A Designer At Home

Welcome back! One of the major purchases for my Home Office decorating/furnishing adventure were the chairs. I wanted the oh-so-popular Eames style chairs for the space. I had been looking on Craigslist for over a year when it came to the final count down to getting the space done, so I started scouring the internet. I’m cheap, facts are facts, and I wanted the cheapest I could find. The cheapest I could find were on Amazon from a few different sellers. So I added them all to my cart, checked them daily for about a month, and bought the one that hit the lowest price point.

That was these guys: Designer Modern Plastic Dining Side Chair WoodLeg Eiffel Base Set of 2

Here are my thoughts:

The Seat: The seat is a semi gloss with texture. The texture is less pronounced than the plastic seats we had in school when we were kids. The color is white, point blank. There is no blue hue. The color stays consistent in both natural and unnatural lighting. The back of the seat has a bit of flex to it. I’m not sure if this is a “flimsy” quality. The edges of the seat are smooth, there is no seam where the mold would have pressed together.

The Legs: The wood legs are a light colored wood (maybe inexpensive pine?). They appear to have a satin finish of some kind that gives them the same textured feel as the plastic seat. The legs are wrapped in a shrink-wrap plastic (I wonder if this is the lacquer finish one of the reviewers was referring to). If you don’t remove the screws in the legs before ripping the plastic off, I personally experienced pieces of plastic stick around these screws that would not pull out.

Construction: Happy to call this a one man job, even with a toddler fiddling with things. However, if you’re not apt to figuring out how to put things together, you may not like that instructions were completely nonexistent. There are two pieces for each chair, the legs and base and the plastic seating portion. Attaching the two is pretty straightforward as there are included screws and an allen wrench. As suggested in the Amazon reviews, I used the felt pads that were initially covering the hardware under the chair, and put them under the legs in order to protect my hardwood floors.

Shipping: I places my order late June 18th, 2014. My order arrived, unharmed, on June 24, 2014. Stellar considering the shipping was FREE.

My Final Thoughts: They finish makes them very easy to clean. Huge bonus for those with pets, children, or messy housemates. The chairs feel absolutely steady, but I have experienced one toppling over while my toddler was playing around on it. I don’t quite blame that on the chair though as he seems to topple off of any furniture (without tipping them though). With these chairs you get a lightweight, well made chair that attaches to a sturdy “Eiffel” style base. There are so many Eames replicas out there with variable reviews and prices and these were the cheapest ones I could find for sale. At $64.50 per chair (shipping and taxes included in that flat price!), and better quality than I expected based on reviews, I couldn’t be happier.

With progress on my Home Office officially over (I love the space, it’s turned out beautifully and you should absolutely check it out!), it feels like the perfect time to go over my radical gold duct tape curtains. I spend more time than I’ll ever admit to watching fashion and beauty Youtubers. One YouTuber in particular who inspired me in this project is Evelina Barry. She’s a fashion Youtuber with an amazing film space. One of the walls she uses to film in front of is white with very cool gold painted chevron accent wall. I already have a Southwestern Inspired Accent Wall in my office, so I thought curtain panels that I could pull together would work best for my needs.

The thought of taping out the design, painting it, then peeling back all that tape felt daunting. I just finished a project like that and just wasn’t feeling up for taking on another project like that so soon. That’s when Jenna LaFevor’s Duct Tape Trim Curtains came to mind. I remembered enjoying her project a while back and I knew I could apply the same concept to my accent wall of curtains.

What I Used 

7 rolls of Gold Duct Tape, Canvas Drop Cloth, Canvas Drop Cloth, Canvas Drop Cloth, Canvas Drop Cloth, Marker

How Long It Took

3 Hours

The Process

I started out by Washing, Drying, and Wrinkle Releasing 2 canvas drop clothes. The “panels” were still pretty wrinkly despite being run through the wrinkle release so I laid them out in the most empty room of our house and flattened them by placing heavy objects along the corners. Once they were flat enough, I used a tape measure to find the center of each side, and a marker to mark that spot.

Once the center point was found, I folded over the side that I wanted to be the top and clipped my rings over the fold. By doing this after marking the center, it created a more diamond shape. I used a tape measure and yard stick to connect center points and lay a piece of duct tape.

Once I had the center points connected, I used my yard stick to create a space between lines of duct tape. The distance used was 1 roll of the yard stick. I did a roll, laid down a line of duct tape, another roll, line of duct, and so on and so forth.

I used the excess tape along the outisde of the panel to my advantage to tape the panels to the floors. The drop clothe would move all over the place as I moved around atop it and taping the edges down like this helped a lot! When I had the design as far as I wanted to take it, I lifted up those edges of tape and folded them under. The corners of the inner diamonds I just snipped to a point with scissors.

Then I hung them up and stood staring at them with a huge grin on my face. I really like them! I think they turned out cooler in person than I had imagined them!

The ripples made when hung are so groovy. I love the shine that the tape provides and the unique way the pattern catches the eye. I bet this would look cool in any of the colored tapes. Perfect for a kid’s room!

I can hardly decide what it is I first want to say and do in front of these cameras. I’m feeling completely inspired and hope you’ll stop by my YouTube channel in the future to see what happens!

This is one of many projects I worked on for my Home Office. My office is pretty stellar if you don’t mind my saying so; Don’t forget to check out some easy DIY projects like the Southwestern Inspired Accent Wall, DIY Vase Lamp, and Gold Rhino with a Giant Paperclip for holding cute pictures and notes!

I want to share with you the tutorial for my rolling pallet planter as part of the Perfect BBQ Blog Hop! So you’ve got delicious food, and the cutest table setting. The decorations are up and you’re taking a seat to absorb it all in. As you look around you notice your big fat air conditioning unit is right there. How can you possibly enjoy all that great food and great company with that ugly hunk of metal staring at you? Don’t let this be you.

OK, so your BBQ isn’t anywhere near your air conditioning unit. I get that. How about unsightly trash cans? There’s definitely something to be camouflaged. And it doesn’t get much better than cute camouflage on wheels!

You’ll love how this pallet planter will look in your space. In any space!

What You’ll Need

Spray Paint, Pallet, 2 locking swivel wheels, 2 swivel wheels, metal buckets, screws, scrap wood.

How Long It Takes

Less than 1 hour!

Pallet Planter On Wheels Tutorial

You’ll want to be sure you’ve got a sturdy pallet. It can be aged, I let my age outdoors for the past few months so that the paint will get chippy easy without any additional work on my part. But, the pallet itself shouldn’t wobble.

Spray your favorite color spray paint all over each visible side. It helps to lay it out onto a large drop clothe so that you don’t have to maneuver it any. With it being as hot and sunny as it is here in Virginia, the paint dried within minutes so I filled in any patches immediately.

Lay out cute metal buckets. I picked up these adorable copper buckets at the dollar tree last summer, but have seen them this summer too! It’ll depend on how many planks your pallet has as to how many buckets you’ll need. I spaced mine out 1 plank in between with 3 rows. That gave me 12 buckets.

We get so hot in the summer that I intentionally opted not to drill holes into the bottoms of the buckets, but it’s something you can do if you’ll need to!

Using my new *Ryobi Drill (the one I won in the Creating With The Stars Upcycle Link Up) I drilled screws through each bucket and into the wood behind it. I had no idea what difference it made to be using a good drill. It was butter, guys.

I had hubby cut the scrap wood with a circular saw. I estimated about 4 times the depth of the planter for the length of the pieces of wood the wheels would screw into. It needs to be longer to balance out the heavy face of the pallet once dirt and water are in those buckets.

After a quick spritz of spray paint, I used the drill again to attach the wheels with screws.

Being careful, flip the pallet upside down. Drill the scrap wood to the pallet, leaving slightly more of the piece on the side with the buckets (again, to help balance out those heavy pots).

Don’t laugh, but I couldn’t find washers and my screw heads were too small for the holes of the casters. Those are picture hanging tabs leftover from another project. I wasn’t about to make another trip to the hardware store this week.

Flip the pallet back over and onto it’s wheels. You can put any plant that will love wherever your pallet will be housed. I found a great 12 pack of multi-hued petunias for $9.98 at my Lowes. They love lots of son!

Let’s see this bad boy in action!

And how about that air conditioning unit? Yup.. we have a BEAST.

It’s fantastic! Don’t forget to “hop” on over to the other projects to complete your Perfect BBQ!