Child Art Walls....Keeping your Home Stylish with Children

As my little 3 year old flourishes into an amazing artist :-), I've been racking my brain on how to incorporate her art into my dream bohemian modern home.  To me a home should include a great percentage of meaningful things, and there is nothing more meaningful than something my little Bean Butt has created with her own heart and hands.  I will start with her own bedroom.  I've been at a stand still with her room for a while, there are a couple great pieces, her bed and the vintage numbers waterfall dresser.  This is my vision to add on to that. 
Here it is today, a cute start but missing that WOW factor. 

I'd like to get a cute modern task lamp for her bedside table or a floor one maybe.  I'm torn between a traditional brushed nickel or bronze one or a brightly colored one....I'm leaning toward a bright one, maybe either yellow or hot pink!  I love the vintage lamp in bright yellow from Urban Outfitters but of course it doesn't ship to CA!  Booey.

Pottery Barn Teen

Urban Outfitters

West Elm

Some fun mismatched frames with her artwork to frame her bed (I love the artwork hung in this room from Heather Chontos' Brooklyn home), and this cute elephant art from Urban Outfitters.

A striped duvet cover for her bed.  I'm loving this grey and white striped one from Urban Outfitters.

With the wide open wall in her room shown in above pic, I want to do a framed chalkboard, an iron "L" and a collage art wall similar to something from these beautiful homes (courtesy of Project Nursery).

From Susanna Salk‘s book, Room for Children

 Seagrass wallpaper from Elle Decor as a wainscot around a room. It’s forgiving, so you can pushpin and nail to your heart’s content and never have to worry about marking up the wall. Kids can add and subtract from this wall collage as they please, to maintain and update the room

Love this one room!

More examples from Susanna Salk

Maybe a cute striped rug for the end of her bed, some string lights, and a little color with or over her black out curtains would be nice.  We'll see.....

Have a great week. 
Jill

Dresser Makeover

It's been pretty slow on Craigslist lately, I discovered this dresser in very bad shape, brought it home.  I realized the topcoat just peeled right off so I spent a couple of days using a putty knife to peel off the topcoat as you can see from the pictures.  I also puttied over all the hardware holes so I could change up the hardware a little bit. 

I decided to try something new and did a soft grey wash over white paint on it, with a little distressing.  Then I added some new oil rubbed bronze hardware.  I thought it turned out pretty good considering where it had been.  The drawers are clean and it's very solid.  It kind of reminds me in shape of a Restoration Hardware dresser.  It has a soft masculine appeal to it.  Anyhow, I'll let you decide. 

Here it was when I brought it home:

And here it is today:

Peace, Jill

The Desk Hidden in the Back Shed....

A few weeks ago I went to look at a table on Craigslist and ended up coming home with this.  I accidentally happened upon her while walking by the back shed.  I wasn't 100% sure what it was or what it should be but I fell for it.  And I just love meeting the people behind the interesting pieces I find, the owner of this sweet desk was very interesting, telling me the story of it's youth, the tale of the his future.  Anyhow, here she was when I brought her home, not bad but a bit neglected. 

And after a little white paint, some TLC, and some brand new Anthropologie hardware, she is now fit for a proper place in the front house!  I love the beautiful peeks of robin's egg and chocolate paints.  I picture a metal bistro chair and and a great new task lamp with her. 

Furniture Rescue (and Super Cute Drawer Liners)

Since starting to refinish furniture, I've had my share of re-doing dirty, smelly and old dressers. It can be sometimes very hard to take at first, but trust me, it can be so worth the pain of cleaning the piece up in the end as long as the piece itself is in good shape. For example the adorable waterfall dresser I refinished for Lila's room in the below post came to me in pretty bad shape. The drawers were filthy and very musty. Here is what I did to remove the stink and clean it up.

1. For about 2 weeks I had bowls of ground coffee beans in each of the drawers to suck out some of the smell. It worked as long as you're okay with it smelling like coffee! :) The coffee smell does go away.

2. Then I wiped the entire piece down with a warm water and Murphy's oil soap mixture.

3. I removed all the drawers and set the dresser and drawers out in the sun everyday for about a week. That is one of the fortunate things about living in a very warm sunny climate as I could do this in the middle of December. The sun naturally cleans and kills a lot of that mustiness.

4. I refinished the dresser.

5. I added adorable drawer liners. For Lila's waterfall dresser, I used this super cute tree bark gift wrap paper from Paper Source.

To do this I used outdoor Mod Podge from Michaels (or probably any craft store) and generously brushed it on the bottom of the drawer. I carefully started on one side and laid my paper down in the drawer using a wallpaper scraper to ensure all the bubbles were out of it and the glue was distributed evenly. I let this dry for 24 hours. Then I finished by brushing on a paper Mod Podge over the top to protect it for years of future wear.

I love this tree bark paper so much I think it will be my signature drawer liner! Thank goodness a Paper Source store is opening in my city in just a couple of days! EEEeeeeeee! So excited.

Have a great weekend!

Jill xo