Fabric Stories for a Boy's Room

I put together a few potential fabric stories for a client's little boys room, so I thought I'd share...

a)

b)

c)

d)

Fun, huh?  What's your favorite?

Virtual Client- A Kitchen & Breakfast Area Spruce Up!

I was honored and excited when a blog reader from Mississippi contacted me for help with her kitchen and breakfast area.

She and her husband built their house a few years ago, and she was feeling that this part of her home was just blah.

She's a new mom, and so I wanted to help her make her space beautiful, relaxing, and practical...on a budget!

Here are a couple of the pictures she sent me...

The client loved the Southern Living Taylor Creek Idea House and has used it as her inspiration for many parts of her house.  So, I used the Taylor Creek House kitchen to give us some direction for where to take her kitchen.

(Sorry for the blurry picture)

For her kitchen I recommended:

- Paint the cabinets.  

If you want wood colored cabinets, I would suggest going very dark, like a dark walnut or coffee color, or going with a light pickled or white-washed look instead of a medium tone

- Replace the barstools (which she was hoping to do anyway).

- Replace the pendant lights.

- De-clutter above the cabinets and on the countertops.

Custom cabinets, which are preferred, go all the way to the ceiling.  To mimic the look of custom cabinetry,  you don't want the eye to be drawn to the gap between the cabinets and ceiling.  If your cabinets don't go all the way to the ceiling, you can use this space as storage with inconspicuous baskets instead of display.  

- Spray paint the black refrigerator with stainless-steel look appliance spray paint.

- Add a colorful rug to make the space feel homey, and give some cushion for her baby to play.

- Add bamboo blinds to the window

For her breakfast area I recommended:

- Remove the tv cabinet and invest in a small flat screen to tuck in the corner of the kitchen countertop (nearest the breakfast area).

- Line up the breakfast table parallel with the wall of windows on the left.  

- Add ceiling height white curtains to dress the windows, along with bamboo shades for each window, mounted just below the curtain rod.  

Always, always, always use floor to ceiling curtains!

- Add a colorful patterned rug

- Get an old long bench or church pew to push against the wall under the windows on the left.  Dress it with comfy pillows in an indoor outdoor fabric, and pull the table up to the bench like a banquet.  

So here's the look:

Here's the run-down...

1.  School house pendant lights.  She will need 3 of these over her peninsula, and 1 over her sink.  

2.   A very inexpensive indoor outdoor fabric for pillows for her breakfast area banquet.  I wanted something she could wash and/or wipe off when her baby (or husband) spill something.

3.  A Dash and Albert rug indoor/outdoor rug in Gunnison.  She can hose it off if something gets spilled!

4.  We're on the hunt for the perfect old church pew!

5.  Ikea has several options for simple white curtains in long lengths.  The downfall is...you can't order online.  

6.  Bamboo shades cozy up any space, in my opinion!  These are from Lowe's.  

7.  Another indoor/outdoor rug from Dash and Albert in Diamond Slate/Blue.  

8.  I suggested painting her cabinets a warm grey color like "Mourning Dove" by Martha Stewart.  Her walls are already Starched Linen (by ??)

9.  These hip and easy to wipe down bar stools are inexpensive from the Home Decorator Collection.  

10.  Freshly painted cabinets are yummy.

******

I can't wait to see the finished product!

CONTACT ME IF YOU WANT HELP WITH YOUR HOME!

sarawalkerdesigns@gmail.com

Sara Walker Designs- It's official!

If you're in our around Birmingham, AL contact me for help making your home a home.  

For the out-of-towners, I can help you too, via photos, email, & online shopping.  

A room I'd actually like to dine in!

We hung my grandmother's chandelier!  Finally!
I've been hating our chandelier since the day we moved in, so I'm so glad to finally get up something that I love!

Before:

After:

Also in the name of being less prissy in our dining room, I removed the cafe curtains from the windows...

Before:

After:

I also added in a few more antlers.  I probably have too many antlers in our house, but my husband loves to hunt so we have tons of them.  They're free and such an easy way to add a natural, rustic element to a room.  

The bad news is, this window is directly across from our bathroom, and so I'm trying to figure out how to add back in a little privacy.  I'm deciding between bamboo shades or some sort of gauzy pocket panel cafe curtains gathered on upper and lower rods...not sure what the word for that is.

I'm finally happy with our dining room!  (At least for today.)

Thanks Grandma (actually, "Grandmother" as she was called)!

Before:

After:

A little less prissy, a little more me.

People are always commenting and inquiring about the wall of hats in our dining room.  They were my grandmother hats, and they are all fabulous and unique.

I have loved having them displayed as a focal point in our home, but it was making our dining room so feminine and prissy...especially when paired with our floral rug and floral cafe curtains.  So I x-ed the cafe curtains, for now, and I shook things up a bit with the hat wall.

I made the back wall of our dining room more of a salon wall, with the vintage hats as the main element.  This feels a little more casual to me, and a little more "me".

Don't worry...I know our chandelier is the real downer in our dining room!  Just ask my husband, I complain about it constantly.  But luckily, this weekend we are getting started restoring an old chandelier that was my grandmothers!  It will be much better!  I can't wait!

Counting Sheep

On a budget, it's hard to afford big rugs!  So I find myself having to layer smaller rugs around my house to keep things warm and cozy, literally...our house is freezing in the winter!  I was tired of stepping out of the bed onto the cold floor in the mornings, so I picked up these sheep skins at Sams for $30 each!  I think they frame the bed nicely (I wish I had a wide angle lens to capture it!).

I love the organic shape of hides.  Bedrooms are full of squares, and so it's nice to soften things up a bit.

...and they're perfect for Bei to snuggle up on.

  

Thanks for checking in.  

Charlie and the Painting Factory

We were blessed to have found Charles the Painter, and his handy wife Marilyn!  We originally weren't even planning on hiring painters.  We just wanted someone to help Chris with the scraping and prep part of the job.  Charles gave us such a low quote that we couldn't resist and hired him for the whole job.  And I am so glad we did!
They worked so hard on our house and did everything the tried and true honest way...no shortcuts!  We've had some setbacks with the cold weather, which made it a very long process, but now their job is complete!

Charles the Painter has...
- Scraped
- Sanded
- Pressure washed
- Primed (all by brush and roller, no spraying)
- Removed all the old caulk
- Replaced rotten wood
- Helped Chris with some carpentry
- Re-caulked everything
- Replaced some cracked bricks
- Smoothed out all our wood siding with spackling to make it all smooth and look like new!
- Primed again over the new caulk (all by brush and roller, no spraying)
- And finally...painted the house!

So here are some pictures of the process....

 scraped...

 took out two bushes...

sanded...

put up some new trim...

(I thought we needed a little architectural interest to keep up with the other bungalows in our neighborhood...most of which have the cute overhanging eaves)

Primed...

railings taken down...

New columns and new gable...

Good job to Chris and his dad Bill!

While they were busy working on the structural details, I was thinking ahead to the cosmetic details...

I built our shutters with basically 0 help from any of the men!  I'm kind of proud of that.

I painted our front door to match the shade of blue/green that we discovered was original to our porch ceiling...

Chris worked hard building our railings, with some help from me and Lindsey B....

I painted our porch swing, and hung it with rope...

(Thanks to our friends, the Boneys, for the rope idea)

We took a little break for Christmas...

But Charles the painter came back from the holidays with a vengeance.  He spackled every board of siding till it looked smooth and brand new... 

He put fresh caulk everywhere and did some more priming...

I took down the black lantern on our porch and spray painted it "oil-rubbed bronze"

And painted our mailbox and address numbers with a hammered copper spray paint with a few shots of the oil-rubbed bronze hammered spray paint by Rustoleum....

And sprayed the box on our house to match...

And this cute star for a little personality...

Then the first coat of paint went up...

It looked pretty stark and brown with the stark white primed trim...scary!

Then, Charles the painter never misses a beat, he went back and did some more spackling anywhere he could find a blemish...

Finally, the trim color started going up, bringing the look together, just in time for a snow "storm"...

And after some touch-ups and two coats all around...the house looked amazing, due to Charles, Marilyn, and their trusty sidekick Bei!

And Chris and I worked pretty dang hard ourselves!

Thanks to our friends and family that helped too...Lindsey, Alex, and Bill!

Now it's time to relax and enjoy it paint our steps and porch and do some landscaping!

If you're in the Birmingham area and need a painter or general handy man, please contact me and I would love to pass along Charles the painter's info!