Gutting Is Never Easy
This was the lovely kitchen layout last week in my daughter and son-n-law’s first home purchase. There is a lot of wasted space in this room. Not to mention very little cupboard space. 
The tiny wall opening was the pass through from the dining room/living room area. It really gave the kitchen a closed in feeling. I knew if we removed the majority of that wall, it would make the kitchen dining room area feel so much more open. So out came the wall.
Ah, much better. Now to fix that silly layout of the “L” kitchen. I wanted to utilize the long wall for a better layout. So I taped the layout out on the floor. The refrigerator is now at the end of the long wall, which allows me to utilize the old refrigerator space for a nice pantry and desk area. I added a small island in front of the long wall. {that round table is my visual of a bar stool, it was in the back of my car, and I needed a visual, works for me!}
The sink pipe needs to be moved against the wall, the contractor said this wouldn’t be a problem. I met with the plumber two days ago to go over all the plumbing tasks I will need him to do, including moving this pipe. He asked me what type of foundation it was. Hmmm… “don’t really know, I don’t have the plans for this house but why do you ask?” He proceeds to tell me that if it is a post tension slab there could be a problem. Without getting into too many boring details, the bottom line is this. When they pour a post tension foundation for a house, they run these tension cables in the concrete in a specific grid pattern and then tighten them to bolts. The tight grid of steel cables support the slab. Unlike conventional “inactive” rebar, post-tension tendons continually contribute to the structural integrity of home. If a contractor puts this type of foundation in, they stamp the floor of the garage. We looked. Nothing. So we are good to go. The next day, we start saw cutting the concrete. 
Crap! You see it? That black rope looking thing next to the pipe? Yep you guessed it, post-tension foundation! Shoot! The chances of that are like 1-100 in this area to have that type of foundation. I called my contractor and he said tell him to STOP!!! I guess it is dangerous if you break one of those cables, it will snap and could kill you from the tension it has on it. Great huh? So now what? I can’t go back to that “L” shaped kitchen layout, but if I can’t move the sink, there isn’t another layout that would work. Today I meet with the plumber and contractor. I guess there is a way to slowly chip away the concrete without jeopardizing the integrity of the foundation, but we need to take a closer look at it. Wish me luck!
Renovating Has Begun
Not a pretty picture…
You might think that I have lost my design style after looking at this picture. But the reality is that my world has been turned upside down since last Wednesday. My daughter and her husband finally closed escrow on their first home. Yahoo! It was a short sale that was in need, I mean badly in need of some major gutting. They have asked for my design help, and I of course said yes! This is right up my alley, I love these types of projects and I have dived in full force to get this place livable, functional, and decorated on a budget in 4 weeks (hopefully)
Doesn’t this fireplace look better already with all that drywall stepping crap and the bland white tiles gone? We have taken out all the flooring, vanity countertops, toilets, the whole kitchen and removed some walls. It is moving very fast. There is so much I want to post about this project, that I am even doing videos as I go along to share on my blog. So stay tuned. Here are a couple of pieces I have already purchased.
Perfect Seat For A Princess
What do you get when you combine this $24.99 Ikea children’s table
With these $12.99 Ikea children’s chairs? {oops, minus the animal appliques, couldn’t find a current Ikea picture without them}
Well, I got this cute little chalkboard princess table and chairs!
I thought I would share this table and chairs I did a couple of years ago for my favorite little girl Layla. Her mom emailed me this picture she had seen on the internet she wanted to buy for Layla. But as it turned out, it was expensive and way out of her price range.
Since I am a sucker for anything frilly, and my girls are all grown, I decided to make Layla her very own table and chairs for her 1st birthday, and it was pretty darn simple and inexpensive! So here is a short version of what I did, with not too many tutorial pictures of in progress {pre-blogging days, sorry}
I painted the top pink chalkboard paint and added little decorative acrylic paint dots on the edge of the table. {if I would of I had my cool expression machine back then, I could of come up with so many cool decorative vinyl decals for this area, oh well} I didn’t want to add big bows to the sides, I knew from having kids that the bows would just get ripped off after a day. So instead, I painted a small rosette from a stencil on all four corners of the table.
Before I put the chair together, {you know how Ikea is, all in a flat box and you put together, luckily these were very simple to do} I took the seat and laid on to a 1″ foam pad and drew out the pattern right on to the foam, then cut the foam. 
I painted the two back skinny rods of the chair with green acrylic paint and added some white dots. To make the bottom ruffle, I measured from the top of the chair seat to the bottom adding 1/2″ longer for the hem. I then measured the whole chair and doubled my measurement for the ruffling. Once I sewed the hem and hand ruffled the fabric, I used my staple gun to attach the ruffle, then I using the same measurements , I cut the length in half and made the second ruffle and again attached it with my staple gun.
I used spray glue to adhere the foam to the seat. I laid my fabric over the foam with plenty of extra to wrap around the sides and used my staple gun and stapled the fabric to the bottom of the seat. To finish it off, I hot glued some pre-made ruffle trim and marabou to cover my staples and some pretty pink silk fabric rosettes to the back side.
Those cute crowns were actually hair combs that I disassembled from the comb and carefully flattened them and hot glued them to the back of the chair. I drilled a hole on the top of each side of the chair and screwed pink curtain rod finials that I got from Target.
I think it turned out pretty cute, and Layla just loves it! She is now three and still uses it every day. I think there are so many cool variations that could be done with these table and chairs for both boys and girls. All the cool cutting machines out there, stencils and cute fabrics to make the ruffles and flower rossettes, the possibilities are endless! I am linking up to these fun parties!
Subway Art-Sorta-Pantry Sign
On Saturday the US Open men’s tennis semi finals were on. All day. I couldn’t pull myself away from the exciting matches unfolding in front of me, especially when my crush Federer was playing. Yes, I could of DVR’d the matches but to me it is just so more exciting to watch it live. I was feeling kinda guilty that I was spending SO much time in front of my TV on such a gorgeous sunny southern California day, that I decided to at least be productive while I watched. I have been wanting to find a spot in my house for a piece of subway art that everyone is doing out in blogland. My favorite blogger, Jen from Tatertos & Jello, is the queen of Subway art.
I decided that my new organized pantry was a perfect spot for this new project. I read a lot of blogger’s tutorials on their version of subway art and many said they made a lot of mistakes on the size and layout of their piece and had to start all over. I was a little intimidated by all of this at first, but I got inspired when I found this cool web site Wordle . You type in words and then it rearranges them in different patterns, colors and font styles. I just thought of all the things that are in my pantry and started typing in the words. This is what I came up with as my template. 
So off I went. I took a canvas that I already had and laid it out on my fabric and cut it to size. Leaving enough fabric to wrap around the backsides.
Then I heavily Mod Podged the canvas because this fabric is really thick and has a texture to it so I wanted to make sure it glued really well.
I used tacks on the back side to help hold down the fabric.
I used my new Expressions machine {lovin this machine} to cut out the letters on vinyl. Took me a couple of tries before I got the letter size right. I just laid them out one by one, starting from the top and arranged them similar to the Wordle page I printed out. 
What was great about using vinyl on fabric, was that if the word just didn’t look right I could easily peel it off and place it in another spot. When I was done, I felt that there were too many empty spots. I had these vintage utensil that I had gotten from an estate sale a while back collecting dust so I added them into the empty spots. Then I made a fabric rosette to finish it off.
It is the perfect finishing touch to my pantry re-do. It hangs right above my fancy dog food bin. 
I love the way it turned out, it has the feel of a subway sign with a Stephanie twist to it. I think Jen would be proud. My crush lost his tennis match..but I got a cool sign done in the process. If you didn’t see my pantry re-do, you can see it here. Linking up to these parties
Pantry Revived
Have you been watching the Hoarders TV show on A&E lately? It really motivates you to clean up and clean out doesn’t it? That is how I felt about my pantry. It was a mess and so unorganized it drove me crazy! These pictures are embarrassing and I can not believe I am showing you them, but I am so proud of the end result it just wouldn’t be the same if you hadn’t seen how it looked before. 
I thought that the producer of Hoarders might be calling me soon if I didn’t do something about it. 
Thank You
I just wanted to give a big THANK YOU to Jen at Tatertots and Jello and Stephanie {great name huh?} at Under The Table and Dreaming for featuring my Master Bedroom post on their blogs. It is a huge honor and I am truly humbled that they took the time to show my post on their link up parties. Thanks a million!
Mod Podge Tables
This was going to be my original post on linking up to the CSI Project. But my dresser from yesterday got priority, so I thought today I would show you some things I have done in the past with Mod Podge. I love that stuff! I won’t show you ALL the things I have done, cause it would be a long ole post. But here are some of my favorites.
This is what the $5 thrift shop table looked like before I painted it and Mod Podged. I used fabric on the table top and then used Mod Podge to seal the top. It is a work horse in my studio, it hasn’t let me down.
This ugly side table was an estate sale find for $2. {sorry about the picture quality, it is the only one I could find for a before picture}
I sprayed it with lime green paint and Mod Podged a vellum damask scrapbook paper on top. 
I did not Mod Podge this couch {although that would be cool to do} but I did make a slip cover with a zipper opening, which was very hard for a non sewer to do, that coordinated with my two Mod Podge tables.
Hmmm..recognize the wallpaper? Yep, that is what I used for the dresser. It was left over from when I had my studio wall papered. In case you haven’t noticed, I kinda like damask. But this is my studio, only I am in it, so I kinda went over the top. I would never design this much damask in any other room or for a client. I have to tell you, I love being in this space. It is very invigorating. Seriously, if you browse my blog and see the projects I do, look at pictures of my house, parties and events I have done, there is usually some form of damask. I’m an addict for sure! 
Mod Podge Saves The Day
I have been working on the dresser from hell for the last two weeks. {sorry for the cussing, but I am serious when I say that, it has been quite the DIY project that I don’t care to repeat} 
