{inspire} back entry ideas

Happy Monday friends! Did you all have a good weekend? My weekend was super productive, and fun, but it was so hard to get out of bed today!

After a busy and productive work day on Saturday (hard woods are ready to stain!), it occurred to me that I should probably start thinking about how to actually finish the spaces we're working on: back entry and back bedroom (office/craft room). It probably sounds sort of silly, but I've been so focused on getting the hard stuff done that I'd completely spaced the fun finishing details! So, today I'm sharing my thoughts on the back entry. Since the refinishing the hardwoods wasn't exactly a planned project, I'm at a complete loss about the finishing details for that back bedroom. But, since the room is already torn apart (and piled in my living room. ack!), it seems logical to paint, etc. So I need to get creative (with both details and budget!) and get some ideas pulled together. Hopefully this week.

But first, the back entry:

Structural details:

1. Tile, Home Depot. 

2. Board and batten color: Whip, by Miller Paint

3. Wall and ceiling color: Grant Beige, by Benjamin Moore

Finishing details:

4. Black bench we (already own, not as pictured).

5. Bright pot (already own) + large structural plant.

6. Rug. (Not sold on this one and am trying to find something with more color that won't get dirty easily (ha!)

7. Pillow from this fabric (already own)

8. Key bowl

9. Coat hooks

10. ART! I'm loving these: Make Your Own Path and Kite Hill

11. Lighting (been trying to find a space for this for years. Love.)

My goal was to stay within our house color palette, while being bright, fun and functional. I am really loving the red accents. And you can also see that I'm trying to use what we already own as much as possible. I'm still up in the air about both the rug and art. I'm going to dig and see if we have any art in our house I can use, but I really do love both the pictures I've pulled here. So, we'll see.

So, with that in mind, what is some fun (and reasonably priced) art you've run across lately? Any suggestions for my back entry? :)

{create} fabric silhouettes

Remember how I tend to ignore trends? This is another instance. I love silhouettes.  I've just never figured out where I could fit them into our house. Until recently. Since I *finished* our bedroom, I've been looking for something to put above each of our nightstands. I just had no idea what I was looking for really.

I mean, technically, the bedroom was great! But for some reason those two spaces were really bothering me. So I decided to put silhouettes above each of our nightstands ... you know, to designate a *his* and *hers* side of the bed :).

So I whipped up these babies in an afternoon.  Silhouettes are usually made with paper, but I wanted to add my own spin on the traditional silhouette and decided to make them out of fabric. I love fabric and stitching and think it adds a little more dimension than paper. Plus it's a great way to use up fabric scraps.

And here's the same space after they're hung! I love it. And I can finally let the bedroom be *done*. You know, for now :). I am still thinking about curtains for the windows ... but that's a story for another day.

Want to know how to make your own fabric silhouette? I know the answer is YES! :)

First, gather all your supplies. You'll need: silhouette pictures, paper, fabric for the silhouettes, background fabric, thread, Wonder Under (this is a link to A LOT of the stuff ... you can find it at your local craft store for less quantity and therefore less expensive) or your favorite fusible web, foam core and frames.

First, take a side photo of your head. I blacked them out because I wanted to play in photoshop one day, but since you're actually transferring them to fabric it isn't necessary. Print and carefully cut out.

Next, take your Wonder Under and attached the fabric to the sticky side.  If you haven't used Wonder Under in the past, they actually give very specific directions on the roll for how to best use.  Next, trace your paper pattern onto the backside of the Wonder Under and cut out the pattern.  Take the paper off the back side of the Wonder Under and iron your silhouette to the background fabric. The Wonder Under is great. It keeps your two fabrics in place when you're sewing, and it keeps the cut edges from fraying. Fraying can be great in some projects, but you don't want something as intricate as a face fraying. You could chance looking like you have booger hanging out your nose. Bad news.

Next using a straight stitch, trace around the outside line of the head. I used yellow thread for the contrast. The best part of this is you don't have to use your sewing machine. I default to my machine, but I had to go so slow that it actually probably would've been quicker to hand stitch. Use whichever you're more comfortable with.

When you're done, you're silhouette will look like this. Except with your or your loved ones head, not Chris'. :)

And now for framing. Of course, I have 45 empty frames in my basement, so I grabbed two of the same size. Then I cut two pieces of foam core to fit the frame.

Then wrap your fabric around the foam core, as you'd wrap a gift. I've found that tape actually secures the fabric incredibly well. But, of course, now that I've discovered my staple gun, I'd probably use that next time. You know, just for fun.

Once up, I had a hers ....

.. and a his.

And art that adds a great amount of loveliness to our bedroom.

Thanks for stopping by today! I'd love to hear .... what are you up to this weekend? We'll be working on our girls and boys projects. Of course! :)

{renovations} project updates

Don't worry. I'm not going to bore you with weekly project updates, but we made huge headway on our two projects so I thought I'd give you an update about where we're at with them and what we're dealing with.

First of all, you're probably wondering why the heck we're tackling two {reasonably huge} projects at once? We're wondering that too! It really is a big no-no in home reno, and project management as a whole. But, when we started working on our back entry way with you two good and incredibly generous friends, it was quickly apparent that the space was way too small for four people. So while the boys are busy working on the back entry, the girls are tackling tearing up nasty carpet and refinishing the beautiful hardwood underneath. We've been working on the project for the past three Saturdays and, while completely exhausting, it's really fun to work on with friends and we have a huge dinner that ends the day perfectly.

Let's start with the

GIRLS PROJECT:

Scope: tearing up the hallway and back bedroom carpet. Prepping and refinishing the original hardwoods. When Chris moved into the house he removed the nasty blue carpet from the living room and front bedroom (our current bedroom). We want to finish off these last two areas to have consistent flooring on the main floor (well, expect for the kitchen floor, which is a whole different beast).

You probably remember that after tearing up the carpet we found this lovely piece of linoleum(ish) artwork. It was quickly torn up and tossed out as well.

Under the funky linoleum, we found this. Hardwoods, as expected. YAH! Lots of old crackly linoleum glue. BOO! We started scraping, just to test how hard this would be to remove, and it actually scrapes off quite easily. We also tested a sander. It didn't remove so easily with a sander, which meant we'd have to rent  a huge sander. So we were left with the option of scraping the floor and then doing a quick sand, or spending more time sanding the floor. Since we're on a crazy budget for this (you know, the completely unplanned project with a nonexistent budget) and it's really such a small area for a huge sander, we chose the scraping and then sanding method. I thought my hands were permanently damaged after the first day of scraping ;). 

Once we scraped, we had clean, but stained hardwoods.

So we got to work sanding, which really was super easy after the prep work. This is a great shot of the beautiful sanded floor (right), and the before ... with glue and all. What a difference! We're so happy the hardwoods are in really great shape. But why do we have a section that's still in a *before* state?

Because we have to replace that section. The weird linoleum art was centered on an old (huge) heating vent. Under the big black spot isn't hardwood, it's plywood. We actually found the same hardwoods we have (amazingly!), at a recycling place (Rebuilding Center) last year. So we have the boards and that's next. Then we'll stain them up!

We also have a great start on the back bedroom. Here's a room you've never seen! I try to keep this room hidden because that color is just so ... wow. Are there words?  Especially with the blue carpet :). Technically, though it's hard to tell in this giant mess, this is my sewing room. 

I was a little bummed that the linoleum under this carpet didn't hold any secret treasures. We already have a moon and a compass. Where's the sun, people? But, I was super happy that it was more brittle, and had way less glue. This room looks like it'll be quite breezy to finish up.

Now onto the 

BOYS PROJECT:

Scope: Make back entryway less despicable. :)

Just a reminder, here's the before. And I covered more updates in this post.

And here's where they are now! It's hard to tell in this picture, but that's tile on the floor! YAH! And, new walls! If you live in a new house, you'll appreciate how uneven, and even unsquare, walls and rooms can be.  That window? Yeah, not so straight. So it took quite a bit of time just figuring out how to level the walls. And then some very creative cutting :). It all looks great though, and I'm so excited to get this room wrapped up. We're really close.

The next time you see these areas they'll be .. DONE! Personally I'm rooting for the GIRLS TEAM to finish up first. You know, cause we rock. :)

Are you of you tackling remodeling projects right now? I'd love to hear about them!