Upholstered Headboard

When we first moved in the house, we agreed that we would only decorate 1 of our 3 guest rooms.  We decided that the room on the first floor was perfect for guests as it has its own bathroom.

I love the color of this room because of the cottage feel.  I find myself drawn to the cooler colors and the fact that this was the color of the room when we moved in was a huge bonus.  I had been looking at blogs and kept coming across upholstered headboards with nailhead trim.  I also saw them in stores, but they were too expensive. After a little research, I decided that I could make the headboard myself and save us some money.  (The key to Andy's heart!)  My inspiration came from these sites:  http://www.centsationalgirl.com/2009/02/diy-fabric-headboard-with-nailhead-trim/ and  http://freckleschick.blogspot.com/2009/05/nailed-it.html.  I called my wonderful friend Molly and we got to work.

(Pardon the poor picture.. this was at a recent wedding reception.)

The first thing we did was cut the foam fabric to match the measured plywood and attach it with a staple gun.  Then we took quilters batting and pulled it tightly around the foam and attached it to the plywood with more staples. (We did all of this on my dining room table after we laid down towels.)  Then we took the fabric and laid it on the table with the plywood over it.  We were careful to pull it tight on all sides so there wasn't puckering in weird places. The corners were a little difficult because we wanted the folds to lay just right.  

After we finished this, I decided I wanted nailhead trim along the edges.  In the blogs I saw, the women used a string of trim and nailed in every fourth nail.  It looked so easy!  But wouldn't you know, I couldn't find this at Joann's or Hobby Lobby as they no longer carry it.  BOO!  I was left to tack in each individual nail head.  This didn't end up being that bad because the nails just stuck into the foam and batting.  I measured the length I wanted and used trial and error until I had them placed exactly how I wanted.  

Here is the finished product:

I attached it to the wall using 2 D-ring hooks and picture wire.  I used picture hooks on the wall that could each hold 50 pounds.  (It's definitely not that heavy but I just wanted to make sure.) 

Here's a picture of what this side of the room looks like today:

The rest of the room will be another post:)

Fireplace Decor

We've been living in this house since the end of January and we couldn't decide what to put over our mantle.  It has been said that there are enough mirrors on the first floor, so that option was out.  When we first moved in, my mom put up some Valentine's decor from my best friend Annie.

While I really like this as an accent piece, it didn't really do the fireplace justice.  So, I was set on finding just the right piece.  Over the next few months, I looked at magazines and blogs for ideas, but couldn't really find anything that I LOVED.  (Yes, I have to LOVE it if it's really going to stay in my house.) As I looked at the fireplace, I didn't really like that the whole wall was brown even though there was clearly trim above the mantle. 

This is a picture taken before we moved in.  As you can see, the entire wall above the fireplace is brown.  Yuck! After a few months, I decided to paint the trim around the wall.  

Look past the ugly white chair... which is another post...and to the top left.  The trim is painted white, but something still isn't right.  I then decided to paint the entire box above the fireplace white.  I don't have a picture of this, but it looked much better.  A little while later, I found this amazing piece of wood art at http://lemontreecreations.blogspot.com/2010/07/wooden-tree-wall-art.html   (This is one of my favorite blogs!)  As soon as I saw it, I knew that this was the perfect piece for this space.  I searched on craigslist and found a guy that made me this 4x2 piece of wood for $25.  

I then added a few coats of high gloss polyurethane to darken up the wood.  

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The ladies at lemon tree love cuttingedgestencils.com/ so I decided to check them out.  I found this stencil (similar to the one used on their blog) at cutting edge and was able to get 20% off by signing up for their email.  

After finding my stencil, I went to Hobby Lobby and found 3 metallic acrylic paints to layer on to the wood.  

 I overlapped some of the edges so that it didn't look to picture perfect.  

 This is the finished product!!  

 Notice how the different colors are picked up depending on the angle of the light.  

Let's just say I LOVE it!!