loft life Archives - Page 2 of 2

bedroom, before & after, DIY, loft life, upcycle

Painted Fabric Chair

June 23, 2017 13 Comments

This post includes affiliate links. For the full disclosure policy click here.

The Original Chair

We bought this chair from a Habitat For Humanity ReStore for dirt cheap. It was a total goldilocks scenario since the chairs that are most comfortable for me are rarely comfy for Q. But, by some miracle, this one fit us both! Only problem was the color. It was a really unattractive mauve with green dots and that just wasn’t going to work with everything else in our place. We bought the chair thinking we were going to reupholster it but quickly decided that was entirely way too much work. After a bit of research I planned on painting it… and then a whole year and a 3,000 mile move happened. Ha! Since I was getting down to business with the decor in the loft it was time to finally tackle the ugly pink chair. Luckily this painted fabric chair turned out better than even I expected.

Painted Fabric Chair

The Solution

See, if you search painted fabric chair(or furniture) you will get a ton of results and nearly all of them are done just a bit differently. Being that I’ve never painted any fabric furniture I just wanted to make sure two things happened. First, I wanted the fabric to stay soft and pliable. I mean whats the point of a comfy upholstered wingback chair makeover if it ends up a stiff mess? No point! Second, I wanted full coverage on that awful pink color! Side note: if this color is your jam and you make it work in your house more power to ya! But this is just simply not the case in the loft.

The Steps

After pulling from a handful of tutorials I did the following to get some pretty fab results:

-Vacuum the chair thoroughly(esp. all those nooks and crannies!).

-Mix 1 part fabric medium with 2 parts interior paint.

-Spray the area you are painting with a light mist of water.

-Use a stiff brush to paint light coats over the entire chair. A smaller bristle brush is also helpful to get into all the creases and corners.

-Sand the surface in between coats(once completely dry) with fine grit sandpaper.

Painted Fabric Chair

[After the first coat. Yes, it looks patchy and scary but just keep painting!]

Now comes the fun part! If your chair has a distinct texture like ours you can layer your paint to keep the textured design. This idea came to me after sanding the first layer. Because the sanding is what keeps the chair from getting stiff you always end the layer with sanding. This will expose a layer below the current top layer of paint and in doing so you will also accentuate any raised pattern or texture in the fabric.

Painted Fabric Chair

I started with a couple coats of classic silver and hand tinted the paint for the remaining layers. I went darker by adding a couple ounces of black paint which I measured out on a scale (so I could replicate it if need be). Once the final coat dried and I sanded it down the texture really popped. And still no sign of the ugly pink!

The Results

Painted Fabric Chair

[before & after sanding]

Painted Fabric Chair

This does add a more rustic or even shabby chic feel(which isn’t typically us) but in this space its going to fit right in! All the wood in our bedroom is raw or unfinished so another perfectly imperfect piece is totally making us happy!

Painted Fabric Chair

So have you painted a fabric chair? Or any other fabric furniture? You know I’d love to hear all about it in the comments!

loft life, storage

Bike Hoist Storage

June 2, 2017 1 Comment

This post includes affiliate links. For the full disclosure policy click here.

Bike hoist storage

Bike storage. Unless your place has bike lockers(lucky you!) or you have your own garage(luckier you!) bike storage can require some seriously creative solutions. This last move left us with no garage, patio, or lockers for outdoor gear and specifically things like bikes. The items we only use on occasion like camping gear or our skiing gear lives happily in storage while not in use. But bikes are something that get used on the reg around here and needed to stay in the loft. So began my search for a solution so my living room didn’t double as a bike rack. Enter: bike hoist storage!

Bike hoist storage

After scouring the internet and reading a ridiculous number of reviews it seemed clear this was the solution for us. Being that we are in a loft we have crazy tall ceilings and making use of some of the overhead space made perfect sense. We considered a few different positions but the space above our stairway landing seemed the best suited. First, it wasn’t going to be a visual/decorative issue since the stairway doesn’t have much going on. Second, the landing shortened the distance we needed for installation. Other areas of the loft are 20+’ from floor to the ceiling so this was a big deal. The height above the landing cut the distance down significantly and we could use the ladder we already had. And lastly, the bike actually fit in this space!

Bike hoist storage

Luckily Q’s road bike is incredibly light(only 18lbs) but even if you are riding something with more heft these hoists can hold up to 100lbs. Knowing the hoist could handle the weight we moved on to hardware. The area we wanted to place the hoist wasn’t lined up with studs(typical!) so we needed drywall anchors. Since moving in I’ve used a number of different hanging hardware but we went with zinc drywall anchors that can hold 50lbs each. Once we had all the parts it was just a matter of measure, mark, and drill to get the hoist in place. This is really Q’s area of expertise so I got to sit back and watch(and occasionally hand tools up the ladder!). The whole process only took about 30 minutes.

Bike hoist storage

Its been a couple weeks now and we love this system! Even if we didn’t live in a loft I’d absolutely install one in a home, garage, etc. Its so easy to use, easy to install, and totally affordable. A win in all accounts! So what bike storage has been a win for you? Have you converted to hoist storage? Are you loving it? You know I’d love to hear about it in the comments!

bedroom, before & after, DIY, loft life, upcycle

Bouquet Boxes

May 26, 2017 No Comments

This post includes affiliate links. For the full disclosure policy click here.

Bouquet Box Before and After Keepsakes. Memorabilia. Trinkets. Call them what you want but us sentimental types all agree they have personal value for so many reasons. I used to spend a large portion of my free time scrapbooking and obviously as a photographer my pictures and images are especially important to me. But what about the other “stuff”? Say… maybe… a bouquet from a special occasion? This last year Q and I renewed our wedding vows and I’ve been hanging on to my bouquets knowing I wanted to make them into more of a keepsake. I’ve seen several versions of shadow boxes out there for wedding bouquets but I wanted something more open(no glass) and stand alone(no stationary/invitations). Moving around some old canvases I noticed the frames are essentially the perfect size and shape for my version of a bouquet box!

Bouquet before.

The bouquets I put together myself(very long story) using artificial flowers so they’ve held up extremely well. And the real touch… sigh… if I had only known about this at my actual wedding! I tell every bride about these flowers because I have been that impressed. These are some next level blooms y’all!

*Side note: if you had a real flower bouquet you could still do this project! Just preserve the flowers first and take a little extra care when assembling and cleaning. Preserved flowers can be a bit fragile but absolutely gorge so totally worth it!

Bouquet Blooms

I stripped the blooms off the stems and separated most of the foliage. Once I had the blooms cut I just flipped over the canvas to see how many would fit and/or how many canvases they would fill. My bouquets filled two canvases(10″ and 12″). Obviously these were some well loved canvases…. Ha! Bouquet Box Canvases I slapped a couple coats of Navy paint(sticking to my Navy/Rose Gold palette) on both sides of the canvases. No need to be concerned with any brush strokes, lumps, or bumps as the majority of the canvas is actually just covered in flowers or facing a wall. These two were covered in hot glue, tags, and super thick coats of acrylic from a project too old for me to remember! But hey, extra points for upcycling old supplies right?

Bouquet Box Assembly Once the paint dried I simply hot glued the blooms into place. I anchored a couple blooms to the sides and the rest were attached straight to the fabric. Also, I added in the shell picks and some faux coral. Which, of course, I hit with a couple coats of my favorite Rose Gold spray paint. Our master bedroom has a few beach touches (and we renewed our vows on the beach!) so I liked sneaking in a few extra beach elements. When everything was set and dried I just cut a couple lengths of rope, knotted the ends, and tacked them on with tiny finishing nails.

The corner of our loft/master bedroom has a small sitting area which is totally a work in progress. I’ve slowly been adding pieces and testing items… but Ive got a few big ideas brewing so I’m sure this will be changing. For now, the bouquet boxes were the perfect wall art for the area. They have only been hanging a couple days but they make me smile every time I come up the stairs!

So what keepsakes have you decorated with? Did your wedding or renewal bouquet get upcycled? You know I’d love to hear all about it in the comments! Happy Friday peeps!

DIY, loft life

The Maps.

May 17, 2017 No Comments

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KreatingHomes_Maps-1

You ever have a project sit on a Pinterest board long enough to make you start wondering if your just ever reeeeeeeally going to actually do it? This project was that exact case for me. I’ve seen more versions of this than I can list on this blog and I’ve had a handful pinned for quite a while. But! When I was setting up our mini hall/laundry/entryway space (aka random chunk of wall) I needed something compact to decorate with and the map project was finally brought to life:

KreatingHomes_Maps-2

I’ve seen maps cut into hearts around places you’ve lived, proposal/life stories stitched on maps, stitched hearts of travels on maps, and many more but I wanted to keep it pretty simple for our version. Plus, I wanted to fill the whole frame with the map image. I grabbed the state images here, cropped them to fit our frames(5×7″), printed them on straight copy paper, and stamped the places we have lived so far.

Maps

I tried doing this with white acrylic paint first but it was too subtle. So I stamped right over the white hearts with black ink which I stamped on scratch paper first(An old coworker taught me this! The effect is more distressed and you never over ink). Once it dried I used the paint stirrer hanging trick to get these up on the wall super quick.

KreatingHomes_Maps-3

It’s just a small addition to the wall space here but I love that its our story. So what projects have been lingering on your Pinterest boards? Any map projects in your future? Tell me all about it! Happy hump day my peeps!

bedroom, before & after, DIY, ikea hacks, loft life, upcycle

Ikea Nightstand Hack

May 13, 2017 29 Comments

This post includes affiliate links. For the full disclosure policy click here.

I know people have probably been hacking Ikea goods for as long as the place has been churning out affordable furniture. I also know Im totally late to the hacking party! While I’ve bought plenty of Ikea furniture over the years its never been with the intention to hack from the get go. That is, until this move. Until this Ikea ‘As-Is’ section. Until this Ikea nightstand hack.

The Raw Goods

If you’ve been reading my posts for a while you will remember our latest Ikea haul that maxed out our Prius’ packing capabilities(above). Hidden in that pile of discounted goods were two beat up MALM nightstands priced at a whopping $27. We may have knack for finding crazy as-is deals(what can I say?!). These guys are still reasonably priced new but seeing the pair marked down so much with what I considered strictly cosmetic issues I threw them on our cart as quickly as possible.

The Paint

After rolling around a few color schemes for our new bedroom space I decided on a Navy, Rosegold, Beachwood combo. With that in mind I skimmed the chalk paint color selection and grabbed a jar in the color Nautical. The label initially looked pretty close to the shade I was going. Unfortunately, after I swatched it I realized it was way too light. Straight out of the jar this is closer to a royal blue. So I grabbed a container of Rich black and started mixing. After 2 coats of paint, 1 coat of Wax, and 20 minutes of elbow grease buffing these looked ~~good as~~ better than new!

DIY note: if you’re mixing a custom color its really helpful to weigh as you go. I use our digital kitchen scale and and write down the “recipe” as I mix. This way I can create multiple batches while covering larger areas and duplicate the shade exactly as needed. The final color came out to about 3 parts blue and 1 part black.

The Hardware

I’ve used these simple pulls for other projects in the past and loved them. I knew I wanted to use them again to keep the look pretty clean and modern. Plus, you can grab the multi pack of 10 which is great because I have plans for the other 6 handles (more on that later). I’d been lusting after all the gorgeous rose gold hardware floating around Pinterest for some time but after seeing a couple price tags(who pays this much for handles??) decided I could get the same look with some good ol’ spray paint.

*Update: Amazon has now started making their own version of these pulls for a fraction of the price! I’ve used both and they’re equally well made and versatile for DIY projects.

I started off with the Valspar Rose Gold since it was so highly recommended online. This was great on coverage and it did have a rose-y hue but I like my Rose Gold pushing the line on Copper so I went in search of something else. Now, looking at the Dusty Pink by Krylon you would think this is going to come out straight Pink sans any Gold but NOPE! It came out my dream color mashup of Copper and Rose Gold(que the spray paint angels singing! Ahhhhh!). You can see the difference pretty well below. The right has just one coat of the Valspar and the Left has the additional coat of Krylon:

The Final Hack

I know I’ve been blowing up my social media with a lot of #chalkpaint but I’m still totally in love. Get used to it peeps! Any product that has this kind of coverage and staying power without me having to sand a single square inch is here to STAY! This covered all the scrapes and scratches these floor models had and made it look like part of the wood grain. And again: NO SANDING!

We talked about adding feet/legs(and we may still) but for now we are loving these new-to-us nightstands! So have you intentionally hacked any Ikea goods? Done a nightstand makeover? You know I’d love to hear all about it in the comments!

DIY, kitchen, loft life, storage, upcycle

DIY Kitchen Island

March 31, 2017 35 Comments

This post includes affiliate links. For the full disclosure policy click here.

Kitchen storage. Is there really ever enough? In my case the answer to that has always been NO! Enter the DIY kitchen island project that upcycled our old furniture into something crazy functional.

We’ve lived in so many different spaces and even the ones with the biggest kitchens still lacked enough storage to house all my kitchen supplies. I realize I may have more than the average person (and even most foodies). But! Being a food photographer as my “day job” means my kitchen doubles as my office. All my tools, dishes, thingamabobs, etc double as my props. Do you see why a DIY kitchen island was the first project we tackled upon moving into the loft?! Right.

The Pieces

When we moved across the country we decided to use Upack to move the majority of our household goods. The company drops off a container, you fill it, they drive it across the county, and eventually drop it off at your new home. Simple and super budget friendly. Only hitch is you have to pack it all yourself. We’ve moved a lot in the last 10 years of making homes together. And yet we’ve never packed for this big of a move and never with this kind of container. We did our best and man did we pack a lot of ~~junk~~ items into that space… maybe a little too much. At least weight wise. And maybe a little too much on top of what used to be our dinning room table…

When we finally unpacked enough boxes to uncover the table we realized the wood completely split(insert super sad face). At first my mind started to wonder how we could repair it. How we could alter it. How we could start some new woodworking projects in the middle of our new place. Quickly I realized that was too crazy even for us!

So we pulled the legs off and figured the top itself could make a great desk top or even just another backdrop/surface for my shoots. We quickly changed that train of thought too! Once we unpacked another stack of kitchen boxes we realized there was a serious needed more storage. Obviously a DIY kitchen island would be perfect in the space.

The Assembly

DIY Kitchen Island — (Doesn’t that space look like it was made for a huge DIY kitchen island?! I thought so too.)

We already had a few old expedit bookcases and some metal legs from a previous configuration. (Obviously its been a while since Ikea stopped making these…serious bummer! Luckily you can still grab a copy cat version online!).

To assemble the ‘island’ we just tipped the bookcases on their sides, arranged them back to back, attached legs to the bottom, and threw the old table top on! Yes, it was that simple.

The Accessories

After a few more days of unpacking and I added the lid holder to the far side. We rarely walk around that way and its relatively hidden. A bit more unpacking and magazine holders were added to corral those annoying water bottles which are always too tall to fit in apartment kitchens.

I also added some fabric storage bins to hide some of the less attractive items. As much as I love seeing pretty kitchens with open storage and all white plates and pottery… thats just not realistic for me. I have a variety of sizes, colors, and shapes and when you try to use open storage with multiple colors it just looks messy and visually cluttered. So fabric storage bins for the win!

After a few days of using the island we added some rubber feet between the table top and the book cases to help with the small amount of shifting we had. We didn’t really want to attach the top with brackets or other hardware because it seemed like overkill and would look messy. So far there haven’t been ANY issues with shifting but I’ll come back with an update after it gets a little more use.

Update: after nearly a year of use we never bothered to add additional hardware. The rubber feet were plenty to keep this table top in place!

So DIY project #1 for this loft is officially complete! What DIYs do you have planned for the weekend? You know I’d love to hear all about it in the comments!

loft life

Winning at IKEA!

March 14, 2017 No Comments

Shortly after unpacking we realized we are going to need some different pieces for the new loft. The space is soooooo different from our single family home and nothing seems to be fitting. After a few days online shopping and not finding anything we loved we decided it was best to just browse a few places in person. Home Goods, Living Spaces, Target… all the usual suspects. Being that its right up the road we stopped by Ikea. We didn’t go in with a big shopping list or any expectations but after walking into the As-Is section we came out with 2 packed carts!!!

{Q looks so happy to pack this up right?!}

I realize As-Is is a hit or miss section but last night we left #winning! The project list for this loft just got a huge boost of momentum and Im so excited to transform these pieces and get my “hack” on. Now off to shop for new DIY supplies!

loft life

Mini loft tour!

March 3, 2017 No Comments

Well its been a crazy long week of moving, unloading, moving, unpacking, moving, moving and more moving(sensing a theme here?! ha!) what feels like a million boxes but it feels like we are slowly getting settled in the new loft. Its currently jammed packed but I wanted to share a little mini tour of the new space as it was when we got the keys…

{Downstairs bedroom which will likely be an office}

{Upstairs loft which will likely be the bedroom}

{Eat-in kitchen which will likely not be “eat-in” at all}

Its so different from the 3 bedroom house we just moved out of but we couldn’t pass up these tall ceilings, fab kitchen, and open spaces. Its going to take all my creative mojo to reconfigure our household goods to make this loft work but Im super excited about the challenge. Now back to unpacking another pile of boxes!

loft life

Welcome to the loft.

February 23, 2017 No Comments

Its been a while since this blog got any love but we just got the keys to our new loft and I’ve already got a list of posts rolling around in my head!!! Its going to be quite the challenge moving from our 3 bedroom house in Massachusetts into this studio loft in the Bay Area but I seem to do my most creative work when Im thrown into unusual situations.

I’ll be unloading moving trucks, unpacking boxes, and playing with potential floorplans for the next few weeks. In the meantime I’ll also be sharing the transition, the DIYs, the designs, the challenges and other creative bits here on the new Kreating Home so come back for more blog love soon! Happy hump day my peeps!

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