DIY Reversible Banquette Cushions

One of the very first things I bought when we moved into this house was mud cloth fabric to make cushions for brand new banquette. I was inspired by one of my favorite instagramers, @anaberdesign, the combo of her dinning nook situation and her fab head board gave me the vision. The fabric and the pillows were sitting in my closet taunting me to work on them. But I prioritized painting, then Christmas, then Ollie’s birthday party, oh, and the first trimester sucked the life out of me. Then Kyle went out of town for a few days. I finally finished Gilmore Girls and sewed the pillows.

Then another few weeks went by while I figured out how to attach the cushions. I initially planed to attach the leather straight to the white banquette back, but once I saw how amazing Garance Doré’s dining area looked with the hit of black contrast, I knew I had to go that route. I first explored the idea of curtain rods, but they were too tall to fit under the window moulding. So I walked the isles of Lowe’s. I found pipe in the electrical aisle and spray painted it black. Then fixed my DIY leather straps with snaps I bought at the fabric store.

DIY Reversible Banquette Cushions
DIY Reversible Banquette Cushions
DIY Reversible Banquette Cushions
DIY Reversible Banquette Cushions

Let’s take a minute to remember where this nook began.

dining nook before

SHOP THE LOOK



One Room Challenge Week 1 // Sunroom Plans

I’m doing it again. I’m a glutton for punishment. I’m tackling another One Room Challenge! If you don’t know, the One Room Challenge is a big bi-annual blogger event where 20 featured designers and many guest participants make-over a room in 6 weeks and document their progress weekly on their blog or Instagram.

We moved into our home mid-November and it being winter in Michigan we have not used our sunroom once. This is a fantastic room, we will absolutely live in all summer long. Currently it’s a non-heated, fully enclosed room with three sliding glass doors, very raw wood paneling, beautiful glass double doors into the kitchen and some bad track lighting. It is basically a wood box waiting for my love!

My plan is to give it a coat (or several) of my favorite white paint, Polar Bear by Behr, then rip out the carpet and either lay tile or stencil a really cool pattern. I already have most of the furniture I will use, so it will be a matter of cosmetic and styling and adding a lot more plants. I really want this to feel like a true indoor/outdoor seamless space. Since we don’t have a dining room, our dinning table will live here, a long with a little lounge area and a buffet with cocktail-making fixins.

This project is going to be significantly less work that my last One Room Challenge (my mom’s very dated kitchen), but my schedule is a lot crazier and on reveal day I will be 24 weeks pregnant! So follow along and let’s see how I fare!


THE INSPIRATION


One Room Challenge - Sunroom Inspiration
One Room Challenge - Sunroom Inspiration
One Room Challenge - Sunroom Inspiration

BEFORE


One Room Challenge - before
One Room Challenge - The before

THE DESIGN PLAN


One Room Challenge Sunroom Plans

SHOP THE POST


ORC-Guest-200x110.png

Click the One Room Challenge blog to get a look at all the other guest participants.


Modern Front Porch Inspiration

It’s finally starting to feel like spring here in Michigan and despite my list of projects inside the house, I am itching to turn my focus outdoors. Since we moved in in November, we have not touched the outside. I started gathering some inspo to deck our our front porch and bring in some modern charm. Greenery, concrete planters, modern house numbers, a cute door mat and a killer light are the essentials for a modern porch. Scroll down to see my favorite images.

Modern Front Porch Inspiration
Modern Front Porch Inspiration
Modern Front Porch Inspiration
Modern Front Porch Inspiration
Modern Front Porch Inspiration
Modern Front Porch

photos: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6


SHOP THE LOOK


Modrn At Walmart!

You guys will not believe these pieces are from Walmart! They introduced a new collection called Modrn and they really really stepped up their game with this one. Some of these images rival CB2! I cannot attest to the quality, but dang, I would love to get my hands on these pieces and try them out in person! Scroll down to see my favorite picks from the collection.

Modrn at Walmart
Modrn at Walmart
Modrn at Walmart

Modrn at Walmart

SHOP THE POST


Cane Furniture Round-Up

The cane furniture trend has been floating around the internet for a while now, and I am still totally here for it. Last spring I found my gateway drug on Craigslist, a set of classic Breuer chairs. I love the California, Australian surf shack vibes this look gives. Today I have rounded up for you 9 storage pieces with cane details. These pieces can be used as a bar, side board, media stand and more! I am excited to use one of these pieces in the next project I’m planning to tackle.

Cane Media Storage

Cane Furniture Round-up

1 - Urban Outfitters / 2 - Target / 3 - Danish Design Store / 4 - Worlds Away / 5 - Pamona / 6 - Crate & Barrel / 7 - Target / 8 - Urban Outfitters / 9 - Zin Home

photos: 1 / 2


SHOP THE POST


Modern Study Reveal

I have to say, my expectations for this room was about the same level of my budget, low. But I am THRILLED with the outcome! I really wasn’t sure what to do with this front “office” room when we first moved in. I had suggestions to make it my office, but I know what a disaster my office turns into on the regular, so I didn’t want my mess right in the front of the house. My long term goal is to connect this room to the kitchen and make it a dining space, but for now we have made it a modern study/workplace for Kyle and once I saw this room by Mandi Johnson of Making Nice in the Midwest, I knew exactly what I wanted to do.

I had all of the furniture, most of which is vintage, and I also found the statement pendant that hangs in the center of the room on a trip to an antique shop last year when we were homeless, and I knew eventually the space would present itself. Ta da!! It is the centerpiece of the room and you can see it from the front of our house.

Modern Study
Study After

For a make-over that didn’t seem all that involved, it looks like a completely different room! Obviously the biggest thing we did was take down the wall paper, add trim and paint the entire room Dusty Miller by Benjamin Moore. Almost every other room in our house is my go-to white, so choosing the perfect green-grey was a really really tough decision, but I am absolutely in love with this color! It really has just the perfect amount of color I was going for here.

Study Before

Painting the shelving, the trim and the doors all in the same monochromatic hue is a bold modern look. See all of my inspiration in this post.

Modern Study Make-over

I did spend on some accessories. Target’s latest Project 62 collection was exactly the color and vibes I was going for in here. I used lots of books and random accessories I already owned and made several trips to the thrift store for bags and bags and bags of books.

Modern Study Make-over

On the walls I added a gallery wall with black and white family photos. It is one of the few places I have embraced the personal photos in this house and I adore it here. I also added a pair of affordable prints from Juniper Print Shop.

Modern Study Make-over

How beautiful are these flowers from Cass and Jean Flower Co!?

IMG_0863.jpg

What do you guys think? Would you paint your wood trim?


SHOP THE LOOK



round table - vintage / desk - Ikea Hack tutorial / chairs - vintage (similar) / pendant - vintage (similar) / large prints - Juniper Print Shop / frame for large art - Amazon / gallery wall frames - Target / storage boxes (painted) - Target / tall skinny vase - Target / tall vase with dots - Target / small vase - Target / acrylic table - CB2 / bar cart - vintage / brass peace sign - Jayson Home / concrete bells - DIY / candle holder set - Target / candles - Target

Wall Treatments

If you’ve been hanging around on my blog, you’ve seen these first two images before. I have been exploring DIY wall paneling treatments in my designs recently. I love this trend, because it’s super affordable, not totally permanent and makes a room look really elevated. While I know what I like when I see it, and I have a gift for figuring out how to recreate it, as a newbie in the “professional” world of interior design, I thought it time to learn the terminology and share my new found knowledge with y’all.

I also have a hard time imagining shiplap or bead board (and if you don’t know those terms, you will learn as you scroll) in a room that isn’t “farmhouse chic,” which is not my personal style. I have gathered images of these paneling treatments that are modern and fresh takes on treatments that are truly timeless.

DIY Wall Paneling Treatments

MOULDING LAYERED BEADBOARD

This is the budget kitchen makeover I did for my mom last fall for the One Room Challenge. Full disclosure, I wanted to remove the bead board, but it was all glued down, really really well. So to freshen up the look I added applied moulding on top using a brad nailer.

Beadboard is a very traditional wall treatment but one that will always be timeless. It consists of a strips of wood with small “beads” in between each board. Beadboard which comes in a variety of widths as well as styles is often popular in bedrooms, bathrooms and hallways as it serves as a very durable option for your walls and you can accent above it with a different paint color if you decide to do it as wainscoting like we did above.

DIY Wall Treatments - Wainscot

APPLIED MOULDING

This room is the most recent makeover I’ve tackled, the study. I have not shared the entire reveal yet, but it’s coming soon. I tore down the wallpaper and wanted to add some character to the walls. I thought box moulding was a little overboard for this room. I wanted to have interest, yet be subtle, but I wanted something a little more than board and batten, so I added a horizontal panel about 3/4 of the way up the wall. The spot was chosen purely on visual gut reaction.

DIY Wall Treatment Options

BOARD AND BATTEN

Board and Batten is one of the oldest and most traditional types of wall paneling which you often see on the exterior of homes. The construction typically consists of a wide “board” and then a smaller more narrow “batten” that is installed over each of the seams creating a stronger structure. When used on interior walls like the example below you don’t need to have the larger “board” but instead can fake the look with small strips installed vertically.


APPLIED MOULDING

This is one of the most simple and easiest of the options that we have in this category. It consists of adding strips of wood to your already existing walls (either with glue or nails) and then painting the entire wall to match. You can customize not only the size of the boxes, to be squares rectangles or a combo of each, but also the thickness of the boards that you add to the wall to achieve just about any look. I love how Gold Ala Mode brought the look of a French apartment into her New Jersey home.


SHIPLAP

Or more broadly, horizontal paneling, is a series of panels stacked horizontally. Shiplap traditionally has a space in between the boards (and is designed to easily fit together) where as horizontal paneling can be installed butt to butt without a space. Vertical paneling can be any color or raw as shown here, mixed with beadboard in Michelle Adam’s home.


BOX MOULDING


V-GROOVE PANELING

V-groove paneling is a type of paneling where the edges of the boards have been shaved so that when it butts up to another board it forms a “V” shape in the groove. This is a more traditional look, and offers defined lines because of the grooves of the boards.


WAINSCOT PANELING

The term wainscoting refers to any type of wall treatment that goes a portion of the length of the wall. So while some people think wainscoting only involves beadboard or v-groove, the “half way method” can be used for any wall treatment. We love it here in a modern hallway with a box moulding.


SHOP THE POST



DIY Concrete Bells

I’ve been on the ceramic train for sometime now. Loving dishes and decor alike, I’ve blogged about it here before. That love has carried over to my lust for the charming ceramic bells I’ve been seeing around Instagram and on Pinterest. My favorites on Etsy are a little more than I want to spend at the moment, so I came up with a DIY to get the look for a fraction of the cost. This DIY is a fairly simple one, I completed it in about an hour. Are you into this decor trend?

DIY Concrete Bell Tutorial
DIY Concrete Bell Tutorial
DIY Concrete bells

SUPPLIES:

STEP 1: remove the plant from the planter. Scrape out the styrofoam.

DIY Concrete bells

STEP 2. Drill a hole in the bottom of the planters. Hole will depend on the gauge of rope you are using.

DIY Concrete bells

STEP 3: Thread rope through one bell. Tie knot inside bell to hold in place. Tie wood ring to end of rope.

DIY Concrete bells

STEP 4. Decide how long you want the bells to hang and tie knot at the top of the fold.

DIY Concrete bells

STEP 5: Thread rope through the other bell, tie knot inside bell to keep in place and knot wood ring to at end of the rope. Last, unravel the ends of the rope.

DIY Concrete bells
DIY Concrete bells
DIY Concrete Bell Tutorial

SHOP THE POST