Whew!  After 30+ hours of intense labor, it is done.  Ladies and gentlemen, friends and fans, we are proud to announce the rebirth of our foyer. 

Welcome to the first of two articles about how we transformed our dated oak stairwell into a dramatic entryway.  Now I make it a general policy not to bore you with too much yada yada, but please forgive the longwinded prelude.  When you put over 30 hours into a DIY project, you milk it for all it’s worth. 

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I have a thing for wallpaper lately.  I’ve just finished my first project using a wallpaper effect on my staircase (reveal tomorrow !).  My next project is installing grass cloth wallpaper in my office.  

Whenever I utter the word “wallpaper” most people sneer.  Perhaps it’s because the word brings back memories of really BAD wallpaper.  You’ve all seen it.  We’ve all chuckled at it.  And if you’ve had to remove it, you detest the word “wallpaper”.  In some homes, it’s a forbidden word.  Many designers are now calling it a wall treatment or wall covering.  Aaahhh, now doesn’t that just sound better?

So in anticipation of tomorrow’s reveal, I’ll share some of my favorite wall coverings.

  Ritz in Blue by York Wallcoverings

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I was just putting the finishing touches on my staircase and foyer revamp when I noticed a glaring eyesore.  Let’s just say that it wasn’t me who decided to put the control to our home alarm system at perfect eye level, sticking out like one sore thumb.  In my newly upgraded space, it just looked all wrong.  So I decided to cover it with a miniature painting of my own.  When I proposed the idea to Mr. CG, he stated with perfect British inflection, “How very James Bond of you.” 

I recommended these dogwood prints in a mood board for Kelly several months back.  They’ve always stuck in my mind, for their color, and their botanical simplicity.  Unfortunately, they’re a bit of an investment at $288 for the pair. 

So in an attempt to inject a pop of peacock blue into my neutral space, I came up with my own imitation, based on the cherry tree branches that sit in my foyer.  Channeling Van Gogh, I used some acrylic paints leftover from my art classes to create a little work of art .  Here’s my little $5 knockoff. 

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With the tightening of the economic belt, I find that I am forced to get really creative with stuff I have just sitting around the house.

You too? 

As you know, I have been recycling some cabinet doors from the kitchen we had before the remodel of 2005.  With those old doors, my first project was to turn two of them into memo boards – those turned out really well. The second attempt was to make wall art. That project resulted in mixed reviews, most of the negativity coming from me.

Project number three was to turn the six doors I had left into a headboard.  I’ve made a fabric covered headboard before that I really love – that headboard sits in my master bedroom.  This one, on the other hand, was a lot trickier.  It’s really easy to make a fabric covered headboard with a solid piece of plywood.  It’s another thing to attempt it with a patterned fabric and six different pieces of wood. 

Here are the leftover cabinet doors before I attacked them with my staple gun:

And here is my headboard from those same doors:

We built a small “granny unit” or guest house above our garage when we added on to our house in 2005.  Currently, Mom and Pop are staying with us while their fancy shmancy house is staged and on the market.  [Should I show you pictures of their Wine Country chateau on a lake, surrounded by vineyard ?  It’s drop dead gorgeous.]

But in our guest house, there was this blank wall.  And blank walls drive me crazy.  So I decided to make a temporary headboard for that blank wall.  

Step One:  I removed all the hinges and leftover hardware. 

Step Two:  I aligned my batting and fabric on each piece, then stapled it to each individual cabinet door.  This was the hardest part of the whole project – trying to get all that fabric to match up. 

Step Three:  I labeled each door with its position on the wall.

Step Four: I located the wall studs, then matched up my D ring hanging brackets with the wall studs. 

Step Five:   I used a level to make sure the headboard’s pieces all hung straight. 

Step Six:  I also added some ribbon detail with a hot glue gun.  I’m like a decorating McGyver with a hot glue gun and a staple gun.  I can decorate just about anything with those two tools in my hands.  I know some of you share that same talent.

Don’t forget the nail head trim !  You know I have a thing for upholstery tacks. 

So here it sits, above the bed in the guest house, my headboard made out of old cabinet doors.  I think when the folks eventually move out, once their house is sold, I’ll create something else for that space.  But for now, this was a fun solution for a very blank wall.   

It’s a bit unconventional, but I think those doors are much happier covered in fabric, and not sitting in some junk yard.   

When we began our remodel in 2005, it required that we dramatically grade our rear yard to accommodate for the extension of the home.  Our rear yard has an uphill slope.  After all the tractors departed, I was left with a gigantic six foot eyesore of a retaining wall.  The only way to cover it was with clever plantings. 

In the spring of 2008, I started the landscaping process by making my own invisible trellis to hide the wall.  An invisible trellis is an inexpensive way to train a vine up a wall without the expenditure and installation of wood lattice or a metal trellis. 

Here’s a look at my version up close:

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