How to Mistreat Sliding Glass Doors

Since finding my new leather sofa on Craigslist I've been on a mission to spruce up our basement family room space. I debated the color scheme for a while (wasn't sure if the tan/red thing was a little too pottery barn ten years ago) but ultimately decided I really like the energy of red in a family room and I wanted to reuse the drapery panels, so I deceded to stick with it!

This wall in our basement has a big stone fireplace in the center with a small window on the right side of the fireplace and a sliding glass door on the left side of the fireplace.

Here's how it looked last week:

and the big sliding glass door on the left side of the fireplace:

I learned the three panel trick to hiding sliding glass doors from the Christopher Lowell show "Interior Motives" years ago. Remember that one?! I actually found an old VHS tape with highlights from the show in our last move. Hilarious!! I watched it again recently and though it was obviously very dated, but there were actually some good ideas to use! I love that hanging a third panel in the center here covers the ugly metal framing.

The view through these windows is not the greatest since the backyard is a bit of a wasteland right now, but we have a plan to clean it up. Both windows look out to the area under our deck. The smaller window has a direct view of the side of our shed, so I prefer to block that view entirely (hence the blind).

I bought the tan drapery panels at Ross for 6.99/panel a few years ago (but I think these panels were originally sold at Walmart). I had four panels to work with from our last house, so three of them were hanging on the sliding door and one on the smaller window. I added the red dragonfly band (the fabric was free to me via freecycle) at the top shortly after we moved to this house.

I thought the panels would look better raised up higher on the wall, so I pulled everything down and raised the rod up high.

Then, after a visit to my new favorite place, debois textiles (insanely awesome and cheap fabrics!) I added this new band of red fabric to the tops of the panels (just wasn't feelin' the dragonflies anymore) and rehung them.


I liked the drama of having them up high, but I felt there was a bit too much space between the top of the sliding door and the curtain rod and I didn't like seeing the metal framing at the top of the sliding door, so I used some extra burlap I had leftover from skirting my craft table to mistreat the top of the door. It's just a long piece of burlap (I joined two shorter pieces and the seam is hidden behind the center panel) trimmed in grosgrain ribbon and thumb-tacked in place! The bottom of the burlap panel just clears the top of the sliding door and it extends to several inches above the door.



I love that I now don't see any of the ugly door (I would love to replace it with nice french doors, but that just isn't in the budget!).

I also cheated and cut off 1/3 of the width from two of the panels and stitched those sections together to make an extra panel for the smaller window. Oh, and I already had the blind. I purchased it at Joann's on clearance for about $5. It was slightly too narrow, so I trimmed it in more red grosgrain, and after I moved the curtain rod up, I hung the blind up at the same level as the burlap panel on the other window. Luckily it was long enough to do that.


Since I reused everything, the only money I spent on this redo was $10 for 2 yards of the new red fabric ("Bangalore" by Duralee).
What do you think? Better, right?

I'm super excited that I'll be guest posting at Serenity Now on Wednesday. I'll be showing a tutorial for recreating these $75 Ballard pillows using materials I had on hand! Make sure and stop by to check it out!


Love,

Thrifty Treasures: Alabaster Lamps and a New Daddy Chair!

I'm participating in Thrifty Treasures at Southern Hospitality!


She wanted this:

He wanted this:

After some compromise and some help from Craigslist, here's what we came up with:

A full size leather rocker recliner, but with a tailored arm and nail head trim to help it coordinate with the new sofa. My hubby loves it, and I love to see him smile!

This was a particularly tricky decorating dilemma for us, since my hubby declared the chair must both rock and recline. There are some really pretty options out there (and I was finding a slew of them on CL) that either look like a club chair or a wing chair, but they all had pretty feet, which meant they can't rock. Also none of the club chair recliners were deep enough or had a high enough back for my hubby, so when he sat in them and reclined his head and feet were hanging off the chair!

I bought the new chair on CL for $150 and sold the old chair (you can see it in the background of the photo) for $100, so for a net cost of $50 I think this was a pretty thrifty replacement.

And here's my other thrifty find of the week! A pair of alabaster (I think?) lamps! If anyone could shed a little light (excuse the pun!) on the actual definition of alabaster, I'm all ears! Are these alabaster or marble? Is alabaster white marble? If so, does it have to be pure white with no veining to qualify as alabaster?

Anyway, I purchased the pair (including shades which are a little dated so I'll either doctor them up or replace them) for $30. When I picked them up they looked like this:

I was a little disappointed with the color of the stone- a little dingy. I wasn't sure if this was the natural color of the stone, or if the stone had become permanently discolored or what so I did a little research on the internet. I already knew that you have to be really careful with cleaning alabaster and not get it wet because moisture that seeps into the stone can actually cause rust stains in the stone (again, if anyone knowledgeable can clarify, I'd love to know more).

I found info somewhere (can't remember where) saying that acetone can clean marble/alabaster, so I thought I'd give it a try. I figured I'd try it in an inocnspicuous spot first and even if I ruined the lamps I was willing to try it for a $30 investment.

I tried it and it worked like a charm. In the photo below you can see where I swiped a cotton pad dampened with nail polish remover down the center of the lamp:

I think the dinginess was probably caused by cigarette smoke, but that's just a hunch. Here's an after photo:


So much better, right? I'm not encouraging anyone else out there to try this, because I suppose it's possible that my cleaning method could cause stains to appear over time, but I don't mind being the guinea pig! I'll let you know if any mysterious spots appear over the next few months...

Love,

I Need Your Vote!

Two posts in the same day? I know what you're thinking- she must want something. You're right!!

I just found out that I'm one of five finalists for the $5 Challenge at Living with Lindsay for my bedtime prayer wall! I really wanna win, so wouldya couldya vote for me? Pretty please? With a cherry on top??? If I promise new posts every day next week? Puh-lease???


Love,

Happy Spring Everyone!

Sorry for all the silence over here the last two weeks. I have lots of good stuff coming up for you next week!

In the meantime, I thought I'd share this little tip for folding napkins into bunnies! I did this last year for my Easter table and it worked like a charm.


Aren't they cute? I'm a sucker for a festive napkin fold. I love that they jazz up a place setting without having to purchase anything additional, or add more stuff to crowd the table.

Here's a link to Good Housekeeping's instructions.

And a link to similar video instructions on BHG.

Happpy Easter!

Love,

Welcome home!

I brought her home on Tuesday!

Welcome home, lovely!

I bought her on Cl for $425. That's quite a chunk of change for me, but since she was originally close to $2500 at Ethan Allen (Hancock & Moore is the manufacturer), and she's in perfect condition, I thought she was a steal.

I'd show you more pics of this room, but I still have so much work to do!

I still have to find a replacement for this guy:




and do some reorganizing, give the fireplace a makeover, and the list goes on and on!



Love,

Bloggy Get Together and Thrifty Treasures

Bloggy Get Together
Our VA/MD/DC bloggy get together is coming together! We will meet in the Olde Towne area of Fredericksburg, VA, Saturday May 1st for lunch, shopping and some local fun!



If you think you may be interested in joining us please leave me a comment with an email address so that I can contact you!


Thrifty Treasures with Rhoda!


Thrifty Treasures is back, ya'll!

I've been searching for a nice pair of lamps for my bedroom for quite a while. Finding a nice pair of lamps without spending a fortune proved to be quite a tall order! I would occasionally find a nice pair of bases, but after buying new shades it was still going to cost a good bit. Then I found a pair of these great lamps on craigslist last week! They are a really nice size and they look fab in my bedroom! They were originally from Bombay Co. (sniff, I miss Bombay)


They have a damask lining in the shades so when you turn them on you get a nice little surprise...


I think these shades are currently available at Target for $19.99 each, so I know that $40 for the pair of lamps including the shades was a good deal!


Please keep your fingers crossed for me on this thrifty treasure!


I'm hopefully picking her up tomorrow if everything comes together!




Did I tell you guys that I won a copy of the new Flea Market Style Magazine from Rhoda's giveaway? I've never won a blog giveaway before, so I was really excited. It arrived in the mail on Saturday and I got to pour through it yesterday! Thanks, Rhoda!!

The magazine is great and I'm thinking I'll share a few of my favorite ideas from the magazine with you this week!

Love,

Bedtime Prayer Wall

I'm participating in:








I'm in love with this shape which seems to be everywhere lately:

It's called a quatrefoil. I've had this idea in my head for a while that I wanted to do some artwork in my little girls' shared room incorporating the bedtime prayer we say at night. I wanted the project to be inexpensive, kid friendly (I intend this to hang over my nearly 2-year-old's bed, so nothing too heavy and no glass!) and super cute.

After this project I decided to use my diy stretched canvas idea again to save money, and I knew I wanted to incorporate the quatrefoil shape, so here's what I came up with:



It was really cloudy outside when I took these photos, and I just couldn't capture the colors accurately. The greens all look way to dark and olivey and the pink isn't showing up very well. You'll just have to take my word for it that the colors are really cute in person!



Materials:
3 sheets of 20" x 30" foam board from dollar tree, (this was exactly enough to make 9 finished 10"squares)
18 sheets of Scrapbook Paper (already had this in my stash, but FYI I recently saw 8 sheet packs of SBP in the dollar section at Michaels for 50 cents per pack!)
Glue stick (already had this on hand)
Matte Spray Sealer (already had this on hand)


Here's how I did it:

First I made the "stretched canvas" forms just like I detailed here. The only change I made was that this time I used two layers of "spacers" to make the finished canvases a little thicker. Making the canvases myself saved so much money! I made all 9 for $3. I couldn't buy one plain canvas in craft store for that much!

Then I wrapped each "canvas" in one sheet of 12x12 scrapbook paper. To make it a little smoother and easier I used the pointy end of a letter opener to score the paper along the folds as I wrapped.

Then I made a quatrefoile template. It's essentially a square with a semi-circle centered on each side. I started by figuring out how big I wanted the square part, then I traced half of my coffee cup along each side and cut it out.

Then I used my template to trace and cut out one SBP quatrefoile shape for each canvas.

Since I don't own a cricut, it was a little tricky to figure out how to handle the lettering without having to cut each letter out by hand. My hubby helped me figure out that reverse printing in white on a colored circle looked nice and crisp. I believe the font I used was Clarendon Bold.

Once all my pieces were cut out, I assembled the canvases with a glue stick and used two coats of spray sealer on top.

Then I hung them with some command adhesive strips ( I stocked up on these a while ago when they were BOGO at my drug store). This way when my 2-year-old inevitably gets into shenanigans during naptime and tries to pull them off the wall, there aren't any nails to contend with and I can stick them right back up!


The prayer reads:
Father in heaven
Hear my prayer.
Keep me in
thy loving care.
Be my guide
in all I do
and bless all those
who love me too.
Amen.

The "now I lay me down to sleep" prayer would also work on 9 canvases!






Love,