Decorating With Painted Stripes

Painting stripes is a great way to add interest to an otherwise plain room. We aren't all lucky enough to have tons of great molding and the perfect windows & doors so we need to get creative to add the wow factor in a room. Our master bedroom lacks a lot in the character area and I think that a great thick stripe shade of iridescent grey on top of the already grey walls will really warm up as well as draw your eye up and around. I just picked up new grey & cream toile bedding at a tag sale & seeing the bed all done really made me fall in love with my bedroom again. Paint is always the biggest bang for your buck and these rooms are great examples of how gorgeous the right color & sheen combinations can be!

This Blondie stripe with decorator's white gingham print is so elegant for this quest room.


Black painted wood floors are great. This room speaks volumes with that bold addition. The chair adorned with numeral 5 is fab also!

So bolder but then again so are the furnishings.

I love the thick beachy blue stripes with creamy white. With the sandy wood colors it's really ends up being really cool and summery.

This is a kids room from bhg.com. What a perfect way to hide imperfections and really get brave.

Simple and subtle but turns this small bathroom into something pretty grand.

Who says you have to spend 1800.00 on a striped dresser? A little painters tape will get you this little gem in just a few hours. I love it.

Varying the size of the stripes makes this seem more like wallpaper then a paint treatment. I just love this bedroom.

Hope this inspires you to be bold or subtle and stripe something in your home. Does anyone have any ideas for a color combo that you like for a bedroom. let me know & Happy 4th everyone!

Almost A Pottery Barn Chair

A few months back I was browsing 1 of the 500 Pottery Barn mags that come to my house each week & spotted these painted queen Anne chairs. Loved them but not going to go for the 200 price & convinced as that I'd find some chairs at GoodWill and paint them myself.

It happened...On the side of the road, 4 UN- broken Queen Anne chairs with really gross wet cushions for the taking. They are almost identical to PB's version..I was high from the excitement.

I willed them to myself I swear....just look....

The project begun at once. I had been thinking about a hounds tooth pattern for the fabric but then I saw a really thick coastal stripe in buttery yellow, slate blue and green. (2 yards for 4 chairs is perfect and the fabric was 5.00 a yrd) I wanted to replace all the foam to make it extra comfy so I purchased a bag of sheet batting and package of 4 foam cushions. All came to around 15.00 bucks.

I ended up finding Rustoleum spraypaint in a great buttery yellow satin finish at homedepot. 3 cans covered everything perfectly no primer needed.

I set up shop and started spraying...LOve iT already! BuT, I can't get 2 excited. A few light coats is the way to go for a smooth finish. I tend to rush and then do more work fixing everything.

I ripped apart the old seats and cleaned the wood with a bleach spray to kill anything that might be lurking. I let the wood dry out for 2 days.
I then layed the new foam square on top to begin the re-upolstery experiment.

Then I flipped the whole thing over and layed out the batting and traced around the seat leaving a few extra inches around the edges for stapling.

Staple the flat side first & then the sides leaving the corners for last. I made a small fold on each corner and stapled the hell out of it.

The same process for the fabric and then I trimmed the inside of each seat in case anyone crawls under the table to check my work;)

And after screwing the seat back on this project is done.

Not difficult and totally affordable. I can't wait to carry them all upstairs and see them around the table.