Pallets Become Outdoor Furniture

This has been one of my biggest challenges so far... and I have loved it.  First here is a pretty "after" picture of the couch.  Over the last week, you can often find me out here having morning tea with the kids.

This is how I went about it. 

I found these two pallets at an industrial park on Sunday afternoon.  Can you believe that they are giving these things away?!

I left one as is for the base of the couch, and cut the bottom off the second pallet to make the back rest.  To create the back of the couch I removed some planks, and cut the bits of wood underneath, so that the "back" of the couch could fit into the "base" of the couch.  I hope you can follow my technical language.  :-/



I attached the "back" to the base using screws.  The top of the back rest had quite a few issues as seen in the below picture.

The plank I pulled off early was repurposed and I screwed it along the top to hide the mess underneath.

But afterlooking at it for a few days, I just felt that the back rest was a bit top heavy, and the screws holding it in place may not have been able to hold it.  I got out the trusty hand saw and cut the top section off.  I bought a piece of heavy duty foam cut to size, and I literally sat on the project for a week or two, pondering what I was going to cover the foam with. 

Marine grade material, which is weather resistant, was out of the question...too expensive.  But I needed something hardwaring, as it is outside (although protected), it will be exposed to some weather elements.  I have covered a couch using drop sheet material (as seen in this project).  So I was willing to have a go my self, just I lacked this inspiration.  Then one day when I was getting out of the car I noticed the orange and pink cushions ('cause I had them in the garage).  I had bought them for $5 each several months ago at Target - not because I liked the colours, but because they were cheap inserts.  They were in the garage, because I never managed to bring them inside.

Anyhoo, I threw them against the couch, and BINGO they looked great, and then I remembered I had some left over drop cloth, and the colour of the drop sheet looked good as well.  And out came the sewing machine.

I also added some locking castors, so it is easy to move aournd.  And here is some pretty pictures of the finished project.

The flowers are looking good too.

Linking to these awesome blogs here

What to do with an unwanted dresser mirror

I have been MIA lately.  I'm not sure why.  I haven't been away or anything exciting.  I have tackled a few projects around the house.  Some of which are in Little Angel's bedroom, including this mirror.

The first big project was this mirror that came from this dresser I found at an Op shop.

The dresser is very rough and has lots of marks on it.  But I love the shape, unfortunately it came with a mirror.  I haven't done anything to the dresser yet, however, it is being used in the kids play room to store all their bits and bobs.

So then I had this left over mirror

Again it had a nice shape to it but was not a pretty colour.

 Out came the spray paint.

And...I love it.  It is just perfect for a princess in waiting.

 It is hanging in little angels bedroom quite low on the wall.  I did this for two reasons. 

    1. it is at little angels height.  Which she just loves as she is right into dressing up like a ballarina or fairy.  And loves looking at herself in the mirror, so now she has a full length mirror right near her wardrobe.

    2. if it fell off the wall, then it wasn't going to fall far.  I am fairly confident it will stay, I got a hook designed for heavy objects and it has been nailed into the stud.  But you just never know.

Anyway, I have a few more projects to finish off.

Linking it to these great blogs

   

                                                      

Also linking here

Outdoor Inspiration

I'm a bit slow...
I have been on Pinterest for a while now, but this morning I finally sat down a tried to work out how to add my inspiration photos from Pinterest to my blog.

Turns out it is not that hard.

So, that all done, please sit back and enjoy some pretty inspiration photos for our outdoor area.

I love the hanging pendant lights inparticular.  I also love the "outdoor room" feel of this space.

Source: decorpad.com via Sarah on Pinterest

I love the whole space

Source: google.com via Sarah on Pinterest

Source: egywater.com via Sarah on Pinterest

Source: None via Sarah on Pinterest

ooooh love the idea of shutters...

Source: southernliving.com via Sarah on Pinterest

...and curtains

Source: None via Sarah on Pinterest

I love the pallete furniture.  I feel a project coming on :-)

Source: x4duros.com via Sarah on Pinterest

 Ok, I better go.  I need to do less looking, and more doing.

How to upholster the back of a chair.

Firslty what do you take on holidays?  I drove, so of course that means you can fill the car up just a little bit more.  Let me start off with the things I forgot.  I forgot my phone charger, socks and hairbrush.  But at least I remembered the important stuff, my drill, staple gun, and hot glue gun.  Due to my little stint in hospital I didn't get an opportunity to pull out the drill and hot glue gun, but they got to come on holidays anyway.  My staple gun worked harder than ever.

 So here is the before picture

There are four chairs.  All of them had arms to the side, but some were very damaged so we ended up removing two sets.

The seat base was easily covered and I haven't done a tutorial on how to do this, as there is lots of tutorials on the web (remember google is my friend).  The front of the back of the chair is covered in the same way as the base, however that leaves the back of the chair exposed.

Excuse the blurry picture, but you get the idea.

So now I will beging my tutorial on how to upholster the back of a chair.  Two things to remember, I staple from the middle to the outsides, as you can make adjusments at the corners if needed, and trim most of you excess material as this leaves a less bulky look.

Lets get started in three easy peasy steps.

Step 1. Attach the material to the top of the chair (wrong side out) so that you flip the material over the staples and they will be hidden.



Top row of staples hold the fabric in place.



When fabric is flipped over staples are hidden and leaves a neat edge.

Its important to keep all lines lined up, and the row of staples neat.  I try to staple as close to the top of the chair as possible, this give me the line of the chair back to follow. And remember keep flipping the material back and forth to make sure it is looking straight, its easy to remove a wayward staple at this stage (which I did about 3029 times).

Step 2 The sides
Continue stapling unitl you get need the end and turn the edge under and staple in place.

Looks like this with material flipped over.

 I then tend put one staple in the material at the base of the back.  This just keeps the material in place, and nice and straight while I work on the sides.

Then using a strip of fake nails I attach the sides with tacks

Thats my strip of fake nails, you can see the holes every fifth tack along to tack in the real tacks (is that too many tacks in one sentance??)

Remember to keep the material straight and tight.

Step 3 The base

Staple in place from the middle out, keeping the material tight, then cut to fit around the legs

Trim off excess material.  Turn chair upright and try to get your daughter off it for a photo.

The Before

The After

Better than a suntan??

I'm linking this here