We Built A Wall Of Curtains

For me, windows are like the eyes of a room. 

Memphis agrees.

Although, he's working with a pretty nice set au natural. Lucky duck. 

For the rest of us mere mortals, here's what I have to say about eyes. While I like my eyes just fine, there are few things that make me look in the mirror with a slightly more appreciative glance than a good coat of mascara (or two) (or three). Look, ladies, you know what I'm talking about. Even when you're running late. Even when your hair isn't exactly done. You slap on a little mascara and, all of a sudden, you look more awake, more pulled together, and you feel a little more ready to take on this day!

Good window coverings, I feel, do that for a room. Even if the room is unfinished, sparse on details or in desperate need of some art above the bed (no, I'm not speaking directly to myself here. yes I am.), a great window dressing does a room a world of good. 

That's what I'm talking about today. 

You see our master bedroom has two, almost floor to ceiling height, windows on the far wall. Below is a poor picture but you can see the one window and the start of the other on the far left side. 

For the longest time I had two white, floor-length curtains. They just covered the windows and left the walls on either side and in the middle looking a little bare. For a while I contemplated hanging art, but the spaces were too small and any fix seemed a little kitschy.

So, I decided to create a wall of curtains.

Our house is neutral in almost every way. So, when planning for these curtains, I wanted to make sure I infused the room with a healthy pop of color. I may or may not be allergic to color. By may I mean I'm not. Wait. That doesn't make sense.

What I'm trying to say is that making bold color choices in our home is difficult for me. I want to, but I'm not sure how. These curtains were my first foray into a bolder color palette in our bedroom. I was nervous. But, with great fear and trepidation, I pressed on and chose a fabric and color.

The result? I couldn't be more pleased! The fabric has the most beautiful cross-hatched pattern. I love the subtle detail. The color itself is a muted, yet still deeply saturated (in a way) aqua. It goes well with our wall color and trim. And, at this point, I wasn't wanting to paint the house. So, picking a color that works well with the existing wall and trim was a must.

Here it is when the light shines through.

This was definitely an at-home job. And, while I was home-schooled, and while part of that educational process did include regular sewing lessons...I opted out with these babies and did the ol' iron on hem and clip on curtain loops method. Worked like a charm. My mom was there, and helped me out from start to finish. With both sets of eyes, and opinions, I feel like we got the clips and lengths decently balanced and symmetrical. 

Here is the view straight on, when you walk into the bedroom. You can see how the curtains do a great job of covering that unused wall space, while highlighting the windows. Mascara people! Mascara. 

We don't have high ceilings, so hanging curtains high and wide tends to do wonders for making the space feel larger while helping to create the illusion of height in the room.

Here is a view from the opposite side of the room (entering the room from the attached bathroom). I like how the curtains take up the wall space, so I'm not left with any decorating decisions to make. The curtains are statement enough.

So there you have it. We built a wall of curtains. And now, my bedroom gets a slightly more appreciative glance from me as I walk by. Because even though its lacking some finishing details, its got its mascara on.

And that, as we ladies know, is sometimes all it takes ;)

Our Ana White Farmhouse Bed

We built a bed! Even a year or so ago, I honestly never thought I'd hear those words come out of my mouth. I'm not the handiest of people, but I do have a new found tenacity when it comes to DIY'ing a little love into this sweet home of ours. And that's what got this ball rolling...tenacity...and a whole lot of blog surfing....and a willing husband who rarely questions my crazy ideas :)

As previously mentioned, I got the idea for this bed here, and the plans here. With our optimism and energy levels high, and our experience levels low we set out to build ourselves a bed! Unfortunately, I failed to take an adequate amount of pictures... lesson learned. will do better next time.

And speaking of lessons, here's another.

There's no way you won't look creepy smiling for the camera while wearing a sanding respirator mask.... See Exhibit A & B.

Exhibit A

Exhibit B

Lesson learned. the hard way. Now the only face shot photos we have of us sanding our lovely bed are slightly creepy. Turns out Tyra's whole 'smizing' phenomenon really doesn't work when you can't see your mouth. Like...our eyes are smiling, but that's not helping much in these pictures now is it?

Anyway, on to the bed building. Cutting the wood and assembling the the bed was pretty straight forward according to the bed building instructions. But, in addition to those instructions, we did a couple custom changes to our bed that we're super happy about.

1. We softened all the edges on all the wood we used. This was my job.  I just sanded all of the corners and edges on any pieces of wood that would be visible.  It wasn't always even and I was cool with that.  I was going for rustic.

2. We made the molding on the top of the footboard and headboard angled and a bit more ornate than the plans asked for.  I think this step helped make the bed more custom looking and a little less 'straight outta the lumber yard' looking.

3. A couple other changes that won't make any sense without pictures, so you'll just have to trust me :)

After assembly, there was a whole lot of sanding that happened. Sand, sand, sand...'til I couldn't sand anymore. 

Note: we dressed up and did our hair for these photos. I'm thinking of even including a few of these photos in my glamour shots folder. This is grade A class right here.

After we sanded until our hands and arms were numb, we cleaned the whole bed frame off with a damp rag and were left with a bed ready for staining and painting.

To finish the bed, we opted for a slightly unconventional finish. You see, I wanted to paint the bed white, but for the edges and corners to be scuffed up a bit. I was going for a reclaimed, beach house/Cape Cod kind of feel with the finish.  So, while I have seen some people paint, then sand, stain and remove to create this look, we did the opposite.  We stained the wood first.

In doing this, we definitely ran the risk of the stain bleeding through the paint. We were willing to take that chance though, as a little yellowing of the while paint, in my opinion wouldn't hurt the rustic feel we were going for.

We chose 'Dark Walnut' for the stain, because it was nice and dark and we figured it would contrast nicely with the white and show better when we scuffed up the white paint and exposed it. Luckily this worked. This was all very 'trial and error'.

Finally, we started painting. This was totally my job.  By this point, Ryan had definitely pulled his weight and more by cutting, assembling and helping sand the entire piece. It was my turn to finish this puppy up.

He was there though, to capture my super vogue outfit and perfectly styled hair. For that, I am so grateful.

For this step, I just painted one coat of primer and one coat of white paint.

I left the whole thing a little streaky and I like it that way. Again, I feel like it gives off that Cape Cod/beachy/reclaimed feel I was going for.

After the paint was applied, I took some fine grit sand paper and started scuffing away. At first it was scary, but after a few scuffs, I was addicted. The more I roughed up the corners and the edges, the more authentic the bed started to look. And, after all that, I sealed the bed up with a coat of Verathane.

In the end, I'm really happy with how everything turned out. This bed is rock solid, totally us, and only cost about $200 in materials to build! 

Hello. My name is Carli, and I'm addicted to DIY.

Dear Ikea:

I've found someone else. no, don't worry...it's me. not you.  Look, we had a good thing going, and in many parts of the house, we still do.  I have a feeling your ikea-y goodness is going to linger in my life for some time.  I can't lie and say that I'll never want you back.  You're great.  It's just that, a little something called DIY walked into my life recently, and well, let's just say that relationship is progressing quickly.

Signed,

Delightedly DIY'd in Duluth

i don't actually live in Duluth, but it sounded so great I had to sign it. i'm a sucker for alliteration.  must have been all those homeschooling vocab classes.

But seriously, Ryan and I have had the same bed since we got married over 6 years ago! I never really loved the color, so I'm not entirely sure why we bought it.  Looking back, I do remember having to work around our very old, first home that was aesthetically lacking to say the least.  We tried to fill the old home with new, modern and under-detailed furniture items in an attempt to make the home itself more us.  So, I guess I could say that for those years, it served a purpose.

But then, when we purchased our new home, it just sat like a sad, sad eyesore in the middle of a too-big room.  Look how sad...

I debated for some time over how we would replace it.  I saw so many beautiful beds that enticed me, but cost-wise just weren't in the cards.  Enter blogspiration! This is similar to the pinspiration you get from trolling pinterest...just from other people blogs.  Anyhoo, I was totally inspired by a bed I saw here.   From there, we got the instructions here and decided to start our first big foray into the world of DIY!

I'm so happy with the end result! All these years I've followed amazing blogs that have chronicled other people DIYing to their hearts content, but I never really thought I could do it myself.  Well...turns out anything is possible.  (Disclaimer: I contributed about 9.376% of the handiness and actual hard labour this project took to finish.  Ryan definitely deserves the major credit here. My main role was the sanding, staining, painting and distressing...which I'll explain in more detail in a different post.)

Anyway, there you have it.... our first big DIY attempt.  Turns out, the whole thing was just so darn awesome, we'll be DIYing a lot around here.