The Green Chair

I first mentioned the green chair in this post, then again here.  To catch some of you up to speed, the green chair was a vintage piece of furniture Franz had in his house as a child.  This chair has a lot of memories attached to it.
Franz has talked about this chair every now and then for as long as I've known him.  We started talking about it again one day, and I asked him if his dad was still using the chair or if he would consider letting Franz have it.  A few email exchanges later and his dad had boxed it up, sent it via Greyhound freight and it arrived two weeks later.  Cost:  $89 from upstate New York to southern California.  Best way to ship ever!  His dad generously paid for it and we were excited to get going on refurbishing it.

We think the chair is from the 60's.  It's definitely got a mid-century vibe to it.  The existing fabric was this hard to describe fuzzy green almost shag.  I have never seen anything like it, and I've seen a lot of fabric in my line of work.  Of course since Franz has always fondly called this the 'green chair', we knew we wanted to find a new green fabric that would bring it into this century, yet still retain the vintage feel.

After a ton of searching, we finally found the perfect fabric, a green chenille with a subtle modern chevron pattern.  The fabric is super soft, and the chevron gives it the retro look we were hoping for.  I dropped it off at the upholsterers and a few weeks later it was ready to pick up.

Here's a picture up close of the subtle pattern:

The kids are already enjoying lounging:

And doing some reading:

It's perfect, and comfortable (really, really comfortable!) and already making memories for the next generation.  Hopefully when our girls are older, they will have many stories of their own to tell about the green chair.

The Evolution of a Room

When I was working on the kids bedroom, I started thinking that it might be fun to show how many different 'looks' this little room has had over the years. 
First, the details of our just under 1000 square feet house-  it has three small bedrooms, a living room that also includes a dining area, a kitchen and one full bathroom.  When Franz bought the house, we had just started dating.  A year and a half later we were married and I moved in.  It was just the two of us, so the size of the house wasn't an issue and we planned on moving to a larger home once we started a family.  We had extra rooms to set up however we liked, we left for work in the morning at different times, so sharing a small bathroom was never a problem. 

Fast forward 5 1/2 years later, and this little house has had to work really hard to accommodate our growing family.  What started out as the "guest room" (9' x 9'- yep, you read that right!), has evolved into two different nurseries (one for each child) and now functions as the girls bedroom. 

Here's the guest bedroom circa 2006:

Here is that same room as Avery's nursery in 2009:

Here was Zoe's nursery in 2010:      

And here we are, present day, the Girls Bedroom 2012:

When you live in a small house, you're forced to constantly be thinking "how can I use this space better"?  That means a lot of moving furniture around, getting rid of things that no longer work for your family, adding new things that do, and even using rooms unconventionally if need be.  For now, this arrangement works best for our family.  But, if the past is any indication, I know this room won't stay this way for very long.

Finished Girls Bedroom

I think I finally got the girls room to be as finished as it's going to be.  If I've learned anything these past three years, it's that kids needs change so quickly as they grow.  This always gives me the perfect opportunity to start over, so I know I'll be back at it soon enough and this room will evolve once again.

You've seen the headboards in this post, now let's look at some other fun DIY projects.  Since the girls are sharing a room, that leaves one extra bedroom to use as a playroom, so their bedroom does not have to house their toys.  As far as function, this room really only needed to be a place they could sleep, read and enjoy some quiet time away from their toys.

They needed a bookshelf to hold all their books and it needed to be narrow enough to fit between their beds and tall enough for a fan and a lamp that they couldn't reach.  I found this bookshelf on Craigslist for $25, painted it white and added a subtle pop of color on the back.  It was a perfect fit.

And yes, it's totally anchored and strapped to the wall.  It won't be tipping over during any earthquake or toppling over if one of the kids should decide to test out their climbing abilities.
The closet in that room holds the girls dresser.  Yes, all their clothes fit in that one dresser.  You would be surprised at how large and deep those drawers are, and I only keep the clothes they are currently wearing in the dresser.  I took the mirrored doors off that closet a long time ago, and wanted to dress up that little niche in some way.

I took the pelmet from Avery's big girl room and recovered it in a pink canvas, added a burnt orange pom pom trim and ribbon around the top.  Looking for the easy way out (meaning I didn't want to put any unnecessary holes in my freshly painted walls!), I used a shower curtain tension rod, some ring clips, and hung up two tablecloths as curtains.
In each of the girls nurseries, I hung up their footprints that were taken right after birth.  For this room, I just cut new matching mats using scrapbook paper and painted the frames white.

One morning, Zoe and I dashed into the Salvation Army and found two "granny style" picture frames.  They were a terrible cheap guilded gold color, but they had a linen filet which was nice and they were fairly large for only $9.99 each. 

I painted them white, leaving the natural linen filet and just a tiny lip of the gold.  Another plus was they didn't have glass, they were perfect for the two new prints I ordered:

One day the girls and I were strolling through Target when I spotted this fabulous body pillow cover in the perfect shade of aqua.  It had a bumpy chenille texture that was really interesting.  I brought it home, cut it up and sewed two new covers for some throw pillows.

I love this room, I'm pretty sure the girls do too.  Sometimes I'll find them both in there, sitting on their beds, looking at their books, listening to their music from their crib aquariums (yes, they each have their own- less fighting this way).  It makes my heart smile when I catch them like that.  But, just to keep things real here, this is usually what the room looks like by the days end:

*Yes, both my kids sleep on a mattress that sits on the floor.  We still find Avery half on half off the bed most nights, and Zoe is still too little for anything higher.  Eventually they will both get "real" beds, but not for awhile.

Source list:

Wall Paint- Lowe's Valspar Delicate Bliss 7001-8

Bookshelf back- Lowe's Valspar Stillness 7005-2

Aqua Lamp, Tablecloths for closet curtains, Aqua body pillow, yellow jersey knit sheets- Target

Yellow and White Chevron Throw Blankets- Homegoods

Floral Heart Print- Urban Outfitters Print Shop

Fox in Socks Print- Society 6

Yellow square mirrors- Ikea

Check back later as I have a pretty fun post about how rooms evolve.  It will show what this room used to look like 5 1/2 years ago when Franz and I were first married, and all the different rooms it's become since then.                   

The Project that broke my sewing machine

One afternoon I was strolling through Homegoods when I came across these striped rugs in really bright fun colors.  I had seen rug bags before, so I bought two and thought it would be a really fun, quick project.  I mean how hard could it be?  It's two side seams, two corner seams and sewing two handles on.  Piece of cake!

After about an hour of really frustrating sewing, I had managed to break 2 needles, my needle up/down function, and my thread kept fraying and breaking.  It was after all this that I realized I hadn't reset my tension after making the streamers for Avery's party.  I had my tension set at the highest setting possible, so no wonder my poor Viking just gave up on me.   

I packed up my machine and took it in for service...$79 and a week later it was as good as new.  I finally finished the rug bags, but I definitely won't be making any more of them.

This bag is sturdy and huge- lots of room for towels, snacks, some reading material and sunscreen.

I think I'm going to stick with some less demanding sewing projects for a little while.  Or skip sewing altogether to hit the beach with my new bag and a good book.