Wednesday, January 11, 2012

a new year means home improvements.

Hey ya'll! So..I have been jotting down a list for about a year now of things I want to do to improve my apartment. It's pretty spacious and I've done a lot with it so far, but there are some things that still need to change. Here's a little start to my list:


1. recovering my screens for the dining room and kitchen- CHECK! 
2. getting two matching bookcases on either side of my desk (with decorative treatment).
3. new lighting. it, is. so. bad. 
4. rugs galore. 
5. new sectional. (working on this on Craigslist...ya'll let me know if you spot anything amazing!)
6. more curtain rods SEMI-CHECK!
7. new media center in the living room (IKEA last weekend)- CHECK!
8. new pillows for my bed and the living room (got a sewing machine for Christmas...here I go!)
9. add hardware to our kitchen cabinets
10. getting my antique chair re-caned 


These are just a few of the many things that I can see changing. I'm trying to check at least one thing off every few weeks until they get done. This helps me spread out the tasks so I don't get overwhelmed and this also helps lighten the load on my wallet! We already got the new media stand at IKEA, and it's just a really straight-lined and low profile piece. I'll show pictures as soon as I accessorize this area! I was able to hang a curtain rod on the window above my desk so I could actually see to work rather than squint. I ran the rod a lot wider than the actual window to give the appearance that the window is much larger. I also did this in my bedroom, but I still have two more windows that need rods and curtains in there. And then..there's the sunroom. I love our sunroom, but the window in there is about 150" wide...holy cow. So I'm on the lookout at IKEA for that as well. I found a couple things that caught my eye there, but again, I'm trying to do this in steps! This weekend, I ran over to the westside of town to go to two of my favorite fabric stores, Lewis and Sheron and Forsyth Fabrics. This ended up being a good weekend for staying in the house since I've been sick since before New Years...eek. But I thought I may be able to find a fabric for recovering my screens, which I could do at home. I paced up and down each aisle, and didn't see anything I had envisioned. I was thinking something fairly neutral for the dining room screens, but I definitely needed something that would pop for the kitchen. We have medium-toned wood cabinets (way too gold for my liking), and tan wallpaper. Blah Blah Blah. So I was thinking maybe an orange and pink Ikat would do the trick. I found one that I liked online from L & S...




but it just wasn't doing it for me in person. So I sadly almost walked out the door, when I thought about taking a quick peek at their discount section. Welp, a Dwell Studio fabric was waiting for me right there! The pattern was a little crooked, which would have been a dealbreaker had I been using it to recover furniture, but it was just fine for my purposes! I got it for a steal at about $10 a yard, and it retails for $28. Take a looksie at this Mazework-Brindle pattern. 






1. I used the sample cans of paint that I had leftover from my painting project in June to paint  two of the screens gray, and one green 
2. I measured out my fabric leaving a few inches to spare on either side
3. I used hot glue to make seams for each of the pieces of fabric (I would need 6 total- as each screen had two panels)
4. I glued the now seamed fabric onto the screens and voila! 


Here are a few pictures of the process (forgive the lighting and my horrible phone pictures): 


left: glidden grandiose       right: glidden backdrop

in the process of painting (see how plain they were before?)


measure and cut

glue time

finished product for the dining room 

finished product in the kitchen (still need to hang it...suspending it from the ceiling is a possibility!) 


It was pretty time consuming considering my trip to both fabric stores, the painting/drying, and cutting/gluing. But I think the final product was definitely worth the time put in! 


Happy DIY!

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