Cover your windows!

OK, on my list of easiest, "thriftiest" ways to decorate your home...window treatments are WAY up there. Problem is, most of the somewhat affordable treatments that you can buy at stores are too short for homes with nine foot ceilings (that a lot of us have now). Even the regular 84" draperies are too short for eight foot ceilings because your drapes should at least hit the floor, if not "puddle" at least a bit. If your drapes are going to be operational, meaning you are going to close them for privacy or light control, you should go with a length that just hits the floor, or just a little bit of a break at the bottom.

Here is an example of just hitting the floor:

Here they are with just a little puddle, which I tend to favor:

Even though some places, like Pottery Barn, have lengths that will work, they don't carry a great selection as far as color or prints are concerned. Their treatments are beautiful, but a bit "vanilla." Not to mention, holy CRAP, they are expensive. So what do you do if you can't find the right length or design at the store?

MAKE YOUR OWN!! Stop laughing at me and listen. It really isn't hard! The best part about making your own window treatments is you can make them in just the right fabric that you LOVE.

All you need:

1. Yardage of fabric that you need. For nine foot ceilings, you'll want about three yards of fabric for each side of the window. This gives you enough for hems.
2. An iron. (See, I told you this was going to be easy!!)
3. Hemming tape. You can find this stuff anywhere, even Target. I like the heavy duty type but even the regular will work for most fabrics. It looks like this:
   
   Get out the ironing board, and use your hemming tape to hem the fabric. Easy. as. pie.

If you are using a rod to hang the drapes, just fold over the top enough for the rod, and hem. If you aren't using a rod, you don't even need a rod pocket. Just hem the top and use the clips on the drapery rings to hang them.

Here's an example of a set I did -- this was my first attempt at making my own (excuse the toys -- obviously the office is now the toy room!):

I even cut the width of the fabric in half, because I knew I wouldn't be closing them and didn't need enough to cover the whole window. So I made window treatments for two windows with only six yards of fabric. I had a coupon so I think I spent about $40 for the fabric. Hemming tape is about $3 for a package. Seriously...you can't get any better!!

Come on, you can do it!! :)

More examples of my obsession

So now that I've explained how to add molding to your home, I thought I would share more ways I think it has transformed our house.

Our master bathroom is one of my favorite examples. We have extremely high ceilings that I painted with a mossy green color. After a while I realized how dark it was in there, but there was NO WAY I was repainting those walls again. I thought about adding tile around our tub, but figured it would be at least $1000 to do that. So I ended up using molding around the tub to lighten up the space.

Here is the before:





And here is it after, with the magic of molding! :)






I added rectangles to the walls around the tub with molding, a chair rail around the top and painted it all out white. Then I used beadboard around the marble base of the tub and painted it a shade darker than the walls.

The BEST PART! This whole project was $40! The molding is the only purchase I had to make -- the beadboard was leftover from another project and the paint I already had. You can't beat it! We'd still like to change out the tub fixtures, but that will be later -- for the plumber. :)

Do they have a support group for me?

I am obsessed with molding in our home. I mean, seriously. Obsessed. I can't even remember the first project I did with it, all I know is I've always loved the look of wainscoting, beadboard and chair rails. So when we moved into our house, I set out to figure out how to do it on my own. I've gone from using an electric saw (REALLY REALLY not the best idea) to cut my wood and pounding in every nail with a hammer to now using my trusty miter box and a nail gun. The next level would be to finally just get a table saw to cut the wood, but even I'm not there yet.

Molding, I believe, is hands down the No. 1 way to update the look of your home. It makes it feel fresher, more customized and it sets your home apart from all the others in your neighborhood.

The greatest part about molding is it is easy to do. I'm not just saying this -- it really, really is. I was handy with a hammer before we moved into our home, but nothing else, so if I can do it, so can you. There are three main tools you need to install molding:

• A miter box with saw. These come in a set for about $8 at any home improvement store.

• A level. These vary in size and price, but all you need is a little one that will cost a few dollars.

• A nail gun. I know, not quite as simple as the other two! If you don't have one, you can rent it from any home improvement store. They are SO simple to use -- just plug it in, let the air fill up the tank, and put the gun against your surface and shoot. It is FUN to use a nail gun. My first time I put about 20 extra nails in, for good measure. I just couldn't stop!
  
• If you don't want to use a nail gun, just do what I did when I started out...nail every hole in. It takes longer but it works just as well. Use a drill bit to drill a hole for the nails though, because the wood may split if you just hammer the nail in.

Once you have your tools, it just takes measuring to see what length you want your squares. Use your miter box to cut the ends of the molding at 45 degree angles. That way, they match up in the corners to create a box. Make sure the wood is level before nailing in, and then go for it. I like to paint my projects white when everything is installed. It gives it a nice, crisp look. This is what I did to the island in my last post, but with black paint obviously.
Here's another example:


Once you do it one time, you'll be a pro!! The best part -- it's CHEAP. The molding is typically comes in 8 foot sections and these run anywhere from $3 to $10 a piece. So you can transform your room, stairway or hall with around $25 to $100, depending on the project.

The squares on my walls.

I hope you had a wonderful weekend! We had a great one -- full of marching band. ;) I swear I feel like I have 300 more children every weekend, I am so proud when I watch them perform. Sniff.

Today I'm not feeling so great -- no fever thank goodness, just general crap. Hopefully I can sleep it off tonight. I cannot stand being down and out. Gives me hives!!

So yes, this is yet another post about molding. I swear after this I won't mention it again for a whole WEEK! OK, maybe a month. Grumble. I got so many questions about determining the size of the boxes, so I thought I would answer that, and while I'm at it, show you the various ways I've used molding around our home...

The family room I worked on just weeks after the Bub was born. I was itching to get back to "normal" -- doesn't everyone feel like that? So a home improvement project was in order to scratch that itch. :) The Bub was in his bouncy seat the whole time I did this room -- and he slept through the whole thing!:

I used the foam molding in this room, and many of you who have seen pictures of our family room have asked about these boxes. I used a large stencil (I get mine from Hobby Lobby) to make the design inside the boxes. I wanted it to be really light and barely noticeable, so I used my faux iridescent paint only for the stencil.

I have loved it for years, but every once and a while I want to get rid of the swirls. They are fun and very subtle, but now I have a new look in mind. I'm thinking I'm going to paint the insides of those boxes with a color slightly darker than the walls. Stay tuned for that one!

In our chocolate powder room, I used real wood for the chair rail (I wanted it real thick and chunky) and the foam stuff for the boxes:

I never even painted them!:

Love that stuff!

The million dollar question -- how big do you make your boxes? It's a bit of math (ewwww!!) and some trial and error. First, you'll need to measure the wall. Then, decide how many inches you want between all of your boxes. I do a standard three inches all the way around:

Say your wall is 14 feet. (They are rarely a perfect number like that, for explanation purposes, let's go easy.) Fourteen feet is 168 inches. So maybe you want six boxes on that wall -- take out the three inches next to each box and figure out the final number. If we did six boxes, there would be seven three inch sections equalling 21 inches. Take 21 from 168 -- the number you have to work with is 147 inches.

Like this:

3" (box) 3" (box) 3" (box) 3" (box) 3" (box) 3" (box) 3"

Take the remaining 147 inches and divide it by six boxes -- each box will be 24.5 inches wide. Does that make sense? If you want to vary the sizes of the boxes (I do this often) -- decide on the larger size first and then figure out what you have to work with to determine the smaller sized boxes.

I highly suggest starting at each end of the wall, and working in. So if any are slightly off, it will be the middle box on the wall. If it's off just a bit, it will look like it's supposed to be, since it's in the center. This has saved me a couple of times. ;)

I also use molding to highlight parts of our home -- the columns between our living room and dining room:

Our super duper tall staircase:
And the half wall in our loft:

This molding was from Home Depot and is plastic! Can you believe it? It's in the molding area, but down at the outdoor trim area. It's got a great shape:
They cut like butta with a miter box and saw. Awesome.

Oooo, I almost for got our master bathroom!:

Told you I need a support group for this stuff. Don't worry, there are plenty of rooms in this house that don't have it. Darn it.

So I hope that helps! Did I make sense? Remember, you do not need a nail gun to do this in your home. It just makes it a heckuva lot more fun. ;) If you do it with a hammer and nails, you'll want long finishing nails and a drill bit to match. Drill into your wood first, then put the nail in and hang the molding. If you pound a nail in without a hole first, it will most likely split the wood.

Let me know if you decide to do it!! I'd love to see. You'll be hooked, watch out. Serious.

The difference molding makes.

Well it's done. Not completely, but I gave up on "completely" when the Bub was born. ;) There are a few touch ups to do, but I'm sure I'll get to them next week, next month, in a few years.

I am soooo pleased with how this project turned out. After looking at it now, I wonder why it took me so. many. years. for it to occur to me to add picture frame molding in this room. DOY.

I had done the molding in the foyer about four years ago, (using nails, a miter box and hammer, thankyouverymuch). Now, it continues throughout the whole front room and looks loverly:

On an unrelated note -- why does it take me looking at pictures to see the Halloween stuff I didn't see walking right by it 15 times? I swear I find decorations months later in random spots.

I luuuurve it under the windows too:

For this room, I wanted a very traditional look, which for me is white on white. I used white high gloss on the whole thing:

Many of you had questions about molding and how to do the finished edge, so I did another video (I think I'm hooked) to answer some of those:

So here is my favorite part...here is this room years ago, when I was trying to figure out what the heck to do with it!:
More recently, with the addition of some molding above the sofa:

Now, even though the sofa cover most of the wall, the molding just totally finishes it off. Nice.
The reason I decided to go ahead with this project right now (I swore I was not doing any other big projects till after Christmas!), was thinking how beautiful our Christmas tree will look in the corner with the molding as a backdrop. Can't you just see it?:
Uhhhh...I mean, can't you just see it?:

Uh huh. Yes. It did fall down. If you were here last year, you remember that. :)

Yep. Ugh.

Have a fantastic weekend you Squeezies!!

How to install molding (with videos, yikes!)

For a few weeks, I've been feeling like something was missing in my life...an itch that needed to be scratched. I felt a longing for something, but I couldn't put my finger on what it was. Then, one day, looking around our house, it hit me...I haven't done a molding project for EIGHT months. Good God, that's like a millennium in Sarah time.

I needed to squelch the need for molding STAT. I knew just the project to attack. I decided to add picture frame molding to the living room so it would continue around the room from our foyer. Here's what I did years ago (the pic is from years ago too):

So I took a trip to the greatest, most amazing place on earth. That most amazing place would be Lowe's. My Squeeeeee-zay Lowe's.

When I pick out molding, I lay it out on the floor to make sure it lays fairly flat and straight before I buy it:

This is the part when about 15 sweet Lowe's employees come up to me and ask it I need any help. Little do they know, I am very familiar with my lovely molding. We are tight.

I have been wanting to make a video for you all for months now, but couldn't' figure out the right topic. When I started this project, I realized it would be perfect!!

I'll have you know, I took one take each peeps. No rehearsal. No make up. It's scary.

Things you need to know before watching:

1. My eyes may look like they are as big as saucers, but they really aren't. (I don't think.) For some reason I look like I'm buggin' out. My hubby has always told me my eyes are his favorite feature of mine, but now I'm wondering what he's seeing. All I'm seeing is B.U.G.

2. I guess I have a turkey neck. It's been 34 years and I didn't know this until now. It's really, really pretty, let me tell you.

3. You'll see the back of my head for an extended period of time and my hair color looks really nice. I like it. Hope you do too.

4. I'm trying to decide if I should cut my hair again or grow it out. And it shows. ;)

OK, enough about me and my issues with the videos. The first is introducing myself, like you don't know who I am:


I showed you how to cut molding on this post back in March.

In this video, I show you how easy it is to get this stuff up on the wall:


All of the molding in our foyer was done before I had a nail gun, so you don't have to have one. It just makes the process much quicker!

I had my finger on the microphone for the next one, so I had to redo it. I'm new at this peeps, bare with me:


Whew, I need a nap. Or a drink. Or somethin'. Be kind to me people. ;)

I will show you the final result later this week! Only one more coat of paint to go and I'm done.

How to reupholster dining room chairs!

Well, the time has come to reveal what was one of the most difficult DIY projects I've ever done. I mean, I think this was harder than tiling. Then installing molding, fo sho. It was rough. Let me rephrase that -- getting the backs off the chairs was rough. The rest was easy peasy Squeezy. Serious. Let's go through the process, shall we?

First, you'll need needle nose pliers to really grip at the piping (if you have piping). There is no right way to do this, every chair was a bit different. But all involved pulling with the pliers -- with all my might:

Using a flathead screwdriver to pop out the meeeeeellions of staples:

People told me there would be hundreds of staples. I didn't quite believe them. There are hundreds of staples. Felt like eleventy billion.

Then when you start cursing and and sweating and are tired of fighting with the staples, you can just start using the screwdriver as a pry bar:

Even though I used a cloth under the screwdriver to protect the wood, it still got dented along the edges a little. I noticed it when I was doing it, but I haven't noticed the little dents since. No worries. :)

After you stop cursing and fighting with the chairs, take a breath, have a margarita and count to 500 -- then go after it again and just pull with all you got:

Margarita is optional, of course. Needed, but optional. I don't recommend drinking and DIYing. :)

This part seriously took FOREVER. It didn't get much better with each chair either. Some were easier than others, but they were just mocking me. The next one was always the worst of the bunch.

When you get the back off, there will be staples everywhere, so just grab these with your pliers and wiggle them out:

Now comes the EASY part. Covering the chairs is so simple. I wanted to use two fabrics for most of the chair backs, so I started with the back fabric and just stapled it along the sides, all the way around:

Then trim your fabric. For the next step, I used my own process to attach the backs. I'm not sure if this is the right way to do it, but it worked! I used my nail gun to secure the backs onto the chair:

The backs have a little lip that the nail went right into. This part did put me into a bit of a sweat, because you have to make sure the nail doesn't miss the lip on the chair frame. Does that make sense? I had a couple where the nail didn't hit the wood and are now sticking out the back. ;)

Then, I took the electric stapler (key word -- "electric" -- it's a must have for this project) and secured the front fabric around the front of the seat:

Then I trimmed that fabric again. I found a coordinating trim I just hot glued on to cover the staples:
And here's what you get!

The seats are easy -- you just take the cushion off and use the stapler to secure the fabric like I showed you here:

I chose a linen-type fabric for the seats:

Here's the worst of the damage to one of the chairs -- easily touched up:

This fabric was originally going to go on the back of the chairs, but I quickly realized there was only one chair you would see the back of (if I keep the bench I'm redoing), and the fabric was too pretty not to be seen!

On the backs is a solid brown faux silk. And when I got the room back together last night, I realized the print on the fronts of all of the chairs was a little too much. I have the head chairs in the corners of the room because of the bench I'm working on, and it was just a smidge too busy. So I recovered those with the solid brown to tone them down a bit:Joann's is out of my trim so once I get more of that, all six chairs will be done!

I cannot tell you how very much I love these chairs. They are LOVERLY! And they are perfect in the room. OH, and we only eat in this room maybe once a year. So there's not much of a danger of them getting food on them, but I do plan to stain guard them just in case. Cause I would totally cry if one got ruined. Serious.

I cross my heart promise to show you the entire reveal, with plenty of befores, later this weekend. I need to decide if I'm going to keep the bench at the table and if so, finish it up.

Stay tuned for another great giveaway this weekend! :)