La Chair

My late grandmother, Sarah, had a pretty ugly office chair. I ended up with it and after many years of sitting on it and not really like it at all, I decided it was time to give her, La Chair, a little makeover!

The backrest was a sticky sort of cheap vinyly material with a split right down the middle of it and the seat was a nasty sort of wooly, itchy feeling fabric...both were, well, kinda gross.

 I went to my wallet's favorite fabric store right now, Ikea, and had an idea in my head, but I can tell you, I came home with something totally different...check it out...

I had found a sticker on the bottom of the chair that had been covered by the original fabric and the date said 1965, I decided to go with it! A crazy fun pattern of swirls and circles of green, navy, pink and mustard, outlined in black...I don't really know what possessed me, but I have to say, je like!

I also decided that with all this fun color, I was just going to leave the weathered wood the way it was, maybe I will eventually decide to paint it or stain it another color, but with all the wood in the loft, and the shots of color here and there, it just looked right!

A super easy job that anyone can do with a good staple gun and a little extra foam batting (it needed a little plumping), and Tah Dah!

(The Ikea fabric is Saralisa and was $6.99/meter, I only needed 1 m)

ahhhhh the headboard....

it's done! the headboard of LIFE (as I lovingly call it, is done!)
I am making it sound like it was some huge thing to make...it wasn't! but it sounds more interesting, non? (that's french, not a typo).
You got a quick lookie here,
and I know that you thought, "hmmmm, what's she going to do with that?"...
Voila :

 and here was more or less the process...(minus a few steps because I forgot to stop and snap a photo...I swear I am getting better at this documenting-each-step-of-way thing, but it is taking me longer than I thought to get used to doing it)



I started with a gorgeous frame...I am pretty sure there had been a mirror in it originally, as there was some left over silicone on the inside edge...Let me just take a moment here to tell you this...because I'll bet some of you are thinking "I really really REALLY want to make a cool headboard like Nadine, but I don't have the time or patience or budget to go looking for a fabulously ornate frame to use!" (I'm like a psychic right?)

Listen up, you do not NEED an ornate frame to make an amazing headboard!

Here are some ideas; use a simple rectangular frame, paint it in a high gloss fabulous color (like black or white or red or tiffany box turquoise-ish robins egg) and choose some great fabric...upholster the inside, as I did and presto, just as beautiful! Hate high gloss? no probs, choose matte, REALLY matte! it's stunning.
And, I see it like this, if the frame is plain-ish, go a little more over the top with the fabric colors/pattern or paint...if the frame is a statement piece in itself, you can go a little simpler in the paint or fabric because the shape is making a statement already...it's sort of like fashion, if you are going to wear statement shoes, you might opt for a simple black dress...if you are going for the statement dress, you might opt for a simpler shoe...you might also just freaking GO FOR IT...in which case I say AMEN, heck, we only live once right?...just make sure to take photos and share please! (Share...don't Scare!)
Another idea is to use a plainer frame and instead of painting it, why not upholster it too?! you can use a different fabric or the same fabric that you will use in the puffy headboard part...(I say use a different fabric...but what do I know?)...again, take photos and please share!
I chose to use the same paint color as my walls, A: because I love it, B: because I had leftover wall paint, C: because I have no budget.
I chose a fabric from...wait now...IKEA!!!!!! you are thinking, "oh NO you dint!!!!"
...yes I did!!!! Listen, I am going to tell you something here, for $6.00 how the heck can I possibly go wrong????...I actually blew the budget a little and bought 3 different fabrics before deciding to use the black and white. I chose a stripe first, because that was really what my original idea was. I even had a magazine photo, which I can't FOR THE LIFE of me find that I had seen and saved from years ago...oh well...something else will turn out stripey...I found it a little juvenile looking.

then I saw this little number and took pause...I wasn't nuts about the white background, however, I liked the drawing feel to it and the hints of pink and just the overall look of it...of course, when I got it home and held it up, (although I still really like it), I started getting all Feng Shui-ey about it and thought, "birdbrain, living in a bird house, up in a tree, tweet tweet, not much to say..." I don't know, I could free associate on this fabric till the cows come home, but I realized, NOPE...don't want birds watching my back, that's kind of for the birds...

and that is how I chose the black and white floral-ish/geyser-ish Wooshy type design...

As a last little Ikea fabric shopping point, may I also just say that many of the fabrics at Ikea have very large scale patterns...this might suck when making a skirt...but it ROCKS when making a headboard! I actually did not even go with the pattern, I chose a piece off the roll that was even in between the repeat and did not center it either...just adds something extra and super cool...dont you think?

From the collage photo above, you can see that this whole process only took a few steps...(minus the trips out to get all the supplies and schlepping La perfect baby with me to do all the schlepping...).

Once the frame has a few coats of paint on it, I place a large piece of gatorboard underneath it and traced the frame shape on it in chalk.

What's gatorboard? It's like plastic currogated cardboard

Why gatorboard? I did NOT want to start with heavy wood and saws and blah blah blah...so I decided to go with something light weight, easy to transport, relatively sturdy and most of all cuttable with a box cutter or xacto type blade.

Could you use hard cardboard? YES

Could you use wood or MDF? of course!

Was I being a little lazy? NO! I was being practical...leave me alone and stop judging...jeeeeeeze.

When the shape of the frame was traced onto the gatorboard I cut it out with my xacto to fit into the back of the frame. I will state the obvious here, when you put the board behind the frame you do NOT want it to fall out the front, you (really) want it to stay in the back, as though you have framed the board...

Ok, I then played around for a few hours with the best possible way to use the foam padding I bought. Let me just say, not the cheapest stuff around! I did not go to town and get the super thick stuff, I did not even go to the little town and get the kind of thick stuff...I went to like, the suburbs and bought 2 packages of the thin stuff...(remember my non budget)...turns out, it's great!

What also worked best for my piece was to cut the foam to fit through the FRONT of the frame...when I cut it bigger to really stuff it in and make it super pouffy, it just didn't look right...so again, I cut to to fit the front of the frame perfectly and then figured out where I wanted my fabric/pattern to line up.

When all this was done, I flipped it over (front of the frame facing down on the table), followed by the fabric (pattern facing down on the table), followed by the 2 layers of my thin-ish foam padding, followed by the piece of gatorboard cut to fit into the back. I now had a headboard sandwich...all there was left to do was staple gun the gatorboard onto the backside (lip) of the frame. I shot in a few staples and then really made sure that the fabric was not puckering or doing funky stuff on the front side by flipping in over a few times and checking. I also pulled the fabric to make sure it was smooth before stapling. It worked!

There is a bit of POUF to the board, but not too too much and the fabric is nice and smooth.

I also decided to hang the headboard about 8 inches higher than the mattress top to give it a little more grandeur...(needless to say, I used some good picture mounting slide-in heavy duty brackets to attach the headboard to the wall...hello?????...I mean c'mon right?!...couldn't resist some headboard joke! ;-P)

ET VOILA!

the headboard of LIFE!

my total costs? about $45

for good measure...la petite kid!

comments? would LOVE you to post them right HERE!

before and after...the sleep cave...aka "La Cave de Snooze"

Coincidentally, before my whole Feng Shui overhaul began...I was really spending an unhealthy amount of time thinking about wall painting...Jenna Lyon's home (yes, her fabulousness, of J Crew-ness) , featured in every fabulous magazine imagineable was etched in my brain and frankly, driving me a little curazy! (specifically her bedroom, since mine was driving me nuts)
Here's a peek at my inspiration: (via http://habituallychic.blogspot.com/ )

Interestingly, I learned on http://habituallychic.blogspot.com/ that in fact her bedroom is NOT this gorgeous deep charcoal gray, but rather, this:

Black chalkboard paint...now, I happen to LOVE black chalkboard paint, but I prefer the charcoal gray version! (plus, if you use matte finish paint, guess what?  you can chalk it up all you want!)
Now, getting back to my place...as you likely know by now, it's a loft (just about 1000 sq feet), it has brick walls on both the east and west walls, windows on the north wall and the only actual wall walls are in the alcove/(slash)bedroom and leads to the small wall that is the front side of the open kitchen.
The alcove, is not anything other than a bedroom...it is the bedroom, and up until now, other than brick walls, the few walls we have were white...I kept feeling like I needed more color here, more warmth, honestly? (and this hopefully won't come back to bite me in the ass but), a little more interior drama!
Here is the before:

let's face it, do we EVER really make an effort in our BEFORE photos...nope!
(laundry basket, baby on bed, stool as bedside table...oy!)

and now...(drum roll please...) here is the AFTER!

...but you didn't think I was going to stop there did you?

heck no...

(notice that my lovely friends chalked a "happy birthday"

message onto my newly painted charcoal walls above the pillows...)

now it's becoming a true Cave de Snooze!

ok, so I didn't just paint...because once I had painted, I thought, hmmm how to go even further????

I had been thinking about separating La Cave de Snooze from the rest of the loft somehow and it all came to me, at once, in a moment of dramatic navy blue Ikea curtained brilliance (if I must say so myself)...

Ta Da! the curtains of LIFE! (as I lovingly refer to them) I am loving them!

(and you can imagine that napping is great for Tess in this plush, dark and cozy Cave de Snooze!)

I also switched out the old circa. 1993 big puffy pillow/santa fe-ish style covers for some simple gray velvet ones (yep, it's all about the velvet this week!) (perhaps my many years in the theatre?...hmmm will delve deeper when I have a minute...)

Anyhoo, gotta say, Snoozing in La Cave has been bliss...(and yes, maybe one day the crib won't be part of La Cave's decor, but for now, sorry Elle Decor, it's my reality!

So, what do you think?

Je L O V E it!