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

Big Art On A Little Wall

So, somehow I got this bright idea. I wanted a wall installation. I know, it sounds CRAZY! My entry way has tall ceilings and I wanted to utilize them. The plan was to hang one of my favorite paintings, but just using the painting seemed ordinary. That's what you would see in a normal person's house. I wanted people to enter my front door and think WOW! 

The Original Painting

I began pondering over a few ideas. I didn't know what I was going to do, but I knew it had to be spectacular. One night while watching Youtube videos looking for inspiration it came to me. I decided to create a frame around the painting, but then create a cool kind of wall piece off of that. So I sketched out an idea, and just went for it.

.

First, I had to make the base. I grabbed my 1x2s from Home Depot, and headed into the basement with my miter saw. I used my sketch and a protractor to figure out all of the angled cuts I needed to make. Now, my miter saw only goes up to a 45 degree angled cut. I figured if I needed anything bigger I would cut the other way. First piece went smoothly.  After that though, it was all downhill. Cutting the other way wasn't nearly as simplistic as I thought, and I am very good at math. Apparently though my geometry expertise was not as sharp as it was in the 8th grade. So I had to just take my time. It ended up taking a lot longer than the hour of time that I had allotted for such a task. 

Once I was done the shape did not look on the the floor the way that it did in the sketch. I remeasured all my cuts and angles. Everything seemed to match, but it just didn't look like it. All I could think to myself was 'You know I hope this turns out the way I want because this is a lot of time and energy for this to not work. I will be super pissed!'

This project seemed like a pain from the start. I was determined though. The pieces I am the most annoyed by seem to give me the most gratification in the end. After the frame was built it was time to move on to the face. I used the same lattice material that I used for the bookshelf. That basically was going to be the material for the remainder of the piece. So on my trip to Home Depot I loaded up. I KNOW those people thought I was crazy. Once again a 5 foot person leaving the store with 20 pieces of 8ft trim and maneuvering them all into my little Corolla. I make things happen though.  I always wonder what it looks like to people, and what they must think when they see me leave Home Depot. What would you think if you saw a woman in a Corolla drive by you with 8ft pieces of wood squeezed into it? I have realized I should probably never by a car with leather interior.

So at this point the frame has been made, and the face has been glued. I did notice one of my bad habits that has trickled to the garage, is using my car as a surface to rest things on. One of the reason I don't have a dining room table. It would never be used for eating. Just another big surface to lay things on.

It's time to design the piece in real life. I'm  going to do a combination of 1 1/8" pieces and 3/4" pieces. So, I moved it back upstairs because there is more space. I arranged the pieces based on my drawing. Can you believe I spent my Friday night doing this? The drawing is an exact scale of the actual piece, so it was easy to match up exactly where the pieces had to go. As I put it together each piece got a number to make it easier to replace after the pieces were painted. I also photographed it so I knew how the pieces intertwined.

 I spread the pieces out between the garage and the basement, and painted everything black. At this point I'm thinking I have to be crazy. Why do I put myself through this? What am I thinking? A wall installation? Am I crazy?! Why can't I ever be satisfied with just buying something. Oh wait I know why...because my name is Tanaira and it couldn't possibly be that easy.

It's time to finally put the whole thing together. I had to lay the base on the floor, and glue the pieces from the back. Problem is I need a flat hard surface. The carpet makes it hard to be precise. My garage would be the obvious choice except for it's not actually flat. It slopes towards the front. So that leaves one place. The kitchen. I know, I know you're thinking what the hell am I doing projecting on my nice hardwood floors. I'll be careful though I promise. I need to find something to put down.

 I found some giant post it notes at work and taped them to the floor. I laid the frame face down and placed the painting inside. I carefully measured the placement of each piece, and secured them with my glue gun. It worked out pretty nicely. Only problem was the sore muscles in the back of my thighs from constantly leaning over. (Must be getting old). I let it sit over night. When I got home from work the next day I flipped it over. It looked AMAZING! It was a lot of black though. I decided to add some of the color from the painting into the structure. I painted a piece of card stock for every color in the painting and placed it into one of the shapes. The only thing left to do is hang it. Now from personal experience I know that I need to go get some wall anchors. I definitely learned my lesson from the crashing medicine cabinet incident. 

So several hours, black paint stains on the carpet, 2 minor toes cramps, 1 major toe cramp, a paper cut, and pulled muscles in both thighs later we have my very first wall sculpture!

I'm so excited I could flip right now! It came out so much better, than I thought. It was worth every bit of effort I put into it. Glad it's done with though. Big pieces can be a pain sometimes because they're hard to contain during the creating process. I'm actually almost finished with the living room. Just a few more projects left. The whole thing turning out quite nicely. It's nice to see it take shape over the course of the last couple of months.  It will be nice when I'm finally done and can enjoy it. For now it's on the the next project!

Finally did a Pinterest Project

So, I know I am not the only one who spends hours on Pinterest. You look at picture after picture thinking to yourself, "That is so cool, I have to try that". Well, I finally did! I was on their last week doing my usual random glance, and came across a project for a diy dry erase board. Basically, you take some decorative paper, place it inside a picture frame, and that's it. Apparently you can use a dry erase marker on glass. Who knew! Honestly I was skeptical at first. I didn't believe the marker would come off so easily so I tried it on a random frame first. To my surprise it actually worked.  So I thought, hey that seems easy enough, why not give it a try. I decided to make one for my kitchen. I often plan out meals for the week, and right now I just write it on a random sheet of paper. Also, now that my house is on multiple floors I need somewhere else to jot things down.   

So, off to Hobby Lobby I go. For this project I used

12"x12" picture frame

1 piece of scrapbook paper

4 small magnets

1 dry erase marker

 

I opened the frame, and measured my scrapbook paper to make sure it fit. The scrapbook paper is actually a 12"x12" square so all I needed to do was cut a little excess. When I was doing my research on how to make one of these I noticed a lot of people used theirs to plan meals as well and added the days of the week. I thought it was a nice idea. I measured how big the letters needed to be and created them in Photoshop.

I carefully cut out the letters for the days, and used some double sided tape to stick them to the scrapbook paper. I put the paper into the frame, and added the glass, and VIOLA! A new dry erase board

Isn't it cute! I'm very pleased with it. It was really inexpensive and simple too. The whole project cost around $5 (The paper was 30 cents and the frame was $6, but I had a 40% off coupon) and took me a couple of hours. It would have taken less time had I not went through every font in Photoshop....twice. I wanted to stick mine on the side of my refrigerator so I decided to add magnets to the back. 

The finished product 

As you can see it is not hanging on the refrigerator. I underestimated the weight and the fact that the side of my refrigerator is textured. So, the sticking didn't work the way I wanted it to. It will stick to the front, and I did try that, but not really what I wanted. I just leaned it against the side. The magnets on the back actually help keep it in place. I must say I'm pretty pleased with this project. And for 2 hours time you can't beat that. It's on to the next project, and boy am I excited for the reveal. 

The New Old Media Cabinet

Hey everyone! It's me coming back with another project. (That sounded so YouTube. Lol. And yes I'm a junkie) Sometimes I think having a YouTube channel would be easier than a blog. I am a much better talker than I am writer. That reminds me, I'm suppose to be starting an Instagram account. We'll see if that actually happens though. Well, enough of the random chatting let's get into the project. Last week I finished my media cabinet. It is an old piece that I redid to make a new piece. Here is the original media stand.

Before

Like most projects, it started out as a general idea. I looked around and found inspiration from something I saw in a magazine. I decided in the new house that I would do something a little different. I still liked the piece, but wanted a change. It needed an update. So, an update it got.

After

It's blue! Well teal or aqua. I can't decide really. So, the media stand got a major facelift. First came the idea of doors. I had decided a while back that I was tired of seeing every DVD I own all the time. Then the color. In the apartment, the media stand is where the TV sat. In the house, there isn't a lot of wall area, so the TV will have to go over the fireplace. Without a TV on top, it was no longer a main piece of furniture. That means I could be a little more bold and adventurous. Why not make a statement. So, I went for it. 

Bright blue it was! The whole thing was painted using Behr latex paint in the color Bella Vista. Next it was time to make the pieces for the doors. Time to fire up the Miter Saw!!!!!!! Yes, this was my first time using my big girl power tools in the new house. It was actually quite nice. A big table, plenty of room, and no worrying about neighbors. Once the doors were cut and glued, they were painted the same color blue as the base.

I created the door fronts using a specialty paper I found at Binders. Can you believe they were only $1.70 a piece. That is a steal. Even the check out girl did a double take. I used thick posterboard, and adhered the paper to the front, and then secured it from the back using thumb tacks. 

Once the doors were complete I decided to add knobs. I have been dying to use the cool decorative knobs that they have at Hobby Lobby. This was my chance. I even planned out an afternoon to go look. I was going to take my time and relish in all of my choices. I decided on some cream ceramic knobs with flowers on the front. They actually matched the piece very nicely. 

Once the knobs were screwed in it was time to attach the doors. Now, I am not a fan of attaching doors. It is actually a giant pain in the butt! Trying to get everything to line up perfectly just never seems to be as easy as I want. I had thought about going a different route. A while back on Nate Berkus, I saw him do a kitchen makeover for someone. In this makeover, the washer and dryer were in the kitchen. They were giant eye sores. Since you couldn't move them, Nate decided to hide them. He made these giant covers and attached them to the front of the space using magnets. It was so genius! What a great idea. When you need to use the washer just move the cover, and when you are done move the piece back, and the magnets cause it to stay in place. So, I did a play on that. I attached magnets to the front of the media cabinet, and a set to each door. 

Now, one of my concerns was pulling on the knob and the whole door coming off. However, just my luck that since the doors are big and touch the floor you don't even have to touch the knobs. All you have to do is just pull it forward from the top. Can you say AWESOME! You can see the middle magnets on the front side of the cabinet. Now, I did not create a back for it. I could have, but did not see the necessity. This piece is against the wall so you can't see the back.  

So, with that piece guess what? I am done with furniture building upgrading in the living room. I'm excited! Now, all I need to do is accessorize and fill in the gaps. This is where the fun starts. Next couple of things are to hang some of my art pieces. They're kind of big though, and I've never been a proponent of using wall anchors. So this should definitely be interesting. Though I think I have learned my lesson, after the infamous medicine cabinet crash that broke the toilet. (You probably shouldn't ask) Stay tuned....it's on to the next project!

Refacing the Bookshelf

So, these days consists of building, projecting, and trying to keep some level of sanity. My house looks spotless for like 2 days, and then a tornado strikes. I'm actually behind on my blogging. I have the next 2 projects finished. This project has been done for a couple of weeks now. So, let's jump right in it. I finally finished refacing the bookshelf. Refacing you ask, is just that. Putting a new face on the bookshelf.

Awhile back I built a bookcase. The design was inspired by something I saw online. However, the original was all sleek and super modern...i.e over $1000. I feel like this whole modern furniture phase is just a way for them to charge you a lot of money for boxey shelving and uncomfortable couches. It looks cool, but that's about it. However, I digress, back to the bookshelf. Like I said I saw the design online, and decided I would make my own. Who am I kidding. I was always going to make my own. I just needed an idea of a design I liked.The shape was pretty basic, so I decided I would just go for it. I used 12" wide MDF (Medium Density Fiberboard - for the non Home Depot folks), and created it using a combination of drywall screws and wood glue. Then I painted it black to match the rest of my living room furniture.

For the most part I had no problem with it and it stayed like that for awhile. However, if you have ever worked with MDF then you know that the edges are very unfinished, and no matter how much sanding and prepping you do it soaks up so much paint you can never get a smooth surface. So, moving into the house caused me to finally take the plunge and finish the edges. I decided I wanted them to be nice and smooth and also wider as well.  The original edges are 3/4 of an inch. That was a little thin. I wanted a thicker more prominent edge. I figured molding would be the best option. I headed to Home Depot to find what I needed thinking that this would be a pretty simple project. WRONG! You would not believe how difficult it was to find what I needed. Honestly I didn't think I was asking too much. I saw all kinds of molding...plenty of 3/4" and 1 1/4" but no 1 inch. Really?! What a pain. I was going to go with Balsa wood from the craft store and just cut it to size. That was going to be an even bigger pain so I really wanted to avoid that. One day I happened to ask my boss if he had any ideas. He suggested door molding. It come in thin strips, and it's wasn't real wood so it would easily take the paint. It could be found in the back with the door frames. So, I ventured back to Home Depot and took a gander. However, I just so happened to look in the molding section one more time. I walked up the aisle, and was just about to walk over to the door section when I turned around behind me and there it was. Long 8ft pieces of small plain molding. Wow! Are you kidding me? Where the hell have I been. I have looked up and down this aisle at least 5 times, but never looked on the other side. I just assumed it was all expensive hard wood. I looked through the stacks. Funny thing is I have used this stuff before for another project years ago in where I needed to cover the raw edge for a desk. Go figure. They didn't have 1 inch, they did have 1 1/8" though. That was good enough at this point. I picked up 10 pieces, and 2 3/4" pieces for the bottom, stuffed it in the Corolla, and went home...feeling quite accomplished I might add. 

The pieces were pretty easy to cut. All I needed was a utility knife. I laid the bookshelf on it's side and then began applying the molding to the bookshelf using a mixture of wood glue and gorilla glue. I was actually pretty nervous about this being that I know just how heavy it is. Last time I tried to move the damn thing it almost fell on me. 

This is what I mean by MDF edges. They are unfinished and rough compared to the top

Now, being that the pieces are wider than the actual edge, they hung over 3/8". Since the bottom pieces can't hang I just used  3/4" pieces. Once it was done and all the wood was applied this is what it looked like.

 I let the whole thing set for a couple of days and then it was time for paint. I decided that since my living room no longer has majority black furniture that I needed to change the color. I wanted a neutral, but not black or brown. That pretty much leaves gray. So gray it was. I used a Hi-Gloss paint, and this is the finish product.

I know in the picture it probably looks the same, but in person you can definitely see the difference

I have started to accessorize it. However, I realized I don't have as many things now. A lot of the pieces I had on it before will be going into my office, so I've started playing around with some other ideas. I don't think I'm going to think too hard about it. I'll just gradually add to it as I see things I like. The only thing missing is the photo albums. They are suppose to go on the bottom shelf. However, upon taking them out of the box I realized how unorganized they were. Well they weren't really unorganized, but more so not so attractive. So, now a whole new project has been born. Let's not even talk about how that happened. I'll have to do an updated post once the shelves are more filled in.  

Glad I finally did this project. I've been wanting to reface the bookcase for a while now. It looks beautiful. So, now that that is done I guess it is on to the next project. Well actually I finished the next project already. Just have to blog about it. I guess it's back to the project after that....painting the living room walls. Definitely can't wait for that to be over with. I hate painting walls. I'm never tall enough to reach the entire thing so it requires lots of ladders and step stools. Stepping up, then back down, using the paint brush, then back down to get the roller, trying not to fall, and picking dripped paint out of my freshly washed curls (Don't ask!)...yes it all sounds so fun, but it's the life I lead. Until the next project folks!