Dining room curtain sneak peek!

I finished the curtains for the sliding door in the dining room, and I know you're all just dying to see what they look like. Or you can humor me and pretend like you are at least!

I bought a pair of khaki chino curtains at Walmart for $16, and they were a little small, so I worked up a plan to add on to them. I won't show you the WHOLE picture, until I do the entire dining room reveal (hopefully in a week), but here's a little peek to whet your appetite!


P.S. You have no idea how hard it was to find black grosgrain ribbon for this project. Seriously. I went to 4 different stores, and ended up with black twill tape instead. I am pleased with the result, but seriously? I don't live in a small town, you'd think they'd have that kind of basic crafting supply in stock. I guess it's just too popular, kind of like me (JUST KIDDING!).

And if you made it this far without giving up, I'm going to share another story with you. So, Hobby Lobby was stop #2 on the search for ribbon. I love this store, and it's just down the street from my house! {When we moved to our new apartment, I told my husband I was going to be fine, because I knew how to get to Walmart and Hobby Lobby.}

Anyway, turns out they only have black grosgrain ribbon for sale by the yard, and not by the spool. Let's do some math. I needed about 7 yards. It sells for $0.83/yard. I just "guesstimated" that would put me somewhere in the vicinity of $6-ish dollars. Maybe $5 (okay, you caught me, we're not really doing math!). Anywho, the grosgrain ribbon by the spool is 7 yards and normally sells for $4, but was on sale for $2 a spool.

I thought they might just have run out of black by the spool, but I asked the fabric lady and she said since they sell it by the yard they don't sell it by the spool. Yeeeeeaaah....so, I'm supposed to pay 3 times as much for it because you can't give me an entire spool to take home? I'm not sure if I was feeling cheap, cheated, or if my pride was wounded, but I told the lady I'd just have to buy it somewhere else. (I never say things like that to sales people!)

Well, a lot of good that did me. Two stores later I was leaving with 5/8" twill tape instead of 7/8" grosgrain. But like I said, I still think it looks good, and may have even been easier to work with, so it all turned out just fine.

But really, when did it become so hard to find black ribbon??


Oh, and just for funsies, another sneak peek:


That's right, I sanded the table last night, and will be priming it during Bitty's naps today!

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My table, Alt-erior Design-ed.

Don't you sometimes wish that you could just SEE what that new paint color would look like before you actually take the plunge (and spend the money)?

Well, I know a great girl, Ali Mae, with a great blog. It's called Alt-erior Design, and she does virtual design consultations. What she does is takes a picture that you give her, and works her magic on it to show you all of the possibilities! And she does more than just paint colors. She rearranges furniture, adds accessories, etc, so you can get a vision of what your space could look like.

And I'm super impressed (and a little jealous!) that she has found such a great way to make a little extra cash as a stay at home mom to three adorable little ones.

Like I said, she's a great girl, so after she read my post asking for advice on how to paint the dining room table, she decided to help me out and show me what the options I was considering would look like. She even threw in another option I hadn't even thought of.

Here's my before:


And here's her awesome alt-erior design (click to see it larger):


How cool is that?! Go check out Ali Mae's work at Alt-erior Design! And you'll just have to wait and see which option I decided to with! Thanks Ali Mae!

{And I know, the before is terrible, with the food and dishes all still out on the table and that ugly plastic shelf. I considered taking a new before shot for this post with all of that put away now, but I decided I'd wait and show the dining room off when I finish with the table and the curtains. It's going to be quite the improvement.}

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My to-do list

I had a lovely Labor Day, how about you? We had fun time on a picnic at a park with my brother and his family, but I also managed to get a few things done. I cleaned out the fridge, and with the help of my handsome husband we finally arranged the laundry room, and hung up my cute little black thrift store shelves in the dining room. Love it!

Here's what I still need to do this week (before FRIDAY!!):

finish curtains {the ones covering the sliding door are a little small, so I'm adding some a little something to make them larger... I'm pausing from that project to write this post, but I still need to go get some ribbon to finish them up!}

tie-backs {out of matching cornice board material, to go on the LR curtains}

shelf curtain {to cover the plastic shelf by the fridge}

finish unpacking stuff on the landing

finish scrubbing outsides of kitchen cabs

fix loveseat {a couple of places came un-stapled during the move}

tidy bedroom

paint table(s) {dining room table!! I also have plans for coffee and end tables, if I get to them}

make a shower curtain for baby's bathroom

buy rug for baby's bathroom

What projects do you need to get done this week?

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My {kind of} bold cornice board...

...or "corny board", as my husband affectionately calls it. He thinks decorating terms are silly. When I said something about spray painting finials, he stopped what he was doing and said, "Finials? Really? Are you just making these words up??" Oh, I love him!

Anyway, back to the point...

Remember when I finished my high chair seat re-do and showed you this picture of my cute boy in front of our vertical blinds in all of their glory. Did I tell you I HATE the look of vertical blinds?


As soon as we moved in I knew I wanted to hide them. I know I could have just taken them down altogether, but I didn't want the hassle of taking them down, storing them somewhere, and putting them back up when we'll be in this apartment for less than a year.

Also the side of the apartment with the blinds gets a LOT of sun and heat in the late-ish afternoon, so I kinda wanted to keep them as insulation from the hot hot sun. (FYI our power bill this month was about $140 more than we used to pay in our old place...what a difference 500 more sq. feet and central air makes in the price...)

So I decided I wanted to keep the blinds up, but HIDE them... So we put up curtains (which ended up being a little small...I'll fix that this week..didn't get done this weekend, oops!) and cut a board (I started with a 1x8x8) for a cornice board. My husband helped me screw it together. This is what our sliding door looked like for a while:


So, the other night I finally got around to covering the cornice board. I did it at about 10:30pm, so I hope I didn't bother the neighbors too much! Sorry Ashley!

First: Lay out your fabric, batting, and board, like a nice soon-to-be-cute little sandwich.


Next: Staple the fabric onto your board. I started in the middle and worked my way out. Apparently it also helps to leave the newspaper you had the last two boxes of kitchen stuff wrapped in on the floor if you're taking pictures. (But hooray! I finally finished unpacking the kitchen last week!)

Tip: On the ends (the little short boards screwed in to the long one) don't wrap the fabric all the way around. Stop on the 1" part that will be flush with the wall, so that you have a place to screw the brackets on to the inside. I wrapped mine all the way around and realized I needed to take it out and fix it. Live and learn.


Then: Hold the board while your cute hubby screws the L brackets onto the short pieces for you.


I know this next picture is kinda blurry, and there's a lot going on with the vert blinds hardware and curtain hardware AND the cornice board, so look closely. We connected one side of the L bracket to the short side of the cornice board and the other flush with the wall.


And Ta-Da! Tell me what you think!

It's not perfect, I know... but I think it's a heck of an improvement.

I picked a bolder fabric than anything else we have in our house, because I just didn't feel like sticking with the expected, or boring, but branching out a bit. I'll be making tie backs for the living room curtains (which we DID finish hanging this week, I'll post a picture when the tie backs are done). I'm hoping that'll tie the two rooms together a little better.

After getting the board hung up it made me so excited that I went and bought the paint for my dining room table. You'll just have to wait to see what it'll look like!

I'm hoping to get a lot of little things done this week, since my BFF is coming to stay for the weekend. Nothing like house guests to get you going!

Update: The curtains are finished! If you want a sneak peek, click here!

I'm linking this post up to the following:

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Friday Faves

So, the way I do my "research" for these Friday Faves posts is basically just, well, reading my usual blogs in my Google Reader, and then clicking links that look interesting that I find on those blogs. While I was reading this week I saw a lot of good ideas and such, but not much that stuck out to me as extraordinarily awesome (or {FAM}tastic, if you will)...

BUT

I found one post that I absolutely fell in LOVE with! You know it's a good blog post when, after reading it, you are totally inspired to go out and start a new project! So this week we will be having a themed edition of Friday Faves:

QUIET BOOKS!

I saw these posts from Jamie at Crafting Chicks.


Quiet Books: This one is her intro to the quiet books. At the end she lists some links to blogs where she got the ideas for a lot of her adorable pages! Book 1 and Book 2 are posts about each individual page she made for her quiet books. She made two, because she has twins, I think.
Book 1
Book 2


Yes, that is barn with animal finger puppets! Definitely making this page.

Seriously, I've already started planning out which pages I want to include in the quiet book I will now be making the Bitty boy for Christmas! I guess that means I should kick into high gear where projects are concerned so I can get it done in time!

I looked through the blogs she recommends in that first post, and I thought that this one was an excellent resource. Not only does she show you her pages, but gives instructions on how to make each one!

Go check it all out! I hope you're as inspired as I was!

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Progress is slow...

With the encouragement of my sister-in-law, I finally got started hanging the curtains in the living room today. Got started, you ask? Why couldn't I just have done it and be done with it? Yes... if life were easy...

So, we figured out where to hang them, and when I screwed the first screw in, it wouldn't go all the way in. I thought it was just me being wimpy, so I moved on to the next one and would come back to it later. The next screw went in without much problem. I tried again to finish the first one, and I still couldn't get it, so again I moved on.

On to the next window. Again, I cannot get the screw all the way in. Moving on. CAN'T get the next one in all the way either! Seriously? I went back to my third screw and screwed it with all my might, but instead of it going into the wall, it just began showering drywall dust. Hmmmm... Not sure what to do about that. I'll have my husband use his muscles and see if he can make it work. Or borrow the extender thing from my brother's drill (since I wasn't able to use our drill because of the shape of the bracket I was screwing in).

Anywho, here's what we've got so far:


The window on the right is the first side I did.

Above is that pesky first screw. See how the whole bracket is hanging off the wall? That's why that side is so crooked.

I haven't put the finials on yet, because I had to give them a little coat of black spray paint.


And here's the dining room's sliding door. I bought the curtains and we hung them a couple of weeks ago... Notice they weren't quite as big as I thought they would be...I'll be fixing that. Also, that board on the side there will be the cornice board to cover up the top of the vertical blinds! It's been sitting like that in my house for a week. I'll try to get it done by this weekend. Hopefully.

I still haven't painted the dining room table yet either. But I got an awesome surprise in my inbox today! My friend Ali Mae at Alt-erior Design sent me a little preview of what the different paint options would look like! Sa-weet! Look for a post about that soon!

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Cafe shelf tutorial and a GIVEAWAY!

Don't you LOVE these black kitchen shelves?! I think they are great, and if I had room in my kitchen I would probably try to make some!

Traci at Beneath M Heart has an excellent step-by-step tutorial on how to make them. Go check her out...she's giving the one she made for her tutorial away! Leave a comment on her blog to be entered in the drawing!

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