Day 766: No-Sew Skirted Table

After we made the skirted tables for my sister's wedding, I knew that we needed one to use as a desk for the office. It took a little convincing to get Wes on board -- I think he was hung up on the word "skirt," which clearly wasn't fit for his man room/office. I eventually wore him down by e-mailing him inspirational photos every other day and threatening to never make him pancakes again.


Not only did he change his mind, but he upped the anty and really improved on the original project by building a super-sturdy desk that fits our needs perfectly (and it looks pretty darn good, too). He's so handy.


You'll have to ask him if you want to know more about the measurements, but the desk is basically two boxes made by 2-by-4s and 2-by-3s and connected in the middle, with a piece of 3-quarter-inch plywood on top. He researched ready-made desk sizes to come up with the measurements for height and depth.


And he used the sizes of the two plastic drawers we bought to decide on the width. He was worried about storage, but with these babies (which we picked up at Target, for under $30 for both), we have more storage than in the old desk.


The rest of the project was basically free since we used lumber left over from other projects, and the cotton-duck fabric from the previously-mentioned wedding tables. We did have the plywood cut to size at Lowe's. Since the desk is so much shorter, it wasn't a problem that I had cut my yardage into pieces. By the way, I used about five yards of a very wide fabric (the bolt was probably more than 54 inches) to make this skirt.

I didn't take any photos of the beginning of skirting the desk, so refer back to the post on the tables for that. Basically, I stapled the top of the fabric around the edge of the plywood, creating a crease in the middle where two pieces of fabric meet.


If I had a sewing machine/knew how to sew, I would have hemmed the bottom first. Instead, I'll use my fabric glue to hem the bottom, using the floor to help me keep a straight line.


To make a pleat at the sides, I wrapped the fabric around and stapled at the corner, and then again about two inches from the corner.


Then, I folded the fabric back and brought the folded edge to the corner and stapled it down. I made sure that my fold wasn't too deep that the rest of the fabric wouldn't make it to the end of the side.

When stapling the skirt to the top, it's not necessary to staple to the very edge of the desk, or to staple super close together. I put about one staple every two-to-three inches.


To cover the top, I hung the fabric face-down on the front of the desk, and stapled as close to the edge as possible, as often as possible.


Then I folded the fabric back toward the back of the desk and secured along the back with a couple of staples.


To make the sides neat, I trimmed the fabric so there was about three-quarters of an inch on each side, then folded it under and secured it with fabric glue.


And there you have it! All that's left is the finish the bottom (which could be interesting) and have a piece of glass cut for the top to make a better work surface, and to protect the fabric. I'm thinking about putting a trim tape along the bottom of the skirt -- maybe Greek key?


Next, I think I'd like to try a round or hexagon-shaped table for our breakfast room. This table (in a foyer designed by Tom Sheerer, spotted yesterday on La Dolce Vita) is my inspiration.

Day 765's paint story

You may remember that we've painted the office before. We went back and forth on a colors for months, and finally settled on what we thought was a dark gray. It turned out to be kind of blue -- denim, almost -- and very, very dark. It didn't take long to decide that we don't "do dark." Our rooms are small and the office started to feel cave-like. I know that is appealing to some, and I love to see it in print, but it just didn't work for us. Lesson learned!

Wes was dying to re-paint, but I had a little list of things I wanted to get done before we re-did anything. He patiently helped me through that list and before I knew it, it was time to focus on the office again. I eventually got a vision for it, and we settled on painting it green.

Green is tricky. The first green we tried was Ben Moore's Guliford Green. I didn't think you could go wrong with the Historical Collection, but, oh, you can! I wasn't quite green enough, and actually looked a lot like the yellow-beige that was on every wall in the house when we moved in. Ugh.

Wes came to the rescue and chose Saybrook Sage and I must say, he did a great job! It is perfect and exactly what I was trying to get in the first place. It's definitely green, but it has a little gray in it, and isn't cheesy, which is easy to get with green.


In between coats of paint, we built a new desk for the room. We used lumber left over from the tables we built for my sister's wedding, and I took the fabric off of them to use on the desk. I still need to finish the hem, but I am so pleased with it. And it really was simple. I took lots of photos of the skirting process and will show them soon, I promise. Not bad for a weekend's work!

Day 762's pretty

Photo by House Beautiful

I'm looking forward to a pretty easy weekend at home. We're going to hit a church-wide yard sale and the farmer's market on Saturday morning, and then work on whipping Wes' office into shape. Here's hoping we'll have some decent progress to show you next week!

Happy Weekend!

Day 761: questions about seagrass

Every time I post images of our living room my inbox is flooded with questions about our seagrass rug, so I suppose it's time to formally address them for all to hear. First I will say that I love our rug and would buy it again in a heartbeat (we found it at HomeGoods). Also that caring for it has really been quite easy, now that we've found the right product to use.

Soon after we bought the rug, we adopted a puppy, and soon after that, she started having some, ahem, gastrointestinal problems. I'm sure you don't want to hear the details, but let's just say that I cannot imagine anything more gross happening on my beloved new rug! It was a little stressful (and did I mention gross?).

We tried all of the home remedies we could find online, but nothing worked and I was hesitant to try regular carpet cleaner because I'd heard horror stories about bleaching on natural fiber rugs. Turns out, those were all about sisal, but that's a different story. Next, I opened the phone book and started calling down the rows looking for someone who would take on a "natural fiber rug with pet stains," and even once or twice wrote down the numbers spotted on sides of vans driving down the road. I was desperate, and no one could help.

One day I was flipping through my latest issue of Martha Stewart Living, and I stopped to read the questions from readers -- I never miss the questions from readers! One lady was asking about caring for natural fiber rugs, and Martha suggested the product she uses at home, Host Dry Carpet Cleaner. I figured it couldn't hurt, so we tracked some down and have not looked back. This stuff is amazing! I really, truly saved our rug, and I'm sure it will save many more rugs down the road.

If you want more info about seagrass, check out Joni's post on Cote de Texas.

Day 760's lovely photos

Now that we've upgraded to a DSLR camera (we gave ourselves a Nikon D60 for our anniversary), I've been trying to hone up on my skills (don't worry, I'm not the next blogger-turned-photographer, but I needed a hobby in a big way!). I had a photojournalism class in college which gave me a little background on composition and technique, but I tend to learn by inspiration. I love a good still life, and this photostream is really inspiring me today.

Edit: I'm not sure it was clear before, but these are not my photographs, they belong to this talented girl!

Day 758's water dog

This is Maddie's favorite place. Lucky for her, it's only about 30 minutes away, and Wes and I enjoy it as well.


If we ever live on a body of water, she will be in it every single day. She likes to swim out and retrieve her ball, but can entertain herself (and us) just swimming and splashing around and defending our pier against evil Jet Skiis.


Summer is hard work!

Day 755's pretty

I'm headed for a weekend at the lake with my favorite gals from high school {and before}. This year, we're celebrating an upcoming wedding and news that a little one is on the way! We're still making the rounds on the wedding circuit, but it looks like the baby shower circuit isn't far behind!

Happy Weekend!

Day 754's amusing photos

See these two photos? I saw them both on two different blogs yesterday, was compelled enough by each of them to right-click to save. They are both living rooms, they are both pretty, and the similarities pretty much end there. Yet I cannot choose a favorite.


The top image is, I believe, from Kate Spade's home -- correct me if I'm wrong. The bottom is a home for sale featured on Cote de Texas. You can see the rest of the house here.

So tell me, which do you prefer? The wild fabric, interesting accessories and over-the-top art of the first, or the restrained (almost to within an inch of its life) color palette and carefully-edited look in the second?

Day 753's second try

My second attempt at making roman shades from mini-blinds was much more successful than the first. Here's how I did it:


I learned last time that the blackout liner had to be attached to the fabric before attaching fabric to the blinds, so the first thing I did was cut the liner to the exact size I wanted my shade to be. The also really helped me keep straight lines, since I now had a clean, straight edge to follow.


Next, I cut my fabric so that it was about an inch bigger than the liner on all four sides. Then, I used my fabric glue and folded the fabric around the edges. This is the back of the shade that faces the window, so you can trim it a little to make it look neater.

The next step is to get the blinds ready to attach to the fabric (and liner). If you need a visual, hop over to Jenny's instructions. I let the blinds out all the way and took them off the wall and laid them on the floor, face up. I cut each of the small strings that go between the slats and removed the outside strings, being careful not to cut the lift strings, which are the strings in the middle of the slats. Then, I removed the plugs on the bottom of the blinds, and slid all but five slats off.


Now I put (what was left of) the blinds face down on my fabric and glued the top on first, taking care to not glue the lift strings down and leaving space at each end to reattach the blinds (now shades!) to the window.


Now I measured for each slat (I did them 9 inches apart) and place them all before gluing any of them. Then I glued them down, taking care not to glue the lift strings, and then reattached the bottom by tying new knots in the string and replacing the plugs.


Then they went back in the window! I'm so pleased at how they turned out -- much better than last time! I hope this helps if you are thinking of trying this project -- certainly feel free to e-mail me if you have any questions. It's definitely a great idea, and I want to make sure all of the credit for it goes to Jenny of Little Green Notebook. I merely bow at the throne of her DIY goddessness.

By the way, the fabric is Florabunda in Sea Glass by P. Kaufman. You can get it online here, though I decided to patronize King Cotton, a great local shop.

Day 752's house tour

Love this cool Birmingham cottage featured today on MyHomeIdeas. Isn't this exterior great? I wouldn't change a thing!

Photos by Tria Giovan for MyHomeIdeas.