Posts Tagged ‘IKEA

There’s been a hitch in Ben’s crazy post (as mentioned here). Isn’t that always the case? You announce something beforehand and it blows up in your face?

Hopefully I’ll have that post out within a day or two. But for now, I’ll show you the boy’s new bedding.

I’ve been working on his room a little here and there (between K’s room and the laundry room).

Honestly, I’d love to just start a room and then actually finish it before starting on another project, but I just can’t help myself. It’s like I need 10 different things going on at once. That way I’ll never get bored with just one project.

Let’s start with the orange sheets.

I wanted the ones from PBTeen:

But as you can see, besides being totally out of stock on orange pillowcases, the set was $67.50. And I needed/wanted 3 sets. Ya, never going to happen.

Even if I won the lottery I’d still have a hard time spending $67.50 on one set of sheets for a 10 year old.

I’m wired way too cheap I guess. And I guess you probably are as well if you keep coming back to HoH for more.

So like I mentioned in my last bedding post, I found orange sheets at Wal-Mart of all places, for $15 a set! Much better. I can breathe again.

The sheets are holding up great and I’ve been impressed with them.

Now for my favorite part, the Duvet!

I wanted this one from Serena & Lily:

But at $150 for the duvet only (no sham even! As if!), I’d have to find a cheaper alternative.

Cue West Elm. I found this almost identical duvet & sham over at West Elm for $80. Not as bad as $150, but still steep.

I actually ended up ordering this bedding from West Elm, but fortunately while it was in route I stumbled upon this bedding at Target:

Would you believe me if I told you I found this duvet for only $20? And seriously. It came with a sham too.

So of course I bought the Target one and sent the West Elm one back lickity-split.

I was able to go from $150 down to $20, so I think a savings of $130 is pretty darn good if you ask me.

As you can see, he doesn’t have a striped sham. He has a striped throw pillow.

That’s because I took the sham and turned it into a throw pillow instead. I bought a travel-sized pillow insert from Target for $4, and then just altered the sham to fit around the smaller pillow.

I took the sham and insided-it-out:

I did a pretty hack job getting the sham altered, but it works. Making sure the stripes were centered, I sewed the edges of the sham to create the right height for the pillow. Then I eye-balled where the outer edge needed to be cut, added on an additional inch or so, and trimmed off the excess fabric.

This fabric is some type of polyester blend and is kind of slippery. I was worried about the edges fraying & ripping apart so I did a bunch of crazy stitches along the edge to hold it together. A serger would have been best, but I don’t have one so I make do.

Once everything was sewn and my final edge was cut, I reversed the fabric so it was outside-out, stuffed it with the throw pillow, and used lots of pins to hold the seam in place while I hand stitched the edge up.

It’s so cute now. Why are things cuter when they are smaller?

Here’s how I usually make his bed so he can have it like a couch during the day.

I love it being made like this…

…but when his friends and he are in his room I get grossed out thinking a bunch of stinky boys are sitting on his sheets. Where he sleeps! Gross. So I keep the duvet pulled all the way up. It’s a mental thing. I’m weird.

Here’s a picture of where I bought everything.

I love the way his room is slowly starting to come together.

I’ve got it all planned out in my mind. Maybe I should put together a mood board to give you an idea of where I’m going with the room. Or you can just look at my pinterest board for his room here. Of course, there are tons of pictures and ideas, and not everything will be included.

So anyway, I am a cat lover and I love to run. I’m sorry, I’m thinking about cats again. And again. And again, and again, and again.

Um… ya. Darn it Songify. Why did you ever have to make that catchy song? {Best youtube video and song ever, B.T.Dubbs.}

Well hey there! I hope you had a fabulous weekend. We’ve been busy around here just trying to get this place organized once and for all! Maybe by the end of 2012 I’ll feel like everything is in it’s place.

Last week I showed you my 7 year old daughters room makeover progress. I had just hung some floating shelves (IKEA Lack shelves) above a little sofa table. Eventually this area will be for all her jewelry, (play) makeup, nick-knacks, and desk area.

Unfortunately, all this switching around in her room has left quite a huge mess of toys on her floor.

The solution?

Another trip to IKEA.

This time for IKEA Expedit Shelves.

I decided to go with two of the 2×4 squares Expedit shelves.

I wanted to have a lower shelf that K could reach the top of to act as a table top, but I also wanted one that was taller to maximize the amount of storage she has. The solution was two shelves, one placed horizontally and one placed vertically.

And just as a quick tip, if you are going to be putting together IKEA furniture it is MUCH EASIER if you purchase a Hex Bit Tip set for your electric drill from the hardware store instead of using the manual “Z” shaped Hex bit that comes with the furniture.

I also decided to splurge and get her four IKEA Knipsa baskets. They had cheaper baskets, but I really love the look of these and feel that the overall look of her room will benefit from them (once I finish the room).

The Knipsa baskets are $16.99 per basket, so I could only justify four at the time. Eventually I plan on snagging a few more of these baskets before all is said and done.

Want a closer look at how I’ve sorted out her toys? This is by no means finished or final. Her room is still VERY MUCH a work-in-progress.

On the tall shelf, one of her new baskets holds all her baby doll stuff, while the other is her new barbie doll storage.

The wide shelf holds her music (she LOVES music)…

…and all her American Girl stuff…

I’m really torn on her huge pink Disney Princess framed poster (on top of the shelf). On the one hand she likes it. A lot. In fact, she’s totally in love with Belle.

But on the other hand, it REALLY is NOT the look I’m trying to obtain while decorating her room. I’ve been planning on hanging the poster above these new shelves, but I just can’t stomach it! I am NOT a Disney Princess type of person. In fact, I am opposed to pretty much any character decor of any type.

She loves the poster though, so I will probably end up sucking it up and hanging it for her (I mean, it is her room after all!).

Here’s what her room looks like with her new Lack floating shelves and Expedit shelves.

And from the hall when you are walking into her room, this is what you now see….

Instead of this huge disaster:

Ah, much better already!

My next big goal with her room is to get her a new bed.

(If you want to know why you can read all about it in this post.)

I know this isn’t as exciting as a huge “reveal” and before and afters. But at the rate I get things done around here (really slow) if I waited until her room was finished to blog about it, I’d probably never blog ever again. lol

I figure I’ll just share the progress of my house as I go along the way. This is real life after all, and in real life, things don’t move as quickly as they do on a 30 minute reality show.

One last thing I want to mention…

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D. Lawless Hardware is the bees knees and has offered all HoH readers an additional 10% off your order! Hot dawg! The discount code can be found on their site through this super-special HoH link.

Have fun shopping and saving money.

When we moved into this house over a year ago my daughter’s room was a huge football field.

After torturing my poor daughter in that room for 15 straight months, I finally started her much needed bedroom makeover by hanging lots of board & batten and giving the entire room a fresh coat of paint (or 20, but I lost count).

I’ve been at it again this weekend. I really want to tie up all the lose ends of her room and get it done once and for all.

Let’s start with her furniture. She has great furniture. Her matching set has a sleigh bed, a dresser & mirror, a side table, and a large toy chest (4 pieces total). It’s solid wood, perfect for a little girl, and adorable. Initially I planned to paint all of it white, but after lots of debate, the furniture and I have decided to part ways, and here are a few reasons why:

a) the bed doesn’t allow for a trundle under it, and my daughter is the Sleepover Queen.

b) the dresser is too tall, too big, and takes up too much precious floor space for her toys. It also has too many drawers; half of them are completely empty.

c) she really has no use for a side table.

d) the large toy chest was a magnet for kids playing hide-and-seek and made it a little too easy to quickly “clean” her room by piling trash, laundry, and ALL toys into it. Momma didn’t like that at all!

First step in Project K’s Room? Moving out her furniture to get ready to put on Craigslist.

Of course, now she’s down a dresser. In my opinion, dressers are totally over-rated. I prefer built-ins and shelving in the closet any day over a dresser, especially for children who need the extra floor space to play.

I came up with a simple solution that I think is the bees knees. I drug her bookshelf into her closet and put all her clothing on it. (I’ve also been busy adding stuff to her walls.)

This is the same shelf that she helped put together last year.

Here’s how I organized it:

(The zebra boxes are her Duct Tape Boxes (Tutorial HERE). They have held up amazingly well! They are perfect for her underwear and all her dance clothing. We keep socks downstairs in the mud room.)

And on the other side of her closet:

Stealing the shelf away has now left us with this huge disaster though. Lots of toy storage is now needed (I’ll share the toy storage in the next post.)

A view into her room from the hallway…

(Fluffy coffee filter wreath tutorial can be found here)

The shelf use to be along this wall, but the shelf is now in the closet and I “stole” the sofa table from the game room.

The plan was to get her a cute little dressing table with a mirror, but I opted for the sofa table because (besides the fact that I already own it so it’s essentially free) the sofa table is not as deep as a traditional desk or table and this little space is too awkward for a big protruding desk.

The plan was for a big pretty mirror to hang above so K can put on her jewelry and spend time primping, but after short consideration I concluded that she owns way too much crap and needed storage in lieu of a mirror.

Ikea to the rescue! I purchased 2 floating shelves (lack) for her room, and it was my lucky day because ikea just lowered the price down to $15 per shelf. Woot!

And now, after they are hung!

What a difference, right?! I’m thrilled with how they turned out. I say “progress” though because the sofa table needs to be painted, more artwork and accessories need to be hung, and my piano bench needs to be returned to my piano room and replaced with a cute little chair for Miss K to sit on.

(Yellow and Gray artwork of K above bedroom door, upper left corner of room, can be found here.)

She now {finally} has a place for all those little girlie things that she loves that aren’t exactly toys, but still need a place to call home.

I won’t sugar coat this and lie though, installing those shelves was pretty much a pain in the arse. Apparently ikea changed the design of them from when I bought a longer version for my dining room.

Instead of using basic Phillips Head (plusie) screws under the shelves, they now use Hex screws.

What are Hex Screws? I’m so glad you asked! They are screws that take a Hex bit to tighten them. You can’t use your basic screwdriver, so the shelves come with this little Hex bit to tighten them. Except tightening them by hand is almost impossible unless you are a body builder.

The solution? A $5 trip to Home Depot.

If you put together a lot of assemble-yourself furniture, I highly recommend you purchase a set of Hex bits and a Bit Tip Holder. Heck, I’d purchase a set just to put together ONE piece of furniture. The set is cheap, and made the job so much easier and faster.

To use the Hex Bit set, all you do is find the bit that fits your screw, then insert said bit into the holder.

From there, attach the bit holder to your electric drill.

Now you can assemble your furniture in less than a minute and without pulling a muscle in your arm.

Closet and shelves down…

…toy storage to go…

As soon as I get the toy storage situation under control I’ll be sure to give you an update. After that all I need to do is unload all the furniture on Craigslist, buy a new bed, and accessorize!

I’m really looking forward to getting the room finished. I’ve got a few more little projects up my sleeve too. Hopefully soon I’ll be able to check a room off my list once and for all! Of course, with all this work going on in sissy’s room, big brother T is starting to feel a little jealous, so I’ll be starting his room next.

It’s never-ending! Good thing I LOVE IT.

I hope you have a great MLK day and an even better week!