Treasure Hunt:: Vinyl Record Player

When my husband said he wanted a record collection it was one of those little moments where your heart spikes and you feel completely meant to be together. We both believe good music is just about as important as breathing in life and both grew up with great music in our homes. So when we realized we desired to bring that into our home together, it was a beautiful connection.

As I’ve been busy decorating our home and reeling him into my DIY projects, he was inspired to add his own touch by bringing home this Record Player recently. While it isn’t a vintage player as he had originally hoped, it’s actually better in a nostalgic sense. It is the exact same player his parents had when he was young. The same one that grew his love and excellent taste for music. I love it! 

We have a great start to our record collection - the Dead, the Doors, MJ, various jazz, Earth, Wind & Fire (my fave!) - all discovered at record stores in LA and our parents garage, of course. Poobah, Canterbury and Penny Lane in Pasadena, Amoeba in Hollywood, and Atomic Records in Burbank are a few vinyl treasure sites to start working on your collection. If you are selling excellent condition records in the LA area, please contact us!

Style:: Vintage Liz Claiborne Purse

The sailor style is in again and stripes of blue or black and white are the perfect additions to your wardrobe this summer. And in my opinion, they are a great staple trend that will last through the years.

Proof? My latest little treasure is this Vintage Liz Claiborne purse I found at Acts Thrift Shop. It was a total steal at $12 but it was a discount day so I got it for $10. I love supporting this shop because it's a Christian non-profit and all of the proceeds go to help local neighborhood programs. 

Project:: King Storage Platform Bed

Since we succeeded at making a beautiful headboard for our new bed, we couldn’t just put it on a regular old frame. We live in a small home and we have to make the most of every square inch so we knew we needed a bed with storage. We had yet to find a storage bed we loved that was right for what we wanted or right for the price. And storing sweaters and linens under the bed in storage bins works, but how many of you will admit, once it goes into the bin and under the bed you completely forget you own it. Out of sight, out of mind. That’s why I urged my husband to tackle building our own bed with great custom storage that is not only beautiful but useful as well. 

We did a lot of research on building platform beds online. And drafted several versions of what I wanted with my husband’s handyman knowledge. We eventually came up with the idea to build two large boxes with dividing walls and shelves for storage on either size and layed two large pieces of plywood on top to connect them and form the platform for the mattress. Check out homebeautiful on flickr for more photos of the project.

How we did it:

1. We measured how high we wanted the bed (35”), subtracted the mattress height (11”) and then factored in the materials for the box. We used eight 18” tall 2x4s joined at angles to form the corners of each box. We nailed these to the corners of a large sheet of 1/2” plywood (for our king-size bed, we made our boxes 24” deep by 81” long).

2. Next, we measured where we wanted the middle shelves and attached 4 more 18” tall 2x4s to act as supports for the box and to attach the middle shelves to later in the process. Attach a second piece of 1/2” plywood to the top. This created a box with three open compartments, two measuring roughly 34” wide and the middle shelf area which is about 12” wide.

3. We used six 3/16” tempered hard board pieces as the walls of each of the three sections formed by the two by fours in our boxes. We later attached a 1/2” inch plywood piece to the center of the smallest compartment creating the two center shelves. We also used this same material to close off the back of the shelves.

4. We spray painted the frame a satin white recommended for painting furniture. I didn’t want a glossy reflective look. I like the satin because it gives it a less store bought look and is a little more rustic. Some of the edges we painted before we assembled so that we wouldn’t have runs in the cracks of the pieces of wood. 

5. Last, we set up the boxes at the right spacing in the bed and attached two sheets of 1/2” thick plywood to create the platform for the bed. We painted the edges of these before attaching. While there is a gap between the two boxes, it is very sturdy. We have a memory foam mattress so there is no need for a box spring. 

Decor:: Lace Bedroom Curtains

Spring is in the air and that calls for beautiful, breezy curtains to lighten up our bedroom. The chocolate lace texture is the perfect compliment to the lacey off-white base curtains we already had in place. Since our new bedspread is a neutral solid, the solid tan curtains weren’t working and we needed to add some texture and pull more color into the room.

The palate of our new bedroom decor is coming along nicely. Brown textures, flat and textured whites, and I plan to add in some gold with two bedside lamps and the dressing mirror I’ll be bringing in. More to come on these…

Project:: Nailhead Trim Upholstered Headboard - West Elm Inspired

Since we got married we've talked about buying a king-size bed. I love my husband but I also love my sleep! Buying a king-size mattress is one feat but buying a beautiful bed frame costs as much as the mattress or more, especially for the West Elm nailhead upholstered headboard that inspired our own DIY creation. So, why not make our own?? We saved a ton of money and the headboard project went so well we built the frame too.

Here is how we made it:

1.  Build the frame. Take into consideration the height of your bed (frame and mattress) and how high you want the headboard to show above the bed. Our headboard is 60” tall above our 35” tall bed. The padded face of the headboard is 25”. To fit our king-size bed it measures 76.5” inches wide. Here is a similar photo of the frame structure for our headboard. 

2. Attach a 1/4” piece of plywood to the frame. We chose a simple rectangle for the shape measuring 76.5” x 24”.

4. Attach upholstery foam to the face of the frame with spray adhesive. You can find a precut 76.5” x 24” x 1.5” piece of foam at major craft stores. 

5. Cover with batting. Spread out a queen size bag of batting on floor and lay headboard frame with foam side down in center of batting. Pull taught around all sides and attach to back with staple gun. You will have to trip around the legs. 

6. Lay fabric of your choice, 3.5 yards for king-size, face down. Position headboard in center. Pull taught on each size and attach to back with staple gun. You will have to trim fabric and tuck and staple around the legs. Attach the top edge last as you will need to trim and fold the top edges to make a nice seam on the edge without it bunching.

7. If you like the nailhead look, attach nailheads by depressing the foam and using a rubber mallet or a hammer with a thin cloth attached so you don’t damage the decorative nailheads to nail them in pace. I lined mine up by sight and did a few over again when I messed up. As with any nailhead furniture, they aren’t perfectly straight but you can’t tell and they look great. It’s worth the difficulty. I used 6 or 7 boxes of 20 nailheads so buy extra. You can find them at major craft stores in the upholstery section.

Music Monday:: Michael Kiwanuka

Love this new UK artist, Michael Kiwanuka, from Communion Records. He’s releasing his first EP in June. 

If you want to hear about more great music, follow my husband’s tumblr Feed from the bottom. He has great taste!

Project:: Pallet Garden

As promised, above is our new Pallet Garden, the creative inspiration of my now inspired diy Hubby. We recently built a bed - yes, a full kind-size bed - from scratch together (post and instructions to come soon!) and he seems to be as completely hooked on the resourceful, money-saving, creative outlet of the diy trend as I am. And I LOVE it! He even went to the hardware store and bought all of the flowers himself. What a lucky girl I am, huh?

His inspiration for this project came from a lovely container gardening blog, Life on the Balcony.

Here are the steps to create your own Pallet Garden:

1. First, he prepped the pallet by removing any rotted boards. Then he applied a piece of 1/4 inch thick plywood to the back bottom third portion to support the weight of the dirt that would be added. 

2. He attached garden fabric to the entire back as well as whatever edge will be the “bottom” using a staple gun. The Pallet Garden is intended to be leaned against a wall when finished.

3. Fill the pallet with garden soil suitable for the flowers or herbs you intend to plant. He chose an assortment of Trailing Ice Plants in beautiful pinks, reds, and whites, a flowering cactus variety, and purple petunias (not shown as these will be planted in the “top” row of the pallet once we stand it up.

4. Place each plant as close to the “top” side of each opening in the slats, as the dirt will settle once you stand it up. Space the plants based on the recommended planting instructions. Don’t overcrowd but plant as close as the plants will allow so the roots will grow together and help hold them in place in the pallet. Water the plants. 

5. Wait one-two weeks for the dirt to settle before standing against a wall. Once you stand the pallet up, fill the top with more soil and plant more plants in the top opening if you’d like. This is where we will plant our purple petunias. Water your plants as recommended for the varieties. Ours recommend once or twice a week.

We’ll have more photos to come soon once our Pallet Garden is in place and the petunias are planted! This will be a lovely addition right near our sitting area on our patio and a warm, colorful display to lighten our morning coffee hour each day.