Monday 25 March 2013

DIY drapes; find a "How to" Blog

I have made my own drapes before, but unless you do it regularly it is hard to remember the steps and the math.  There is actually way more measuring and figuring, than there is sewing, in most drapes.  I had a book to help me, but I found this blog to be much more helpful.

http://www.textile-love.com/2012/01/diy-pinch-pleat-drapes-pleating-and.html

This blog gives photos and step by step instructions that were very easy to follow.  There really is no need to buy a book for "how to" for anything, anymore.  Blogs like "Textile Love" are amazing!

Here are my finished Drapes.  It was a lot of work & a lot of fabric but I saved money and gained a great feeling of accomplishment.   Thank you to Megan for blogging "Textile Love".




What to do with those 3 little windows?


This is the wall in our master bedroom, those 3 little windows will be above our bed.  The sun rises on that side of the house so we need to cover these windows with something.  Roller blinds seem to be what most people use, but what color and where do the cords go?  The price we were quoted was $540 for roller blinds on these 3 little windows.......I didn't think it was worth it, there must be something nicer. 


 The salesperson who was selling the blinds, said that other clients have used pillows.  That sounded interesting, so I bought a pillow, but it wouldn't fill the whole window or even stay up there, it was too puffy.  I also thought of using a framed canvas, or covering a frame with fabric but it looked too flat, we needed more depth.  So back to the pillow, I needed to square it, to make it fill the window completely and to make it stay in place.


So I picked open the seam of the pillow, and removed the stuffing,

I bought some foam core poster board, and cut it the same size as the window

Then slide the poster board into the pillow casing, and put some of the stuffing back in, but not much, just enough for one side of the pillow to be puffy while the other side stays flat

Hand sew the open seam back together, and place into the window.  It fits quite snug, but I may add a piece of velcro to make sure it doesn't fall on us during the night.
This is the final result, quite cool I think!

When we get the bed with the black faux leather headboard in here it is going to look great!

Friday 22 March 2013

Renos never go as planned do they?

We have been up in Kelowna for the past couple of weeks, doing some work on our future retirement home.  We are hoping to have it all set up for the summer, or whenever our other house sells. (fingers crossed that will be sooner than later)  

We made ourselves a big "to do list" including some renos to 2 bathrooms.  

This is the master bathroom, the sinks are so high in here it looks like giants live here. The cabinets are 36" high and with the vessel sinks on top I would need a stool to drink from the tap.  So we bought new sinks that will mount under the granite.  Of course, this granite cannot be reused because of the cuts made for the exciting sinks.  So we have to buy new granite, and think we will go with something black to add some drama to the room.  Of course we have been trying for over 2 weeks to get 2 quotes to do this, and so far have only received one.  Trades in Kelowna work at a very slow pace for some reason? (you'd think it was mexico)


The other bathroom we left for last on the list because demo was going to be messy and we didn't want to live in the dust for long, but it did not go as planned...........

The plan was to remove the bathtub on the other side of this wall, making room to cut a closet into this wall.  Unfortunately, when Mark started cutting off the drywall he found a whole lot of wires!  Lucky that he did not take out the bathtub first!  Rewiring the house to make a closet is too expensive.  We were disappointed, this house is really short of closets, the one in the master bedroom is 1/4 of the size of our current closet (yes I will have to downsize my wardrobe!)
 After sleeping on the problem, we came up with this as the only solution.  The room will be a bit smaller, but we are only using it as an office and it is still a good size for a future buyer to use as a bedroom, (aprox 11X11)

 Mark had this framed in a few hours, and will drywall it today.  So lucky to have a good handyman around when you need one!

So now I need to decorate a boring powder room, can I hide a tub we will never use? (but will have to clean!)  We have ruled out spending too much money on this room, and just to think of it as good for future resale, as the room we just added a closet to, could be a bedroom.  So I guess I'll go shopping for a shower curtain, rug and maybe pick a darker paint color? 



 What would you do?