Painting Stripes

I enjoy painting. Love the instant results. 
But, the thought of painting stripes terrified me!

Usually, closets are pretty boring spaces. Rarely organized. And well, just an afterthought of design. My son's closet is the source of pretty much every toy in his room so the doors rarely shut. With this in mind, I set out to turn the neglected closet into the design star of the room. This post is just for advice on painting stripes, but I'll soon have one up of the entire interior closet makeover. You know, once I finish all the details that satisfy my self-diagnosed O.C.D!

The magic trick, at least for me, for those flawless stripes required four key ingredients:

1. Frog Painter's Tape 
2. A 4 ft Level 
3. Two People
4. Getting the Tape Off Fast!

As with most of my projects, I am the "dreamer" and my husband is the "doer."  I marked out the first couple of lines with a pencil measuring down the appropriate lengths from the ceiling all the way around using a ruler. I next attempted to connect my measured out lines by using the ruler as a straight edge till we realized the stripes were totally at an angle! Scratch that idea. My appalled husband now has to step in and take over as I am completely frustrated and darn impatient the stripes aren't painted on the wall already!

First, let me mention that the closet is painted entirely in the light color stripe-white. So, all we will be sketching out and painting are the dark gray stripes. Be sure once you have painted the entire closet with your lighter stripe color to give it about a week to dry before taping out and painting the darker stripes. You do this because the paint is still "soft" and putting the painters tape on soft paint will most likely result in a chunk of that beautiful paint being taken off.

Drawing Lines

The biggest pain-in-the-bum side of this project is getting those lines sketched on the wall. About half-way through, we learned better. GET A LEVEL!!!!!! We measured the appropriate length marks down from the ceiling just at the middle of the closet this time. From there we took the 4ft level and drew out the line using it's perfectly straight edge. This is where the two people really come in handy. It is hard to keep the level, well level, and draw a perfect line. One holds the level. One draws the line. Clearly the level is not the entire length of the stripe you need, but it's a lot better than the 12" ruler I first opted to use, and you know at all times your line is level and not skewing down like my first ones. Just a little FYI in case you were wondering, my stripes in this project are 12" wide.

Taping

Once all the lines are sketched, you next apply the Frog Painter's Tape. I personally find this brand a lot more reliable when it comes to the paint not bleeding through. You are going to place the body of the tape on the interior of the "white stripes" in this case. You want the pencil line to fall in the area of the stripe you are painting, so be sure to be cognoscente of that when placing the tape. You will need to press the tape down extra firmly. I even ran my fingernail  across the edge that the new paint would be touching for an extra seal.

Painting

Now that your tape is on nice and tight, it's time to paint! I'd recommend two people for this part also for fast progress. Work one stripe at a time and complete it, removing tape and all, before moving on. Our stripes in this project wrapped around the sides of the closet, so there were corners and edges. Take a brush and paint the corners if any and the ending edges of the stripe. When I say ending edges, I don't mean the edges along the tape. I mean where it ends on the left and right if you are doing horizontal strips. Next, use a roller to paint the rest of the stripe. You want to put the paint on as light as possible in order to lessen the chance of the extra paint bleeding through the tape. You will be doing a second coat....but without the tape so attempt to get a good coverage on the taped edges but without being too heavy handed. Once the stripe has one full coat, take the tape off immediately for this stripe before moving on. Continue this process till your feature wall is complete. The next, day take your roller and carefully apply a second coat staying away from the edges. This second coat is to just polish that speckled look you sometimes get with just a first coat. Your stripes' edges should be crisp enough from the first coat and shouldn't require needing to paint too close to them.

This process might not be the "easiest" or "best" method out there. But, I can vouch that it worked for us! Stripes just might be appearing elsewhere in our home as my fear of painting them has now subsided, and I love the look!

DIY Chalkboard Closet Doors

Transform boring, ugly doors into Graffiti fun for your kids! My son's room is still under transformation, but I felt the need to get this DIY project posted ASAP so you can get on transforming your own doors! My son has basically a wall of closet doors in his new room. They were the hollow core, faux wood grain, bi-fold doors with no handles might I add! So, ugly and impractical.

My chalk drawing here is really symbolic of the design aesthetic I am going for in his room-- essentially a city-themed toddler room with lots of creative-provoking features. I loved the concept of having a "graffiti wall" so these doors were destined to become chalkboards. The catch with these, though, was the textured wood grain surface. We have been resurfacing walls throughout our entire house, so the first solution that came to mind was to use drywall compound and resurface them. As I didn't really have an alternative, I just went for it. I had nothing to loose but a set of terrible doors. Luckily, they turned out really, really well.

I began by cleaning the surfaces with Comet. Next, I lightly sanded them. I mean lightly. Just enough to buff the surface. For a joint compound, we use the Sheetrock brand Lightweight All Purpose Joint Compound picked up at our local Home Depot. I applied this very thinly. Have the notion of less is more so really make sure to scrap off the extra and get as smooth of finish as possible. Once the first layer was dry, I again lightly sanded and applied another thin coat. I want to note here that the doors actually had a cool look to them just with one skim coat. You'll see in the pic to the right that it almost gave it a whitewashed look still showing the wood grain. The one on the right has 1 skim coat. The left has none.

That look would have really worked in his old nursery! I believe it only took 2 coats to get a completely smooth surface on my doors, but use your judgement. If you still have grooves or divots; do another coat. You don't want your chalk skipping these dips and giving you a shaky line. After the last coat give the surface just a quick light sanding, and you're ready to prime! You need to then seal the compound with a drywall primer. One coat should do it. Once again just a light sand and you're ready for painting. I personally used the Rust-oleum brand black finish chalkboard paint 30 fl oz. from Home Depot. I didn't even use a whole can with this big surface. I applied two coats using a microfiber roller, and they were good to go!  Be sure to talk with a representative in the paint department to make sure you get the right roller. You want the one that is going to give you the smoothest finish. No orange peel texture. And, be sure to splurge and get the better roller here. It makes a difference!

 My original concept with the handles was to use galvanized steel pipes and run them vertically. But, what I thought was a creative, inexpensive hardware solution turned out to be over $50. Needless to say, that didn't fly. I ended up using galvanized steel garage door handles instead. They actually turned out really cool and still have the industrial feel I wanted. I did replace the screws that came with the kit with the ones you see above for aesthetic reasons but we actually had too as well because the original screws weren't long enough to go through the door completely and adhere them with a nut on the back. These handles were about $5 each, again from Home Depot.

BEFORE

 

AFTER

"You Are My Sunshine My Only Sunshine" DIY Crib Mobile & Big Sister Gift

A friend of mine asked me to help her design a room for her expecting baby and 4-year-old daughter to share. During design, they did not know the sex of the baby-on-the-way...what a challenge! But so much fun! She told me the story of how her father used to sing her the Sunshine song when she was a little girl...she now sings it to her daughter....who now sings it to the new baby in Mama's belly. (So Cute!) What a perfect theme! So through the process of design, I had the vision of a crib mobile for new baby....I requested to make it for my gift! I used 2 sizes of embroidery hoops, a piece of chevron fabric and ribbon to emulate the sun. As you can see it has a gray cloud with rain drops...for "when skies are gray" lyric and a heart for "you'll never know dear how much I love you." The blue bird is more abstract as I always think of blue birds associated with sunshine! Who doesn't?!  The objects are dangling from jewelry string, and the items are sewn and stuffed with poly-fil.  Pretty easy project!

For the new Big Sister, I made a throw pillow for her bed in line with the theme. It's in the shape of a heart and spells out "Big Sis" in buttons. You could do this concept in lots of different ways with different shapes, fabrics, and colored buttons. I think it's always important to include the older child as they have a hard time understanding "why the new baby gets everything." What better way than to give matching gifts! She immediately took it and placed it on her new bed! And the designer in me was happy to add small details to the decor!

Eclectic Mobile

I originally had the idea of creating a crib mobile by hanging antique skeleton keys from a ring of twigs. I loved the idea but later of course realized prob not the best idea to hang over a crib just in case one fell (terrible choking hazard), so I moved the idea over to above the changing table. I had trouble finding old keys online that weren't overpriced like crazy for some collector. So I ended up purchasing a collection of very small skeleton keys (1/4"- 3") and of different finishes for around $10 on ebay. I returned my large twig ring and got a sphere of twigs from Michael's deciding to hang the keys along with some collected buttons inside at different heights using clear jewelry string (could also use fishing wire, but I didn't have any on hand). This created the "buried treasure" for my Peter Pan inspired nursery. Twine was then braided and used to hang the sphere from a mere screw drilled into the ceiling. Hope this sparks some creativity to think outside the box for nursery mobiles. This whole idea actually steamed from a mobile I saw online created from lots and lots of hanging vintage scissors!

Fun Zodiac Wall Art

This piece was the missing puzzle to complete before the nursery was officially done! After I passed the last day of the prior Zodiac sign, I created this piece with the reasonably predictable Zodiac sign of my to-be-born son. I finished the project in an hour or two. I printed the Aries symbol off the internet onto card stock. I then cut out fun words associated with kids, a future little boy or names of those close to us from the local newspaper. Using a glue stick, I just wrapped those fun words/phrases around the cut out Aries symbol in a random order. I took a piece of leftover wallpaper from my closet project and used it as the background. I glued the entire Zodiac symbol to the wallpaper to hold it in place and threw it into a picture frame that housed one of our engagement photos from our wedding reception. Wah-la! The missing piece to my wall collage. My son must have known mommy completed his room as I went into labor the next night (2 weeks early!)

I think this could also be a really fun project to do with kids. They would have a blast finding words or even pictures that express them!....Favorite color, pet names, or sports they're in to!

Low-Ceiling Crib Canopy

My son's nursery had a few challenges. Like many older homes, we had to work around low angled ceilings and odd room cutouts. I was set on having some sort of canopy and came up with this DIY canopy alternative. First, I purchased a wall bracket from Anthropologie for I believe is was $22. These decorative wall brackets are traditionally used to create a wall shelf. I wanted one that had a bit of a "lip" on the top to help secure my fabric.

Next, I purchased 4 yards of chiffon fabric from Jo-Ann's and hemmed the unfinished edges by folding the fabric 1/4" in, pressing with a hot iron and then folding 1/2" in pressing then pinning in place and later sewing with coordinating thread. Here's the end result!

Size Dividers for Infant's Closet

I made these size dividers for my soon-to-arrive little boy. They are a very easy DIY project to keep your life organized. Like most moms-to-be, I have started to accumulate clothing from newborn all the way up to 18-24 months!. In order to be able to gauge how much clothing I actually have for a particular age group, I thought the use of dividers would be the best at-a-glance indicator.

To create these dividers, I just went to Michael's and purchased wooden door hangers. They are found in the wood projects section and are sold as plain door hangers intended as a project for your kids to make their own "Do NOT Disturb" signs for their bedroom doors. These hangers were only $0.79 each. I painted them with leftover paint from the dresser we refurbished. You could easily use leftover wall paint as well. In addition to the hangers, I purchased white 2" craft felt numbers and letters also from Michael's. They are in sticker form so no need to glue! Easy peasy! I used the standard sizes: NB, 0-3, 3-6, 6-12, 12-18, 18-24, 2T, 3T. I placed the felt size ranges on both sides of the wooden dividers as we tend to approach a rack of clothes from both ends (left to right and right to left). I have a teeny tiny "closet" as you've seen in my "No Closet Solution" post, so I couldn't fit all of the size ranges on the rod. I at least, though, have the dividers already made so that when he out-grows each size range, I will just rotate his closet out accordingly. No point in keeping out clothes that are too small.

I hope this little DIY project helps you get your life and your kid's closet more organized!!!