Out of the Closet

I took the doors off the closet to refinish them and I had two very alarming thoughts.



1. That is one messy closet. It's going to be a few days before the door get put back on so maybe now is a good time to clean it out.



(That tis but a fraction of the shoes I own.)

2. Wow, that is one little (but now very unmessy) closet. Who in their right minds would make a master bedroom's closet that freaking small? Oh wait, people in the 1960s, that's who. Because forty years ago Americans weren't the giant clothes whores they all are now. At one time that was adequate wardrobe space for two adults.

As a result of refinishing my closet doors, I ended up purging three or four big bags of clothes I decided I no longer need. Lucky for me and my tiny closet, one of the side effects of being a broke homeowner on the verge of late-twenties is that I've aged past the point of wearing half the crap I bought when I was 20 and I'm too poor to go out and buy new stuff. Look at all that spare closet spare!

Tips: Removing Paint From Windows

I spent yesterday afternoon helping my dad fix our basement door. We (or he rather) got the threshold down and changed the lock and bolt set on the door. That only took a measly four hours! Today he's coming back to help install the new storm door.

Also included in the running list of "Why The Hell Would Anyone Do That?" house repairs is scraping the paint off the door's windows. The old owners painted the doors, the door knobs, the stripped screws, the keys to the door... Why? Seriously, why do people paint over windows? I know the obvious answer is "So people can't see inside," but that's not the answer I'm looking for. The answer is, "Because they're lazy." Only lazy people paint over windows.

Curtains or contact paper folks. It's as simple as that.

Obviously, the painted windows have to go. There are three small windows and I've got the paint scraped off one of them so far. It took me maybe 20-30 minutes. It was pretty easy. Obviously, it will scrape off with a razor blade, but the real trick is to spray it with Windex as you scrape. It will soften the latex a little bit and make it peel easier.

Gotta get back to those windows! Up next is scraping the paint off the garage windows... Fun!

My Chairs - With a Quick Tutorial

I have been working and working and working on these stupid chairs for weeks. I had grand plans of doing a really awesome tutorial about refinishing chairs (because you obviously can't figure it out on your own). But, plans sometimes change...

I started out with this. Or rather "these." There are two of them.



I took the frames and sanded, primed and spray painted them. Easy enough...



...and then noticed that, gee, the seats are metal too.



It's kind of hard to staple fabric onto a metal chair seat. I spent a couple weeks contemplating it before I decided that heavy-duty industrial adhesives were the answer. I bought a sheet of quilt batting and adhered it to three sides of the seat. Then I frankensteined an old cushion into filling for a new one.



And glued the fourth side down.



Then stretched my fabric over the new seat and cushion I made.



Wow! How great do those look!



Oh, but wait. One small problem. I can't screw the seat back onto the frame. The fabric is stretched over the groove that needs to be touching the frame. If I try to screw it on, the fabric is going to rip. So, right now the seat is just perched there on top of the chair. I wouldn't recommend sitting on it, but doesn't it look nice?



Remember how there are two chairs? Here's what became of chair number two:



DUH! A freaking chair cushion! The obvious (and easy) solution from the beginning. I could have just put a damn chair cushion on it and been done with it. This one just happens to match everything in the house. Imagine that. It even unintentionally matched the paint on the chair. It was kismet, me and that cushion.

In summary, here is how my tutorial for refinishing chairs goes:

1. Take the seat off the frame and paint the frame.
2. Put the seat back on the frame and slap a cushion on it.
3. Go have a beer because you're done.

And Here We Go!

Has everyone been entering for their chance to win HGTV's 2009 Green Home? If I win, I promise to let everyone come visit.

It's funny that I was talking about redoing our bedroom because Matt came up to me the other day and said he thinks we need to work on it. I took that as him giving me his consent to spend our money on things. So I went out and bought these. We want to lighten up the room (you paint one wall of a tiny room chocolate brown and the room suddenly shrinks in size - who knew) and make it look more open so I bought the Dune color. I thought those curtains were a steal. I saw them in the store and the quality is impressive for the price. In store they were $29.99 a panel so I ordered them off the website for $22.99 and got an extra 15% off the sale price. I ended up paying $99 after shipping. I didn't think that was bad for curtains.

And yes, I know that I'm supposed to be anti spending money right now, but give me a break. Sometimes a girl just needs to shop for curtains. I was going to alter the ones we have, but I want the room to look luxurious and grownup. My crafting skills do not embody those two adjectives. Plus, I want the room to have style. I'm finding that hard to do since I really have none. I've been looking around at some websites and I think I want to go for a sort of loose interpretation of "mid-century modern" with really clean lines and geometric shapes. We'll see how far I get with that before I get all "polka dots and stripes WHEE!" on this project.

Check out this Mid-Century Modern group on Flickr. There is some awesome stuff in there. Obviously, since I have no knowledge of interior design history, our bedroom might end up looking nothing like those pictures and could be better described by some other decorating period. What came after mid-century modern? Later-century modern? Pre-acid-trip mod? I don't know...

From My Inbox to You

I was ranting the other day about not being able to find practical and cost effective ideas to use around the house. Here are a couple of things I've found that have a few good budget friendly tips. Bonus points for these also being "green" ideas.

I somehow got signed up for an email newsletter from DIY Network a few weeks ago. I've actually started reading it now and it's pretty cool. It's full of DIY tips (obviously), green products, budget friendly ideas, and on and on. It's great to click through their site and find all kinds of easy and cheap tips for around the house.

From DIY Network I found Ecologue. Ecologue is where I am going to spend the majority of my afternoon I'm afraid. It looks like most of the articles are compiled from other sources like HGTV and DIY network. It's great that everything is all in one place where it's easy to find and reference. Right now I'm loving Going Compostal! I've always wanted to start a compost pile.

Check out their Crafty Recycling tips. There are a few really cute decorating ideas in there for little money. I really like the tips for reusing cans in Can the Clutter but I think I would give my husband a nervous breakdown if I put any of that stuff in our house. His biggest phobia is cutting himself on the edge of a cut can. I would have to buy one of these.

My Issue With Home Decorating Recources

I love to read home decorating blogs but I'm becoming increasingly annoyed with them. First off, home bloggers and magazine editors must think that everyone lives in an architecturally stunning home. I do not have twelve foot ceilings. I do not have 100 year old wood floors. I to not have a patio that overlooks hills and mountains, nor do I have columns or archways.

I have this:




This is a home. This is what the vast majority of Americans live in. Houses. Average, everyday, affordable to the other 95% of us, houses. Of course I wish I was living in something Frank Lloyd Wright designed or a townhouse on Park Avenue, but let's get real. I'm 25, recently married, and a first-time home owner. I do not have the resources to afford such a home.

This lady knows what I'm talking about.

Which brings me to my second issue. Money. I want to have a great, personal looking house but I don't want to spend thousands of dollars on furnishings. If I had thousands of dollars to spend I'd make major home renovations, not buy some crazy ass sofa that my dog or morning coffee spills are going to ruin. I love good deals and cheap crap. I think it's possible to make a lovely home with next to no budget but it's hard to find the resources sometimes. And yes, that $300 lamp on sale for $99 might be a steal, but it's still $99. I want to make my own lamp with fabric scraps and $4 in supplies. But I need someone to show me how!!!

You know one person who really gets what I'm talking about? Martha Stewart. Martha gets it sometimes. I just read on her website how to create a faux wood looking table using paint and some weird roller brush. YES! Cheap! Awesome! Creative! Leave it to one of the richest women in the world to show us how to pinch pennies in style.

That's why she's Martha.

I'm trying to come up with some of my own ideas and plans for cheapo home decorating. I bought all the furniture and big stuff I can afford and now I want to make the room look full and cheery and personal without spending an arm and a leg that I don't currently have. This is a recession people. And I am certainly recessing with the frivolous spending in my life. Starting with this. I will not buy that. Even though it's on sale for $199, it's still $199. Maybe Martha can show me how to weave my own peace sign rug with old unraveled sweaters.

Update On the Living Room

We (I) started working on fixing up our living room back in September. This is what we started with...



We rearranged it a couple of times...



And this is where we're at right now.





If I had more money I would continue to fill the room with furniture.

I. Love. Furniture.

I think the room still needs more texture too. Another rug, maybe some wallpaper... It just needs more. The room is really open so I kind of throws me off. An interior decorator I never claimed to be.

It feels like our home though. It's definitely a room that looks like Matt and Christine live in.

Upholstery Predicament II

I posted a couple weeks ago about a pair of chairs that I'm trying to recover. Here's a couple pictures of the bottom of the seats to better illustrate the issues I'm having with attaching the fabric.

Any advice will definitely be welcome!

Upholstery Predicament

I have a bit of a problem regarding a chair seat I'm trying to recover. I have these two awesome aluminum kitchen chairs, kind of like these but mine cost a whopping $2 apiece at a garage sale. Mine though have a detachable seat which is covered in a nasty red vinyl that has paint stains on it. I've been meaning to recover them and after five years of owning the chairs, I finally got around to it. I bought all the materials to rewrap the seats, took the first chair apart, and then realized that the chair seat is made out of some type of space age indestructible plastic and I can't use my upholstery stapler on it.

What do I do? How do you reupholster a seat if you can't staple or nail into it? The red vinyl is held on by little tabs that were cut into the chair seat and then the material was shoved under the tabs. Sort of like the back of a picture frame. (Did I mention that I'm terrible at describing things???) I don't think I can get my new materials under there with it because the tabs don't bend.

What to do.... any suggestions?

Domesticated Ladies

I got the urge to bake cookies last night, but I was halted by the thought of, "I don't want to go to the store to buy the ingredients. It's cold outside." Then I went back to watching DVR... then I thought about cookies some more... then I checked the kitchen. Sure enough, all the delicious items required to bake cookies were stocked in the pantry.

And I realized: I have become one of those women. I became a woman who always makes sure there's brown sugar and crisco in the pantry in the event of emergency baking. I am officially domesticated!

But I'm still a woman who keeps a bottle of Jack in the freezer. Some things never change.