Showing posts with label bedroom. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bedroom. Show all posts

19 October 2011

Pinboard

I'm back from my blogging break. I've had some hard days but feel a lot better right now and am excited to tackle some projects. We've been so busy with the school holidays and my birthday, but today we just stayed home for some down time.

Here's one of the things I've been working on lately.

I wanted to get a big pinboard for Daniel's room and my lovely friend R very kindly gave me this piece of softboard which was just perfect (thank you, R!):

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Although it was painted white on one side ...

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... it wasn't pretty enough to hang just like that and I needed to cover it with fabric.

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I scratched through my stash and found two pieces of black and a piece of white polycotton that would do the trick. I simply stretched the fabric over the board and stapled it at the back:

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I thought about how to hang it and eventually decided on some clean-release velcro strips that I had already. Because the softboard is porous the strips wouldn't stick without a little help - I hammered in some heavy-duty staples. They were originally too long and would have poked out the other side but I snipped them a little shorter with wire cutters.

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Here are the corresponding strips on the wall above Daniel's bed:

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And here is the finished product - a place for him to personalise his room and display little goodies that are important to him.

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Check back tomorrow for the reveal of a project that is a collaboration between Daniel and me - I'm super excited about it and love how it turned out!


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18 September 2011

Ring storage

A ceramic dish and risotto rice - voila, ring storage.

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9 September 2011

Divider

It's so handy having all this cardboard. What have I made this time, you might ask?

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Ta-da, it's a drawer divider.

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Pyjama tops on the left, bottoms on the right. And no, they don't need to be folded. I need to make it as easy as possible for Noah to put his pyjamas away.

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2 September 2011

DIY headboard from cabinet doors

We didn't bring the headboard from our last home to NZ with us. It was just some cabinet doors fastened together. I regret it as I did like it and it would have been simple to bring them over.



So we had no headboard BUT instead of bringing over the brown cabinet doors / headboard, we randomly brought over four white ones that we'd never used since our cabinets fell off the wall...?!? I will never understand.

Anyhoo, it occurred to me the other day that I could whip up another headboard out of them. I didn't rush out to do that right away as it required some wood strips for the back and I had other things to squeeze into our tight budget.

Then my friend R got hold of some pallets for some projects that she had in mind, and generously gave one to me. Yay, free wood! So today I set out to make a headboard, not only to finish off the bed but to protect the paint on the wall.

I laid the cabinet doors face down and lined them up against a wall and screwed two strips of wood to the back:

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Our last headboard was hung from screws into the wall. We can't screw into the walls here so I decided to make legs for the headboard to stand on, wedged between the wall and the bed. After measuring the correct length I screwed two more strips of wood onto the back of the doors:

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After applying some felt pads ...

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... it was time to "install" the headboard. Getting it here and into this position was ... let's say comedic. Dang, that thing is heavy!!

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Ta da! Here is our new headboard. Totally free (thank you R!) and made all by myself. It was quick and easy (the hardest part was moving it into position) but I feel inordinately proud of myself. Please excuse the ancient duvet cover, my pretty white one is in the wash. And I love you but I don't iron bed linens for anyone.

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13 August 2011

Road artwork

Months and months ago, back in England, I spent some time on Pinterest and saw this artwork from Not On The High Street:

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I loved the idea and wanted to do something similar for Noah's room, but I knew right away I didn't want a framed piece - I wanted a big road to stick directly to his wall.

This was way back before we emigrated, or even knew when we would be leaving. Still, I knew I'd eventually make it, and I went and bought the tiny cars.

Finally we got to NZ, our stuff arrived and I'd unpacked my glue gun and craft mat and other odds and ends and I was ready to make Noah's road art.

I had planned to make it out of wood but then I realised I have a garage full of double-wall cardboard boxes that I could use.

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I cut a side of a box and decided how wide I wanted the road to be, then drew a big N on the cardboard.

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I used a metal ruler and craft blade to cut it out (thank goodness his initial has straight lines and isn't something like S or B!)

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Uh oh, those edges don't look too great:

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Nothing a little masking tape can't fix.

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How it looked from the front:

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And the back:

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(I do want to mention here that although the paint seems to have helped the masking tape to stay stuck on the front, the tape started lifting at the back. I simply taped it down with regular clear tape.)

Okay, next step - paint it black with acrylic paint. My preferred method is to use a small brush to do the sides and a cheap (new) kitchen sponge to swipe the paint onto the front.

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Painted and waiting to dry. I always stand painted items on food cans, it helps keep the edges from getting stuck onto the paper beneath.

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While the paint dried I took a sheet of small white labels ...

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... and cut 5mm strips.

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This created little rectangles that I could stick on the road to make the central lines:

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I measured the centre of the road, made little marks with a pen and then used a bag clip to space the lines from each other, while I lined the sticker up with the centre and stuck it down.

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Ta-da, a complete road. All it needed was some cars.

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The cars were from B&M and were 99p for a 4-pack. They are so cute!

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After deciding where each car would be placed on the road I put a blob of hot glue underneath ...

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... then stuck them onto the road.

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And here is the finished road! Actually it's changed since this picture was taken: Noah pointed out that the centre silver car was going the wrong direction (oops!) so I've corrected that; and he was obsessed with the yellow car so I switched it with another that he had in his collection.

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Now all I have to do it hang it on his wall with these little clean release velcro strips.

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12 August 2011

House full of stuff

As promised here are pictures of how the house is looking. Our stuff arrived exactly a week ago today and it's all in, furniture built and pretty much organised except for a few drawers and I still need to dress the bookcases in the living room.

(Click here for the pictures of the house before our goodies arrived, in case you missed them or want to compare.)

Okay, looking into the entrance hallway from the front door. And yes, I crouched right down so you wouldn't see me in the mirror. We can't hang the mirror because we are renting (boo!) so it's just leaning against the wall with a clean release velcro strip at the top to keep it from being tipped over.

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Ta da! We have furniture!

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I love and adore our new chairs! We bought them from Ikea before we left England and shipped them over in their original packaging. I plan to paint the legs of the table white. I won't bother with the top as it's scratched and scarred laminate - I don't want to have to be "precious" about it. I'll just cover it with a tablecloth for guests.

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We also bought three Expedit bookcases from Ikea before coming over - specifically for my photo albums.

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I need to buy a pot for the beautiful plant Nic gave me.

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I really really really can't wait to paint the side tables white!!

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This is where I'm blogging from. The rug is to protect the carpet from the chair scraping back and forth. We got it for super cheap at The Warehouse - marked down from $140 to $32. Score!

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Opposite the desk. The cupboard holds all of my photography equipment. The Ikea chair with shiatsu massage thingie on is a great spot to relax.

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The Expedit holds boxes filled with envelopes and cards, nail polish and sewing goodies. The vintage scale is a photography prop. The big black file on the left holds all of my backup DVDs, personal photo DVDs, home movies and software CDs.

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Daniel's room. He has a double bed and Noah has bunk beds so when we have guests we can just put the boys together and the guests can have their own room.

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I need to put the door on the cabinet (which used to live in the bathroom in our old house) - I was supposed to put it on in the beginning but only realised that when I'd finished building it and I couldn't be bothered to take the whole cabinet apart, put the door in and rebuild it.

Daniel and I have plans for a funky duvet cover project - coming soon.

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How I've organised his closet. Although he can reach the top rail I decided to use a shorter rail so I have place to hang my tablecloths, runners and placemats above it, as well as my skirts (on the right).

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Noah's room.

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Full tutorial and details on the N road artwork coming soon! And I need to hang it.

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I removed the ladder because the top bunk isn't used. If the boys want to use it, I'll put it in the middle of the bed and they will just climb over the rail. There is room for it where it's supposed to go (on the right) if I scoot the bookcase over to the right, but because the bookcase isn't fastened to the wall I am worried about it getting bumped over.

All of Noah's toys are under his bed in plastic boxes.

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His closet. He can't reach the top hanging rail so using a portable one was a necessity. The top rail holds Noah's and Daniel's church clothes and to the right are my dresses. The boxes on the top shelf hold his pirate ship set, swimming goodies and puzzles.

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Our bedroom. Left hand door is closet, right hand door is bathroom.

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Tight squeeze - the door can't open all the way, but it's okay. We need a headboard and I need to iron the bed skirt. Grant and I have swapped sides of the bed. He gets cold at night and I get hot, so I'm now next to the sliding doors which is the colder side of the room.

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You may have noticed the tall cabinet in the first photo of our room. It was formerly my craft cabinet (click here and here for details). The beauty of having white furniture throughout our house is that any piece can go into any room and still match.

It has now been promoted to The Keeper of The Preciouses, otherwise known as the cabinet that houses my shoe collection. I plan to paint the inside of the doors a fun colour.

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So! That's our house. Thanks for taking the tour with me.


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