The Sunset Lane: pottery barn

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

My dining room....is getting there! plus the befores

Yesterday, I showed you my dining room, but blogger wouldn't let me load stuff and after an hour I just posted what I had gotten done on the post. So, today I finish the post!

Plus, I didn't tell you...... the Grocery sign is made from the inserts in your dresser designed to keep your clothes from falling to the underneath drawer!!

I totally forgot to show a pic of the dining room before and then an after so you can compare. Blogger was being a booger for me, so I didn't make the list of crap I had done either. :) So here we go!

Dining Room

before

This is the pic before we bought it.

A similar view, but after :)

Another before

Another After :)

look closely and you can see I haven't painted the kitchen area yet!

One last before

And My lovely after:

Okay my list of stuff we've done:
1. Painted it green-decided I didn't like it and repainted Ralph Lauren Cobblestone which is my go to neutral color (LOVE IT!)
2. Painted all the trim white-it was an orangey golden oak color-YUK!
3. Yanked up all the carpet-for now we are living on subfloors and my Pier 1 rug that is too small for under the table. It's way better than someone's dirty carpet. Plus, way easier to clean up spills-it is a dining room after all.
4. Made some art for the walls-more on that later.
5. Hung the kid's art gallery wall
6. Replaced the crappy misplaced fan and weird bug filled globe light with my Pottery Barn Knock-Off Chandeliers.
7. Redid some freebie stools my mom scored me from her apartment that were getting thrown out!
8. Got bamboo blinds from Payless Decor

Remember when I talked about my green chair inspiration. Well, I am hoping to have some headway with that project soon!

I am currently working on all my dining chairs. I scored these chairs from H4H (Habitat for Humanity) for $2 each during their Memorial Day Sale.

I actually already had 2 from a while back, so I have 10 matching dining chairs for $16-can't beat that with a stick!! I have taken all the seats off and primed them. Two of them are green and I am slowly getting them done. To tell you the truth I am not totally sold on the green. I really want to paint them all white or black or charcoal-but I know that's the safe thing to do so we'll see. It's only paint and time, I can always redo them again.

More on those later!
Now the red folding chairs at my table now are outside chairs I brought in when we had friends over last weekend, they looked like this before:

A few coats of red Krylon spray paint later and.....

I didn't prime them or sand them-they are outside chairs and that was too much work!! Just dusted them off and scraped a little loose paint.

-Make your life beautiful!!

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Pottery Barn Lantern Knock Off---from picture Frames!!!

I have wanted to change the f-ugly light in our bedroom since the day we moved in!
I finally got around to changing it a few weeks ago..I know, I know, I could have shared this idea with you a few weeks ago, but life has been crazy around here!! The kids are out of school and momma isn't getting her blog on as often!

I made this PB Knock Off Lantern out of old picture frames!!!!

It was inspired by these lanterns from Pottery Barn:

Pottery Barn Gothic Lantern

Pottery Barn Blacksmith Taper Lantern

The idea came to me on the toilet. No kidding. No, I wasn't going...I was giving Audrey a bath and one of the pictures I had hanging above the toilet fell off and hit me in the back of the head. The glass broke...this was like the 4th time I had replaced the glass in that one frame. I was out of donor glass and was a little irritated. I was looking at it asking myself what to do with them, when it hit me. No, it another one didn't fall and hit me..I had the idea hit me!

I was going to make a lantern from old picture frames!!

Don't worry I got Audrey out of the bath before I started all this!!

Here's how it was made:

Step 1: ~~Have a picture frame fall on your head~~ Collect 4 matching picture frames. Mine were 8x10 frames, you can choose smaller or larger-the lantern police won't arrest you for not following directions!

Can you guess which one broke?!? :)

Step 2: Collect your supplies. I used hot glue, gorilla glue, a speed square, needle nose pliers, and painters tape!


Apparently I didn't picture all my supplies-ADD kicking in!

Step 3: Remove all the glass and "guts" of the picture frame and the little metal tabs that hold it all in. (Please note: if you plan to leave the glass in the lantern, you should leave the little tabs in-but I didn't think about that before I removed all mine!)

Step 4: Use your speed square or other 90 degree angle tool to keep it square and put on the Gorilla Glue, then quickly shoot some hot glue on the ends, just to keep it in place. I'm sure there is an easier way, but I try to look for the hardest way possible and do it that way. I usually open packages and then find the easy 'pull here to open it' spot!


Sorry it's blurry!

Step 5: Repeat step 4 until it looks something like this

Step 6: Tape around the sides with painters tape to keep it together while the glue dries. When all sides are done, you should have something like this.

Yes, that's the grout stirring paddle in the background!

Step 7: Find some light source to donate it's guts to your new lantern! I picked this one up from H4H for $5.

Step 8: Forget to take all pictures for the rest of this blog...sorry!
After I took the H4H light apart I attached eyelet screws on the corners of my frame cube and ran chain I had from a previous project (like 3 years ago) from the eyelet screw to the ring on the top of the H4H light. Spray painted it all black and had it sit for like 2 weeks before I picked up the wire nuts, so Mr. TSL could hang it.

Here is the light that was there before: GAG!!