Bedroom curtains

I needed to make some curtains for our bedroom as they were looking rather dull.  Also the fire escape window down there has had a blanket over the window since we moved in. It was definitely time for an update what do you think?

While searching pinterest one day I found a picture of some really pretty curtains.  I showed them to my husband and got to work on trying to mimic them.  I never looked to see if there was a tutorial attached to the picture I just got to work on making them.

First, I took a sheer curtain and cut it into strips.  I cut them 14" wide, and I believe it was like 32" long.  Anyway you would cut them to the length of the window you are making plus 2" for the top so a curtain rod can go through it and another 1/2" for seam allowance on the bottom.  If your curtain rod is wider, then you would obviously need to add more fabric to the length to make up for that difference.

Second, I then cut the grey fabric to 1.5X that length since it is going to have a ruffle in it. Make the top part for the curtain rod-I did this by just folding the top piece of fabric over to the wrong side of the fabric so they are wrong sides together and just stitched it up so you can slide the rod right through it. I hope that makes sense.

Third, once it is cut then you are going to do a gather stitch down the middle of the curtain.  Gather this up so that it is the same length as your other strips of curtain.

Forth, hem up all the bottom seams on everything to hold the gather in place.  Trim any loose ends of string off.

Fifth, Hang on the curtain rod. Looks much better don't you think.  Now I just need to make another one for the little window!

Chair Cover

With everything getting moved around and being in a new place, my one cat gets finicky.  Needless to say how she usually repays us is by peeing on something.  So of course she picked my Ikea chair to pee on because we have one no where near us to be able to get a replacement cover at.
We decided to make one since we just finished the basement.  I really wanted some red down there, but not too much.  A chair cover was the perfect place to add some pops of red!

We found these super soft sheets on sale at Walmart and since a couple things needed recovering you will probably see this same design pop up in a lot of places.  But I like things to match so I have no problem with that!
I am not going to give you measurements because if you decide to recover something yourself it will probably be a different size.  This will just give you the basics on how to do it.

Part 1: Measure the top part (where your head rest).  Cut the fabric to that size(adding some for seam allowance).  I then had some old batting I put in there to make it fluffy since this is the head rest of the chair. Sew all this up making sure to sew the batting into the seams so that it stays and doesn't move around when you wash it.  Also make sure the right sides of the fabric are together and the batting is on one of the back sides.  I then place batting side down on the sewing machine so the needle doesn't get stuck in it.  I have some batting spray so I sprayed this on the fabric to make sure it sticks(it is like a glue for fabric and batting). Set this piece aside.

Part 2. I measured the second part of my cover, and cut that about 3 inches longer than needed.  I did these because I needed some room for seam allowance and also to sew the other two pieces to this one piece.  I then followed the same steps as above.  I placed the batting on one of the wrong sides and put the fabric right sides together.  Make sure you don't sew it all the way around so you have room to pull all the fabric through.  I left the whole bottom open as I was not quite sure how I was going to attach it to the other pieces yet, and needed to come up with a way to put the foam back into the chair.  I didn't really want to do a zipper not that it's hard I just didn't want to have to go and buy one, too cheap for that! 

Part 3: Same as the last 2 parts.  Measure and add room for seam allowance and some extra so you can attach it to the middle piece.  I added 2 inches to this one from the original measurement.

Part 4: Now we are going to attach all these pieces together and close up all those last seams.  I was still deciding how I wanted to do this in the process because I wanted to make sure I could remove the cover if it needed washing and then I wouldn't have to wash the foam pieces that go inside of it.

I attached them with some the top side of the fabrics sewn together-the parts that would be touching once on the chair.  I sewed this with about a 1 inch seam and I sewed about 1/4 of an inch in on either side just to make it lay flat and look nice.

Now all that is left is the back side of the chair cover which is left open.  I decided to put some snaps on this side so I can easily remove the cover if it needs washing.  So I attached three snaps-they are the hammer in kind and they work great! Last we stuff the foam back into the chair, and snap it closed and you are done!

It looks really nice and really adds a nice touch to the basement. The cat likes it:)

Storage Room

Our storage room has been an absolute disaster(that is an understatement by the way) for over a year.  We kind of threw everything back there while we tried to get the main room done.  Needless to say it was very difficult to sort through things and try to find stuff when we needed it, and I always dreaded having to go in there.

This weekend we spent our time down there.  We pulled every last box out of that room and went through it.  Man did that feel good.

Our dumpster outside is now full and they don't pick it up until Friday morning.  We got 4 garbage bags of junk out of there, emptied 10ish cardboard boxes that we can now throw away.  We also managed to empty 3 containers-which we can put to use for baby clothes as this one grows out of them.

All in all a very productive weekend.  This also helped clean out the main room a bit.  We started organizing some things in there, but are still working on it.

Sorry I should have taken before and after pictures so you could see how far it really came.  The transformation is truly amazing. And both hubby and I are so excited to have so much junk gone.  Although not all the junk is gone.  My faithful hubby looked up everything and I mean everything, that we were going to throw away and if we could even make $2 on it, he listed it on Amazon or Craigs list.  We shall see if any of it sells!

Well that was our weekend-how was yours??

Basement Finished!

This is it! The time I have been waiting for for over a year.  My basement is finished(well as finished as it is going to get for quite some time).  My husband was so wonderful and finished all of the mudding and sanding, so this past weekend we could get to work on priming and painting.

So first up priming.  All done! Yeah.

Next we painted.  I forgot to take a pic before we started pulling everything out of storage so don't mind the messy room.  Can I just say also this picture does it no justice because the lighting down there is awful.  The color is a pale yellow/cream and really brightens up the room a ton!

Next up is trying to figure out where all the furniture is going to go.  I think we have rearranged it about 8 times now (yes in one day).  I think in the above picture is probably how it is going to stay.  This step was much harder than either of us ever imagined.  We have big chairs that we love, and we wanted to keep it looking open so that our young ones would have plenty of space to run around in.  I think we achieved that look, at least for now!

I couldn't be more excited, my house is truly coming together, and just in time.  We have less than 5 weeks until the baby arrives!  We scheduled our C-section last week and so as long as she doesn't make an early appearance she will be here on 4/6 early in the morning! Now who wants to come help me teach the little man to walk by then??

Basement-Painting

Ok so I got antsy, go figure right??

I said the longest wall in the basement was done being sanded right? Soo I decided it was time to prime and paint that wall, just because I can!

Here is it all primed.

Here is it all painted.

I also put my desk back out in the room, so my bill paying can be a bit more organized and I finally got to hang my laundry sign up above the door! (I have had this sign for 2 yrs!!)

It's the little things in life that make life good and enjoyable in my opinion. I was so happy to see color on the wall, just in case you can't really tell from the pictures it is a pale yellow/cream color that is down there.  The lighting is awful sorry.




Now hopefully it will help us get motivated to get moving on the rest of the walls, so we can finally call it a finished project! (well not totally because once I finish the remodel, I will have to find some craft stuff to make for down there)

Basement- Sanding/Mudding phase

My basement has been in this stage since before Elijah was born.  As you can see from my previous post he is already a year old.  It was time to finish this project!

Here is what it looks like currently, I know it is really messy! Not too much extra storage for all the stuff that has to go in that room!

 I'm so excited for this phase to be over.  It should be over any day now.  I know we have the longest wall done, but as you can see we still have one whole chunk of wall that needs a lot of attention.

My personal deadline for this to be fininshed is the end of February we will see if that happens.  Not that I have doubts but I would like it to be done by then so we can start organizing it before this baby gets here!