This One's for the Dewey Decimal Nerds

Look at what we found at an Antique store yesterday!  We are down-right giddy. It needs a little lovin', mainly in the form of a good sanding and darker stain.  But after months of searching, this beauty is definitely one of our favorite pieces and you can expect at least one additional blog post on it. 

A Quick Christmas Wrap-Up

Just a quick post on a few of the fun things we enjoyed this Christmas.

New chalk board frame, heralding the coming King. 

Advent candles, on mirrored stand, all from World Market, with sage from the garden. 

Book page rosettes. 

 

Book page snowflakes for wrapping. 

Boxwood branch and book page rosette=cheap wrapping adornment. 

 

Peppered beef tenderloin. Major yum. 

Rangel Family Yueltide Beer Tasting selection.  2013 "Grandma Got Run Over by a Weissbier"

A Fresh Coat of Pantry

We are still thrilled with how awesome our kitchen renovation turned out.  It feels bright, clean and modern.  Exactly how we wanted our kitchen to feel.  But this newly reclaimed fresh feeling in the kitchen only heightened the feeling of nastiness that remained just beyond the basement door.  Behind this door...

was this...

and this...

So we recently decided to tackle this dark, ugly space and make way for some of that clean fresh kitchen feeling to seep into the pantry/basement steps.  Aside from a LOT of paint, we had to do a little bit of structural work to reclaim some of the space that used to be enclosed for the radiator, but ended up being dead space because we removed the rad.  

Enter: my manly husband and his power tools.  With the help of a hammer and a reciprocating saw, Jake had the space opened up in no time, and then built new shelves to span the reclaimed area.  

Then, of course, came the 8 hours of prep and painting to finish off the space.  It wasn't glamorous. It wasn't exciting. It wasn't even photo-worthy, evidently. (Have I mentioned lately how much I dislike plaster walls?)  But it was worth it.  We went with a semi-gloss white in the pantry and a cool grey on the walls down the stairs.  

 

In addition, we decided to change up the flooring a little bit.  We covered the closet floor with cheap peal and stick vinyl tiles (just for a slightly more finished look) and we "carpeted" the top steps and landing.  I say "carpeted" because we literally took old carpet remnants, cut them to size and staple-gunned the edges to the wood.  Don't look close, cause it's a little ghetto.  But it was cheap and now our footsies are a little more comfortable when stepping into the pantry.

And then of course I got to reorganize the pantry shelves. My favorite part.  Nothing too special here. Just a couple stacking baskets for onions and potatoes, and a few new containers for other random things.  

 

Hello clean(er), bright(er) pantry.  You aren't the glamorous walk-in pantry of the magazines, with great lighting and perfectly squared walls, but you'll do fine.  Just fine.

Painted Chevron Table Runner

Who doesn't love a good chevron print?  It seems like this pattern is everywhere these days.  And I'm not complaining because I love bold graphic prints.  But I do wonder how long the trend will last and I'm hesitant to sink too much money into a big chevron rug or too much time into stenciling a whole wall in the pattern.  Which is why I'm a sucker for cheap, quick DIY projects like this one.  

Here's the link to the original project description for a painted chevron pillow.  Wanting something fresh for Christmas for our dining room table, I decided to turn it into a table runner project instead. Although, the colors I chose for the Christmas runner turned out...ummm...less than lovely.  I was going for a classy red and a light shimmery champagne combo, but it turned out red and bright yellow.  It felt a little too "school-house".  So I used the left over fabric and some other paints laying around and made another one for non-Christmas decore.  As you'll see below, the "in progress" pictures are from the Christmas trial (and error), and the finished project pictures are from the second take, which turned out much better.  Here's the quick rundown: 

Supplies: 

-2-3 yards of white cotton fabric (depending on the length of runner you want)

-fabric scissors

-No Sew fusible web tape (or a sewing machine, if you'd prefer to sew up the edges)

-painter's tape

-acrylic or fabric paint (one or two colors)

-ruler

Fusible web tape is such a great option for when you need a quick finished edge and don't feel like threading your sewing machine (which is seriously one of the hardest steps in sewing for me; it feels  like a crazy maze that someone's using to trick me).   The directions are on the package, but basically you just iron the seam you want "sewn" (in my case, 1/2 inch around all edges), put a stretch of tape under the seam, iron over it again (with a damp cloth over the fabric) and it's done.  Here's what my seams looked like after using the fusible web tape. 

Then you tape our your pattern, which in my case was a chevron with vertical lines trisecting the pattern. For a 6-foot-long runner, this takes a while.  But a couple hours on a Sunday afternoon with Arrested Development reruns on in the background, and you're good to go.  A good taping job makes all the difference in creating sharp, crisp paint lines. Then, of course, you paint the resulting white parallelograms (aw-yeah, 6th grade geometry), in alternating colors.   Let the paint dry for a couple hours, then carefully peel away the tape.  Voila!

A note about the paint:  there is such a thing as fabric paint, but for some reason the only fabric paints I could find at the craft store were super ugly colors--primary colors, neons and nothing else--as if it were still the 1980's.   And as I learned in my first attempt, the right color is essential to the final product.  So I recommend using regular craft paint MIXED with a textile medium, which makes the paint fabric-friendly (and machine-washable).