Cam and I have been trying to clean out our 2nd bedroom to make room for these two boys that are coming in March and it’s taken a little bit of creativity. We’ve ALMOST done it, there are just a couple more things to clear out. (If you are interested in buying our elliptical machine, let me know!) However, this sparked a need to re-do our living room. We love our purple couch, but since we finished it, our piano was still red and looking mighty out of place. Also, I was sick of the “shrine” to the television. Also, the couch was way too far away from the TV so watching movies was a pain (rough life, eh?). I also really just like change. So we rearranged the room one Saturday. Cam promptly broke the coffee table while trying to move it out of the way so we could try different couch layouts. The flimsy little thing just completely collapsed, which turned into a blessing in disguise. We went to Lowe’s, bought some yellow and black paint and the projects began.

Before:

Note the “shrine” to the TV. Hate that thing. Also, please take note of all the gross cords and the nasty gold cabinet. Blech.

After:

We painted the gold cabinet black. Trashed the top drawer, used part of the wood from the recently broken coffee table to make a shelf and created ourselves a little TV console that goes on the back wall of the living room. From the front door, it is the very last thing you see, which just makes me so happy. Also, the couches now face each other which encourages conversation rather than TV consumption. For the pattern on the drawer front, Cam painted it silver first and I cut a “stencil” out of contact paper using my silhouette machine. We applied the stencil, painted the rest black, and voila, we’re in action! I’m really REALLY pleased with how this turned out!(And I’m bummed the picture is blurry. I’m trying to figure out how to use my new camera…It’s hit or miss right now.)

(This pic is a little better, but I was trying to avoid using the flash. O well. Practice, practice, practice!)

Please note that you can’t see a single cord on the wall. This was BIG. Cam figured out how to hide all the cords for his surround sound system and all the cords from the Bluray player. I hate cords, and now they’re invisible. I’m happy. Also, the picture doesn’t show this very well, but the black paint inside that top portion really hides the media. It all just blends together. It makes it a lot less distracting/prominent in the room.

Cam then used the top of our little splintered coffee table to make me 3 shelves for the desk area. We moved our computer desk down out of the 2nd bedroom to make room for the boys and he built me a gorgeous new office area off in the nook of our living room. We have even MORE stuff in the living room now, but it’s never felt so spacious. Funny how that works. :)

That was the small part of the makeover. (Sometimes I’m amazed Cam hasn’t thrown in the towel yet. I am slowly but surely weakening him to my “wild” color schemes and patterns. Also, due to being prego, most of “my” projects quickly become “cam’s” projects while I sit on the couch and watch. Marry a good man, ladies.)

Thus began the piano makeover. (The red was clashing with my purple couch.)

And because I LIVE to have little bits of ourselves injected into every piece of home decor I possibly can, after Cam finished painting, I started cutting vinyl for the front of the piano face. It took a long time, but was so worth it!

The finished product:

The vinyl on the front face is scripted song lyrics that we love. We try to keep it classy…ha. I picked a nice cursive/handwritten font so the overall appearance would get the effect I was going after. I also think it makes for a really fun little “treat” for those who look close enough to actually try to read the words. Things start off with a raucous “Rah rah rah ah ah” from Lady Gaga. There are tributes to our roots with the words “I’m ready to go for it! I’m ready to reach for the Northern star!” (shout out to my other EFY counselors and kids!) I believe Katy Perry actually makes 2 appearances. (“Own the night like the 4th of July” and the slightly more risque “let you put your hands on me in my skin-tight jeans”). The entire right side is dedicated to Phoebe Buffay. “Are you in there little fetus? In 9 months with you come greet us? I will buy you some adidas!” Among other gems.

It’s quite possibly my favorite project. Ever.

(And thus we see a “hit” with the new camera. Hoo-rah for a sweet shallow depth of field! That was my goal today, and I figured it out. Boom baby!)

Overall Room After:

All I need now are curtains. I’m thinking grey and white chevron. Cam is thinking we don’t have money in the budget for that. We shall see, we shall see. :)

When we reupholstered our couch, we turned it from a sectional into a 3-seater. This gave us some extra room in the living room that looked….empty. We were up in Salt Lake on Tuesday, and took a little drive up to the Centerville DI to see what we could find. (We’d heard the DI’s that aren’t in college towns are SO much better and boy, were they right!)

I wanted to find a chair to fit that little empty corner of the room, but it had to be cheap. We looked around for a while and didn’t really see anything. (Especially anything under $10.) We walked into the yard area, and it was like that magic part right at the beginning of willy wonka where the entire land is edible. Lamps, picture frames, furniture, an air hockey table, screen doors, etc. We were in heaven. I got distracted with the chandeliers and Cam came around the corner with this little beauty, tagged for $4!

We were just giddy. It was PERFECT! So, we bought it and hit JoAnns next door right before they closed to pick up a half yard of fabric for $5. Last night, Cam picked me up from work, we did a 15-minute trip to Lowe’s for spray paint ($6), and threw our freezer meal in the oven. (Taco pasta. Cooks for 90 minutes). Cam took the seat off. I recovered it. He primed & painted the base, and we attached the new seat right as the timer went off for dinner. Talk about a great project! I should find more things we can do while dinner’s cooking. I felt so productive!

Shameless plug for freezer cooking: UM, when was the last time YOU re-designed a chair while making dinner. I’m tellin’ ya. Freezer cooking changes lives!

What do you think?

Total cost: $15

After we finished the couch, Cam told me I got to pick a few *little* crafts to work on next. No more king sized quilts or sectional re-dos. So, I started planning the little touches I could add to our home to make it ours. I truly believe the beauty of a home is in the details. The little pieces of personality left by those who live there. I really wanted to add something personal to a blank wall in our bathroom. Our poor little bathroom has been neglected. Almost every other part of the house has been updated in some way, but our bathroom…yuck. I wanted to do a sign of some sort. Tall & skinny. Because it was going to be in the bathroom, somewhere we go first thing in the morning, I wanted it to be a list of ways to take care of your marriage. I mentioned this to Cam, and without even hesitating he said, “Why don’t you put the lyrics to love like crazy on there?” I was totally jazzed about the idea. I love it when Cam and I are so absolutely on the same page! It was EXACTLY the idea I needed. So, here’s what I came up with:

Cam took 2 boards and bracketed them together for me. I designed the layout in photoshop and cut it out with my silhouette on contact paper. Painted the whole thing white, and then Cam stenciled the words on with navy blue paint. I think I’m still going to go over it and sand it down a little. Some of those lines are too crisp for my taste. But I am TOTALLY in love with the crack down the middle.

Well, we did it! We finally have our living room back! It took us over 2 months to finish this project, but we couldn’t be happier. We’re just thrilled with how it turned out. Not bad considering neither of us had any experience with reupholstering things. lol. I sure love figuring things out with Cam. It makes marriage so fun. And the sense of fulfillment when it’s all over is awesome, not to mention all the late-night sillies that come out when the project takes a million or two unexpected turns.

Here’s what we started with:

For some reason, in this picture the couch doesn’t look all that bad. It was. We picked it up for free off a ksl listing. It had been sitting outside in the rain for a while because it wouldn’t fit down into the new basement apartment of its owners. We didn’t have a truck to haul it, but they were so anxious to get rid of it, they loaded it up and delivered it to our apartment for free! I was thrilled. It was a little rough looking though. If you could get past the puddles and water stains, you found tons of hair, dirt, uno cards, pet stains, etc. It was n.a.s.t.y. We took a rug doctor to it and cleaned it up as best we could and used it for over a year. People always commented on how nice it was (considering we got it for free), but it was a major eye-sore in our living room. yuck.

One day, I had a meltdown and said that we were either rearranging our living room or moving because I was sick of it. Cam opted for the former and we took a Saturday to do some damage:

(am I the only one whose projects are most often fueled by meltdowns?)

The goal was to create a 3-seater couch and an ottoman with what we had to work with. (The sectional’s chaise lounge part was on the wrong side of the couch in our opinion…Plus, what fun would it be to just recover the sectional? No, no, we must totally reconstruct the darn thing. :)

Cam cut the foot off the sectional and added two legs. I sewed the cushion and cover and the ottoman was done!

And then it sat there. Just like that. For 2 months. (Almost) And the rest of the couch stared at me. And Cam kept telling me how “fun it would be to work on the couch!” What he really meant was, “Kristin, I can’t do anything unless you start sewing. for real.” And thus began the week of non-stop sewing, stuffing and stapling.

What you may notice in the picture above is that our little half-sectional grew an arm on the left side! My brilliant husband figured out how to build and bracket on an arm to match the other side so we could convert this sectional into a 3-seater. I love being on his team. :)  

Once the entire frame was built and Cam was just waiting for me to finish sewing everything, he decided to press all my seams for me so he could be supportive while I worked in the sweatshop. It was awesome. He sure is good to me. :) (I really REALLY hate ironing.)

We had almost everything ready to go, when our trusty little staple gun broke. We took it apart,lost a few pieces, & got our hands all covered in grease, so we decided it was a good time to hit up Goodwood Barbecue for dinner. We were both so drained that dinner was hilarious. It was fun to cuddle up in the booth and joke around with each other. When we got back to the house, Cam had to go buy a staple gun at Walmart (everything else was closed). He walked me to the door and dropped me off along with the “I had a really great time with you tonight.” etc. And then proceeded to give me a goodnight kiss. All you married folk, try this sometime! It brings back all sorts of butterflies. Gave me the oomph to finish the side-panels and psyche up to help Cam staple everything together.

Meanwhile, Cam made 3 different trips to Walmart. The first staple gun he bought didn’t fit our staples, so he went back to buy new staples, which also didn’t fit (even though they were the same brand as the new staple gun…) and so he went back and bought a whole new staple gun with coordinating staples. It was late. lol. The same lady checked him out all 3 times. She got a kick out of it. Cam did not. He got in the car and screamed. lol. And then came inside and informed me that “I was so mad! And nothing was on the radio except commercials. I hate that.” Oh husband. :)

It was smooth sailing once we got the right staples in the right staple gun. We finished around 2 and vacuumed for an hour. SO MANY STAPLES! We threw everything away, Cam hung our new family picture (thanks Em!) And we sat on the stairs to check out our handywork. :)

A little finishing touch with the silhouette and we were good to go!

We’re really thrilled with how it turned out. :) Thanks for reading!

It’s high time I posted something created with my silhouette! I made this candy jar mailbox back in February and left it for C to find. There was a note on the top of it that explained:

“There’s only one rule. To take the note inside, you must replace it with one of your own!”

It was intended to be a Valentine’s Day decoration, but we won’t be putting it away any time soon!

I designed it in Silhouette Studio, cut it out on contact paper (SO MUCH CHEAPER THAN VINYL OR TRANSFER PAPER!) with the silhouette, adhered the contact paper to the candy jar and etched it with armouretch for about 3 minutes. The design says “C + K, Post Office Department, What I Like About You Division”

The love notes that come out of this baby are stellar. :) I highly recommend trying something like this out!