Up-Cycling Our Kitchen Nook

Over the past several months I've been looking at our table and chairs in our kitchen nook and thinking that I needed to update them.  Being the penny pincher I am, I knew we would be keeping them and just sprucing them up.  The table and the chairs are in perfect condition, so I didn't even think twice about replacing them with something new (like getting a wood table instead of keeping this outdated glass table, which is in our waaaay future).  

Jer and I bought this table over 5 years ago when we first moved into our house and we loved it at the time.  It fit perfect in our kitchen nook and was pretty cheap.  But over the years, the cushions had gotten a few stains so we knew eventually an easy fix would be to just re-cover the seat cushions.  Which leads us to this post.

When we decided to actually tackle this project, the best part for me was to pick out new fabric.  I.LOVE.FABRIC.  Oh yes.  If I could work in a fabric store all day and cut fabric for people that's what I would do.  Yeah, I know, why did I get a Biology degree?  I could have just gone straight into JoAnn's or Hancock and asked to be their "fabric cutter lady."  :)

Anyway....once I got the go ahead from my Mr. the search was on.  I went to numerous fabric stores and searched online and really couldn't find anything that I couldn't live without.   Until I entered Hancock fabrics.  I've never been in that store but I can tell you that I'll be going there for my next piece of fabric.  They have great fabric designs and a great selection.  That's where I found these two styles:

One is a solid pastel blue and the other has sort of a brick layered design that has pastel blue, light gray, dark gray and dark blue.

Here's a before picture of one of the chairs.

We decided to just fabric right over the old cushion so we didn't have to tear up the seat at all.  We measured our seat leaving about an inch of extra fabric all the way around to staple under the cushion.

Done!  Here's the corners.  Those were not the easiest to do.  For some reason, I'm terrible at doing corners.  But eventually I got'em done.  And I like'em (those are known Texan words).  :)

Here's a solid colored cushion.  Instead of doing all 4 chairs with the same fabric, I chose 2 different fabrics.  2 chairs would be re-done with the solid fabric and the other 2 would have the brick looking fabric.  Just so that it was SO match-y match-y.

The chairs were a sort of brown-greenish color.  And a little too dark.

So in order to lighten them up, I used Krylon (this time) spray paint in the color Nickel.

Here's one of the chairs with coat #1 very lightly painted.

You can see it's a little splotchy but that's okay because it would get 2 more coats.

Here she is all painted up with 3 coats on her.  She's a beauty!  If I were a paint color, I would want to be Nickel, too.  :)

So bright and elegant.

Here's what the underneath looked like after the cushions were bolted on.

Oh, and I didn't leave the table the same color.  Nope.  I actually painted it white (after I primed it).  Again, I didn't want the chairs and table to be too match-y match-y so I decided that the table needed to be a separate light color.  So white it was.

Here's the AFTER!  I just love it so much.  You notice I changed the curtains and took away the big ol' tree that was in the corner (which by the way, Jer absolutely disliked)?  

The curtains are actually two $7 drop cloth from Lowe's (I tell ya, I'm cheap) hung with clips and the tree found a new home in our dining room.  :)  

Doesn't that white just pop?!  Love it.

Oh and by the way, Boston' chair with his booster seat was (recently) covered in plastic that I got from Wal-Mart for 3 bucks.  We wouldn't want our sweet fabric getting messed up by the little man.

BEFORE 

AFTER

So what do you think?  Much better or no bueno?  Opinions are welcome!  :-)

Linking up with:
Shabby Nest

Fabric.com

I recently purchased 5 different designs of fabric for some projects like, making pillow cases, re-do some chair cushions and maybe using some on my curtains.  Who knows....I could do this again!  :)

I'm so excited to put them to use.  Although, because I only got a yard of each (to make sure I really liked the colors, designs and fabric itself) I may have to order a few more yards of a couple of them.  But that's okay, I got'em about 30-40% off.  Steal.

I may even order another design or two.  :)  I have my eye on a few.

The best part, you get free shipping if you spend 35 buckaroos or more.  Bonus.

~Jeni

Framed Fabric

4 words: I love Nate Berkus.

Yep, I do.

Very much so.

I love everything about him, his style, his show, his face, his personality, everything!  I'm convinced it's a celebrity crush.  Sorry, Jer.  I'm sure you understand, though.

Anyway, I record his show every day and try to watch it at night (most of you know I rarely turn my tv on during the day so I can focus on my B-man) after the little guy has gone to sleep.  Then I dream of doing everything he presents on his show.  I have a huge laundry list of things to do all because of his show.

One thing that I've always noticed were the frames on his set walls.  One in particular...

.....see that white frame with the blue and white picture inside of it?  Something about that frame has always caught my eye.  I've always kinda liked it.  I wasn't sure what that picture was but to me it looked a little like fabric.

Months ago my marbles started turning and I started to think I could "re-create" something similar for my living room.  Since we've lived here, I've needed something to put next to our tv.  It's always been so bare.  But I wanted something with a little color and I didn't want any family pictures so I knew this idea would be perfect.

Last week, Veteran's Day to be exact (why did I remember that?  You'll see why below), I went to my favorite store evah, Goodwill.  I went in search of frames.  Frames big enough to fill some of that space next to the tv.  But I wanted them to be matching and the same size.  Easy, right?  Well actually it was.  I went straight to the frames section and didn't have to search long before I found 2 big frames that were the same size with the same looking frame!

There were just two different colors.    

They only thing I noticed was that they had two different price tags.

$8.75 and

 $6.50.

But I didn't care I was going to get them regardless.  However, when I got to the register I asked her why they had to different prices if they there the exact same size.  Then I proceeded to ask her if I could have them both for the lower $6.50 price and she said, "yes."  Then she said that since it was Veterans's Day, they were having a sale on all frames...Buy One Get One Free!  Score.  That's when I knew this project was meant to be.

When I got home I immediately went to work on my project after I put B down for his nap.  This gave me about an hour and a half to work.

First things first, to take the glass out of the frame.

 But then I noticed this...glue!  Glue holding the glass and backing in the frame.

So I broke out my exacto knife and proceeded to cut the glue out.  Luckily it came/popped right off as I cut along the edges.

Once the glass was out of the frame, I used my 3M sanding block and sanded the frame where the paint was chipped off.  I wanted to smooth out the frame.

Since I wanted a white frame, I chose to use Rustoleum's Gloss White.  I typically don't ever use a glossy paint but I wanted my frames to shine!  :)

Here's one of the fabric designs that I chose.

I started by using the backing that was already in the frame when I bought it as my template for cutting my fabric.   

 I cut about an inch off of the backing all the way around it.

 Here it is cut all the way around.

 I used that inch hangover to hot glue it to my backing.

My mistake with this one is that I didn't flip over the backing so that the picture on it wasn't directly behind the fabric.  Once I turned it over (after it was all glued) I noticed that you could slightly see the picture through the fabric.  :(  

 Here's my second fabric choice for the second frame.

 This time, I flipped the backing over so that the you wouldn't be able to see it through the design of the fabric.  Then I glued it!  Here it is ready to be framed.

 The Mr. holding it up for me.  I was surprised that he let me "eye ball it" since he's such a perfectionist and typically has do all kinds of measurements/calculations to make sure pictures are in the exact spot.  

 And, their hung!

I really love the designs and colors.  The pictures don't do them justice.  Natural light really shows their true colors.  Their very bright and refreshing on our neutral colored walls.  I'm really digging the coral color in them.  

After about an hour of looking at them, I decided that I wanted them switched.

 Much much better.

This was a pretty fun and super easy project.  

Speaking of projects, there's been a few that I've been working on for about 3 weeks.  I can't wait to share them.  They are all for....CHRISTMAS!!!  

~Jeni