sweetheart art

I am always on the lookout for fun art for our house that is very personal. I don't like to hang random pictures...but I like them all to tell a story and most things on our walls at the moment are things we've made or are very personal. (and sometimes I buy things if they make me laugh, like this bathroom art).

A year ago I found a fantastic etsy seller that makes hand-cut paper designs with your name or initials. I fell in love with her store and bought two pieces. They sat around for a while but are finally up...in our master bedroom!

Here's one:

And another one that I LOVE with all of our names intricately cut out of it! It's hard to tell in the pictures since these are mounted in frames, but the black you see mixed in the white is actually a piece of black construction paper I put behind the paper cutting. If we ever want to make it a fun, bright color it's as simple as slipping in a sheet with a different color. SO great!

The pictures are part of a big 'collage' on a wall in our master bedroom. It used to look really bare, like this:

I had several pieces of art and pictures I wanted to put up in this space...although our goal was to put a TV here. This was one of the walls that was completely gutted (there used to be a closet door here) and when we put the wall back we wired it for a TV to hang in the center of the wall. But, honestly, we haven't wanted to spend the money on a TV for us right now...AND who needs a TV when you have an iPad?? Netflix and Hulu, along with a couple apps like PBS and HGTV pretty much stream whatever we want to watch anyway so there's kind of no need for a TV here anymore. Maybe we'll change our minds, but for now, we went with art.

Here is the wall in progress. I traced the frames I wanted to use with magazine pages to make templates and then taped them on the wall to get the placement right.

Then put Command strips up on the wall and the back of each frame. We couldn't do nails in the wall here because of all the plumbing and TV wiring in it. We didn't want to accidentally nick a wire or cause problems. I was skeptical that the strips would work...but they work GREAT! 

And here's the almost-completed wall (with a few pieces missing that I haven't gotten around to printing/making yet):

Here are a couple more close-ups of the art:

My sister-in-law gave me this picture for Christmas two years ago. (Amanda - it's finally up - thank you!)

And this is a strange looking piece of art I made for Michael. I actually took the first tie that he ever wore for his first job and cut it to fit in the middle part of the frame. Then I took two of his other memorable ties and cut them too. This art accomplished two things, it kept the memories for Michael in an interesting way...while letting some things go out of our closet (if only we could do that with old t-shirts too). 

You can read more about the antlers here. I still love them and have no problems leaving them up year-round. Eventually I hope to get around to finishing up several more projects for this wall. But for now, it's fun to have one less blank wall, and my sweetheart art hanging up!

The Best Bed EVER

Did you know I love Pottery Barn?? It's quite an understatement, actually. But so much of what they have just seems to perfectly fit what I need.

Like this bed for instance...

When the hubs and I decided to give the girls our bedroom upstairs...we moved into a much smaller cracker box bedroom. We went from having our bed, night stands, dressers, and even a pool table (yes, we had a pool table in our room for a year or two)...to having just enough room for our bed and night stands. We also went from each having our own walk-in closet, to sharing a teeny tiny one. Oh the sacrifices of being a parent! :)
Since our new master is so 'cozy' a bed like the one above is exactly what we needed. And what's not to love about the pretty white bed from Pottery Barn with lots of room in those spacious storage drawers? Ummmm...the price! There aren't any circumstances where I can see myself shelling out over $1,700 for a bed frame.

BUT...what if there was a way to make something similar? Welcome to my life Ana White! A friend of mine (thanks Jen!) told me a long time ago about a website that gave 'knock off' furniture plans for some popular stores. (like Pottery Barn) And wouldn't you know it...she had plans for the bed with drawers.

We planned to make the bed after getting everything else in the house settled. But I decided to ask my Dad to help me make it while we were living with my parents. Even though "drawers are the hardest thing to make" he agreed and we began working on it over July 4th weekend as a SURPRISE to my husband!

It just so happened to be one of the hottest weekends of the year! The kids enjoyed the a/c inside while watching us work. We cut big sheets of plywood down into pieces (thanks to my parent's neighbor for letting us borrow his saw)...

And fit them together to begin making each 'bench.' The bed is essentially made up of 3 benches, each containing 2 drawers.

The iPad is the one of my favorite things and got a new use...it let me see the plans while we were working.

One of the benches coming together...

And here's the rough trim on all 3.

A cabinet-maker friend made the actual drawer boxes for us and also the drawer fronts. Although...we basically had to remake the fronts because as you'll see in the picture below...all those little routered grooves were his artistic vision and not mine. The kids had fun playing in the drawer boxes though!

Here is one bench assembled after it was painted and the hardware was put on. We modified the plans so that the drawer fronts are recessed back a little from the bench frame. It think it gave them just the right look.

And this is how the three benches fit together in the room.

We put it together and surprised the hubs. He had no idea we had been working on this top-secret project over the past few months. We love the bed and the space it gives us...and he's very relieved that he doesn't have another project hanging over his head. Make bed with drawers...check!

The mattress for the bed has a crazy story all its own...but I'll save it for another post. I really debated about posting a picture of the bed as it is today...since the room is not at all finished (nothing on the walls...missing bedding...no headboard yet...etc.) but here's a peek at what the room and bed look like right now.

I'd say it's about as close as you could get to the Pottery Barn version...but better because the total cost was only about $350. (and I.don't.know.how.many.man.hours) Thanks Dad!!
And since I didn't have to spend as much on a bed...I bought the curtains and mercury glass pendants you see above. And guess where I got them... ;)