my v. own pintuck duvet 'cover'

Husband woke up to a new duvet the other morning, as I had finally finished my $28 version of the West Elm pintuck duvet and had sneaked it onto the duvet while he was sleeping!

I am really happy with how it turned out - although it definitely took longer than expected since my sewing machine was acting up so much and I ended up doing all the tucks by hand! I love how it doesn't get/look wrinkly, and it looks so nice and puffy. And I made it to fit my duvet perfectly.

This duvet style is seriously Ev.Ry.Where. West Elm, Anthropologie, and Pottery Barn all have a verison of various puffy-ness, and I also found countless tutorials online for homemade versions. West Elm's version (in ivory) is even on their home page today - looks pretty similar, right?! Except for my average photography skills, of course ;) 

Yum, now I need a bold blanket for the foot of the bed, right?!

I've drooled over this duvet cover for at least a year now - but didn't want to pay the ~$100 price tag. Especially as I'd read that the West Elm version is only 250 thread count and the pin tucks rip easily. Hmm.

So when I found this December Skye tutorial through Pinterest, I decided to give it a try. I read all the tutorials I could find (by googling 'pintuck duvet tutorial') and fine-tuned how I wanted to do mine. I did a white pillow for practice first (the one shown on my bed) and I'm really glad I did - it gave me a chance to perfect my plan. Since there are a million tutorials out there already, I shall just give you a quick overview:

1. Flat sheets are hard to find by themselves! I found two white queen-size sheets at Target.com for about $28. With my Target debit card I get 5% off plus free shipping, and I went through Ebates.com for another 4% off. Only a little savings but it about paid for my thread! ;) Some tutorials advise buying king sheets for a queen duvet, but I found the Target queen sheets to fit my duvet perfectly.

2. Wash/dry sheets first. I usually am not this detailed, but I was being slow to be sure this project went perfectly. Also washing the sheets took out the wrinkles from from being folded in their packaging, which helped a lot in pinning/sewing the tucks!

3. Choose tuck density. I made a cardboard square (the purple square in the drawing) to use for my pattern and drew lines across its centers (shown in grey), like this (please excuse my v. shady drawing skills):

I put a pin at every red x in the drawing. This worked great for arranging the tucks! My spacing (ie cardboard square) was 10" horizontally and 7" vertically. Since my tucks didn't take up fabric in the vertical direction, this worked out to almost-squares in the finished product (I wanted them a little elongated almost-squares).

4. Sew a billion tucks. There are a few different methods you can use for making the tucks. I tried them all on my practice pillow and decided my favourite: I folded three 1/3 inch-ish pleats and sewed two lines down the pleats to hold them in place. About halfway through I started doing three x stitches down the pleats instead - this went faster for some reason. Ha. Here's what it looks like:

I didn't sew all the way past the end of the pleats so that you don't see the thread from the top side. Here's a closeup of the top:

If you use the machine, this part of the process would probably go faster - but I love how sturdy it is with my hand-stitching!

Oh yes and some people only do pintucks on one side of the cover.  I did both sides for optimal puff and versatility. ;)

5. Pin the two finished sides together, measuring to ensure a good fit with your duvet. Again I took my sweet time on this step, but it paid off! I added pleats in the top and bottom to simulate continued tuck pattern and make the whole thing 'lie' nicer. Pinning the sides is easy. The only cut I made at the end was cutting about 13" off the top. Since the pleats 'tuck' in the horizontal direction, I could have made this cut at the beginning, but I didn't realize it. It would be easier (but scarier) to cut before doing the tucks, since it was a bit difficult to find/keep a level edge after doing the tucks.

6. Sew duvet together, leaving room for inserting duvet. Add extras like buttons/buttonholes and/or ties or buttons in the corners inside for attaching duvet. I haven't added the extras yet...I was ready to have a break after all the hand sewing!

And yes I stood there in the middle of the night and took a photo of my complete-and-still-empty duvet cover:

I couldn't wait for the morning when I could take the real After photos!

And at night:

Am v. happy with results. Must peek in on it once in a while enjoy it. Next bedroom refresh project...some tornado wood???

Also we've been playing with rearrangement of the living room lately...next post will probably be nerdy discussion of sofa and chair layout. And did any of you get my double meaning in title of duvet 'cover'? Because I 'covered' the West Elm version?? *_*

Update: Can't believe it's been a month and a half since I made this! It still looks brand new, despite all the lounging we do on it because of its puffy comfy-ness, and wrinkles still don't show at all. I haven't had any issues with pleats ripping - perhaps because of my sheets' 300 thread count? I seriously love this duvet cover - making the bed every morning is fun with its happy puffiness!

glossy gold meets vintage shapelies

I might possibly be a person with strange OCD decorating behaviors, which may or may not include having a Craigslist tab almost-permanently-open on my computer. But it pays off on days like last Friday, on which self could not stop crowing at stupendous $15 craigslist find!

Ummm yes I definitely said $15. Woot. See how the right lamp is a bit crooked? The girl originally listed the left lamp for $10, and I happened to see it and emailed her right away (beating 10+ other interested people, the girl said - I'm not surprised!). Then when I met up with her, she showed me this second one and offered to include it for another $5 since it had an unstable connection between the base and bulb part. Awesome. (Another reason to be an OCD DIYer who takes extra cash to Craigslist meetups, in small bills. Just saying.)

I knew the potential of these lamps right away, because I've seen similar ones everywhere lately. Like here on Joss and Main:

And I'd even drooled over this. very. lamp. and its siblings at Target, but who spends $28 on a lamp mere months before (hopefully) moving to Europe? Not this nomad.

Craigslist girl even included the shades, which about blew me away because they look brand. new. and are not a sneezable price themselves:

I knew with a bit of spray painting skills, I could come up with something like this:

And I even knew I wanted a nice bright yellow, because not to digress, but I've been noticing lately how our bedroom has lots of dark brown/black and sharp corners in it. I've been looking at mood boards everywhere to come up with colour ideas. Like this one from Chris Loves Julia (see the happy yellow lamp???):

Soo I've been studying colour groupings and style blending to see how I can lighten up our bedroom without losing our earthy-meets-minimal-urban style. And these yellow lamps are the first tweak!

First thing first - Jackson and some hefty glue skills helped straighten out the crooked fitting between base and bulb of the one lamp:

I followed this with a laborious number of thin, even spray paint coats. Covering that red paint took an entire can of Valspar Gloss Gold spray paint (I took my time for an optimal finish - and I only had two tiny windows of less-blazing-hot weather in which to spray - before 9am and between 8:30-8:45pm! After sunset works but not after dark because the bugs come out and mess up the finish.) When I was happy with the finish, I did one coat of Rustoleum's Painter's Touch: Clear Gloss as a protective coat against any future scratches. I looove the extra clear gloss coat - it helped smooth and gloss the finish even more, and within an hour the finish felt really hard and durable, not a little sticky like spray paint can sometimes feel for a few days. I'll definitely be using this clear coat on future projects.

Annnnd then the moment of truth!! First the Before. This is from last winter, thus the quilt!

Before:

And now - the After!

Oh yes I also recently switched out the brown pillowcases to white ones. I love the difference that makes too.

Another Before:

And After:

I love the way the yellow actually pulls out the tea-green of the walls more, and adds height to balance the headboard.

And some close ups:

              

What do you think? Vintage-meets-modern? I'm learning that one fun decor trick is to take a piece that looks traditional/vintage (such as the shape of these lamps) and do something fun/unexpected for a modern twist. I love the visual interest.

And a little cost counting - $15 for lamps + $3.98 for yellow spray paint + $3.98 for clear coat = $22.96! That's $11.48 per lamp! Considering just the original lamps + shades = $105.96, and shiny yellow version costs more, I'm v. happy with results!

I have a few more tweaks up my sleeve that I'm thinking of for the bedroom, unless husband-nomad thinks differently. My current thoughts...

- West Elm duvet cover hack (a hack means I'm attempting to DIY it...hint, for $28.24...)
- Make new curtains (the brown ones are back up, you may have noticed - husband didn't think the cream were opaque enough. Am thinking of making a light-coloured blackout curtain)
- Colourful throw pillows, to tie in the lighter colours
- Pooooossibly a fabric headboard??? Just because they are trendy right now and I'm interested - but only if I can do it for v. 'nomadic' price
- Would love to replace the rugs - have never been that fond of them - but we shall see! Sadly no Ikea around here, because I'd love to get an Ikea jute rug and paint it. Depends on if I can sell current rugs at our August yard sale for suitable price ;)

Must stop scheming and procure groceries for further crazy studying habits - we are also studying hard right now for final qualifying exam in August! Tonight can study flashcards by light of happy lamp. Should definitely improve memorization powers.

chair upholstery. what could possibly go wrong?

Remember a certain photo of this chair that I shared when building the crate for kitteh supplies recently?

Welllll the time has finally come to show it some love. I've decided to attempt the rite of DIY passage known as furniture re-upholstery. A friend gave me this chair awhile back - she was going to re-cover it but ended up moving and offered it to me, and I was way excited to try out the project! I really like the form of the chair - clean modern lines and lots of potential.

So I've been looking up lots of upholstery tutorials and photos of chairs that I like. It's going to be a bit challenging, because I don't have the original fabric, seat stuffing (?) or any photos of what the chair used to look like. Most tutorials I read start off with something like "carefully remove the original fabric, and use it as a pattern to cut your new fabric". But I'm not complaining - it promises to be interesting, and a free chair/project is nothing to sneeze at! :)

You know what comes next? Choosing a fabric!! I've left several fabric stores unimpressed with the selection, but now that I realize there are great online options (yes, fabric.com, I'm talking about you), the last hurdle has been removed.

The last hurdle, that is, except choosing a fabric - whew overwhelming!! You know what's coming.....! You guys did such a FABulous job last time choosing awesome shade material for the chandelier that I'm hoping you'll indulge me with another fabric vote, and the chair will be made with the winning fabric! Even husband, who seemed patiently quizzical last time, loved the resulting shade and is totally on board with the vote this time. I zoomed around fabric.com and picked out about 10 of my favorite fabrics (this time making sure they're all medium weight, perfect for upholstery!), and then husband helped me narrow down those to these four that are both our favorites. So give us your voting clicks!

The details:

Voting will end Wednesday night at 9pm.


I'm staying away from something too geometric, so that I don't have to worry as much about matching lines.


Oh yes, and I have no idea where in our house I'll put this chair yet - living room, sunroom, or loft, depending on how it turns out. (haha) But I'll definitely share the process, success or failure, with ya. And the idea is either a bit more colour in the house, or (with #3) something neutral that will look cool with a colourful throw pillow on it.


Fabric.com has no idea who I am - I just really appreciate having more fabric options than we have here in Norman Oklahoma! (Jo-Anns, I still love you, but really...how can you not know what ikat is?) ;)

Which fabric for the chair reupholstery?

I can also hardly wait to order fabric for a few contrast-y throw pillows as invasions of colour...woohoo. And I will be back soon with details about the a bedroom refresh project I'm working on! Best craigslist find in OK, y'all.

Bring back the 40's (plate size)

The other week I found some super yellow, blue and grey bowls at Target! They pop nicely against our mostly white and light green kitchen, without being too saturated for our earth-toned selves:

I've had dishes in my head these days, because the red dishes we registered for and received for our wedding have become quite chipped in the last almost-five (!) years. And they also don't go with our lighter colour schemes these days. I talked with a couple pottery places to see if we could get the red dishes re-glazed, but apparently it's dangerous because the dishes aren't marked with what kind of material they are and could explode in a kiln if heated to the wrong temperature. Sooo the colourful bowls seemed the perfect opportunity for a little change-up. 

We've loved our red dinnerware, and especially - surprise - eating most our meals off the smaller plates (9" diameter circles), and only using the big dinner plates when we run out of the smaller ones! Soo in thinking of replacing our dinnerware, I realized I could probs get by with getting mostly smaller plates and a few bigger ones. Especially if we could mix and match with our fancy stoneware set (white and black).

This eating-off-smaller-plates idea is actually one I really appreciate. Did you know that in the 40's, the average American dinner plate size was about 8.5"diameter, as compared to most of today's 12" diameter plates? Some really interesting research has been done about how when we have bigger plates/bowls/glasses, we eat more - I just looked up some articles again recently when thinking about our plates. Here is a NYTimes article about Wansink, a Cornell professor who studied how people eat more when using bigger plates/bowls/cups. This article is about "The 9-inch diet" - the whole idea of eating less by using smaller plates - going back to the 1940's standard plate size. The general consensus seems to be that we eat more when we use bigger plates/bowls/glasses, because that visual input helps us gauge how much to eat; and that serving size and dish size has increased over the last few decades.

We are not on a diet, but we definitely like using our smaller plates. Soo basically I was on the hunt for white plates (I knew I liked square ones) 8"-9" with a few that were larger for more involved dinners. Turns out this hunt was harder than I thought it would be!! Salad plates seem to be about 6" and dinner plates about 12", with little in between. And most all the plates I found seemed to be $5+ each. I found a set of four perfect size 8" plates for *cough* $40 *cough* at Kohl's. Whoa.

At some point I resorted to the internets, and eventually found this awesomeness, at Crate & Barrel of all places:

Yay look at the pretty plates! They all get really great reviews, of not chipping, and being nice and heavy and durable. We reasoned that we'd mostly use the 8.25" plates, but have 4 big plates for bigger dinners, and the appetizer plates (which got the Most Amazing reviews for being versatile and classy) would be for desserts, breakfasts, and appetizers.

Then I googled and found a 10% off coupon, and then I used Ebates to save an additional $10 plus 3% off my purchase (since I was new to Ebates, I received a $10 Target gift card in the mail plus the additional cash back from my Crate and Barrel purchase). Ridiculous. Total: $63.34!

I'd never used Ebates before. Basically, you go to the Ebates site, register, and then click on a link on Ebates that goes to the store you actually want to shop at, such as Crate and Barrel, Target, Sears, etc. Each store that you make a purchase gives you a percentage cash back at Ebates. Like this (I recently made a small Target purchase online through Ebates too):

I know it's not much, but if I made a habit of going through Ebates to do my online shopping, it could add up!

***Total disclaimer: Ebates has no idea who I am and I'm not advertising for them. I just like to shop thriftily ;) Although if you click through my link to Ebates, either here in the post or the Ebates badge in the sidebar, and then use Ebates, I think I do get a $5 bonus. ;) ***

Anyway, awesome price, and the plates came in time for our happy visit with Laura and Mika, and we are totally enjoying the plates! They are really sturdy and I'm kind of addicted to how they make every meal look artistic. See the sandwich I made for David the other day (these are the 8.25" plates):

And then the snack we had the other evening (yes I'm also currently loving drinking out of mason jars - and these are the appetizer plates, which are so versatile and handy!):

And my veggie burger for lunch the other day (8.25" size again):

And my toast for breakfast (appetizer plate again):

So yes, I'm in plate love. It's the little things. I even took an "After" photo of the cupboard, which is what it looks like when the dishwasher is full (too lazy to wait till after dishwasher):

The end. Did I make you hungry? And how awesome of a shower/wedding/housewarming gift would those little appetizer plates make?

{wherein author describes how tiled sunroom for $145}

Remember when our sunroom looked like this?

Yah that was not so long ago. Welllll now it looks like this!

(Well actually it is looking more like this: new foster kittehs + partly done trim)

I didn't actually set out to tile the sunroom last week. I was v. pleased with how the crate and cabinets had turned out, and just wondered to myself (and husband) what should do with floor. I'd not tiled a floor before, and I kept thinking that there would be some point where I would find it would be a lot of work and I would go for vinyl tiles instead. But somehow that point never occurred - which is awesome since we love the new tile floor! It looks so clean and shiny.

Now details. If you don't care about the details, scroll down for more photos!

Details That Will Be Only Mildly Interesting Unless You Are Planning to Tile a Floor

I started by pulling up the vinyl tiles out in the sunroom, since I knew there was a concrete slab underneath. I read that one can loosen them to make the job easier by putting a cloth on a tile and ironing it to warm up the glue. It totally worked and I had popped off all the tiles in one or two evenings of not working v. hard. Two Crossing Jordan episodes and one Monk episode, to be exact.

I did a lot of internet research (and read in my flooring book) about tile and read that I should do a moisture test to see if any water was wicking up into the concrete, by taping big squares of plastic down and seeing if any water accumulated underneath. Like this:

Basically I wanted to know if I could tile directly on concrete or if I had to put down a moisture barrier and concrete backerboard, which would had substantial time and $$$ and is basically concrete anyway, ha.

I also went to Lowes and asked the flooring guys lots of questions. I ran into a Lowes professional tile installer! He said he'd been installing tile over concrete here in OK for decades and moisture tests are basically irrelevant because the ground is never damp enough long enough to wick up water. Annnd I guess he was right - my concrete passed without a single drop of water appearing under the plastic squares! I think the moisture test must be more important in climates like Seattle and Portland.

I also did a test for levelness of the floor. You need a 4-6 foot long level. Put the level on the floor (in a bunch of different spots!) and see if the bubble is level, or if you have to lift one end of the level to make it level. If you have to lift more than 1/8th inch, I think I found on average (from my flooring book and internet research), then you should use floor leveling compound. My concrete was amazing - zero to 1/16th inch off level across 6 feet in any dimension! I did this for free too - I bought a 6 foot level from Lowes, carefully brought it home and used it, realized I didn't need to do any leveling, and returned the still-totally-mint-condition level to Lowes. I just said "I was going to use this to level my floor - but it turns out that it's level!" Woo. Free-ness.

The final step was removing the adhesive left behind by the vinyl tiles. The two professional tile installers that I talked to said it would be fine to leave it since it wasn't a total layer, just spots that were sticky to walk on. I was still concerned about it, though - I wanted my tile to have optimal sticking power! Annnd it turned out I had this leftover that I had tried to use briefly on my bathroom vanity makeover in sanding out the tricky corners of the doors:

I really don't like to use chemicals if I don't have to. But I had this sitting in my cupboard, I had paid for it, and I could open all the windows and get the fan going so the smell wasn't bad. And. um. it did a scarily amazing job. I hate to think what it would do to skin. I used thick rubber gloves, an old paint brush to apply it, and then a bucket of water and rags to wash it up. Oh and a cheap copper pot scrubber for the stubborn spots.

I was done in just about two hours; it did a completely fantastic job of removing all traces of adhesive from the floor, and I exactly finished off the container. Is anyone else creeped out by how easy this project is going??

Okay, so now all I need is the actual tile, right?? When we were recently visiting Seattle, our friend Dennis Rempel, who is a professional contractor in Seattle, had mentioned that the trendy thing these days in tile is to use really big tiles and really small grout lines, for a more continuous and easily maintainable look. I really wanted to try this, especially because my floor is so perfectly level and smooth. But big tiles can be expensive, especially at a big box store like Lowes. As in, $3+ per square foot for the nice tile. So I was looking on craigslist for any secondhand tile, and I found Remnant Carpet Co:

Awesome deal! I called them and they said they had a lot of different tiles, so we decided to drive up and check it out. Their web site said they've been around since 1964, so I figured they had to be pretty reputable (unlike a previous craiglist experience we had) - and they were awesome! We bought enough tile with a few extras of our favorite choice, an 18-inch square, light, grey-veined porcelain tile, and they threw in a few extra at the end because that was the last of that tile that they had. We paid 69 cents per square foot. Not. joking. And they also sold us laticrete thinset to use for adhesive, for about $16 per bag, significantly cheaper than Lowes!

We chose to do 1/16th inch grout lines - basically the tiles as reasonably close together as we could, no spacers. This is how Dennis said he does it and then just does a thin grout line between. It worked great (we tested first that our tiles were square) - although it was definitely more challenging than using spacers! I was really glad for our previous experience with two backsplashes of tiling - I could really tell that my tiling skills are improving. I don't think I would attempt such thin spacing if it was my first tile project.

Done With the Only-Mildly-Interesting Details, Now Photos!

Enough talk. Here is the photo progression of work! The supplies (note to self: buy a paddle extension for drill to mix thinset in future! mixing by hand = yuck):

I mixed a half bag of laticrete at a time, which worked fine. Once I'd mixed the first time, really, I could see how thick it was supposed to be so I could mix any amount I needed. One pro aptly said it should be "a little thicker than creamy peanut butter". You do want each batch to be the same consistency so that the tiles all sit level. Do self a favor and buy a paddle stirring attachment for drill. Seriously.

Here we are in the process of tiling the first couple rows. You can see how clean the concrete is!

We got to save even more by borrowing a wet saw from Moses and Sadie, friends from our little Mennonite church:

David helped with the tiling as he is v. good with those precision cuts! Then we waited 24 hours after tiling before grouting. So before grouting:

Then I got to use unsanded grout because my grout lines were thin. Unsanded grout is waaay easier to work with than sanded grout. I'm probably going to avoid ever using sanded grout if I can help it (I used it once and hated. it.):

It's surprisingly difficult to tell sanded from unsanded grout in the store. This is actually the second pot I bought - the first one was actually sanded although the only place it said that was inside the pot in the instructions booklet! A good clue (as I know now) is that if you have to mix it yourself, it's probably sanded. And as I mentioned before, I hate mixing by hand. So hard to smooth out the 'batter'.

Also I usually use the spackling knife shown here instead of the traditional float - I know, I'm crazy - for some reason I find it more manageable. And with this tool it's easier to get grout just in the cracks rather than over the whole tile. If you spread grout over the whole tile you have a *lot* more cleaning to do at the end!

And we picked light grey grout to bring out the grey in the tiles and so it won't look dirty as fast.

Love. The. Results.

I do still have to finish the new trim. We have this v. old miter box that we got at an estate sale for 50 cents last year, and it works surprisingly well to do the cuts!

I would be done with that but then we got our first foster kittens for Hands Helping Paws and I put them in the sunroom. They are too adorable and loving running around on the tile.

I love how clean, bright, and airy the sunroom is beginning to feel! What a great intro for me to learning to tile a floor.

Oh and my grout says no sealing needed (most sanded grouts require sealing) but I'm probably going to seal it anyway. Because I even have a can of sealing spray in the shed. Awesome freeness.

And that is how I tiled the sunroom for $145:
Tile + two bags laticrete: $119 (I have 2/3rds bag laticrete left over to use on the bathtub in future!)
Grout: $26 for one pot (I have 3/4 the pot leftover - again, sealed it well to save for bathtub)

So exciting! Who else thinks that I must have used up all my house project luck and the next project must be bound to go horribly wrong??