Category Archives: design

art, design, diy, girly, home, home decor

childhood home takeover vol.1

Bedroom Before and After

bedroom before and after

This past June I packed up my beloved Redondo condo and moved to my childhood home in Torrance.  It’s hard to believe that a single (then 31-year-old) gal could need more space than the condo provided but when your hobbies require table saws and things of that nature you quickly start feeling cramped in a 900 square foot dwelling.  I now have a 4 bedroom home to play with…oh the possibilities! I have so so many ideas and plans…where to begin?  I made the obvious choice. The bedroom.  First, I had to decide which room I was going to sleep in.  You would think that the master would be a no brainer…but did I mention I have a lot of craft supplies??  I opted to make the master my office/work space and take my brothers childhood room as my own.  It’s west facing so it receives great light.  It’s actually been occupied by guests for the past umpteen years, so don’t be alarmed when you see floral wallpaper border…not that there’s anything wrong with that lol.  My mom was way into wallpaper, as you’ll see in many of my “before” pics.  It’s actually a skill I’m rather grateful she has…I love me some wallpaper as well…it’s back guys!

Here’s what I was working with

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You’re looking at 30 year old carpet…yikes.

Step One: Strip the carpet, remove baseboards, and patch holes.

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Step Two: Remove wallpaper.

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Step Three: Pick out wall color.  This is the hardest part! I mean…look at all the options!

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Picking paint is tricky…it never looks like the sample, it’s always way darker on the wall than it is on the little paint chip…when it’s covering a large area it can be overwhelming.  I’ve learned this lesson the hard way! I would usually sample a bunch of colors on the wall and see which works best with the flooring/furniture but in this case, the walls were my jumping off point.  I had a blue sheet that was exactly the color I wanted.  I hung it on the wall for a while to make sure I liked it with the natural lighting in the room.  Once I decided to pull the trigger I brought the sheet to Lowes with me and matched it to the samples.  I found a perfect match! Olympic B56-4 Aqua Blue.

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Lucky me…I have the most helpful friends! Jess came over and helped me paint!

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Step Four: Laying the wood flooring. Boy…I thought picking paint was hard…installing flooring is worse! I think my body ached for two weeks after this process!

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Step Five: Baseboards and decorative mouldings. I picked the baseboards I wanted and found that they offered them in a contractors pack…it saves money to buy it that way!  They have the pack in both 8 and 12 feet but I opted for the 12 so I would have less cuts/seams…downside was I had to drive with them hanging out of the back of my car!

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You wouldn’t believe the impact new baseboards make….look at the before and after!

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In addition to the baseboards I wanted to add decorative mouldings to the wall.  For very little money, it adds a sophistication to the room.  I needed a miter saw and nail gun for this project.

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Step Six: Furniture

I’m using most of my existing furniture from the condo.

Bed: custom from The American Iron Bed Company

Bedding: Pottery Barn

Bedside Table: Home Goods

Bedside lamp: Home Goods

Reading chair: Home Goods

Ottoman: Target

Reading Lamp: Ikea

Desk Chair: Ikea

Desk and Chest: I got these from a furniture builder in Redondo Beach who has since gone out of business.  They were both white (shabby chic). The desk was painted green and I painted the chest and orangy/red…Sunset Skyline to be exact (from Lowes)

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 Step Seven: Decorating! The best part. Here are a few details that went into the room.

Curtains: They are actually shower curtains from Anthropologie…I had a 20% off coupon.  Using shower curtains saved a lot of money, window coverings can get really expensive!

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Rug: Ikea

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Lanterns: Anthropologie…Clearance! $148 down to $34.95!!

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Antlers: DIY…I got these at the Rose Bowl Flea Market and covered them with fabric.

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Books: Ebay

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Vases: Anthropologie (Christmas present from my Best Friend Kelly)

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Prints: Moonrise Kingdom Sam and Suzy Prints from Etsy (Christmas Present from my BFF Andy)

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Finished Product

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Ooh La Loo!

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Antiques, crafts, design, diy, girly, home, home decor, Style

If I was famous and had a “life and style” magazine segment…

I’m going to be saying goodbye to my recondo (Redondo Beach Condo); which I have called home for the past 5 years.  I’ve had a blast putting my touch on every wall and I’m sad to say goodbye.  Before selling, I asked my little sister Chanie (Amie…not related…but the closest thing I have to a little sis) to take some pics of the place, just so I could have them.  She captured it perfectly and I’m in love with the images.  She also got some of me and Tawnie…my 9 year old Yorkie (who I bought with my first paycheck as a teacher)!  There were about 422….but here are just a few.

First is my living room.  I spent about 16 hours painting that chevron wall….well really the most time consuming part was the taping!

living room collage

living room collage 2

One of the best parts about living in Redondo is the proximity to the pier…I loved throwing Tawn in the back of my bike and riding at the beach.  She loved it too!

bike

I bought these hanging globes from CB2 and made these terrariums using air plants…super low maintenance!

corner nook collage

I was really into the Chevron trend for a while…as you can see!  This wall was super fun.  What was not fun was when a plumber knocked on my door and said there was a leak behind my shower and had to cut out a 10×20 inch chunk out of my hard work….and then proceeded to LEAVE THE HOLE.  Thank God for my rent-a-husband Danny who came in and patched the drywall.  Don’t know what I would do without the Richards family…..they take care of me for sure.  I never did get around to repainting that spot…

bathroom collage

The composition of the pic is fun.

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I love the dining area.  Those are three mirror doors that slide and conceal a large storage closet.  I painted them with gray chalkboard paint and covered the center with paper wall tiles.  Super easy to install!  One of my favorite pieces in the house is the chandelier I fashioned using vintage cage lamps and light coverings found at a flea market.

dining room room collage

And last…here’s my bedroom/craft room.

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bedroom collage 1

desk collage

jars

record-wall

sideboard collage

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crafts, design, diy, home, home decor

highlight your favorite things!

 I made a marquee y’all!

17-marquee final product

I’ve been wanting to buy a marquee for a long time and have seen many takes on the retro sign decor idea. I love the use of upcycled letters from signs…take a look at the los vegas neon museum here…or google “las vegas sign graveyard.” AMAZING right? Anywhoo…those are really really big and even more really expensive. Go onto etsy and you’ll find that a single letter will run you about $100. That ish cray. Coming from a girl with a “I can do that” mentality I decided to try to do it myself. The question was…how can I make this happen on a budget? I saught out alternative options such as this option where the JunkArtGypsyz use 16″ laser cut wood and install lights or this option from one of my favorite blogs with pre-made 12″ cardboard letters. The wood and cardboard letters are accessible at the craft store but I really had my heart set on metal letters. I ran across 16″ aluminum letters by Danny Seo at Marshalls. Each letter ran me 12.99. Deal! I wasn’t so much into the color…but the bones for my project were there.  The only limitations were…I had to pick letters I could flip around…such as I Y O M A C V W T U E.  Try making words out of those letters! haha.  The K didn’t flip perfectly, but good enough.  You’ll see when I post how I’m decorating with these why I chose the word “CAKE.”  Runner up option was HOME but that wasn’t as fun!

Here is a pic of the letters before I got to work on them:

1-beginning marquee

I measured out where I wanted the lights and took to drillin’

3-drilling marquee

You can see where I drew out the spacing for the lights a little better in this next picture:

4-drilling c marquee

…and the tools I used in this next one.  I already owned all of the tools so that didn’t cost me a penny!  I hit a snag while drilling the “K” which you can see there!  There is a structural wire on the inside which I thought I had avoided while spacing out the holes for the lights….but NOPE! That little snafoo wasn’t going to get me down…onward ho!

 5- drilling marquee with tools

Here it is with holes drilled:

6-marquee with holes pre paint

Then…it was time to get my paint on! Valspar Metallic gold on the inside. I already had the paint too from my last project…so more pennies saved!

7-pre gold paint marquee

8-gold paint marquee

Valspar Satin Black (3.99) on the outside:

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12-black paint

Voila…paint is done!

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I attached lights from target.  It took 2 strings (13.99 each).

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Ooh La Loo! There she is!!

19-cake marquee

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collabo, design, paper, Sewing, typography

collabo post: baby shower invitations

Here’s the team.

Image 1

Pictured:

zoey, me, andy, kenzie, stacie, amie

My childhood bestie Stacie is having a baby girl!  I can’t believe that our own mothers threw each other baby showers when we were born.  How cool is that?!  With that said…let the baby shower planning commence.  Stacie emailed Andy, Amie and I knowing we’d jump at the chance to put our creative minds together to create invitations tailored perfectly to her style.  The truth is, I love doing pretty much anything with these girls…so collaborating for this project felt like no work at all.  Andy was the project manager on this one.  She had a vision of what she wanted and trusted Amie and I to “do our thing.”  Amie is awesome at typography and is a master doodler.  Andy asked her if she’d work her magic for the invites.

And oh em gee..look what she produced.

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Next step.  Andy scanned in Amie’s original artwork and worked magic of her own.  I can’t begin to tell you how talented she is.

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Andy designed the invitation around Amie’s sketch adding the PERFECT font…I was amazed at how she matched Amie’s typography!  Next she added color from the yarn we selected at Purl Soho.  Check out the hot spot post to see how closely she was able to color match.  Genius, I tell ya!

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This collaboration process was so fun.  Andy would touch base with me throughout the entire process to show me her progress or just to bounce ideas off of me.    We have a really amazing working relationship…we send each other pictures and give each other the yay or nay on an idea in under 10 seconds.  And in situations like the picture below…when we aren’t sure of ourselves…9 times out of 10 we pick the same option.

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The next step was my turn.  We had the perfect design…now it was about the packaging.  Envelopes are good and all…but why not put them in a sac the recipients could use?  I’m thinking this little sac would make a perfect sunglasses bag!  This too was a collaboration.  Amie came over and ironed the fabric as I sewed the bags (and my mom helped in this process too…there was A LOT of ironing).  We had toyed with the idea of fold over flaps…which would have been more time efficient…but I had my heart set on the drawstring design.

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I was pretty happy with how the bags turned out!

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Ooh La Loo! Look how our collabo finished product!

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