Feeling Ruffled

My office is coming along nicely, but not quite ready to share. You may have to wait until after the wedding! For now, I want to share how I addressed the lighting in my space. From the moment we first saw this house, I knew the light fixture in here would have to go - it's just not our style and it's even more obvious now as we've been pulling my whole design together. 

I may have mentioned this once or twice, but we're on a tight budget when it comes to decorating. I'm attempting to pretty up the space using things we already have. Thankfully, I had a paper lantern laying around that I had bought back in September for $2... on the downside, the delicate paper had ripped, leaving a pretty large hole in the side of the lantern. 

To find some inspiration, I began searching around on Pinterest for some fancied up paper lanterns. There is SO MUCH out there (of course), but in the end it was these (from Martha Stewart of course) that had me feeling the most excited...

I really loved the scalloped, girly feel to them and knew it would be pretty easy and inexpensive for me to pull off. The whole project got a whole lot easier when I stumbled across some tissue paper at HomeSense that had scalloped edges, and only $3.99 a pack. I went back and forth a lot on whether I wanted to do coral, gold or white, but in the end white won out (as it usually does with me). I did grab a few extra packs of the tissue paper though for gift giving - it's just so pretty!

While the project was easy it a little time consuming. I cut the scalloped edges off of the tissue paper in strips, and with most of the sheets I was actually only able to use two sides of the sheets because of some "defects" in the paper. 

Then it was just a matter of taking my craft glue and running it along the wire frame of the lantern. I learned quickly that I had to apply the tissue paper in one full rotation of the lantern and let it dry before applying more. If you don't, your tissue paper will start to stick where it overlaps and it will just look all wonky and messy. So yes, a lot of this project was spent waiting for the glue to dry, but man, was it worth it!

I started applying the paper from the bottom so that it would all overlap properly and hide the glued sections. At first I looked at my silly lantern with glued on tissue paper and thought "This is going to be a disaster", but soldiered on. About halfway through it was looking better... but similar to an artichoke. 

The middle was by far the easiest part to do as the wire frame went around in a pretty straight line. The scalloped paper went on really nicely and I was feeling super confident about the project... until I started to apply the paper closer to the top.

Much like the bottom half, the top of the lantern had the wire getting closer and closer together. I guess because of the angles it was just harder to lay the tissue paper flat, and I ended up having to fold small sections to follow the wire properly. My first few attempts were just messy and looked awful, but by the time I was finishing the last few visible pieces, I had figured out a pretty good system.

It took a lot longer than I had anticipated, but when I was finally finished (late last week) I was thrilled with the final outcome...

Yesterday was all about finally getting it hung. We already had a wire and chain from the chandelier we removed from the dining room, so we just had to go out and buy the right socket for our lightbulb. We made a trip to Canadian Tire and came home with this dimmer socket, since the light in my office is on a dimmer switch.

B spent Halle's nap time working away removing the old light fixture, wiring our new socket, shortening the wire and chain from the old chandelier and finally hanging my lovely new light. 

 It now hangs beautifully in my office, brining me one step closer to finishing it off. It feels more and more like "me" everyday, and now you can get your first real glimpse at the space...

I'm so happy with it. It brings a more feminine feel to the room. I'm also pretty thrilled to finally have it crossed off of my to-do list. 

Did you cross any projects off your list this weekend? Maybe you made something new out of something you had already laying around the house?

The Mom Cave - A Painted Desk

Well, we are slowly making progress in my office. We dropped the area rug off on Saturday to get cut, and it only cost us $28! I had been quoted $3.00 a linear foot (via email). When we went into the store and the associate looked at our area rug he mentioned because we have surged binding on the edges of the rug that it's actually closer to $5.00 a linear foot. We told him normal binding was fine - why would we do that? We can place that edge on the far side of the room, where more than likely it will be under other furniture. No one will ever see it and for us, it's totally worth the savings. We should have the rug back next week - I can't wait!

This weekend really gave us a chance to make some progress on the desk as well. I started painting Friday night, and then on Sunday I got a lot done. I finished the second coat on the first base (which I started on Friday night) and then got the first coat on the next two. The whole painting process on Sunday took me well over 3 hours, but it was so worth it!

The base in the back has one coat on it... and both are sitting on top of some materials for the next building project has planned!

This is the base that had both coats done. It was a fast drying day with how hot it was

On Monday while Halle napped B did some of the painting. He finished the last coats on the two bases that needed it, and then began to paint the top for me. 

We plan to put it into my office once it's all painted, without the top secured so that once my area rug comes back next week we can get it into place no problem. 

We still need to get the window covering's back up, and my latest nap time project has been  a DIY light fixture that I hope turns out the way I am envisioning it. Fingers crossed. 

So things are moving along nicely for my office. More than anything I just can't wait to unpack all of the boxes marked "OFFICE", get my room in order. 

The Mom Cave - Phase 1

Normally Friday's are saved for Fancy Friday love... but I just couldn't post one after not posting all week. I also meant to share my office progress with you all week,  but my camera cable was missing and I wasn't able to upload new photos. I managed to find another compatible cable last night, just in time to give you a first glimpse into my new "Mom Cave/Office Space"!

So here's what has been happening in my office. When we moved in last month, the office space looked like this (only those pictures over the window were gone)...

Just an empty grey box. Nothing awful, but nothing that left me feeling inspired and excited to work in there.  After seeing Halle's room coming together, I really loved the colours and decided to use them in my office as well. I decided I would paint three of the walls in the Pearl and the wall with the window (and the least amount of wall space to paint) Coral. It took me more coats than I care to admit, and I discovered that I am actually quite bad at painting... but it's finally done, and I'm loving it...

Don't mind that too large area rug on the floor. It's the rug from our living room at our old house, and I thought it would be perfect in here. Turns out it's too large, so we have plans to have it cut and bound again (works out well since Harley chewed up one of the corners of it anyway). It's been vacuumed and shampoo'd once... and I may do it again after we get it back from being cut down. I love that it will fill the entire room though - talk about instant and inexpensive flooring change! 

I also made a little switch up on the closet doors. I took off the old pulls on there, and added these clock pulls that I had sitting around the house. Such a small, but fun little detail. 

Aside from getting that rug taken care of, I also plan on doing a little DIY lighting switch - hope it's something I can tackle before the end of next week to share with you. I'm really excited about this project... and to lose that awful light fixture that is currently in the room.

The wall with the electrical panel, I also hope to turn into a display type wall for all of my Halle Handmade tags. B and I seem to have two different ideas, so we'll need to sit down and put our heads together to figure out the best way to tackle that project.

Window coverings also need to go back up. The vertical blinds that came with the house need to be cleaned and put back up, and then I plan on adding the light weight IKEA curtains that we had hanging in our kitchen at the rental. Lots to do still - thankfully it's a long weekend!

B has also been working on a building a desk for me! It's a great option because it's custom so I will get the look and size I want for the fraction of what it would cost us to buy something! For a desk that will be close to 10 feet long, it will cost only just over $100 - not bad, right? It's looking great so far, and if you follow me on Instagram you've probably caught a few peeks of how it's coming along. 

I can't wait to share more with you next week! Speaking of next week - Google Reader is officially done as of Monday! SO, if you are looking for a new way to follow along, I'm on Bloglovin! You can find a link in my right hand side bar (right under my blog roll). I'd be happy to have you follow me there! You can also find me on Facebook - I have an RSS feed that shares my posts, and every so often I share other bits and bobs there too! 

So Happy Canada Day weekend to all of you fellow Canadians! What are your plans this weekend?

Tackling the Storage Issue

The other week I shared some plans for our messy dining room. At the time I was being a little coy... and possibly lazy, and never shared a proper picture of our disaster area. So, if you want the ugly truth, here it is...

Yup... stuff... EVERYWHERE. And yes... I am extremely embarrassed showing this to all of you, but nothing like showing off a mess like this to get you motivated. It was not overly Christmas-y feeling and definitely not very organized or practical for a dining room / home office space - am I right? The worst part was this room was NOT hidden from view and is visible from the front hall, kitchen/living room AND the front door. Yup - this mess was on FULL display to everyone who came near our house, so it was time to take care of it. 

We're starting with baby steps and I'm being very budget conscious since right now we're focusing funds on our upcoming wedding. So, last Thursday we acquired a new piece for this space to help me to start getting things in order. Thankfully it was right in line with our minimal to no budget that we are working with to spruce up our space.

Last Tuesday I decided to take a browse through Craigslist to see what I could scrounge up as far as inexpensive furniture for our rather lacking home. I found a free 7 drawer dresser that looked like a perfect solution for our dining room storage nightmare. I shot off an email right away, telling myself it was probably gone as it had been posted the day before (and we all know how quickly free stuff goes on Craigslist). About an hour later my cell phone rang with the sweet, sweet news that the dresser was still available! JOY! After a little bit of back and forth, B headed over to pick up the dresser on Thursday night and I started cleaning up and organizing the room.

The above photos were taken on Thursday before we moved in the dresser. I've been working away since then, slowly getting rid of things we no longer needed, organizing and reorganizing and finding a proper home for all of the bits and pieces in there. There is still some work to be done, and our bins for Christmas decorations still need to be relocated back to the basement, but there is already a drastic improvement in the space. Check it out:

{Yes - first on my list once I have the space all ready to go is to hem those curtains. Drives me nuts!}

So what are my plans? Well first of all, we plan on repositioning the mirror so that it hangs horizontally instead, B just needs to change the wire on the back. As far as the dresser goes, it definitely needs some love. It has some scratches and paint splatters and other mysterious marks all over it.

I'm thinking I'd like to keep the top and the base of it this dark colour and then paint the whole middle section of it white. Maybe spray the handles black and get some new knobs for the doors on the bottom left. I won't be diving head first into anything over the holiday's, but I am pleased to see this little progress.

Do you have a room that is just a storage nightmare? Maybe you've started organizing a space yourself, or have added your own budget piece of furniture to your home? Or maybe, you aren't crazy like me and you are just focusing on your family and this wonderful season? Whatever it is you are up to, I'd love to hear about it!