DIY art

Here is a quick tutorial on making this artwork.  It was inspired by the Pinterest pic on the right.  I needed something combining gray and yellow for this room so I decided to do two tones.

So the first step is to get a lot of paint chips in your color(s) of choice.  Then you have to decide the pattern.  I went with the chevron pattern above but there are many more interesting ones on Pinterest. 
Here are a couple I noticed:

Once you pick your pattern you know the general shape the paint chip needs to be.  For mine it needed to be twice as long as it was wide.    Then you have to lay out your pattern to make sure you have enough chips.  I made some guidelines on the cardboard insert that came in my frame.















My biggest problem came from my choice of backing sheet and glue.  I started with a regular Elmer's glue and a paintbrush and worked in segments.  My problem was that the glue was so wet that it made the cardboard and paint chips wrinkle up.  Once I switched to glue stick, the problem stopped.  If I were doing it over I think I might cut a piece of foam board to fit my frame and work on that with a gluestick.

As I worked, I put something heavy on that area to make sure it laid flat.  The edge pieces had some odd shape since the matboard would cover them.













I happened upon the frame at Michaels in the clearance bin because it had a small ding in the paint. It was all white with a white mat inside.  I decided I needed a little contrast so I painted just the raised area around the frame which makes it appear to be a thinner metal frame with two matboards.  You could do your frame however you like.  I really like the rosy gold one in the Pinterest picture above.






Here is my final product:

Laundry hamper redo

I needed some type of laundry hamper for the new bathroom and was tired of looking at all of the cloth lined baskets.  They all looked the same to me.  When I was at our local thrift store I came upon a vinyl hamper that was $9 and decided to try to give it a new life.  The hamper itself was in great condition and very sturdy.  It was all dark brown and had the appearance of rattan.  Here it is in all its glory:

So the first thing I did was spray paint the body.  I was able to unscrew the lid to set it aside.  I decided to go with a gray to compliment the gray floors in the bathroom.  There were not a lot of gray selections in the spray paint section, mostly silvers.  I didn't realize until I got home that the one I selected was really a primer.  I tried it anyway and liked the mat finish of it.  Here it is with the lid sitting on top and some fabric I picked for the cushion top:














 
 



The next step was to attach the fabric to the top.  This lid was pretty easy because the underside had a little cover that was glued on.  I was able to peel back the cover enough to slide the fabric under and shoot a few staples in before covering it back up.

If I were doing this over I think I might spray and adhesive on the old seat to give the fabric something to adhere to on top.  I don't think it will matter much but it would be a little more secure.

Once I reattached the lid and put it in place it makes an interesting addition to the bathroom instead of the same old boring basket hamper.  And all for about $15.

Final bathroom pics

I am finally getting the last touches made to the bathrooms and getting to posts some pics.  So here is the newly expanded guest bathroom with tub/shower and separate toilet room.  I don't have a picture of the toilet room because there is really nothing to see.  I have been whitewashing a cabinet to hang over the toilet for storage, but otherwise, it is just a toilet.  I found a really cool painting at a resale store that brings together the blues, greens and whites.   You can see in the tub picture that I have changed the bathmat to add green.   .       

 

 

 

For the vanity area, I focused on trying to set things up so less water is likely to sit on the wood. Mainly this meant that I tried to keep things off the counter. I was able to find a hanging cup/soap dish at IKEA that works for this purpose.  And to take advantage of the space beside the vanity I found a hairdryer holster.  I added a small glass shelf to the left side as well. (You get a quick bonus view of one of our new puppies in the vanity picture!)

In the half bath I am trying to pull some yellow around the room.  I added a yellow door pull to the vanity and created some "art" which was inspired by Pinterest.  I'll post details on that project in a different post.

Now that school is back in session I will have more time during the day to finish some of these projects.  The next big one is the new master bedroom.  One of the biggest problems in that room is the ceiling.  The room was expanded to incorporate a closet which had a lower ceiling.  When we added the header to allow us to remove the closet wall we discovered that the closet ceiling actually had two layers, reflective heat barrier underneath drywall.  We have removed the top layer of drywall to make the layers even so now we are faced with either replacing the reflective insulation with regular drywall and texturing the ceiling or we can cover the entire ceiling with a ceiling treatment.  We are leaning toward the later but I haven't found exactly what I am looking for.  I would love to find a lightweight ceiling plank, tongue and groove, that is already primed.  So far I can only find raw cedar and pine.  That would be OK but would take a lot more work to paint.  Maybe if I spray it once it is up, painting won't be too bad.  I'll update as we go along. 

Back to work!