Ding Dong, The Piano Bench Is Here

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Once upon a time, we had an empty entryway. This wasn't the end of the world, at first, because we were working on our new home and still trying to decide what to do with it.

But then the real Chicago winter reared its head, and we realized something: Sometimes, you need a place to rest your bum as you wrangle your poor chilly feet out of your huge winter boots. And, especially during a real Chicago winter, you cannot sit on the floor (read: wet booty). Not to mention the fact that you need a place to drop your bags that's elevated from the floor, where they can get wet or snowy or salty. Just... yuck.

Also, we needed something to go underneath the vintage map of Europe we swiped off of Etsy a few months ago.

We had our eyes on an old bench Justin's father made when he was a kid (furniture design is kind of his thing and he must have known early on, because the bench is absolutely gorgeous and very solid). Unfortunately, we were in a bit of a rush to put it all together, because really, truly did need something there, and we couldn't make it out to Michigan to retrieve said bench from a storage unit.

So, we turned to another great place for finding treasures: My parents' basement. Half of their basement is finished -- the other half consists of about two thousand square feet of stuff. Everything from Christmas decorations to old sewing tables to electronics to piano benches.

So, we swiped a dark wood piano bench to serve its place in our entryway. We weren't sure if we'd leave it as is or perhaps stencil a print on the top.

You can definitely tell that this bench is an oldie (but a goodie?). It's slightly crooked and there are more than a few dings in the wood, itself. We're planning to take a good old walnut to the surface to fill in the dings, then work from there.

I mentioned possibly messing around with stenciling the top... but we're also considering turning it into a backed bench. If we can find pillows to fit, the bottom (where the sheet music would be kept in a typical piano bench), we may be able to use it as an open bench.

What's your vote? What do you think? If only the good people from YoungHouseLove would stop in and give me their advice... :)

P.S. Momma got a new wide angle lens and some wonderful flashes (with flash accessories to boot) for Christmas. What does that mean? More and much better interior/DIY/decor shots and posts to come! Get ready for some real beauty, friends!

Industrial Shelving Displays

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Almost a year ago, we found a set of 3 metal, industrial-looking shelves at a thrift store in Holland. It was one of those love-at-first-sight kind of relationships from the get go. I was immediately smitten. And proceeded to impulsively purchase. I know, you want proof. Here I am, four-score-and... well, just one year ago, standing in the middle of the thrift store with my new found love. How excited do I look?

For $12, we swiped the set and put them up in the kitchen of the Wicker Park apartment. It was a wonderful kitchen addition, because the kitchen in that apartment was horrifically small, boring, colorless, and lacking in shelving. The shelves were a kitchen-saver.

But then, we... you know... moved. And our new kitchen is not so boring. In fact, it's much larger... has more than enough cabinets for us (seriously, I think there are still one or two EMPTY cabinets, it's just got that much storage)... and is very fun and colorful. See, here's a picture of it, bare naked:

Now, that kitchen doesn't need a set of silver shelves. For a while, we considered putting them up in the entryway, but ultimately we decided we'd prefer for them to be placed somewhere that is visible from as many points in the apartment as possible. If we hung them in the entryway, they'd only be fun as you came or went.

So they ended up next to the window in the Living Room. We centered them and then hung them at equal intervals.

But really, this is not about shelves. It's about the things you can put on shelves. It's like a miniature museum of your home's most beautiful objects.

What'd we try to include? We focused on incorporating a variety of subtle and bold colors, all of which pull from the Unwithered painting (over the brown couch).

• First, a brown vase that's left over from last year's "Alternative Christmas Tree" project (which you should check out if you're looking for a more modern way to decorate this year... shameless Christmas plug).
• Also included is the wonderful vintage camera I purchased during that same Holland Thrift Trip.
• A pair of cute blue and white wooden Dutch shoes (bf is Dutch and bought them for me in Holland when we first started dating).
• A ceramic owl that has the same blue and white painting style as the wooden shoes. It's a tribute to my sorority, Chi Omega (hoot hoot).
• An orange-dipped water glass from Crate and Barrel outlet (for only #6? Hello, momma!).
• A small cactus from Home Depot, topped with two tiny pink flowers.
• A bright green watering can (though I shouldn't call it a "can" because it's plastic!).

Anyone else have a good story about displaying your tiny trinkets? Share it with me! 

DIY Decor | Ampersand & Art

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Remember when we gave Justin's living room a makeover? Well, more to come on that (after more than a few changes-and-re-arranges and a thrift store shelving adventure)... but, for now, I'd like to announce: the decor has spread. To the bedroom.

You might remember that the living room was full of bold colors, of which red somehow became the favored child. Well, this room will turn out to be the calmer, softer brother. We've only just begun...



I’ve wanted to make Ampersand art for a while now but was semi stumped on how to do it in a unique way.

I considered painting an ampersand onto a large scrap of wood or canvas, but it felt very “done before” and never came to fruition.

Then, while walking the halls of Ace Hardware (my personal “Eureka” location), Justin and I found a large sheets of Acrylic Transparency. They’re about 1/4 an inch thick and are pretty amazing. Without a fully formulated plan, we grabbed it.

We ended up spray painting around the Ampersand, so that the “background” of the piece is blue, and the ampersand, itself, is see-through. That means we can swap out what we place behind the art, to fill in the ampersand with any fabric, magazine clipping, or page from a book that we choose.

I'm still pretty obsessed with the idea. Why? Because it will always match. We can put anything behind it and instantly change its color and effect on the room.

How'd we do it?

Start with a transparent acrylic sheet...



Use painters tape (masking tape) to cover the sheet. I had almost covered the entire sheet when I realized I only needed to cover areas which would be used by the "&" we printed out (as that was the only tape we would be leaving on the board).

Choose an ampersand (&) in Microsoft Word, enlarge it to your preferred size, and print. We tried a variety of fonts (really, we had a few pages worth of samples) but ended up going with good old Times New Roman. I was, at first, stern on my sans-serif stance and convinced we would be going with something smooth... but, as we checked out various samples, we decided that Times New Roman had something really classic about it. It reminds me of newspapers and journalism. And, in the end, it just felt like the right thing to do. We made it as large as we could and printed it out.

Cut loosely around the edges (so that there is still white space, and enough room for tape) and then tape onto the sheet where you would like the ampersand to show up.

Use an exacto knife to cut out the ampersand.

Remove the tape surrounding the ampersand. Do this slowly and have an exacto knife handy to do extra cutting in places you may have not fully cut.

Spraypaint the art (leaving the tape on). You'll need to do a number of layers in order to get a solid coat, because the background is see through. We did a whopping 6 layers of blue spraypaint before stopping.

Once the spraypaint has dried, slowly remove the ampersand tape. Use an exacto knife to help lift up the tape.

Choose any fabric, magazine, etc to tape behind the acrylic sheet and show through.

To hang, we hot glued a piece of metal "teeth" we yoinked off of the back of a picture frame.

Here are two final product shots:

And a few shots up-close-and-personal:

So yes, we'll admit, there is much to be done in this room... I'm working on four wall art pieces using silhouettes and some additional shelving... Get excited!

Wicker Park Apartment Re-Vamp

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What do you do with 220 square feet?

Location: Wicker Park

Size: 220 Sq ft living/dining room (750 Sq ft total)

Post-makeover, the apartment now balances geometric attributes, combining the crisp, straight lines of Aaron Blackall's artwork with the bold curvature of Herman Miller's Setu Lounge Chairs.  When I said balanced, however, I meant it; this combination would not be effective without tidiness and organization. When it came to knick-knacks and accents, we tried to take a second to really evaluate each piece and ask, Do I really love this, or is it just crowding the space?

 


Another strength in this apartment is the boldness of color.  If Roy G. Biv were a real man, he would be mighty proud of us.  Around the table, the presence of color owes its dues to the bright red color of the Eames Shell chairs and the variety of vivid colors used in Aaron Blackall’s artwork. To pull color into the front of the room, we used the bookshelves.  When randomly spread throughout such a tall bookshelf, the color of the books could have easily been missed. To avoid this, we grouped books by color, allowing the purpose and organization to be obvious and eye catching.

Challenges: This space is crooked. Check out the image taken of the front door with tall shelving on either side and you’ll see what I mean.  It’s hard to create a clean-looking space without having clean, straight lines to work with. In the end, a few wedges to slightly prop up furniture were just about all we could to do solve the problem.

Room for Improvement: We focused on the main body of the apartment, leaving the kitchen area and bedroom in need of a bit of TLC.  While thrifting for the colored glass bottles, we came across a beautiful spice rack that will be going up shortly and will likely inspire a whole host of kitchen re-vamp brainstorming sessions. We’ll also be installing an Ace Hardware-inspired colorful coat rack shortly. As far as the rest of the space goes… well, I guess the wave of inspiration is on its way. :)

Before And [Happily Ever] Afters:

Before: 

See how the widest piece of furniture in the room, the kitchen table, is taking up space in the narrowest part of the room? Not very conducive to the traffic of life, is it? The initial inspiration for this entire project came from the need to move this table. It was, at first, placed here in order to accommodate the ceiling light fixture and fan, but, at the end of the day, when you've got a ceiling fan in the middle of a tiny room, it's just not worth ruining the floor space in order to keep things semi-centered. 

After:

We ended up moving the table into the back corner, where it's out of the way and frees up a lot of walking space. Its old "home" is now filled by a sitting area that allows for easily movable lounge chairs and makes the space feel more fluid.

Before:

Ah! So messy.

Also, please note the lack of legitimate, lounge-able furniture. How's a girl to sit back and... do whatever people do when they... relax?

After:

Ladies and Gentleman, meet Herman Miller's Setu Lounge Chairs.

Before:

Thumbs up for the Eames Table with Round Top and Segmented Base.

The chairs, while obviously functional, were ten years and a civic center banquet old. 

After:

Along with moving the table into a more functional space, we added red Eames Shell chairs with wire bases in a color that pops out of one of the focal art pieces in the room (Artwork by Aaron Blackall via Unwithered).  

Before:

C-l-u-t-t-e-r. Disorganization. Last but certainly not least, a visible, open air, college dorm style "pantry" like means of shelving food.

After:

The bookshelves? I'm in love with them. Why, you ask? Because Justin organized the books by blocks of color. To the right of the door, oatmeal and bread and bags of brown sugar are no longer out to play. Instead, we swapped the furniture around to place these enclosed cabinets next to the kitchen. The swapping of furniture also lead to a more efficient stacking plan (the furniture was in stackable segments), which helps add more height on both sides of the door, making the space feel "higher" and larger while also freeing up floor space.

Want the rest of the tour?

Instead of a Christmas tree (we toyed around with it but ditched it in favor of this gem), we ended up with these metallic branches in thrifted colored glass vases. Adding a handful of baby red ornaments helped legitimize the desire to go alternative when it came to Christmas decor.  Check out this post for a tutorial to make your own.