that didn't end up working out. They were in the aisle by the nicer, more expensive pieces of oak and poplar. Here's the barcode if you need a reference:

We kept two of the pieces 24" long for the legs and cut the other two pieces down to 16" for the M's "V". We made 45 degree miter cuts on each end of the 16" pieces:

Before we connected the pieces, we did a test fit of the them to make sure the M's "V" was low enough and to make sure we liked the overall size of the letter:

After we gave it the thumbs up, we stapled the M's "V" to the legs:

Sidenote: if you have a Kreg Jig, use it to attach the pieces instead. We don't have one and I was rushing to finish this project so I grabbed my staple gun. If you can think of one, feel free to use a better, more effective attachment method instead :)

Anyway, we stapled both sides of the M because stapling one side wasn't stable enough:

I hammered the staples down into the wood and filled the gaps and hammer divets with wood filler:

Then I sanded everything down, spray painted it white and let it dry. The next night I attached two eye-hooks into the top of the M's "legs":

We threaded some 3/8" twisted manila rope through one eye hook and tied a knot in the end. Then we took the M outside, looped the rope over our outdoor light, and marked where we needed to cut it. After it was cut, we threaded it through the other eye hook and tied another knot.

The next morning, we draped the finished monogram over our light, stepped back and admired our work :)

The best thing about draping it over our light is that we can easily run out and take it down to bring it inside during monsoon season so it doesn't slam against our house or go flying off into our neighbor's yard:

I love the textured rope we used:

And how the monogram looks with the rest of our updates:

What do you think of our M? Will you be building a letter of your own?

Tenfore

2013-03-31T06:00:00.000-07:00

We're celebrating the 10th monthiversary in our new house today! 10. Months. Can you believe it?! I sure can't! I know I'm shocked every month this date rolls around but it seriously still feels like we just moved in last week. Time really does fly when you're having fun!

If you're new here, a monthiversary is where I recap all of the projects I've done around our house in the past month. This month's projects included:

• Our DIY'd $18 giant frame

• The second version of our dining room

• The great ceiling fan debate

• A weekend recap

• Gallery wall art options

• Google Reader changes

• Back patio plans complete with new furniture!

• Our framed vintage Alaska photos

• Our DIY'd gold leaf wood slice coat hangers

…and last but not least!

• Our front patio updates

I'll admit that the month started out pretty slow and I was in a bit of a rut but I feel like I finished strong! I don't want to jinx anything but I've been feeling pretty creative lately and have some fun projects lined up for the future :)

What was your favorite project this month? What would you like to see me do next month?