New House Entryway

We're finally making some progress on the house.  Yesterday Damian spent hours tearing out old carpeting on the stairway, and I spent countless more hours getting rid of staples.  But it's all worth it as underneath are beautiful wood floors! 

This is how the stairs looked with the old owners' furniture.

And an orange landing!

Can't wait to get these stairs cleaned-up and painted.  I'm thinking something fun.

New House!!!!

It's taken a few years, but we've finally found a new house that we're happy to call home.  It's a rambling old Victorian that needs a lot of love, but I think we're up to the challenge (I hope so anyway).

Without further ado, here's a picture of the dining room on the day we took possession.

Notice the net curtains lying on the floor; the empty glass of champagne; note book and measuring tape strategically placed on the floor.  I think this is the room that I already have the perfect vision for.  

In fact I've already made a decision on the dining table.  I've decided to go with this one from Overstock.

As much as I'd love to have an original (wouldn't everyone?), it's just not in the budget.

It's possible to find these tables under $1000, but I wanted a 60 inch so as to seat eight.  I also wanted it to have a real marble top.  There are reproductions that have faux marble, but I don't really know what faux marble looks like, so I opted for the Overstock one.

And here's some pretty pictures that were my inspiration.

All sources and other dining room delights can be found on my Pinterest page here.

Anthropologie bedding

I love mixing it up in the bedroom (that sounds a bit personal!). What I mean is, I love to change out my bedding from time to time. And I can't resist a good sale. Anthropologie had this fantastic sale after Christmas where they were discounting sale goods by an extra 40%. That's when I snapped up the tufted Emilie armchair for the music room, and some new bedding and throw pillows for the bedroom. That sale unfortunately ended, but they've just announced another sale with an extra 25% discount using code EXTRAEXTRA.

You can pick up the duvet cover here.  The little throw pillow is here.  And the sheets are here.

And my marble countertop for my kitchen island just arrived.  And it is so beautiful.  Can't wait to show you.

Move over Lunet chair, there's a new favorite in town!

I collect chairs like most women collect shoes!  I guess there's something similar between a pair of shoes and a well crafted chair: they both can be sculptural like a piece of art; they both can be pretty as well as practical; and they both can elevate a room or an outfit into a statement.

I love looking at all styles of chairs, but I don't become obsessed with them until they reach my price range AND I have somewhere in mind for said chair to go.  No point lusting after an Eames recliner if you can't afford a real one and you don't have room for one anyway.

Luckily both of those prerequisites were satisfied shortly after Christmas when I realized that after the tree was taken down, there felt like there was a huge empty space in the corner of the room that was just crying out for something.  Previously the space had been taken up by the drum kit, but since moving that to the basement, that spot had been left bare.  Also, luckily for me, my favorite store, Anthropologie, were having a huge sale with an extra discount of 40%.  I snagged this chair for less than $500!

And it finally arrived today.  It's now taken up residence in the hollow spot, but I like it so much I may have to swap it with my other favorite from Anthropologie, the Lunet chair.

Here it is, not where it's going to go, but doesn't it look pretty against the white fireplace?

Tufted Emilie Chair

And here it is in situ.

Still debating whether it looks better with the cushion or not.  It certainly matches the painting which incidentally I picked up for $95 from a local thrift store.  The thing that drew me to the painting was that it's a picture of Union Square in San Francisco which is where my husband proposed to me 21 years ago!

Here the chairs are together.  You can see that there's definitely similarities between the two so they work together in the same room.

Look at that gorgeous tufting!

It adds a spot of color to this corner.

But I still think I prefer the Lunet chair there; the scale is better suited.

The only regret I have is that I didn't buy two!  I think in my next house, they would look perfect together either in front of a fireplace or around a small side table.

Kitchen Prettiness

As the weather finally warms up, it's so nice to be able to bring some colorful spring blooms into the house.  Here's some pretty pictures of the flowers that I currently have in my kitchen.

The orchid was a gift from a friend over 2 months ago.  It's doing remarkably well.  I make sure that I only water it a tiny amount once a week.

The hydrangea I bought from Trader Joe's on Saturday.  You have to water it everyday or it will wilt.

The flowers above were part of a tablescape that I did for a dinner we hosted.

The red roses were a Mother's Day gift from my lovely boys.

I'm thinking about putting a shaped mirror above the sink.  It's looking a little bare.  Of course if I was to do the kitchen over again, I would have a full on marble backsplash and counters.  I've been toying with doing a simple subway tile, we'll see.

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I love the view from the kitchen through to the bookshelves in the music room.  It's so bright and cheery with all of the different colored spines.

Hope you enjoyed this mini tour of my kitchen!

As Seen On

Well, the blog has certainly seen a flurry of new visitors in the past few days.  Last week, on a whim, I quickly submitted my tutorial to Apartment Therapy.  They liked it and posted a write-up two days later.

For the record, I had nothing to do with what they wrote.  I liked the angle they chose, but they posted the wrong Besta shelf!  Now,  if you're going to submit anything to Apartment Therapy, you have to have thick skin because the comments and opinions can be somewhat brutal.  Thankfully I've never had a negative comment before, but not this time.  But it wasn't my fault.  The culprit was the silly shelf that they posted at the top.  Anyway, it made for some interesting reading.  Apartment Therapy readers really take other peoples' safety seriously.  People thought I was being negligent for building a banquette out of something so obviously flimsy.  Let me tell you, I'm no dummy and I did my research.  The units I used are a lot stronger than the one pictured.  Anyway, that's by-the-by.  On the most part, once I had straightened out the confusion on the base units, people seemed to like my banquette.

The next day it was featured on Centsational Girl in the BOTB (Best of the Blogosphere) series, and has garnered some more positive reviews!  Yay!  You can see that link here.

And for all of you wondering whether it is strong enough to hold adults, here it is in action.

It was out semi-annual "tour de tapas".  We had 10 people seated around that table (6 on the banquette), and I can happily say the bench did not collapse!

And here was what was happening on the other side of the room. 

Cheers!

DIY Tufted Banquette Tutorial

Here's how I made the banquette in 11 easyish steps!  I wouldn't say it was super easy, but it is doable, if you have the patience for it.  For the cushion part, I mostly followed the tutorial done by Jenny from Little Green Notebook.

Step 1- Build your base

I needed a base for my banquette.  I didn't want to bother with building or framing it from scratch so I bought 3 Ikea Besta shelf units for $150 total.  They're also pretty light weight, so I can move the banquette and clean under it easily.

They're not very deep, and I wanted to have enough space to sit comfortably so I made the cushion seat deeper by 3 inches.  The cushion base and seat overhang at the back.  This also allows me to still plug things into the wall sockets that are now behind the banquette.

Step 2 - Chose your cushion base

I decided to use 2' x 4' white pegboard panels for the cushions.  I bought 6 of these for a total of $41.70.  I had Home Depot cut them to size.  These pegboard panels also come in 8' lengths, but they're made out of a thinner and flimsier material.  Because I needed to span more than 4', I joined the pegboards with 2" double wide mending plates.

Step 3 - Cut your foam to size

The next step was to cut the foam to size.  You can buy foam over the internet cut to your specifications, but it is super expensive.  JoAnns and Hancock Fabrics sometime have good deals on their foam, but not as cheap as using camping pads, which is what I decided to go with. I really saved a bundle by using these.  They're 6' by 2' and cost $22 each.  I made sure I picked the firmest I could find.

The easiest way to cut foam is with an electric knife.  I used a long ruler as a guide.  It also helps to hold the knife blades from underneath with your other hand (make sure you're wearing gloves!).

Step 4 - Mark your tufts

Next, decide where you want your tufts to be.  This is where using pegboard comes in handy.

Mark the holes before hand.  Place the marked pegboard on the foam.  Use a marker to create dots on the foam.

Step 5 - Make holes in foam

You then remove some of the foam where the dots are.  I used a hollow end of a broom.  Simply punch it through the foam and remove the cutout foam.

Step 6 - Batting

Next you'll want to glue the foam to the pegboard with spray glue, and cover it with some batting for extra cushiness.  Staple the batting to keep it in place.

Step 7 - Make your fabric covered buttons

Make your buttons.  This is where the project starts to get tedious, and frustrating.  In all, I used 172 buttons!  I bought all of the buttons on sale so they only cost me about 30 cents each, approximately $50 total.

This is where I almost lost it!  Thankfully, I didn't cover all of my buttons at once, because after tufting a few, I realized that the backs would come off when I tried to tuft.  This happened on a number of occasions.  So I decided that I would glue all of the backs onto the buttons.  This was an extra step but so necessary.  I know upholstery shops will make you covered buttons for $1 each which is great if you're only doing a few, but not a couple of hundred.

Step 8 - Measure and cut your fabric

Next stage is to cut your fabric.  Make sure you have enough fabric on either side of the foam to be able to tuft into the holes.

Step 9 - Tuft

Start tufting.  There's definitely a bit of a skill to this, and it wasn't as easy as I thought it would be.  I think it was a lot harder for me because I was tufting such long pieces.  I started in the middle and worked my way out.

You'll want to guide the fabric into diamonds with your hands.

To secure the buttons you can either use a staple method, or a button method.  The staple method was difficult because I was using a stapler that didn't have much power, so the staples weren't sitting as tight as I'd like to hold the cotton.  Definitely make sure you use upholstery thread for your buttons.  Pull the thread tight and staple in a zig zag fashion.

My hand started to hurt after a while of doing these, so I switched it up and decided to use some buttons instead of staples.  Use a slip knot to pull the buttons tight.  You probably wouldn't want to use buttons on the seat cushion because they might break when you sat on them, but for the seat back, this method could work fine.

Step 10 - Staple fabric on back

Then turn your cushion over and staple the fabric, making sure you pull it tight.

Step 11 - Make banquette skirt

Next step, the skirt.  I wanted a tailored skirt that could be easily pulled up to access the storage in the bench.

I made some piping, and cut the panels.  I ironed a 2 inch seam on either side of the panels.

The panels were then stapled to the underside of the seat cushion.

Project cost:

Base cabinets - Ikea Besta - $150

Foam pads - $120

Buttons - Dritz - $55

Peg board - $40

Mending plates - $7

Fabric - Warsa Lime Linen, Gray Lines Linen Inc 14 yds - $140

Batting - 4 yds - $20

Upholstery Thread - $3

Grand Total - $535!  

Project time:

Too many hours to count!