Reclaimed Wood Art in My Country Dining Room

This project - to the right - has been in the works for months and months.  I'm so glad I finally did it!  

I was inspired by something I saw in the Pottery Barn catalog (for $399) - to the left.  I ripped the picture out of the catalog and carried it around with me every day - Pinterest, oldschool.

I knew I wanted to try to make it, but I was stumped (no pun intended!) by where to get wood that might work.  My first idea was pallets, but they're huge and won't fit in my car.  Plus, when I was researching pallets, I found some information that pallets can possibly have toxic chemicals.  I considered buying new wood and distressing it, but that seemed like a lot of effort. 

Then one day I was driving back to work after a meeting and saw a sign at side of the road, "WE SELL RECLAIMED LUMBER."  There was then a screech of tires and some dangerous lane-changing, but I survived and found the absolute perfect wood, at only $1 per foot.  This time I was able to fit the wood in my car, and I transported it to my country house, where I have a table saw, more space to work on projects, and a shed to store things.

  

I used a 24"x24" piece of particle board to draw out a rough design.  Then I started cutting.  It was sort of like putting together a puzzle.  A few hours later, this is what I had.

I tried to alternate vertical and horizontal pieces, mostly 2" wide but some thicker and some thinner.  Some pieces had screws sticking out or holes from nails, adding interest.  I sanded the cut edges to match the softness of the original edges of the pieces of wood.

The Pottery Barn inspiration piece appears to be painted, but I wanted something more natural-looking, so I decided to use stain.  I also didn't want the crayon box range of colors used in my inspiration piece, so I opted for a few natural hues.  I used black, "cabernet" (burgundy), "sun-washed" (grey - more like a paint wash than a stain), and natural.  I took one color at a time and, using a paper towel, blotted on the stain, aiming for a balanced look.  Then came the boring part of gluing the pieces to a piece of plywood (the particle board that I used to arrange the pieces was way too heavy), adding decorative nails (after drilling pilot holes to make things easier), and framing it with some of the same wood.  And then the exciting part of hanging it on the wall.

Oh yeah, I guess I should mention this:  My total cost was around $35.00.  That makes me very, very happy.



FEBRUARY 27, 2013 UPDATE:  

I just submitted this project to the Young House Love Pinterest Challenge.  You can check it out over there - looks like I'm number 84 - as well as see all of the other amazing entries!  Also, here are links to the projects completed by the hosts of the challenge:  Megan (The Remodeled Life), Katie (Bower Power), Sherry (Young House Love) and Michelle (Decor and the Dog).

So that I'm official, here are the links to the inspiration for my project on Pinterest and to the original at Pottery Barn.

  

Orla Kiely in My City Kitchen

I remodeled my kitchen in the city three years ago.  It was such a fun process!  I started with a red sink with a red faucet (there when I bought the condo), red walls (which I am totally responsible for - I was trying to match the sink), black and white appliances, a white Corian counter, white ceramic tile floors, and Ikea cabinets that were looking a little worn around the edges (literally).

I decided to keep the counter and the cabinet bases.  I love white subway tile (I have it in my bathroom), but with white cabinets, it would have been too much white, so I went with a beautiful, green glass subway tile.  Grey slate floors.  A white sink.  Stainless appliances.  And new white Shaker-style cabinet doors and drawers, which I ordered online.  I can't tell you how nervous I was about whether I had measured correctly, but it turned out perfectly.  I installed all the doors and drawers myself.  Three years later, I'm still in love.

Back then, I had a serious "thing" about matching.  And I strongly believed that in kitchens, "kitcheny" artwork was required.  So this is what I chose for a large wall that is to the right of the view in the above picture.



I should probably also show you the before view of this wall.

When I said it was red paint, I meant it!!  (This was before paint+primer was invented, so it took me five, yes five, coats.)  Removing the cabinet made such a huge difference.  It made the kitchen look much bigger.  I made up for lost storage with a large wire shelving unit from the Container Store.

I liked the artichoke art at first, but after a while, I got really tired of it.  It was too matchy, and the neutral colors made it difficult to use bright colors elsewhere in the kitchen.  I felt like it was sucking all of the life out of the kitchen.   

When I decided that I needed to replace the artichokes, I thought I had the perfect solution - Orla Kiely's stem print fabric.  I love the pattern and colors, and there was enough green in it to satisfy my urge for matching (still not cured), but it was clearly far far from boring and neutral.  I soon discovered that you can't buy that fabric anywhere.  So sad.  I found this post on Making It Lovely when I was looking for the fabric online, and I totally feel Nicole's pain.

Then one day I was in a little housewares shop in Dupont Circle called Tabletop and made a very exciting discovery - Orla Kiely stem wrapping paper!!  For just $4 a sheet.  And the wrapping paper was reversible, with the large stem pattern on one side and the small pattern on the other.  Sold!

My original idea was to cover the artichoke canvas with the paper.  This was my first attempt at decoupage, and although I liked the idea of it, and the layout came out ok, it was a little rough looking, with bubbles and wrinkles, which are worse than they appear in the picture below.    

So I scrapped this (I took it to my country house and hung it in the utility closet over the circuit breaker box - in that location, you don't really notice the imperfections) and started again.  This time I decided to try a wall collage, with a smaller Orla Kiely decoupage of the large stem pattern as the main element and a framed piece of the small stem pattern as a complement.  I then filled it in with other things I already had, and tada!

The other items are antique stained glass (I love love love - and collect - stained glass), an eggplant trivet, an "eat" trivet, and a framed color photocopy of a napkin I bought at Anthropologie.  I also added some fun hooks from World Market (below right in the photo).  The hanging files are from Ballard Designs from a few years back.  They really help with mail and paper control.  One is labeled "TO FILE" and the other "TO DO."  By the way - I realize this is a crappy photo.  I took several, with both camera and iPhone, and this is the best of the lot.  I just may need a new camera.  UPDATE:  I just got a new DSLR camera!!  Very exciting.  I replaced the photo, but it's not much better than the original one.  Oh well.

One more time, here's a close-up of the decoupaged Orla Kiely:

I started with an ugly wood "art" thing from Home Goods that was on sale in the clearance section (what?? I can't understand why no one wanted to buy it ... hee hee) for only $5.

Then I painted the sides with green Oops paint that I already had on hand and primed the top. 

After that was dry, I put the Orla Kiely paper on top using 3 parts Elmers Glue to 1 part water (which here was 1 tablespoon of glue and 1 teaspoon of water) painted with a foam paintbrush onto the wood, onto the back of the paper, and onto the top of the paper.  After that dried, I brushed on some matte polyurethane with a foam brush.  

The final look is much more me.  I'm considering getting a retro turquoise or orange clock to replace the existing one.  What do you think?



Easy Fabric Cover for Wire Shelves in My Country Guest Room

Happy New Year, everyone!

In this first post of the New Year, I thought I'd share a fun, easy DIY project that I did a few months ago.  A fabric cover for a cheap, wire shelving unit.  Very little sewing required.

First, some background.  My smaller guest bedroom in the country was painted green when I bought the house, and it is one of the few rooms in the house that I haven't re-painted.  I like the green.  I found a really cute comforter at Target last year that looks great in the room. 

Also last year, I bought wire shelves for the kitchen (they were about $50 at Lowes) but then soon thereafter upgraded to nicer wood shelves.  I didn't want to get rid of the wire shelves so needed somewhere to put them, at least temporarily, while I decided what to do with them.  They ended up in the green bedroom.  Not too attractive. 

Then one day the thought suddenly came to me, hmm, what if I made some sort of fabric cover for the shelves, so that I could leave them here in the room and use them for storage??   

I considered buying a fabric in a complementary color/pattern, but then at Target (yay, Target!!) I found the perfect thing.  A reversible comforter cover that matched the comforter I had already bought.  It had the two different patterns, and I could use the smaller print pattern that is less prominent on the bed as the main fabric for the shelves and the bigger print that is more prominent on the bed as trim for the shelves.

I did the project pre-blog, so I didn't do a very good job at taking photos along the way or really keeping track of exactly what I was doing.  But, basically, I  rolled the edges back so that the comforter would fit around the shelves, tacked down the edges with iron-on tape, wrapped it around the shelves, sewed it to the top of the shelves, and then made the piece to go on the very top, taking care to center the pattern.  

I added ties to make it look more finished and to keep it closed.  The very happy accident was that the pattern on the two front trim pieces matches exactly, as you can see in the photo below, which I took before I put the top piece on it. 

  

The matching was purely an accident.  Don't you love when that happens? 

And here it is shown with the panels open, so that you can see the contrasting fabric inside (thanks to the fact that the comforter cover was reversible).

I'm so happy with how it came out.  I use the shelves to store fabric - fittingly! 

 

Christmas in the Country

My Christmas tree this year at the Eastern Shore.  The bay window in the dining room is the perfect place for a tree.  The tree is lit with lots of lights and decorated with hundreds of antique ornaments that I've collected over the years.  I counted - there are about 225 ornaments on the tree!   

Fiona was very excited to have so many tree branches (her favorite thing) inside the house, and she investigated the tree from every angle before I decorated it.

I also hung a huge wreath on the front of the house.

I made the wreath at a wreath-making class at Strange's florist in Richmond, VA last weekend.  BTW, can you see Fiona at her favorite spot looking out the window?

Merry Christmas from the country!

Christmas in the City

My Christmas decorations in DC tend to be pretty low-key, because of both space and time constraints.  This year, I did a table-top live tree, which I decorated with some of my collection of antique ornaments.  (I now have hundreds and hundreds of these ornaments.  I think I have a problem.  Seriously.  I can't stop buying them.  Check back for my CHRISTMAS IN THE COUNTRY post in a few days, and you'll see what I mean.)

I also placed seven, handmade beaded stars on the tree.  They're perfect for filling in blank spaces.  I plan to do a post with instructions on how to make them.  They're really not hard at all.  But aren't they beautiful?  Sparkly simplicity.

Here is what the full tree looks like.

I love it!!  

Happy Holidays, everyone!