bedroom Archives - KREATING HOMES

Home Tour: Loft Bedroom

December 6, 2017 23 Comments

Ok, this is a bittersweet post. Excited to share another Home Tour with you guys but it will be our last from the loft. Yep. We’re moving again! More deets on that later(promise!). But before we say goodbye to the loft lets check out the Bedroom since it had some of my favorite DIYs to date!

Home Tour: Bedroom

Copper Plant Stands: This was the first time I’ve worked with real copper pipes for a DIY and I was instantly hooked! This project comes together so quickly and requires very little supplies. Plus it dresses up even the most basic pots!

Home Tour: Bedroom

MALM Nightstand Hack: I feel like we’ve all had some variation or piece from the MALM collection. Its solid, inexpensive, and super affordable. Unfortunately its also very basic. Hacking these nightstands with hardware and chalk paint completely customized them with minimal effort.

Home Tour: Bedroom

Painted Throw Pillows: Speaking of minimal effort… these throw pillows were more like a coloring book exercise than full on DIY! I loved the design and price but they didnt fit our color scheme as-is. A little rose gold paint and fabric medium changed that real quick!

Home Tour: Bedroom

Rose Gold Lamps: A little rose gold paint was also key to these lamp makeovers. They started out a basic college dorm room lamp from Target. With a coat of rose gold paint and new shades they coordianted perfectly with the nightstand hack!

Home Tour: Bedroom

Painted Fabric Chair: This project was a long time coming! We bought this chair when we lived on the east coast with plans to reupholster. After a bit more research we quickly realized that project was way more work than we actually had time for so it sat as-is for some time. Once we moved into the loft I was ready to find a better solution and its no surprise I decided on paint. After a little research and a few fabric medium tests I found the perfect paint solution! Its been months and this is still my favorite reading spot.

Home Tour: Bedroom

Customized Planters: There are always those last few touches that complete any room. For me this generally revolves around plants(yes Im an aspiring #plantlady!). This post showed a few ways I customized store bought planters.

Home Tour: Bedroom

Gallery Wall: like I mentioned in the original post, I put these in every space we move into. I love the symmetry, repetition, and clean design it brings to our spaces. This hack helps get them up quickly and with minimal effort. Plus I love the subject in this set of prints! 😉

Home Tour: Bedroom

This loft bedroom was one of my favorite spaces. I loved the airy open feel and the gorgeous light we woke up to every morning. It may also be the most DIYs Ive managed within one space! So have you added any DIYs to your master bedroom? Tried any of the above in your own home? You know I’d love to hear all about it in the comments!

bedroom, DIY, loft life

Lazy Gallery Wall

June 30, 2017 2 Comments

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

Gallery walls are classic and I’ve used them somewhere in nearly every place we’ve lived! But all the measuring and math involved in the traditional way of hanging them is more work than I’m ever willing to do. Ever. Even the day I hung my thesis for our Senior Show I brought my paint stick(half this hack!) and finished hanging in minutes. And guess what? Not a single professor or photographer suggested any adjustments! So be lazy. Im giving permission. Ha! Or just consider yourself a bit more efficient because this guide to a lazy gallery wall will help get your art up in no time!

Lazy gallery wall

The wall beside our bed is totally basic but the space is open and perfect for something a bit oversized. After going through the stacks of canvases and framed photos we have left to hang I decided on a set I took in school. The photos are pieces of Q in his uniform a few years ago and they are still some of my absolute favorites. Plus, all the navy works perfect with our new palette! #winning

Ok, so the only measuring this requires is setting the mid-point. Which, I know(thank you art school) always gets placed at 58″ from the floor. I couldn’t tell you the science of why this is so esthetically pleasing but it works so I don’t mess with this measurement. This means the middle of your collection as a whole is placed at the 58″.

Lazy Gallery Walls

Once you find that midpoint(58″) slap a piece of painters tape up long enough to line your grouping. Use a tape the same width you want between your images since this is essentially your hanging guide. Add a piece that intersects your first guide at the horizontal midpoint(creating a T). Using a laser level to make sure these two pieces are well set and level. A little attention to detail on the first two will ensure the rest of the group is lined up well.

Lazy gallery wall

Use the old paint stick trick to hang your first frame. Start with the ones you want in the middle as you will be working your way out. This method of hanging makes it super easy to line up the edges of your frames with the tape guides. Once the first frame is set add your next piece of painters tape to the opposite side of the image(pictured). Again, these are your spacers! Continue working your way out and up. I promise your wall will come together in minutes. Really, minutes!

Lazy gallery wall

Before you pull the tape off your finished wall use a small amount of Blu-Tack to keep everything in place. Blu-Tack is a repositionable adhesive that will keep your frames perfectly lined up without leaving any residue on your paint or holes in your drywall. This really keeps your frames tightly lined up and it only takes a few seconds to place a dab behind each frame.

Lazy gallery wall

When everything is set simply peel off that painters tape(so gratifying!) and enjoy your perfectly placed gallery wall!

Lazy gallery wall

So have you installed a gallery wall lately? Used any tricks for hanging quickly? Tell me all about it in the comments!

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!

bedroom, DIY, plant lady

Copper Pipe Plant Stand

June 19, 2017 1 Comment

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

I recently saw a meme that read: plant lady is the new cat lady. First, I think this is hilarious. Second, Im absolutely on a path to crazy plant lady. I love my plants and our loft is slowly being converted to jungle status. No regrets! But having all these plants and pots around the house means I’ve searched and shopped just about every plant stand I can. I’ve bought a few locally, ordered a few online, scavenged a few, and now of course Im starting to DIY a few. And I started with this awesome copper pipe plant stand.

When we moved this last time we had a LOT of supplies left over from our home renovation. Some items we gave away, others we have been able to sell, and still others are lingering. This was the case with the copper pipes. We had 2 lengths of pipe left over from a water heater project and I’ve been waiting for the right DIY project to use them up. Which is how these two dilemmas came to be the perfect solution: copper pipe plant stand!

If you search Pinterest for plant stand DIYs you will find them made out of every material imaginable. But after reading through a couple pipe specific tutorials I kept coming up with the same issue…. no one uses the the entire lengths of pipe! This seemed nuts to me so I adjusted the measurements slightly and came up with two plant stand sizes that both use the entire 5 foot lengths of pipe.

Copper pipe plant stand

Each plant stand requires:

-1 5ft length of pipe

-8 tees

-8 caps

–Glue(optional)

I measured, marked and cut the following lengths:

For the original stand:

-4 pieces 2” for inner frame

-4 pieces 2.5″ for outer frame

-4 pieces 3″ for top support

-4 pieces 7.5″ for legs

For a taller/slimmer stand:

-4 pieces 2″ for inner frame

-4 pieces 2″ for outer frame

-4 pieces 3″ for top support

-4 pieces 8″ for legs

Once everything was cut I simply connected the pieces with tees and added the caps to the ends. I read a couple tutorials that used glue or crimping tools to keep everything together but my pipes and fittings were pretty tight already so I skipped this step. Obviously if the fittings are loose or separate easily using a bit of glue is necessary. Lastly, I polished the whole stand with a cotton rag and a mix of lemon and salt. This mix really brought a shine back to the copper and helped remove the last bits of sticker residue. With the stands polished they are right at home with all the rose gold in the rest of the bedroom.

The measurements for this DIY can be rearranged and adjusted to accommodate any pot size and/or pipe length which is super convenient! Once you get the basic shape of this down I promise you will start thinking of other possible versions! So what plant stands are you loving at the moment? Have you gone DIY on your plant stands yet? You know I’d love to hear all 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!

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!