DIY Kitchen Banquette

I finally started on a project that was conceived almost 2 years ago!  Yes, I've been procrastinating about this one for a long time because I knew it would be quite involved, and boy, was I right!  For the past week I've spent countless hours measuring, cutting, screwing, glueing, tufting and stapling.  And I'm less than half way done.  

Here's some progress pictures.  

I decided to use inexpensive Besta shelves from Ikea for the base.  These will be covered by a skirt but will provide invaluable storage. 

I'll post a tutorial and some tips I've learnt regarding tufting.  There's quite a few different methods you can use, and I think I've tried them all.  Essentially I'll be tufting what is the eqivalent of 4 king sized headboards.  My poor hands!

As you can see I've got a long way to go.  It doesn't help that I've run out of linen.  I bought the original fabric in January last year.  Let's hope the new fabric is the same color or I'm screwed!

You may notice that the chandelier is hanging wonky.  That's because I keep hitting my bloody head on  it when I'm working.  It's starting to become a bit of a joke.  As you can tell I still have a sense of humor about this project.  But it was touch and go when the fifth stupid button popped off.  I'll tell you about that and all the other trials and tribulations later in the week.  Stay tuned.

New Project

This is what's happening in my kitchen at the moment.  Can you guess what it's going to be?

Inexpensive art using Waterlogue app

Well I have wasted way too much time today playing with my new Waterlogue app!

I decided to print some of my masterpieces out and hang them on the wall.  The real question was, would they look as good or real once printed?  I have to say I've been pleasantly surprised.

I bought some good quality 90lb watercolor paper (not too thick that it wouldn't go through the printer).  I cut the paper down to 8x10 to fit.  I then printed it out using the photo on fine paper setting figuring this would give the best color.

There are quite a number of different settings that you can choose on the app.  It took quite a few minutes to figure out which look I liked best.  Some of the settings give more of a photo look which isn't what I was going for.  The bottom two pictures are using this setting, and if you notice, they look almost too realistic from far away.

I like the effect best in the picture above.  Not too realistic.

I just stuck it up there in the picture above, because there was a nail hole.  But I think a series of them going down the stairway might look quite nice.

Or maybe one large one next to the plant?  I wonder how much Kinkos would charge to print off a big one, and whether it would look pixelated?

But what I think would look really cool would be if you could somehow pause the process of painting mid way through and get something a little more abstract.  It's hard to explain, but if you use the app you'll see what I mean.  The pictures below are screen shots I took before the paintings were complete.

Here's a breakdown of how much my three pictures cost:

Waterlogue app $2.99
Watercolor paper $4.99 for 15 sheets.
3 basic black frames with mats $6.99 each.

Is it weird that I have pictures of my house in my house?  Yeah, probably.  I did try the app on pictures of my kids, but it just made them look creepy.  I think I'll keep playing with it and see what else I can come up with; maybe vacation pictures will be more appropriate.