you're just being shelfish

Shelf-ish. Get it?

We forgot to take a "before" picture of our empty babies closet. But all these shelves (except the top white one) are brand new. Originally, I was just gonna put 3 shelves up and call it a day, but S nixed that.

She said she wanted the shelving to be dynamic, and came up with this layout plan: four foot-high shelves on the right, two extra large shelves in the middle, and a ladder leading down to the floor on the far left with shelves of varying sizes.


As usual, S was the lead designer and I was the lead engineer. She had a great vision to make it as functional as possible. I was a little concerned about there being too many shelves, which would make it too crowded in there. Turns out it's perfect as usual.

reupholstering fever!

This is a chair from G's childhood. When we first moved in, G was thinking about throwing it away because it was so tore up, but I thought is has a beautiful shape and wanted to hold on to it. I saw potential in the chair and also I don't like to throw things out from his childhood. I knew that someday I want to do something with it and since we're working on the nursery, it was a great opportunity for another challenge.

we spent an afternoon at jo-ann's and picked out this fabric to reupholster it. but we needed 6 yards, and they only had 4! we were already thinking about going to the joanns in natick until my husband came up with the idea of using white fabric in areas that are hidden from view. so instead of driving all the way to natick, we just bought a little more plain white upholstery fabric.

So we started to take the whole thing apart! Here's G trying to figure out what pieces can be cut out of what part of our two different fabrics. he's good at geometry.

This is a lot of the materials laid out on the floor. it was a mess all week!

After the pieces were cut, I sewed them together.

Our new best friend: a staple gun

I didn't know he was taking pictures or else i would have wore something instead of a bathrobe! i'm using his patriots hammer to put the arm together.

It's starting to look like a chair again...

G says he never thought about how furniture was put together before this.

Revealing some of the white fabric we're keeping hidden.

close-up view

Now I just want to reupholster everything in the house! next project will probably be our media room sofa...another piece from G's childhood. probably even before he was born...even before people started to talk about "clean lines"!

curvaceous pelmet boxes

Of all the projects we've done, this is one of the ones we're most proud of. When all is said and done, I think the babies room is going to be the dopest room in the house.

For a long time, I wanted to put up a cornice box - also called a pelmet box - above some of the windows in our condo. G and I had done some planning, and we mostly knew how to do it. The problem was that G said we don't have a jigsaw so we couldn't build a cornice with a shape that I like, it would have to just be a rectangle. It wasn't exactly what I hoped for, but G said it was the only way.

But because this was going to be the first cornice in our home, and it was going to be in the babies room, I never gave up hope we could find a way to have a shape. If it was for our bedroom instead, maybe I would have accepted the plain front, but for this room, I was motivated to figure it out.

Just a couple days before we were planning to start on building them, I found a tutorial online that said you could make a beautiful pelmet out of just foamcore! That makes it easy to carve any shape you want! Isn't that a great idea? It's inexpensive and you can choose any shape you want, which allowed us to splurge on the fabric.

When I told G this idea, he was a little hesitant. He didn't think it would be strong - and he also prefers using wood because he thinks it's more tough and manly. But he changed his mind when he realized how much I really wanted some kind of style other than a rectangle on it. Thats something great about me & G together: I tell him what I want, and he helps me make it happen. Without him, I don't feel I can finish any projects. Without me, he doesn't ever want to start any projects!

Here is a step by step tutorial. We didn't do it exactly the same way the Little Green Notebook did, but hers was a good place to start.

First, we designed the front of the box. I was looking for a style that wasn't too ornate, but was still pretty. I definitely wanted a little bit of curve, not just right angles. Here's G drawing the design on foamcore. He's wearing a Randy Moss jersey in support of him since everyone else is blaming him now!

 

Then we used a boxcutter to cut out the right shapes, and used duct tape to connect them pieces together. This is G looking proud of the job he did!

Instead of using all foamcore like the other site, we compromised and used wood on the back so it's sturdier. The wood keeps the front from bending and also is the piece that attached to the wall.

We then covered the front of each box with batting to make it puffy. After that, we wrapped it with this fabric. Initially, we were going to use an amy butler fabric for this project, but based on the design of the fabric and the style of the cornice, they weren't a good match, so we changed our mind last minute. We looked all over the place for the right fabric, and when we finally found this one, we were excited!

Here is G using a staple gun to upholster the cornice. Can you believe it's just made of foamcore?

This is what it looks like on the window. Isn't it pretty?

So what do you think?