Happy Corner

When you have several spaces to complete at once, it is easy to become overwhelmed. Before we left for the country a few weeks ago, I was hitting the wall with ideas for our kitchen. The flooring would benefit from a paint job, newly painted cabinets (check!), and we have a corner in the kitchen with limited lighting. 

Before leaving town, Jeremy Coleman and I walked through the space. He suggested knocking out a wall or adding a bar to the space. Sadly, I had already selected a pedestal table and blue mod chairs and didn't feel like I could scrap it all and start over. I was feeling a little defeated and lost for ideas. So, before I left I cleaned the kitchen and I hoped upon return I would be full of ideas. 

Happily I found two items I knew were a MUST-- the hutch was marked at 13.00 and the barn window was marked at 15.00. You cannot beat, that and I knew these two pieces would pull our look together without having to make and major changes. 

DIY Entertaining: Creating a Larger Dining Room Table

A couple of weekends ago we had three of my cousins in town to visit us for a few days of eating and talking (the best kinds of visits, in my book:)).  These guys aren't just family, but they're also some of our funniest, most thoughtful, delightful friends, and we were thrilled to have them here for a few days.  

We decided to celebrate the cousins' arrival with a few friends on Saturday night with a dinner party.  The trouble was, our table only seats eight comfortably with the extra leaf in, and I really wanted to have everyone together as opposed to setting up a second table in another room... It just seemed like it had to be doable somehow to create a much larger dining room table, at least temporarily.  

I measured our little dining room space carefully, calculating two feet per chair to determine the maximum number of people we could squeeze into the room.  This step turned out to be critical, since I realized after measuring that the only way to fit so many around one table would be to widen it and seat two at each end.  

On my (daily!) trip to Home Depot I picked up two sheets of 5/8" thick particle board, which seemed plenty stiff and heavy enough to handle the weight of some dishes and elbows without bending or flipping over.  We needed two sections, 4x5 feet each, and I had them use the enormous saw in the store to cut them down for me so I could fit them in my car.

Now all I needed to do was set this thing up!  We have a drop leaf table in the living room that can work well as a four person card or dining table with the leaves popped up, and to add extra support to the whole structure, I pulled it over and used it as part of the new, enormous table's base.  To protect both tables underneath, I laid out some extra cotton fabric I had lying around from a past project and positioned my particleboard sections on top.  Because these boards have squared edges, I found that two layers of tablecloths on top hid their roughness and made it less obvious that this isn't really a dining room table under there.

The particleboard totally worked!  The whole thing performed perfectly, with no wobbles or mishaps.  These things are so terribly heavy that I wondered if I'd made a mistake and should've gotten something lightweight so I could maneuver them more easily, but all that weight created a tabletop so stable we I didn't have to worry about tipping the thing over.  So definitely worth the extra workout to set up and tear down:) And now I know we can feed 14 people when the next special occasion comes around!

xo

Liza

Blue Velvet

It is amazing to see the results of your home decor coming FINALLY coming together. I have been pinning and flipping through magazines for concept ideas for months. In the end I have ended up with more then we had hoped. Our dear friend Jonathan Hansen gave us many of his beautiful pieces, and our home has happily come together.  One thing I have learned about myself is this: I am strongly attracted to whites, indigos, blues, and pinks. Never forget to integrate a little red to bring your look together, too. So, it was no surprise we recovered our bench in indigo. Here is the result and we are pretty pleased!

I pinkie promise this project flew by. Once you have your furniture stripped and have removed all the nails the fun begins. I simply used the old fabric as a patten for our new indigo velvet fabric. I cut out the fabric, draped, and staple gunned away.

There are many more living room details ahead!

Mil Besos,

Mel