Crab Nursery and Guestroom

From nurspiration here and revisited here to reality, I wanted to finally share the finished product of our crab-themed gender neutral combination nursery and guestroom (say that three times fast) that our little one now calls home. 

With the limited space we were working with, we combined the changing table with the dresser and added a DIY paper lantern mobile to give the baby something to look at while he or she was getting changed.

Henry now points at the lanterns and class them balloons

With little room for a crib and double bed, we got creative and turned the existing closet into a nook for the crib with bins on the shelf for extra storage.  I then prettied it up (sorry, son) with a DIY fabric banner.

The double bed was left in the room for when we had guests, with some new linens to match the updated color scheme.

Of course a little patriotism was inserted with a DIY Flag collage

And I included some shout outs to NC so any child of mine would know a little something about the place Mommy calls home.

An insert from Our State magazine turned into a canvas with some Modge Podge

Framed pictures of Chapel Hill from an old UNC Alumni Calendar 

Pretty close to the original inspiration right?

Crab Themed Nursery and Guest Room by tarheelcharm 

Sources:

Jenny Lind Crib //  Crib Linens  // Changing Pad Cover 

Dresser // Bed Linens - Home Goods

Coral Pillows - Target //  Crab Pillow

Paper Lantern Mobile, Flag Collage, Fabric Pennant Banner, NC Icons on Canvas: DIY

Linked up:

 It's Overflowing,  That DIY Party

Better Late than Never: H's First Birthday Party

This is way overdue (what isn't in my life these days?) but I still wanted to share how we celebrated our little guy's first birthday.

The past year had left us a lot to celebrate, and preparing for this party all of the sudden felt like a way of expressing my love of him and to him: which is probably why I went a bit overboard.  I couldn't help myself!

When Henry was first born, I loved the idea of taking monthly pictures, so I picked out these cute stickers from Etsy.  At the time I wasn't thinking first birthday theme, but 11+ months later when I was beginning to plan, I realized ties would be perfect!

A few pinterest searches later, and the idea of a tie-themed little man birthday was born...

My in-laws hosted the big day and we were overwhelmed with gratitude for all the family and friends who came to celebrate with us.

The inspiration:  Henry's Monthly Baby Pictures

Favors

Necktie Bag Favors for the kids

Chocolate Mustache Lollipop Favors for the Big Kids (and let's be honest, the little ones, too)

Dessert Table

The cupcake stand kind of fell apart in transit, oh well

Yes, that would be Necktie Cake Bunting 

Food Table

Drink Table

Complete with Mustache Straws

Homemade House Wine

And the Birthday Boy!

No doubt about it, the kid likes his cake

Fascinated by the mustache straws

Thank Yous

Everyone says it, but now I understand what they mean when they say babies grow up so fast.  I still don't know how his turned a year old so quickly, and so much has even changed since his party we just to cherish it all while we can. We love you Henry!!

Sources:

Invitations:  Little Birdy Prints

Necktie Onsie:  Leo and Lyla

Signs and Thank Yous:  DIY on PicMonkey

Monthly Picture Banner, Cupcakes, Cake, Cake Bunting, Favors and Tie Banner:  DIY

Linked up:

 It's Overflowing,  That DIY Party

Fit for a Tar Heel

I have a rule when I go shopping.  If I see something at the store that I like, but I don't feel 100% sure about buying it, I usually just leave it there.  If I just winding up forgetting about it, to me that means I didn't really want it after all, so no big loss.  But when I find myself thinking about it again, especially on multiple occasions, regretting not buying it, I'll usually go back and get it.

That was the case when I saw this guy at the Goodwill:

I guess it's kind of obvi why I didn't pick that bad boy up right on the spot.  I definitely wasn't 100% sure about it, plus it was the same time there was that guy there telling me how he restores old furniture.  What I didn't add before was that he then proceeded to complain to me about how expensive everything was at that Goodwill.  Even when I started to walk away, he was still yelling out prices to me.  I needed to get out of there stat!

But I found myself thinking about the chair all week, imagining its potential, so I went back a week later and bought it (and paid too much for it according to random furniture guy).

When I brought the chair home and saw this tag on the bottom, I knew I had made the right decision.

Made in North Carolina, this was meant to be.

So here's what I did:

Goodwill Chair Makeover


Removed the old cushion.  Just had to unscrew the four screws attaching the cushion to the base.

Cleaned the chair with TSP and filled in a small hole with wood filler.  Then I sanded it lightly and wiped off with a cloth.

Primed the chair.  I used Kilz Original Primer Spray Paint.

Realized it was much too windy out for spray painting, and moved the operation inside.  Then I added two coats of Krylon Spray Paint in Peekaboo Blue, boo.

At this point it was looking way too blue blue and needed to get toned down a bit.   Plus it has really cool details and lines that I wanted to bring out a bit. So I added some Martha Stewart Glaze.

And wiped off.

And once that was dry, I added 3 coats of Minwax Polycrylic to protect my little masterpiece.

So the base was ready but the cushion needed a makeover too.

Grandma called, she wants her nightgown back

I started to take off the staples attaching the fabric to the cushion.

But then I realized that's what was keeping the padding attached, so maybe I shouldn't remove it.  I checked to see if the old fabric would show through the new fabric, and it didn't so I just let the old fabric stay put.  Removing it would've been way more trouble than what it was worth.

For the new cushion, I didn't know exactly what fabric I was looking for, so I just checked out the sale rack at Jo-Ann until something spoke to me and picked up a yard of it.

I measured the seat to make sure I cut enough fabric to cover it.

And then it was time to put the staple gun to work, something I'd never done before.

I literally let out a Vicki Gunvalson-style "Woo", for the first 5 to 10 staples that I punched in.  That thing has some power behind it. That's what she said.

I just kept pulling the fabric tight as I stapled around the cushion until it was all put together.

Then I just screwed it right back in the base.  Voila:

My shopping trick prevails again.  And I don't care what random furniture guy says, it was worth every penny.

Now I have a chair fit for a Tar Heel.

Getting my link on:

DIY Showoff, Tuesday's Treasures, Coastal Charm, Pawleys Island Posh, Miss Mustard Seed, It's Overflowing, Thrifty Decor Chick

The Old College Re-try

We all probably did some things in college that we might now regret.  I know I did.

I even have a picture to prove it, and today I'm going to share:

<Hanging my head down in shame right now>

Yes, that would be my very first attempt at repainting a piece of furniture.

I inherited this dresser from my oldest sister when I moved into my first college apartment. It was stained dark brown and a bit scratched up but I was sure it wasn't something a coat of paint couldn't fix.  So not having much of a clue, I bought a couple cans of spray paint, some stencils and some craft paint and felt pretty confident it was going to look amaze-balls.  I mean, I even knew to buy a can of primer, what could go wrong?

Well, for starters running out of top coat, but clearly there were a lot more problems than that.  I never got around to finishing it, and instead have just lived with the shame since then.

It has clearly seen much better days and has gotten quite beaten up moving around to the many places I've lived since my days in Chapel Hill.  Many times I thought about getting rid of this eyesore, but I wasn't really wanting to purchase a new dresser when I had a perfectly fine one at home and after seeing all of the furniture re-do inspiration out there, I thought this thing might still have hope.

On Sunday the hubs and I were supposed to go to the Wine Festival, but since that got rained out, I had a whole day free to finally tackle this project.

And so, not really having much more of a clue than I did before, but this time using the aid of internet, here it is, my second attempt at repainting a piece of furniture:

I knew the old gal had it in her.

Here's how I did it:
1.  Cleaned that hot mess with TSP
2.  Sanded away the sad flower stencils and wiped clean
3.  Looked up the Just a Girl tutorial on how to paint furniture and followed accordingly
4.  Learned that Cover Stain does not wash off with water like Latex Paint, so went to Home Depot to buy Mineral Spirits while the primer dried
5.   New hardware was not in the budget for this project (okay there wasn't an actual budget, but I was too cheap to buy new hardware), so I used this on the existing hardware:

And I followed In My Own Style's advice for painting drawer pulls:

Just insert toothpicks to keep the handles upright

It was like brand new hardware for (almost) free!
6.  Wait patiently for everything to dry and put back together.

So we all make mistakes in life but the good thing is we can learn and grow from them, and maybe even fix them several years later with a new coat of paint.

I have to say this makes me so happy that this actually worked.  While the paint was drying yesterday, I ran to Goodwill to drop off some old clothes I had purged in the cleaning process.  While I was there, there was a man there who told me that he restores old furniture.  I smiled and thought to myself, "Yeah, me too."

Getting my link on:

DIYShowoff, It's Overflowing, Tuesday's Treasures, Coastal Charm, Power of Paint, Savvy Southern Style, Miss Mustard Seed, Thrifty Decor Chick

Wrinkle Remover

I have many loves in my life, two of them being matches and Chapel Hill.  And I have a poster that brings them these two loves together, but it looks more like it's been in an abusive relationship.  But since we're in the trust tree here, I am going to share:

Ugh, right?

I loved this poster when I bought it, but I was also a poor college student at the time, and did not bother to spend precious going out money on a frame.  Once I finally did frame it, I used one that I inherited from an old roommate who was going to throw it away if I hadn't rescued it.  Maybe I shouldn't have gotten in the way of natural selection like that.

Yes, by that point, my beloved poster was a hot, wrinkled mess but I hoped framing it would rescue it.  Clearly it did not.

I could never bear to part with it, as it displays all of my old stomping grounds (some of them no longer with us:  I'm talking about you, Treehouse and Michael Jordan's 23), so it has been hiding in the guest room these days.  I've been wanting to display it more prominently, but clearly not in this state.

I still didn't want to spend a lot of money taking it somewhere to get restored, so just like how you don't want to go to the doctor if it's something that you can just diagnose on WebMD, I went to the interwebs for a solution.

I found this ehow article and figured I would try it here so you don't have to.


Will It Work?  Ironing a Wrinkled Poster


1.  Take poster out of POS frame
2.  Lay poster on ironing board and set iron to lowest heat setting (a burnt up poster won't do you any good, wrinkles or not)

3.  Lay fabric or bed sheet over poster

4.  Go to town

5.  Add to a new poster frame

A big improvement, right?

So what do I think of this method?  It definitely did not get rid of all the wrinkles, but it looks a lot better than it did before.  If I had more time, I probably would've tried laying it between a couple boards with weights on top for a few days, but this is a suitable quick solution.  A better frame made a big diff as well.

So will it work?  Yeah, pretty much.

And now I have a little NC love in the kitchen, plus something to draw the eye away from the kind of out of control collection of liquor bottles.

Eyes Up Here Please

Getting My Link On:

Have You Seen Friday,Classy Clutter