No Projects On My Pretty New Desk

As of today my house is 5 months old. So much has happened around here in just a short period of time. I am excited to write this post for 2 reasons. 1. This is the last piece of furniture that I needed to build or assemble for the office, 2. Once this is done I get to ORGANIZE!  I have to say it is really starting to come together. More importantly it's starting to feel creative.

Decorative Transfer Sheet

Last weekend I finally built myself a new desk. Once I moved I decided to turn my old desks into work tables and build a pretty new one for everyday. Now, the original plan was not to build one...I was actually going to buy it (I know hard to believe). I saw a design I liked in IKEA. It was glass with a black design on the under side. I almost couldn't believe it. I found a piece of furniture that I like and nicely priced in the store! Unfortunately though IKEA no longer makes that specific desk top. So, in typical Tanaira fashion I ended up creating my own variation. This plan has actually been in the works for months. A while back I was at Michaels and saw these clear decorative transfer sheets. My idea was to use these and place them between 2 pieces of glass. Skip ahead to the present and I realized that I under estimated just how expensive table glass was. Who knew? Throw in the fact that I needed 2 pretty big pieces, it just seemed like the wrong road to go down. So, I changed it up. I still wanted to use my transfer sheets. Instead of glass I decided to build a solid desk, paint it white, and use the transfer sheets on top. I figured the black design on the white top would still give a really nice contrast.

Once the logistics were done, it was time to get building. I decided on a size of 48"x30". I had the guy at Home Depot cut 2 pieces of 2ft wide MDF to 30". I then glued them together and added an extra piece of wood at the seam for additional support.

Once the top was done, I needed legs. I actually found some nice legs at Ikea.

They were the exact style that I wanted. Only thing is they were a gray color. They had white ones, but they were all sold out. I didn't feel like waiting for the white ones to come back in stock so, I just got the gray ones and painted them. I was already painting the rest of the desk...what's 4 extra legs. With the legs attached it was time to glue the sides down and paint. The whole thing got 2 coats of Behr Ultra Paint in the color Frost. 

It ended up just the right size. Big enough where I don't feel cramped, but not so big that it starts to take over the room. With the desk base complete it was time to add the transfer sheets. I laid them all out and matched up the design. It took 12 sheets total to cover the whole thing. To protect the top I added a piece of acrylic. Now, let me tell you how painful this process was.  I would not suggest cutting acrylic sheets yourself unless you have to, and if you must WEAR SAFETY GOGGLES. The guy at Home Depot warned me. He said score it a lot of times first, and then put it on the side of the table and put pressure down to snap off the piece. I ran the blade across the sheet 15-20 times (twice as much as the instructions said). I should have done more, but I was being impatient. I snapped the piece at the scored line, but got an uneven cut. Boy did that suck. If I was tired and impatient before, to get the excess off was so much worse. At first I tried cutting, rescoring, and several other things. Nothing was working. My uncle suggested shaving it with a metal file. That made sense, but only lasted about 5 minutes. It was way more work than I ever cared to do. I saw hours of my life passing me by. Lucky for me though I have a dremel with a filing attachment. That did just the trick. I plugged it in, and got to filing. The whole thing took me a couple of hours. I had to take a break about 2/3 of the way in because I got a piece of acrylic in my eye. I knew better though. Half way through as I felt acrylic bits flying around, something said to me to go put my goggles on. I ignored the little voice in my head, and got shot in the eye. I've officially learned my lesson. So, once the piece was cut it was time to add the finishing touches, and then stand back and marvel at my handy work

I have to say once again, I am very happy with the turn out. I wasn't sure how I would feel being that it wasn't my original idea. It came out wonderful none the less. I've only been done for a week, but being able to have a separate desk and work tables is really quite nice. My only complaint is that it's heavy as all get out. Well I guess that's not a bad thing really. I just can't slide it across the room very easily. I think at some point I'm going to go back and reinforce the bottom for extra support. For right now though, I'm just going to enjoy it.

So this was the last "big" piece of furniture for the office. Now that it's done, it's time for the fun part to begin. I have been designing this room in my head for at least a year. Needless to say I'm so excited I could spit. (Insert very awesome happy dance here) So, stay tuned because this should be all kinds of amazing. Until the next project.

Coke and a smile =)

House stuff, house stuff, and more house stuff. That has pretty much been my life for months. As much as I enjoy it, sometimes it's good to do something different. I decided to take a break and paint something other than a wall. My boss got a promotion. Happy for him, but still sad to see him go. My coworkers and I decided to do a little something for him as a goodbye. We got him a gift card to Home Depot, made some dessert, and I painted him a coke bottle. 

I got the idea to paint coke bottles a couple of years ago. At the World of Coke museum, they have life size themed coke bottles designed by people from around the world. Last time I was there I thought it would be cool to design one of my own. Maybe not as big, but as big as I can get it. Fortunately for me they sell large bank coke bottles at the store downtown. I decided to paint a big one for myself. It took me awhile to get down the design. I must have changed ideas like 4 times. At one point I had so much paint on the bottle I had to soak the bottle in my bath tub to peel some of it off. (Definitely one my "How crazy is this?" moments) In my research I took an interest in the way Coca-Cola looked written in different languages.  So, I ran with it. 

For my boss I decided to make it a little more personal. He is a proud alumni of NC State. I knew that was the route to go.

It came out great! Definitely better than how it looked in my head. I was in here really concentrating over that wolf. We gave him the bottle last week, and he loved it! That's all that matters.

Back to house stuff.....

It's the little things (like kitchen shelves) that make me happy!

When buying a house you hope that you get at least 80% of the things on your list. After seeing my house for the first time I realized that it had about 95% of the things on my list, including a lot of things on the "would be nice to have" list. One of those things for me was shelves in the kitchen. Over the last year or so I have began to accumulate a lot of kitchen knick knack decor. The shelves in this house were perfect. It took a while to get them the way I wanted, but I think I have it.

This is the first set of shelves. They go from floor to ceiling 

First my teapot. For those of you who don't know, I am slightly obsessed with an artist by the name of Romero Britto. I absolutely love his stuff. I first came across him in a souvenir shop at the Boston airport. Then my friend Fatima told me he is based out of Miami. His gallery is on Lincoln Road (If you have never been, you're missing out). His pieces are so quirky and fun. I saw the teapot while in the airport, but ended up buying a mug instead. Funny thing about the mug is everyone at work always asks me if I made it myself. After I got back home I began stalking him on Amazon, and now I have a teapot. Fatima thinks I am slightly nuts because of the excitement I have when I see his stuff. 
Next, are the Campbells soup cans. They're special Andy Warhol edition from Target. Before you ask, they are filled with Tomato soup. I however, hate tomato soup and will never open the cans. Then we have my stuff from London. I love London, and can't wait to go back. We had stopped in a little boutique next to our hotel. They had such cute things in there. I thought the teapot was really cute, so I bought it. Like I said, fill your space with things that you love and you can't go wrong. Next to the teapot is a miniature of a London phone booth. I threw in a picture of my siblings and I. Below that are 2 more soup cans and my Love sign. The words Live Laugh Love actually came last. I had put all of the other pieces in, and wasn't sure how to tie it all together. One day I was at my friend's house and he has a big Cafe sign in his kitchen. Then the idea popped in my head. I got them on one of my trips to Michaels. I'm pretty excited about the turn out.

These are the other set of shelves. (I wanted one set of shelves and I got 2!) I decided to put my shot glasses in here. I had originally had them in the other set of shelves. However, once I stepped back and looked at it I wasn't really feeling it. So I swapped them, and liked it much better. Below the glasses are my cookbooks, and a bowl I got from Ikea. I've been wanting that bowl for awhile so I'm glad I found a place to put it. Now if I could just find something to put in it. Maybe that can be another project...What do you think?

Red Walls and Stripes

So, as you all know I have pretty much "finished" the living room. That means next on the list is THE LAB! *happy dance* The lab (as it will be referred to) will be my office and art space where I'll do all of my project. Basically, the command center of my house. I am so excited about this room words can not describe! I finally have an art space. No more destroying carpet, floors, and tables all over the house. So, first things first. Painting the walls! Being that this was my art space my main objective was that the space had to be creative. I want to feel inspired and happy when I'm in here. The original color was a yellowish tan color, and it is officially starting to bother me.


Office before

I have actually been thinking and designing this room in my head for awhile. I decided to go with red. I know bold color, but I've had a red wall before and loved it. I painted the room using Glidden Red Geranium. Now, if you have ever painted red walls before than you already know. Red is one of the hardest colors to work with when painting walls. I was not aware of this before I started though. Last time I don't remember it being quite so painful. I thought 2 coats and I would be done. HA! Fool on me. It took me 4 coats of paint! The problem wasn't so much the color, but it was hard to get an even coat. After the first 2, I took to Google and friends. So many scenarios. I got everything from 2 coats to 5 coats with some using a special tinted primer specifically for red. Oh and shame on Glidden for not making a paint/primer in 1 in a satin finish. That means I had to prime the walls first. That makes it 5 coats. I even read a person painting 4 coats, still not getting good coverage, and then starting over. Who knew that painting a wall could be so complicated. So needless to say, a paint job that I had planned in a weekend took me 3 weeks to complete. Then there's the clean up. Red paint on white trim is not fun. So, after all was said and done, and 4 coats later this is what the walls look like.

Now you know I couldn't just do red walls. I thought why not do something cool. I mean this is the art space. So.......drum roll

STRIPES!

Yes, I decided to do stripes. Years ago while watching HGTV, they did a segment on designers' homes. Genevieve Gorder had stripes in her kitchen. Ever since then I knew that I wanted to do stripes in a room. So, this was it. I LOVE them! They came out so much better than I thought. My floor however, is another story. It is definitely going to need some TLC.

I am sooooo glad that's done with. I hate painting walls. It is such a pain. The outcome was definitely worth it though. Now that the walls are done it's time to...DECORATE! *second happy dance and 1 handed cartwheel*. Stay tuned people. This is going to be fun. It's on to the next project