I often like to rearrange the furniture, and while I’m at it, just throw some new paint on the walls.  It’s a very serious yet incurable condition ~ fortunately, my hub has adjusted to these sudden whims I have.

A few months ago, I repainted the kids playroom a pale green color.  It’s a combination of the leftover BM ‘Camouflage’ from the kitchen, mixed with some of the green leftover from these cottage chairs. 

The other day I was at Tarjay and found these modern stacking green chairs for the kids’ play space ~ I just love the pop of fresh color they bring to this room.   I’m also loving this Dash & Albert Caravan Stripe rug ~ it was meant to go upstairs in the boy’s room, but it’s just going to have to live here for a little while. 

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Awhile back, it was my grand idea idea to spruce up the living room walls with some traditional panel and picture frame wainscoting – in fact, it was my specific “please, oh please, honey can we please” request for Mother’s Day.  I managed to catch the Mister at a weak moment, and with a little charm and a lot of begging, he agreed to take on this project. 

We started our adventures in wainscoting back in May, and over the course of several weekends, we were finally able to finish, whew ! (dramatically swiping hand across brow)  There was some intense labor involved, some minor curse words muttered, a few panel do overs, plenty of cutting, a whole lotta caulking and spackling, and then there was all that priming and painting. 

I need to sit down, that was exhausting. 

Here’s the first peek:

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I love it when a plan comes together !  I’ve been working on the living room all week, mostly the wainscoting, but one of the other pieces I also wanted to makeover was my brown velvet settee.  I love the shape of this piece – it fits on the wall next to the fireplace to perfection, but I was sooooooo done with the dark brown color.  Rather than pay big bucks to have it reupholstered, I decided, for now, to simply slipcover it. 

I’ve mentioned before that my sewing skills are limited, but over time, I’ve been challenging myself to take on more intermediate sewing projects – this was certainly one of them.  I confess, I’ve admired the slipcovers across blogland for a long time, but this is my first attempt at slipcovering a piece of furniture myself.  After four days of piecing it together, bit by bit, I’m pretty satisfied with my new summer linen slipcover. 

Lovely readers, meet my little settee and her pretty new linen slipcover. 

Before:

After:

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For the longest time, I’ve been wanting to create a chess/checkerboard table for our own family room, so how excited was I to see one of my cousins actually take on this project herself !  I’m lucky to be Stephanie’s cousin by marriage, and I just love how with a little ingenuity, she transformed someone else’s discarded end table into a chess game table with two types of stain and imagination !  

The best part is, this was her first DIY project.  Bravo Stephanie ! 

Here is Stephanie’s DIY story:

“I found this table no one wanted next to a dumpster and I thought it would be fun to transform it into a chess/checkerboard table, an idea inspired by a table at my local coffee shop. 

The table had a lot of water marks, the finish was peeling, and one panel of the table was uneven.  So, a friend and I brought it home and set to work to transform it. 

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