Headboard of Rigid Foam Insulation

My guest room is a work in progress.  I'm going for a pale ethereal look.

I re-upholstered a head board I had done previously with pale blue ticking. OK, I was lazy and first put the new fabric over the old, dark one, then I had to take it apart and re-do because you could see the old fabric through the new.

A lot of people make headboards with plywood and foam ... I used rigid insulation.   It comes in 4x8 sheets and is extremely light. It's about 1 1/2 - 2 inches thick, so gives you the same look. You can cut to whatever size you want with a knife. Actually, the 4x8 piece would not fit in my trunk and the young man who was helping me at Home Depot said they only cut wood and couldn't help me with the size, so I took a house key to it in the Home Depot parking lot and roughly cut the piece to size, so it would fit in. You get a lot of those little foam beads flying around, but it enabled me to get it home; and I left all the cut off pieces in the HD garbage.

I covered the insulation with batting, and then upholstery using a glue gun because you obviously can't attach staples or nails into foam insulation.   Then because the back was looking a little ragged, I duct taped down all the edges so it would be smooth to hang on the wall.   WHAT? doesn't everyone use duct tape?  I wasn't bloggin at the time or I would have taken pictures!

I then attached the headboard to the wall with velcro. The foam insulation is very light so that is all the support it needs.  In fact as a bit of a disclaimer ... one thing you should know is that when I took the first headboard down to recover it, the velcro practically ripped the wall down. It was a good thing I was was going to paint anyway. I just spackled the tears, primed, painted and stuck the recovered headboard up with new velcro and good as new.

It is a great way to  make a headboard that doesn't weigh a lot, and you don't have to look for wall studs to hang it on.  Easily a one person job.

Re-do the Family Room Mantle

You didn't get my "Happy Thanksgiving" note this weekend, because my Windows XP went down.   I had to go into the office this morning and have deskside repair it.

I had the whole family, Mom, brothers, sisters-in-law, nieces, on Sunday for dinner.  I picked up my Mom on Saturday and she stayed over ... we got up early, stuffed the turkey, cooked the turnip and then sat back with a cup of tea to the aroma of cooking turkey.

Of course along with my invitation to  my younger brother went the "bring your tools" request.  When I have brawn around, I like to make use of it.   Really DIY is a family activity right?, and by the time we demoed my family room mantle, it really was a "THANKS"giving day.

This is the Before

The pine mantel wrapped around the corner of the fireplace, and I always felt like I was going to put my eye out as I walked by.   Also I wanted it to look a little less country.

Bruce made short work of taking the mantle down and cutting to a better length.

Cheered on my my sister-in-law Donna, niece Allison and my Mom.

And this is the after.   I love it.   I changed out the picture for a round mirror.

I originally was going to  trim it out and paint it cream ... but I like how it turned out and am going to live with it for a while.   And I have enough other projects in progress ....

Belated Happy Thanksgiving to you all!

Magnetic Bulletin Board

Image by John Granen, from book, The Farm Chicks in the Kitchen

http://thefarmchicks.typepad.com/

I was checking out home blogs, saw this image and thought "Oh my god ... what a great idea".   I have tons of metal trays in the basement and  I would have never in a million years thought to afix it to the wall and use it as a bulletin board with magnets.  The colours and vintage look are fabulous.
Don't you just love the internet. Nice work Farm Chicks.

Completed Roman Blind

Well ... not a real Roman Blind.   A "faux" Roman Blind.
You can't raise or lower it ... but you get the look.

I bought this fabric(mentioned in my previous post):

My bathroom window opening is 28 H x 29 W.   I bought a yard of fabric and cut to 32 " wide, and the white cotton lining to 28" wide.  That allowed the fabric to go 1" on the back on either side and for a 1/2" seam. 

I sewed one side, then pressed the 1" around the back, and then did the same on the second side, pressed; then sewed the bottom edge, and pulled the drape right side out.

I knew how deep I wanted the blind to be, so I just eyeballed how big I wanted the folds to be.   For my blind, I went up 4 1/2", and brought the fold down 3".  I did this three times to get the depth I wanted ... the first two I machine sewed down, the third I handstitched on the back as I didn't want a machine sewing line on the front.

Once all my folds were done, I zigzagged the two fabric layers at top of the blind to keep them together; cut a 1x2 piece of wood to 28 3/4", painted it white; stapled the top of the blind to the wood, and screwed the wood to the top of the window.  Voila!

So the bathroom for the guest room is now done.

The black and white pictures are photos that my brother, Bruce, took.   He was in the country after an ice storm and stopped to capture the icy landscape.   I was impressed with the images and framed them.

One job done ... how many to go??

Art work for my Guest Room

I needed something for above the headboard in the Guest Room.   I had seen these plaques at Homesense, at $12.95 each.   The next time I went in they were on the clearance rack for $3.00 each.   What an opportunity.  I got three.  They were a dark stained wood, so I painted them white, then sanded them back to show the carved design.   They now look like old ceiling tiles.