winged parsons chair makeover

When we moved into this apartment I wanted a cute chair for my office. I was really tired of those ugly black roller chairs, no offense if you have one, I was just tired of mine and wanted something that suited my style.I loved this one from Restoration Hardware but couldn't justify spending $219 on something that I was just going to sit on, so I knew Id either have to find it used, or find one similar and make it over.

Then, Zack and I were at American Furniture Warehouse picking out our couches and I spotted this one marked down to $14. I kid you not, a parsons chair for $14. It had a lot of damage on the corners and it was leather, which is definitely not my style and I am trying to move away from the espresso wood tones but I knew with a little elbow grease and patience I could change this chair to something that would suit my style for much less than buying brand new, and after six months, I finally did.

The first thing I did was to remove the legs and all the leather pieces off the chair. This was a pain in the butt. I wasn't concerned with keeping any of the pieces, I know some people use them as a pattern for the new cover but I wanted to just wing it. The only piece I saved was the back panel, which I would definitely recommend. 

After it was all ripped apart I sanded down the legs. I originally thought they would end up being a pressed wood or something crummy like that but they sanded down just fine and I was left with a nice bare wood. 

I was hoping to stain the legs and then white wash them to match all the other wood in my house but when I started applying my leftover stain it was RED! I am not sure what happened to the can but it was red red. I should have stopped there and would have only had to sand down the one leg but no, I chose to stain ALL of the legs before I decided I could not live with it. So, again, I sanded down all the legs to bare wood. Sigh. That's DIY for ya. I ended of fining another can of the same stain [Minwax English Chestnut] and started over. This time the color came out exactly like I had hoped. 

I usually wipe the stain on with and old sock and then immediately wipe over that section with a dry cloth to get the excess off. I don't let the stain set for very long before white washing, I have found that whitewashing immediately after staining gives me the exact effect I want. To white was I mix water with plain white paint, about half and half, and then use a clean rag to wipe it on and a dry rag to wipe off the excess, same as I do the stain. 

Once I get the color that I am happy with I let it set for a while. The color always dries lighter and it always ends up with the perfect rustic wood tone I love. I have used this method for my coffee table, end table, fireplace mantle and soon, my dresser and dining table. Works like a charm. 

While the legs were drying I went ahead and started upholstering the seat of the chair. I wanted a tough fabric but also something soft. I have seen a lot of people using drop cloths for various projects and I thought it would be a nice cost effective material and it would give me that Restoration hardware look I was going for. I picked one up at Wal-Mart in the painting section for just $10 and I only used about a quarter of it for this project so that's a pretty good deal. Then I just used my staple gun and stapled it under the seat while pulling the fabric tight. I set that piece aside and did the same with the back of the chair just stapling the fabric around and leaving the back exposed. Once I finished this part I worked on the back cover. Remember I said I saved the leather back piece? This is where it comes into play. I laid the leather piece on a cardboard box, traced it with a marker and then cut it out. Once I had my template I wrapped my drop cloth around the cardboard and glued it with hot glue.  

After the cardboard was covered I used my staple gun to secure it to the back of the chair.

Eventually I will cover up the staples with some nail head trim, if I ever get around to going to Joanns but for now its put together and that's all that matters to me. Final thing was to put the legs back on and screw the frame back together and voila! 

xoxo,

Jackie

Lights on.

We are getting closer to moving and I have all these ideas going through my head about all the things I want to do to our new home. One of the main things that needs to be done ASAP is the lighting. There are three main light fixtures that I can not stand, the dining room, over the sink and the entryway light. The dining room light is terrible. Its this brass chandelier covered by a hideous glass shade, not to mention the glass is cracked. It looks exactly like this one and I cannot wait to replace it.

The entry way light and the light over the sink are both boob lights and while I don't hate hate them, I don't like them either. I don't feel like they fit my style and they just look so cheap. So, the other day while I was at Lowes getting some paint I stopped by the lighting area and was blown away by not only the options they had available, but also the prices! These are the ones that I really like!

I love this one for the dining area 

This one would look great over the sink

I think this one would tie the dining and the entryway together beautifully

Also this week I was shopping at World Market, which is one of my favorite places for inspiration and they too had some great lighting with great prices! I couldn't decided which of these three I liked better for the dining area......

capiz chandelier 

beaded chandelier 

capiz chandelier #2

If I went with either of the capiz chandeliers I would pair it with the simple glass pendant from Lowes and a flush mount drum shade like this one for the entry way.

I think either way its going to look great I just need to decide soon so we can get them installed before move in! Cant wait!

Xoxo,

Jackie

A house and a car

Zack came home this week and it was a nice long visit, I also took off a week from work because we originally planned to go out to California to attend his grandmas funeral but they moved it to the 17th and we couldn't change our time off from work so we were going to just go out and visit instead but with all the car trouble we were having and the cost to fix it all, there wasn't much of an option but to cancel our trip. I am so thankful Zack's family is so understanding, I mean, it really sucks we couldn't go spend time with them but at this point it was more important to make sure we have a reliable vehicle to drive. The day he got home we went down to a local car dealer and got a 2015 Honda Civic Si. We absolutely love it! It was sad to say goodbye to our old car but it was time for an upgrade.

On top of the car issues we have we are also having issues with our apartment as well. Honestly, its not a NEW thing, we have had issues since the day we moved in and its a BRAND NEW apartment complex so that's extremely frustrating. We expected better, especially for the cost of rent. Immediately we noticed the seams in the baseboards and in the ceiling drywall. When done CORRECTLY you shouldn't see the seams. There are paint drips EVERYWHERE and there were also very noticeable cutting issues on some of the baseboards and the doors were hung so crooked that the cold weather was pouring in, and now that its summer we are having issues with bugs coming in like crazy.Then, after a month we started noticing all the baseboards and door frames we pulling away from the wall. Its crazy how shoddy this place was put together.

We did have the office come in and "fix" things but they really just slapped some caulk in the cracks, screwed some plastic weather striping around the front door and called it good. The caulking looks fine now but the weather stripping hasn't worked. The only way to actually FIX the door is to remove it. fix the frame of the door and rehang the door, but they wont do that so needless to say we are beyond over it. Right now we are about 60 days out from our lease being up and we originally thought we might resign another lease because moving is so expensive and rent here in Colorado Springs is at an all time high and because two months ago the management company said they would be lowering our rent when the lease was up, but then the other day, the management company decided to INCREASE our rent at which point we decided there was no way we were going to stay here. We started looking for a place but couldn't find anything in our budget that we liked, we were ready to give up when an old friend offered to rent his home to us. Apparently he has been looking for a friend to rent to since hes moving to Durango to start college and he doesn't want to hire a management company and let a stranger live in his home and none of his other friends needed a place right now so it actually worked out perfectly. The rent there will be cheaper than rent here and its a three bedroom, three bathroom, singe family home in a nicer neighborhood. Its literally perfect. We gave notice to our apartments and we move in exactly 50 days and I am so excited. The only downfall to this situation, which isn't a big deal to me, is that the house needs a lot of work. Its not old, it was built in 2004, it just hasn't really been taken care of. At one point there were three men living there. Three very messy men. Also, most of the windows don't have window coverings and the lighting is dated so I am going to have to get creative and try to update on the cheap. I really need to repaint the dark brown living room and try to somehow fix the holes in the carpet where his puppy has chewed too. I am hoping we can go to a local carpet company and get enough carpet that looks similar so we can cut out the holes and replace it with new pieces. It probably wont look perfect but we will have to make do. That's whats so great about all this though, he is okay with Zack and I updating the house because it'll just bring in more money for him when he goes to sell in a few years, plus it'll give me a lot of projects and I love projects so I cant wait to get started. I feel so much more relaxed now that all these issues are taken care of and its starting to feel like things are coming together. I really believe that saying, "things fall apart so better things can fall together. " I cant wait to see what the next year has in store for us!

xoxo,
Jackie

Faux Fireplace Reveal

We actually finished a project! I am pretty darn proud of this one too! There were a few hiccups, as with any project, but for the most part it worked exactly as i thought. The entire build took us about four days, but only because we had little time to work on it, but it was worth it! We started out by disassembling the tv stand shelves so we had a very basic frame to work with.

After that, we went to Home Depot and gathered our supplies 

1- 2x2x8= $1.98ea

11- lath pieces [trim] = $0.45 ea

1- 1/8x4x8 plywood =$13.98ea 

[we had Home Depot cut the front and 2 side pieces for us and we had lots of leftover]

2-6' baseboard molding =$6.98ea

1-1x18= $19.98 

[this is the board for the shelf so cut at the length you want, I wanted it to hang over 1" on the front and both sides so Ill get a 1x18 and cut it to 1x13.5x51]

brad nailer = $27.99

the other supplies we used were :

saw 

[we used our friends circular saw since our miter saw was stolen but a miter would be best here]

pencil 

level 

tape measure 

paint and brushes 

After we gathered all our supplies we got to work building the frame. We reused most of the wood from the original frame and just filled in with new wood when we ran out, so if you are starting from scratch you'd obviously need more than 1 2x2 but it also depends on the size you're going for. Zack measured and cut the boards and attached them to the frame making the back match the front and then we covered the back with the excess plywood by nailing it in with our brad nailer. 

just the front boards on 

finished frame

With the frame completely built it was time to start what i called the "fun part." Also known as making a bunch of wood look pretty! We first attached the side pieces using the brad nailer. After that, we laid the front piece on and traced the opening with a pencil and zack cut it out with the circular saw and then nailed it onto the frame. 

Once all the plywood was attached we started on the baseboard molding. We used baseboard for two reasons. The first being that the angles are much easier to cut [45 degrees] and second because i wanted the top and bottom molding to match, plus it was cheaper. So, we measured cut and TRIED to attach it with liquid nails. This is where the hiccup was. The molding was just sliding down the frame. We thought using the clamps would help with this but it was a pain to work around so we tried to nail them on with the brad nailer and for some reason it WOULD NOT go all the way trough the molding. So we would nail it then have to hammer that nail in, then do another and so on and so forth, it was quite annoying but it is what it is and we got it on. 

Adding the molding was a pain in the butt and took longer than expected but it had to be done before the trim could go on. As soon as we finished the molding we moved onto the trim. I had drawn out exactly how I wanted the trim to look so Zack cut it and I nailed it all down. 

Basically at this point we were done. I gave the trim a light sanding [lath is a bit rough], wiped it down with a damp rag, and adding three coats [two sample cans] of paint and voila.

I haven't bought the wood shelf for the top yet because I was trying to decide exactly how i wanted it to look but now i know I want a 1" over hang on the front and sides so I just need to get down to Home Depot and buy it, I'm just too lazy right now. So for now, i am using the wood that was on the TV stand and this is how it looks in my living room. 

I absolutely love it and Im so proud of it! I need to find the perfect round basket and some logs for the center and It will be perfect! 

xoxo, 

Jackie