Tag Archives: decorating

Storage Cubby Couture.

  By Cat Tan | May 5, 2011 - 7:35 AM |
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What do you do when you buy some cubby boxes that you thought were going to be a cute, light green, polka dotted pattern and they turn out to be this??????

A hideous, hunter green, hot mess! It totally doesn’t fit with ANYTHING in my home. My living room is a hunter green-free zone!! Alas, they were purchased, and Elijah immediately wanted to stash his trains in there. So, what’s a girl to do? You look through your fabrics and do a re-facing. Now, to be honest, I used Aleene’s fabric glue for this project, but I think I am going to pull the fabric back off, use a spray adhesive and Aleene’s for a smoother look. The project was simple and fast. I measured the box, cut the fabric with a 1/4 in border, hemmed the edges, cut out areas for the labels, and used slits in the fabric for the handles on one of them, cuts and slits on the other. 20 minutes, done and done. My life would be a lot simpler if it only took me 20 minutes to go from spotty hot mess to lovely modern specimen. I am not this lucky, or this pliable. God gave me a fro and rosacea and I just have to deal with it. (With ample application of heat and spackle.)

Afterbox

Ikea Hack of my very own.

  By Cat Tan | May 3, 2011 - 6:00 AM |
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Bookcase before.

So I have a large Akita. My Akita is wonderful, loving, sweet, and sadly; old. When we aren’t home, she has to be confined to the kitchen because she has recently had more and more problems with incontinence. For this, we have a Martha Stewart bench and an Ikea Expedit 4 cube cubby. Brownie may be old and incontinent, but she is still pretty nimble. Somehow, that lovely golden girl would push through the cubby holes whilst we were away. Gotta love that crafty bitch. (HEY, she IS one.) So, we had to be craftier. We went to our local Home Depot and had a piece of luan cut to fit the back of the bookcase. I primed both sides and painted the back white to match. The front, on the other hand, I wanted to have some pop. I ended up going to Lowe’s and choosing Olympic Zero-VOC yellow lettuce paint and painted the opposite side. Tim then screwed it on to our expedit and I really like it!! There is an added bonus, Elijah can no longer push his books through the case to the kitchen floor behind it. Nor can he crawl through the holes and scare the crap out of me while I am stirring pasta sauce and I don’t get burned. (Pasta sauce HURTS.) He is a friggen ninja sometimes I swear. Play quietly, play quietly, BAM! “HI MOMMA!” If I scream, he laughs hysterically. There are days when I am convinced there is more of my baby brother’s characteristics in him than my own.


and After!