Orange You Glad I'm Finished?

I sure am! I can't believe that I haven't shared this with you yet. I finally finished upholstering my orange chair! 

Remember these guys? These orange chairs I've been carting around since we lived in San Antonio?

You may remember that I took an upholstery class here in Altus in order to learn how to recover these bad boys.

Orange Chair Upholster Update

Though I haven't said much about it I have been working diligently once a week on reupholstering one of my lovely orange chairs at my upholstery class.

Before

It has been quite an experience. I'm the youngest one in the class (and only pregnant one) everyone else is much older. They are mainly reupholstering seats in their classic cars or RV's. It's been pretty cool to meet and mingle with people I may not usually interact with. 

The tearing apart was the easiest part for me, all the sewing involved has caused me some hang ups. I didn't realize that my chairs would require so much sewing- I thought it would be mostly stapling... no such luck. We have 2 classes left and barring any unforeseen catastrophes I should finish my chair in time.

In the meantime here are some progress shots:

Bare Bones

Fabric Scrap Yard

Gazillion Staples

Putting it back together

Sewing Piping- Go Me!

Getting the arms ready

One thing I decided to do to update the chairs was change the style of the arm. They were very retro. I modernized them by adding a piece of wooden to straighten out the angle:

Before

After

This is the part that really got me- the front seat cover. I had to pull out my seams several times- it took me 2 whole classes to sew and resew and resew and resew... I just couldn't get it perfect! And little mess up or wrinkle showed big time. It was so frustrating- I had serious thoughts of giving up. Finally after many tries and a lot of hair pulling I got it looking pretty good. 

Now that the seat cover is all set all I have left is stapling the sides of the arms and back seat cover, and sewing (Lord Help Me!) the cushion.

Overall it's been a good experience- I've learned a lot and met some nice people. But I'm seriously debating when or if I should even tackle reupholstering my second orange chair myself. The good thing about the class is having an instructor there to help me, access to a air powered staple gun, and industrial sewing machines. 

Like I said- the whole sewing debacle really deflated my confidence. 

My choices are:

1. Attempt the task on my own- to just go for it!

2. To take a second class (and pay the extra money) to reupholster the second chair. My problem is that Tiny Falcon #2 will have made his appearance by then and I'm not sure how that's going to work out.

3. Pay someone to reupholster it for me. I feel like that's such a copout. I took a class I should be able to take on the project myself. I bought the chairs with the intention of doing it on my own. But one thing I've learned also is that reupholstering may not be my best talent. ;)

Have you ever had a project that caused you some serious headaches?

I'm So Excited and I Just Can't Hide It!

So last week I was whining a little bit about the lack of good thrift store finds in our area lately. I mean, I'm not really a whiner to begin with. Really I'm not....!! Anyway- the thrift store situation hasn't changed much but I've had some other exciting news and finds I just had to share with you. 


For one, I have been trying to get up the courage to reupholster these fabulous orange chairs I bought almost a year ago:

I bought them with the intention to reupholster them myself and even bought the fabric to do it with.

Kravet Haute Este

But I've been a big chicken and haven't been able to build up the courage to do it on my own. I had been searching for a place that taught upholstery classes. (Even back in San Antonio where I bought the chairs in the first place.) I happened to call the local Vo-Tech school here in town where they teach automotive classes and ask if they ever taught upholstery. 

And what do you know?! Here in tiny Altus, OK they are having an upholstery class starting up in about 2 weeks. OMG!! 

The class is new so they're trying to spread the word and get people to sign. I'm telling everyone I know- I hope this class happens because I cannot wait to try it out! YESSS!!!!

My other exciting news is an awesome dumpster find. They are redoing the gym on base and have been tearing out the old gym flooring. I heard through the grapevine that over Christmas the were giving the ripped out flooring away- and I wasn't here to take advantage!!

Well, over the weekend the workers were at the gym again tearing out some more floor. I found the general contractor and asked him if what they were doing with it. He said they were throwing it away that afternoon! And that I could have some if I picked it up myself.

So what did I do? Ran over to the Hubs office, switched my car for his truck and loaded up 3 5'x5' sections of basketball flooring!!

SCORE!! Basketball floor is made of solid maple- and I got it all for free! It's going to be hard to get the pieces into shape to make something with them; but I was looking online and people have done some pretty awesome stuff with reclaimed gym floors.

Awesome Tables!

Cool Mirror!

And who knows what else? I'm super excited!! I know this is a lot to take on when I'm also working on Con-Man's new Big Boy room, and soon a nursery. But what the heck? Let's do this!

Have you ever been excited to learn a new skill? Or been super excited to tackle a big new project?

Oh ya- and I changed my blog header again. I missed my spunky red haired tool wielding DIY chick.

Trial & Error

I wish I could tell you that every DIY project that pops into my head is so easy and turns out great. Well that's not always the case, but that's ok because one of the things I love about projects and DIY'ing is the trial and error and finding new ways of doing things.


This time around I've been collecting wine corks for a while and was ready to do something with them.

A LONG time ago I made this with corks I had saved:

I wanted to try something different this time. I like the way the cork looks on the ends. I thought it would be cool to cut the corks into slices and glue them in rows and make a cork board.

First I tried cutting them with my Dremel tool. It worked on a few of them but ending up leaving burn marks on most of them.

So my first attempt hasn't worked out quite the way I thought it would. But I'm not ready to give up yet. The few cork slices that do look good are pretty cool. I want to try another method of cutting before I am ready to give up.

Do you ever have a project that doesn't go quite as planned? Has anyone ever tried to cut corks this way before that has had success? I'd love to hear about it!

Ugly Lamp Revamp

I've been updating some areas of our house, and one area I've been neglecting for some time is the light on our front porch.

Ya, isn't it fabulous? Not only is the fixture old and pretty ugly it's also shot. We had an electrician look at it and he said the fixture is broken and needs to be replaced. I've been looking for a new one for a while so we can have some light on our front porch and finally had some luck!

I had gone to our local Habitat ReStore and found this:

The flower top piece isn't exactly my taste, and the color doesn't exactly go with our house color. But for the price I can work with it. I had some left over Rustoleum Brown Textured spray paint from my curtain rod project I thought could work. So I set to work taking the fixture apart and spray painted it.

Once that was all finished up it was time to hang it. I thought this post would just be about spray painted a new fixture and hanging, but our home was built in the 1930's and a lot of work has been done to it over time. As we've lived here and done work we've found a lot of things have been not been done correctly in the past.

This for example is not what you want to see when you take a fixture down. There was a small hole drilled in the bead board and the wires run up through it into the great unkown (AKA our attic.) There should be a junction box here, I should be able to rewire the fixture outside. But there's not. So it looks like I'll have to make a trip up to the attic and see what is really happening here. Typical old house adventures, my simple light re-hang has turned into a large project!

Ok, up in the attic I find this. Now I am not an electrician but I know this isn't exactly correct. (I did an internship at a lighting store so I think I'm pretty hot stuff when it comes to rewiring things but as the Hubs can attest to this is not always a good thing.)  Whoever lived here before ran a line off the original junction box to the center of the ceiling of the porch. It still works but is not the best solution. For the time being I went a head and rewired the new fixture in the attic. Our handyman is coming out later this week to do some exterior work and I'll ask him to double check it for me.

 

Here it is all hung up and ready for a test run! I think the brown complements the paint of the house much better than white would have.

Success! We have light!

And an overall shot. I am so thankful to be able to come home at night to lit porch and be able to see the keyhole to get in the door! 

Have you ever had any unexpected surprises while working on your home or on a project?

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2010 Projects In Review

Yay Happy New Year! 2010 was a great year for me and my family, and I hope that 2011 holds more of the same.

When I started this blog back in April my goal was to work on and complete several projects that had been floating around in my head for a long time. Having a baby and working with a husband who works 80 hour weeks had really put a cramp in my DIY style. I decided the only way to get things done would be to make the time to work on my projects. (This includes drilling things in the middle of the night; apologies to neighbors.) And I created this blog to help keep myself accountable. I didn't have any experience with blogs before then and have learned a lot along the way.

Here are some of my projects in review.

On my original list of things to accomplish:

Con-Man's Bookcase

Fence Post Curtain Rods

Improving My Sewing Skillz (Ya I spelled Skills with a Z, it makes sewing that much cooler)

Still on the List:

Learn How to Upholster

Con-Man's Desk (can't decide on a theme)

Finish the Coffee Table

And A Few things that popped up along the way:

Vintage Chair Rescue

Upcycled Patio Furniture

End Table Redo



I still have lot's more to work on including finishing our dining room, and painting our master bedroom and sunroom, ect ect. So I hope you've enjoyed the ride so far and thank you for all your support. I hope you'll stick around for some more adventures!

Mission Impossible, or not?

Do you hear what I hear? That jingle, jangle, clank, clank in my car? It's not Santa's Sleigh or a broken axle. It's the first part of my Christmas present to me!

I finally made it down to the steel supply here in town and bought my materials for my coffee tables! It's 3/4" Steel Tubing, I bought it from the friendly folks at Triple S Steel

They were super nice and helped me decide which was the best product for my project. They were so helpful and didn't mind that my order was small compared to most of the orders they receive.

I can't wait to get started! I am a little nervous though. This will be the biggest welding project I've taken on by myself. When I made my end tables I had my grandfather in-law helping me. So this will either go well or really bad. I'm optimistic though!

In the next few weeks this -

Will hopefully turn into this -

Wish me luck!!

Have you ever had a project you weren't sure you could complete? Any success stories would give me some encouragement!

Sewing- Not just for my Mom

I'm in the process of sewing a shirt Con-Man's Birthday (pics to come!) and it got me thinking about sewing in general. My mom always sewed. She made Christmas dresses for us, Halloween Costumes, curtains and bedding for our rooms. She always told me how when she was in high school she would make her own clothes! When I was younger she tried to instill this skill in me. Every summer she would take us to the fabric store and have us choose a pattern and fabric for a summer project. 

I remember how boring I thought it was! I wanted to be outside playing, or watching TV. To me at that age sewing was for old people. Still my mom persevered, bought me my own sewing machine, and I did learn the basics.

It wasn't until college when I started my Interior Design degree I realized how useful and cool sewing could be. I started to take an interest again; making cheap curtains out of sheets for my apartment. Taking a thrift store prom dress and making silk pillows for my bed, purses out of T-shirts, ect. But I never did it continuously and always had to call my mom to remind me how my sewing machine worked.

These days ever since Con-Man was born; I've taken up sewing again

My mom  helped me make the crib bumper for his bed (she saved me a ton of money over buying something ready made from the store). I made the pillow and blanket.

            

This is a pic of the blanket with the Craigslist dresser I re-did for Con-Man's changing table.

            

We also made the curtains and pillow for the rocker.

Con-Man in the Pumpkin Costume I made him for Halloween!

                     
             

I've also been having fun making him little clothes. Only problem is that he doesn't wear them long. It's hard to find tutorials on sewing things for boys. Most of the cute stuff is for girls!

So while I'm getting better I still have to call my mom sometimes for advice and always have trouble remembering how to thread my bobbin. And tonight my thread kept breaking, and I always somehow end up sewing the front and back of my fabric together no matter how careful I am. Why do I put myself through this pain and anguish!? 

I guess its for that sense of accomplishment. The moment when someone asks you "Did you make that?" and you can proudly say "Yes!" I'm having fun relearning a skill and trying to learn new techniques. So I guess what I'm trying to say is that even though you haven't done something in a while doesn't mean you can't try it again! And maybe one day when Con is older he'll think it's cool his mom made things for him. And who knows, maybe some of my creativity will rub off on him.

Who or what inspired your creativity? Has anyone else let something fall by the wayside that they might want to work at again?