Identity Crisis

We have a four bedroom house, and three of the bedrooms are upstair, with the master downstairs. My daughter has her own room and we have chosen to have the boys share a room, because the space is large and they actually prefer to sleep in the same room right now.

So the third bedroom has a few different functions. It serves as a guest room, my husband uses it as a work space when he occasionally works from home, and all our crafts and sewing and such are stored in there.

Our guest room used to look like this, with a twin bed, but we moved the mattress out when our youngest child graduated from a toddler bed. So the room has been bed-less for a while. I also stole the pictures above the bed and the rug to use in the playroom, so it was looking pretty empty.

We occasionally have visitors, and have always thought of putting a queen bed in this room, so we were excited when my bro-in-law asked if we wanted to keep their guest room queen mattress and storage bed for them while their house is being built. Although we don't plan on keeping this particular bed, it'll be good to try out a queen in this space.

This bed definitely needed a headboard, so I found a really cool headboard on craigslist for $15, and because a finial had fallen off, I talked them down to $10.

This headboard is AMAZING. It deserves to go in an awesome, well designed room, not in a hodge-podge room with an identity crisis. But you know the best thing about this room? Aside from the $10 headboard, I haven't spent any additional money by using things I already had.

I'm not sure I want to spend a lot of time and money redoing this room, especially since the bed and mattress aren't going to stay. And we may move my husband's office downstairs (which is a large budget goal for the future,) and I also want to improve the craft storage in this room by creating a more functional closet. I'm not even sure I want to paint the headboard, because this room doesn't have a clear vision yet. So for now, this room will remain the hodge-podge room, and I will continue to remain frustrated by it. But sometimes when designing a room, you just gotta wait it out for when the time is right.

What about you? Do you have a room with an identity crisis?

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Piano Styling Ideas

Wow, it's been a while! The last week of school was a whirlwind and now we are into the second week of summer and having a great time! But now that the kids are home it leaves me very little time to work on projects, so I hope you'll excuse my absence.

Today I want to talk about piano styling! Many of you have pianos, many of you might not. But if you don't, keep reading anyway, because the tricks and tips to styling a piano can easily transfer to dressers, consoles and tops of other things.

Recently I asked several of my friends if I could style their pianos for them and use them as examples on the blog. I was actually surprised by those that agreed to it, because their homes are already beautiful and definitely don't need my help! But sometimes it's just nice to have another person come in and give a different perspective, right?

The first was Sarah's house. Sarah has been my partner in crime in many trips to the flea market, and she has a great eye and loves to decorate. Her house is BEAUTIFUL, but she was stuck when trying to decorate her antique piano. The challenge with this piano is the windows above it, and the two lamps against the three windows wasn't very complimentary.

So I took everything down and started gathering accessories from her house that she already had. And this girl has a LOT! I traded out one lamp for a more substantial lamp base, and on the other side of the piano I added a teal vase with a spray of flowers to add balance to the other side. Next to the vase I put a beautiful brass pitcher and a small wire ball, which mimics the style of the lamp. In the middle I selected some teal and navy books and set them next to a bust of Jesus and an antique iron.  

Now the space has a little more interest and compliments the windows instead of competes with them.

Next is Tristen's piano. She has a beautiful new house, and although much of her home is already decorated, she hadn't gotten to the piano room yet. 

Her piano is situated on a small, but very tall wall. And smack in the middle of the wall is the light switch, which creates a challenge if you want to hang anything on the wall. 

So I went to Hobby Lobby to look for a solution and found this set of three black mirrors. The moroccan shape matches the curtains and other design elements in her home so it was a natural choice. They fit very nicely above the piano and light switch and breaks up that tall wall. 

Tristen wanted the top of her piano to be colorful and reflect a little bit of her personality. So we stole a glass lamp from the guest room, added a stack of some of her favorite books and a beautiful silver bowl on top, and from my house we added three jars in varying colors and sizes. 

They way I styled Tristen and Sarah's pianos are unique in their own way, but they have many similarities. I like to style in groups of three with varying heights. Books, nick knacks, heirlooms, and small interesting pieces are perfect for piano tops, as well as colorful glass jars and flowers. And lamps. I think every piano needs a lamp, and both of these lamps are situated on the side of the piano that is closest to the corner of the room which needs more light. 

For a little change, I want to show you my piano now. 

I kind of haphazardly decorated it a while back, trying to stick with a white and bright theme to lighten up the piano and match the large gallery wall of white frames next to it. But all that white is just too much, and I'm ready for change. 

I found this amazing mirror on clearance for $30 at Hobby Lobby and painted it white to go above the piano. With a white mirror above and a black piano below, I wanted to add some texture and earthy colors to the middle, but still keep it bright and modern. I changed out the lamp, took out the tired looking music books, and added a vase with colorful flowers, as well as a few other accessories. I like it because it has sort of a moroccan vibe, which ties in well with the mirror.

But while I was at it, I decided to style the piano a different way, this time using a monochromatic theme. Teal is like the color of the decade it seems, so you can't go wrong. I didn't do groups of three in this one, and instead placed them evenly. But with the varying heights and shapes, it still works. I'm kinda wishing the bird was a little bit smaller, but 100% of these pieces I already had in my home, so I worked with what I had.

And then I changed it up again with a royal/navy blue and gold theme, which is a really popular color combo right now. Using a large vase of greenery or flowers is a bold statement. If you really wanted to be simplistic, you could forego all the other accessories and just do a large interesting vase of flowers and it would look clean, simple and fabulous.

And lastly, I decided to be a little quirky and do a solid row of colorful books with A to Z bookends. This is a good option for anyone who likes to be a little unconventional, or even for those with a small space that would like to use the piano as a functional bookshelf.

So tell me, which is your favorite?

I hope that this gave you some ideas for styling your own piano! So now.... go, my child! Gather your accessories, get thee to a thrift store, pick out some interesting stuff, and style away!

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Wicker Chest Makeover

I found this wicker chest for $7.50 on one of my recent trips to the thrift store, and I was super excited because I have been looking for something to hold my kids' dress-up clothes. It was in relatively good shape, but definitely needed a facelift, so I decided to paint it.

My first thought was to spray paint wide navy stripes, so I got out the painters tape and plastic and created a pattern. I immediately suspected failure however, because the tape was not sticking at all. But I decided to follow through just to see what would happen.

After I finished taping off, I put on a glove and held down the tape in the areas I was spray painting to try to eliminate over spray. It worked ok, but didn't eliminate the problem completely.

The bigger issue was that the paint was glossy and the color was more royal blue than I wanted. It just looked horrible and not very wicker-like. So then I sprayed the whole top blue. Even worse. And so I cut my losses (a single can of spray paint) and bought a tester size of Midnight Dream by Behr in a flat sheen and painted over it. Much better. Once the blue was dry, I used some leftover pink and painted smaller stripes to give it a little pop and tie into the colors of the playroom.

I think I'm glad I sprayed first, because it did a great job of covering all the grooves and crevices, which would have been a pain with a paint brush. So in the end, I don't think I regret it, but just like many DIY projects, I have learned a lot. Total cost for this project was $14!

Any of you have big DIY plans for the weekend? I'd love to hear!

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While we're on the subject of walls....

A few months ago I decided to do some drastic painting in the playroom and upstairs hallways. You can read about that HERE. And sadly, it's taken three months to return back to the hallway and finish it up.

I wanted to do a small gallery wall with the kids' art, as well as few family pics and happy quotes, and I have been inspired lately by collages with a mixture of frame colors like this:

I love that there is a cohesiveness, but they aren't matchy-matchy. I am also drawn lately to thin frames with white mats, so that was definitely part of the criteria when hunting for frames.

I decided to go with thin white, black, oak and gold frames. I found most of them at Salvation Army for $1 to $2 a piece, and most of them came with mats, albeit ugly ones. But that was easily fixed with a few light coats of white spray paint.

I framed some of the kids' art, and grabbed a few family pictures and quotes I already had, and then went online in search of some other fun quotes to complete the wall. For the hallway, I wanted typography that was colorful and not extremely wordy or busy, and also something I could download and print. Etsy is the place to go for prints for your walls, but weeding through the thousands of choices is a chore. Lucky for me, my friend Jande had just recently opened up a Etsy shop called InspireYourArt and it is FULL of just the things I was looking for.

I love the colors on this one:

InspireYourArt

And the simplicity of this:

InspireYourArt

And I mean, who doesn't love the irony of a dainty feminine poster with angry girl anthem lyrics?

InspireYourArt

So I purchased, downloaded, printed and popped these into their frames in no time at all. What takes the longest is arranging them on the wall. With a collage of frames in varying sizes like this, sometimes you have try try out a bunch of different combinations in order to get the right look.

What used to be my least favorite part of the house is now one of my favorites. Seriously, this is a 1000% improvement from the boring, beige and dark armpit that it was four months ago. It's happy, colorful and full of personality, and I hope that as my kids pass by it every day they will absorb some of that happiness.

And to bring you a little happiness as well, Jande is offering 50% off to all my Mid Mod readers! Her downloads are only $5, so half off is a STEAL! Go visit her STORE and enter MM50OFF at check out to receive your discount!

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Featured

I was featured in a new link-up party called Off the Hook Monday last week sponsored by Daisy Cottage Designs and Little Monkeys Crochet.  Hop over there and see this week's entries. People link up anything from recipes to crochet to home makeover projects like mine, and it's a wonderful place to find creative inspiration.

Also, if you haven't liked my Mid Mod Facebook page, please do! 

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Abby's Room Mini Makeover Part III - Picture Wall

The last part of Abby's room to tackle is the wall with her bed on it, which is a completely blank wall with lots of possibility. This wall poses a few problems, however. To save space, I did not center her bed on the wall, and instead moved it closer to the window so that she has more play space. So that creates a problem for anything going on that wall, because if you center it with the wall, it won't be centered with the bed. Make sense? So to remedy that, I initially wanted to do a gallery wall that would take up a great portion of the wall, like this. Please pardon my rudimentary graphics.

But I also had two pictures shelves from Ikea that weren't being used, so I thought I would work those into the plan and instead do shelves with pictures. That of course poses an issue because if I centered the shelves, they would be off center with the bed, like the figure below.

And if I centered them above the bed, there would be a lot of empty space, especially when the door is closed. And it's a little boring.

So instead I opted for a hybrid of the two and staggered the shelves and added two larger frames on each side, like so. 

I think this was a great option, because your eye isn't looking for the center point of the display like in the second and third example above. And it's a little more interesting than just a collage of pictures, like in the first example. But the best thing I like about the last option, is that we can easily change out the art and rotate the frames around by simply taking them off the shelves. Perfect for a budding artist with a revolving repertoire.

So aside from getting a new fan (the existing new world ornate fan doesn't quite work in here) I think I am finally finished with Abby's room.

Here's the breakdown in costs for this mini-makeover. Since most of the things I already had, the costs were pretty minimal. And of course, these are rounded-up figures, not exact.

Desk paint: $15
Stool: $10
Fabric and paint for stool: $10
Lamp: $5
Paint for Bookcase: $12
Paper for bookcase: $2
New Bedspread: $15 (Thanks, Target Cartwheel!)
White sheets: $15
Frames: $12 (mostly from Ikea)
Flower arrangement: $4

Total spent: $100

And to refresh your memory, here's the rest of her room:

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Mini Makeover Part II - Reinventing a Bookcase

Opposite the wall with desk is Abby's dresser. It used to stand alone, but I decided to bring in this old black bookcase and a frame to see how they fit in the room. Obviously they looked very out of place, but the scale was right, so I set out to refinish them.

I sanded, primed and painted the bookcase, and then I went to Michaels and got this scrapbook paper for .20 cents each.

I could have done chevron, or another trendy pattern, but I really like the thought of keeping a girly timeless look and adding modern elements with accessories, and it fits well with the colors and decor of her room.

First I measured each piece and then used spray adhesive to adhere it to the backs of the bookcase. The measuring takes a little bit of time, but glueing them on takes no time at all and you don't have to wait for it to dry. It took nine sheets of paper, so a total of $2.20 to add some fun to an otherwise boring piece.

Then I took it up to her room and gathered anything in the house that might work (including all her nick-knacks)  and styled the bookcase.

And here it is in the room.

This part of the makeover was actually several mini projects in one. Along with the bookcase and large frame above it, I also painted the lamp base, and the dance sign. You might also notice the little shelves on the adjacent wall. That is a little shelf that I like to call a Granny Nook, so Abby can put more of her collectables and nick-nacks. I got it for free from a family member, (thanks, Damaris) and I painted it white as well.  

Next up in the bed wall, and I'm dreading it because it involves lot and lots of frames. If you don't hear from me in a while, you know what I'm doing. 

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