Wood & Cloth-Archive-Craft Room

I need a redo.

Last week was not a great one for Wood & Cloth.  Especially for Cloth.  I was so looking forward to last weekend as we had some really warm spring temperatures and abundant sun shine....or so the husband tells me.  I spent the entire weekend in bed with a stupid stomach bug.  I haven't been so wiped out in a long time.  All of my plans had to be put aside as I couldn't even sit upright for more than a few minutes without having to lay back down.  I guess if you are going to be sick over a weekend it is nice if that weekend has one less hour.  I usually bemoan the loss of my hour going to daylight savings time but this year I didn't even miss it...good riddance.

The hits kept coming as the week started.  I had to peal myself out of bed on Monday morning as I had something scheduled at work that I couldn't miss.  In my other non-blog-non-Cloth life....my I-work-hard-for-my-money life I had to fire an employee.  It is always a really hard decision and one aspect of my job that I will probably never be able to do without getting myself worked up.  I often worry that the firing will be the beginning of a downhill slide for the person that will end up with them homeless on the streets.  I don't want to be the cause of that.  I do pull myself back and realize that everyone is responsible for their actions and if the work is not up to par a change needs to be made.


So I went to work still ill, took care of business, went home and crawled back into bed for the rest of the day.


Time for a redo.


While I can't redo last week I can bust open the Wood & Cloth project archive and show the craft room redo we did.  While the bulk of the remodel took place a couple of years ago we have been adding furniture over the years and I recently redid all of my fabric and notion storage just a few weeks ago.

The craft room was one of the first rooms we remodeled in the new house.  I always wanted a room to be able to spread out all of my projects but not have to pick them up every day if I didn't want to.  It is nice being able to hide craft-explosion with a closed door.


Phase 1

I wanted the craft room to have a bit of a country feel with some bright cheery colors.  We put put bead board and a chair rail and painted the room a fun yellow.  The yellow is a story in itself...and why I always buy paint testers now.  The original yellow in the room is now referred to in our house as "retina searing yellow." 

The husband also framed in the window adding to the country feel.

The craft table is one of the first pieces of furniture the husband made for the new house.  It is extra long so that I can lay out a bunch of fabric or crafts and still have room for my laptop and sewing machine.  We actually found the table legs at an antique store.  I almost didn't want to sand them down because they had so much character but in the end I knew I wanted a red table so the old paint and history had to go.

Phase 2

The next big project was a window seat and cabinet/shelf tower furniture set.  This was a really fun project.  Wood got to make the furniture and I got to sew my first box cover and learn how to make pillow cording!  While I did have visions of spending numerous hours sitting at the window reading it is typically occupied by pugs.  I will confess that the husband and I have found that it is a good vantage point for spying on the neighbors.  (Don't act like you don't do it too!)

Phase 3

For the longest time the shelves sat bare except for a few random in process projects here and there.  Oh and of course the TV!  The husband in a move of shear genius got the wife a TV for Christmas one year.  It was a well played move designed to cut down on the complaints about NFL Sunday ticket and the fact the wife wanted to be able to watch Lifetime movies during her Sunday crafting. 


Sneaky.


I finally got around to organizing my fabric and putting to use a few things I had been picking up over the years at garage and antique sales.

The craft room has come a long way from the beginning.  It is truly a room I enjoy spending time in. 


Now I just need to get another project going so I can put last week behind me even if I can't redo it!

Wood & Cloth - Project - Tree Silhouette Wall Art Panels

Is there a medical term for individuals that have a severe phobia to hanging things on the wall? 

Hangadecoraphobia? 
Large Art Placement Aversion? 

Whatever the term, I have it.  I don't have an issue with the actual act of hanging things on the wall but when it comes to picking out wall art.....shear panic!  I have always liked blank spaces on walls and feel a bit claustrophobic when every spare inch of wall in a house has something hanging on it.  I also feel like large wall decorations are such a commitment...and you have to put holes in the wall!  The husband makes frequent, futile attempts to remind me that holes can be filled and walls can always be repainted.  Unfortunately I now have an almost paralyzing mental block when it comes to making the commitment on a wall art project or purchase.

So it is big day for Wood & Cloth when we hang something new on the walls...yippee!

We teased this project awhile back and it is finally done!  While the actual project didn't take too much time finding a project the wife could actually envision on the wall...took about 2 years.   

We actually stumbled upon this project in the Lowe's Creative Project magazine that we get in the mail.  If you don't currently get the mailer I suggest you sign-up for it on the Lowe's website it is free and has a surprising amount of interesting projects.

This is the original project picture and the instruction link back to Lowes.

I liked the concept but knew I needed something bigger and the colors were not going to work for our stairway landing wall.  So we tweaked the plans a bit and the final project is something I found easy to hang on the wall.


Project Ranking
Difficult - Moderate
*Depending on your final size you may need access to some sort of saw.
Frustration - Medium
*I spent a long time laying down the tape for the tree patterns.  If your project is smaller and you don't second guess yourself all of the time like I did trying to get things perfect this may not be frustrating at all!
Makeability- 100% Worth It
*Even with some mild frustration this project was worth it.  We ended up with a large high quality piece of wall art that even I am glad is hanging on the wall.


Materials
NOTE: Lowe's lists out materials on their website.  The materials listed below are specific for the piece we made.

Oak Plywood  (Each panel is 14 x 36 inches)
*The Lowes version used Birch.  We liked the Oak grain a bit better.  You want to be careful when you select your wood.  If you are planning on hanging large pieces on the wall you will want to make sure that your board is flat.  We pulled out a few different pieces before we found one that we liked.  It is also important that you get a fairly thick piece.  Ours was 3/4 inches.  If you get something really thin it will just warp when you stain/paint it. 

Wood Stain
*Golden Oak from Minwax.  As you will note below we tried out a bunch of stain/paint combinations.  At this point I think we pretty much own the entire collection of Minwax stains so I thought we should try them all out.

Paint
*Dark color is Valencia Moss in Satin from Valspar.
*Lighter color is Dry Earth in Satin from Valspar.
*I cannot overstate how much I love the paint testers.  Whenever we do a paint project we try out a few options.  I would say that 80% of the time we end up going with a color that was not our first choice at the store.  Paint truly does look different in your home....plus then you have a bunch of extra colors to use for various projects later on.

Paint tape (skinny and wide sizes)


As the instructions are posted on the Lowes site no need to go into them again.  However here are a few tips we picked up along the way.

Tip 1:  Don't over think things.  I was completely paralyzed at the beginning thinking that I needed to do a practice placement of my tape strips or at least draw out a rough design layout.  Just start putting some tape down.  The tape comes off pretty easy so you can pull it off and redo if you don't like the look of things.

Tip 2: Don't let your tape stay on your panels too long.  I ended up doing 2 coats of paint for each of the panels so by the time I let the first one and then the second one dry the tape was on the panels about 12 hours.  I did find that in some places it was a bit hard to remove.  At the same time I don't think you want to rush to get the tape off as you won't get the nice lines if you try to take the tape off while the paint is still wet.  It makes a mess (don't ask how I know...)

Like all things I end up hanging on the wall I instantly hated how the panels looked.  Did I mention I have a problem? 

It took me awhile but now as I walk past the stairs and see them hanging on the wall I have to admit they look much better than the blank wall.  For me that is saying a lot. 

Wood & Cloth-Completion-Study Remodel

We spent Saturday and Sunday in a Hail Mary effort to get the study presentable before the Super Bowl (note the football reference!).  As predicted we attempted the Full Monty on the room.  With a few exceptions we somehow managed to pull it all together and still maintain our sanity.

Before the big reveal it should be noted that this remodel is actually the second time we have shaken things up in that room…and it won’t be the last!

Phase 1

When we bought the house 2 years ago the study looked like many of the other rooms in the house. 

We wanted to darken things up a bit in the color department and give a little more heft and beefiness to the baseboards.  We ended up painting the walls, installing crown molding, and replacing the skinny baseboards with larger more manly ones.

The husband also designed and built a desk to go in his new study.  Yeah, he is pretty amazing.

Phase 2

The whole bamboo flooring project was inspired by the husband designed/built credenza.  Awhile back a close architect friend of ours gifted us 2 panels with bamboo shoots embedded in them from 3Form.  The husband immediately knew he wanted to use them for the top piece of the credenza.  The wife immediately knew she wanted him to install small track lights underneath the panels so that they would be illuminated from the underside.  I added that last bit as there was a bit of a struggle on the decision before the husband finally saw the light (pun intended.)  I really love the credenza…now I just need to find some cool accessory knick-knacks.  I am still kicking myself that I passed up a beautifully restored antique brass fan at the Farm Chicks show last year, it would have been perfect!

When we started out on Sunday we still had some wall painting to do, none of the base boards were cut or installed in the closet and the blinds had not yet been purchased.  But it all came together in the end.

We love how everything came out.  I really think the bamboo floor makes it look more like a study vs. just a room we decided to put a desk in. 

Overall Project Ranking for the Bamboo Flooring

Difficultly – Moderate
Frustration – Medium
Makeability – 100% Worth It

Phase 3

Phase 3 planning has already begun!  Even though the old IKEA shelves look better in the hollowed-out closet than I thought they would, we would still like to do some built-ins.  Something we were not planning on doing before, but is now an obsession, is installation of lighting in the old closet.  How cool would 2 can lights shining down on some built in shelves look?  Now envision the lights shining down on an antique fan…seriously I should have bought that fan.  The lighting project is going to require some outside help as both Wood and Cloth are very combustible and neither has electrical experience. 

We are also going to be on the lookout for a leather chair.  The corner that has the palm tree is just begging for a stately dark brown leather chair.   This will be the chair in which the husband, after returning from his nightly constitution, will don his smoking jacket, pour himself a glass of port, and retire for the evening.   Wow, I went a bit Sherlockian there for a moment but you get the picture.

The wife may have also pitched a couple small decor projects to the husband.  While I am not allowed to "go crazy" with decorating at it is "his" study, I can still slip in a few things here and there.  Hopefully I will get some time to work on those soon.  For now I will leave you with a teaser...sticks and pineapple.

Wood & Cloth - Completion - Wood Headboard with Tufted Panel

After having to do all of the button setting and tufting twice (once with the stupidly weak upholstery thread and once with the amazing polycord) I was extremely ready to be done with the headboard project.  If you remember this headboard wasn’t even something we were keeping for ourselves!

Step 1: Checking the Fit

You will want to see how your tufted panel fits into the space you left in your wood frame.  Hopefully you left yourself enough space and it fits in flush to the sides of your opening!

If your panel is smaller than your gap (like ours was with the 1 inch clearance on all sides) and there is space between the inner edge of your frame and your tufted panel you have some options.  The gap may not bother you and you may decide to leave it.  The gap bothered us a bit as we had envisioned the wood frame butting right up against the tufted panel and didn’t like the way it looked to have the frame-gap-panel.  We ended up cutting an additional piece of wood and attaching it to the frame to fill the gap. 

If your panel is bigger than your gap…that stinks!  Unfortunately we don’t have a fix for that.  If it is off by a smidge you may be able to pull your fabric/batting/foam a bit tighter and nudge it in.

Step 2: Attaching the Panel

Position your tufted panel fabric/front side down on the floor and lay your wood frame down on top of it.   You will need to choose screws that are long enough to go through the plywood of your wood frame as well as part of the plywood of your tufted panel. 

NOTE: Make sure that you do not get screws that are too long and go through both layers of plywood and into your foam on your tufted panel.  That would probably mess-up your tufts!

Take note where your buttons are and place 6-8 screws across the back in between buttons.
That’s it you now have a Wood Headboard with Tufted Panel.

Packing Up

Unfortunately for us we did not get to bask in the glow of the project for long.  The brother was waiting for the headboard so the husband immediately began to pack it up for a trip across town.  As much as I didn’t love the design of the headboard in the first place, the look grew on me and I was hesitant to give it away, after all I did risk needles to the heart and sacrificed my thumb in its creation.

We picked one of the worst days possible to transport a fabric headboard across town.  After a relatively mild few months of winter a wet/snowy weather pattern decided to settle in.  The husband assured me that the plastic-wrap/tarps/blankets/etc. would keep the headboard dry…

I was unable to go on the delivery run so I sent my camera with the husband and instructions on how to take one final super picture that would display how amazing the bed frame looked with the bed all made up.   A picture that would make everyone want to drop what they were doing and make their own headboard...this is what I got.

Crumpled pillows, weird lighting and shadows…

Never send a man to take a picture of a “staged” bed. 

Lesson learned.