Inspiration Round Up: Part II

Happy Easter everyone! I hope you have a lovely weekend planned. Here are some more LGN reader projects to inspire you. And, as always, if you have a project that you'd like me to share, please email jenny @jennykomenda.com.

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Natalie, from Natty by Design, hunts for vintage furniture with good bones and then transforms them with paint and sells them in her shop. She did a lovely job with this desk!

It was such a cute piece in the first place, but I really love the green! I could see this desk used in any room in the house.

Heidi from A Thousand Laughing Starfish has posted some great tutorials recently. My two favorites were this DIY curved headboard:

And this handpainted wall mural:

Natalie from Mint Loves Social Club has all kinds of inspiring projects going on. She wanted to share this credenza she bought at a thrift store.

The owner of the thrift store offered to lacquer the credenza for a really great price and I think it turned out amazing!

You can see her pretty credenza, which she uses as a bar (the inside is super organized too!), in these after pictures of her seriously stunning DIY Bubble chandelier project.

Lisa from Lisa Fero Interiors used my Happytape wall tutorial to transform her client's entry.

I think it looks especially awesome looking out from the living room she also did.

Alicia from 12 Devonshire added Greek key trim to the ladder pulls on her bathroom blinds.

What an easy way to dress up plain-jane blinds! Her tutorial is posted HERE.

Jen from Organized Design used this bed from IKEA

as the base for making her daughter a really cute custom bed. Check out her really thorough tutorial HERE.

Vanessa recently redid her kitchen. She used my pelmet box tutorial for her windows and I love the look! I think she made a great choice with the fabric. Visit her post HERE for the details.

Naomi from Design Manifest sent me two really beautiful projects from her Philadelphia loft. She used inexpensive wall mirrors from Bed Bath and Beyond to back her Expedit shelves. Such a great idea!!

She also cleverly outlined a pretty mirror in her entry with hot pink paint on the wall. This makes such a statement - very Moroccan feeling. And what an easy, unexpected way to add color to a room.

And I love the combo with the La Fiorentina fabric on her bench!

An extra big thanks to the contributors!! xoxo

Inspiration Round Up: Part I

Here are a few projects that landed in my inbox recently that I hope you like as much as I do:

Hannah was inspired by this post and painted her own version of Warhol's Rorschach. Love it!

Grace, a Boston-based reader, picked this chair up for $35 from a craigslist seller.

She had it reupholstered in a beautiful Scalmandre remnant she bought at Zimmans in Lynn. I love the colors! That green and pink together!! They really pop against the new white paint.

The chair makes a great addition to Grace's living room. She is pretty fearless about mixing patterns and I love it!

Here's another beautiful chair makeover. Reader Sherry struggled with a problem I think many of us have. She inherited this beautiful, but very traditional channel back chair from her grandfather.

After years of contemplating fabric choices, Sherry bit the bullet and ordered fabric from (UK based company) Sanderson's new line, called Callisto.

She said she thought it was a risk considering the scale of the print, but she loves the finished product. I think it's a great example of how to modernize a really traditional chair, with the solid velvet on the seat and a pretty pattern on the back.

Sherry also did a good job mixing florals here with her wallpaper. It really works because the scales and the background colors of the two patterns are so different. Lovely!! (Also LOVE that console!)

Polkadot patterns are hard to DIY. It drives me nuts when the spacing isn't exact. Natasha from Samster Mommy came up with a clever method that uses cheap yard sale stickers to mark off a polkadot pattern.

And here's the 'after' photos of her daughter's adorable nursery. The pink and blue combo is really fun.

I especially love those blue cane print curtain panels. (Are these sheets, Natasha?)

Here's another fun paint treatment -- Katie from A Home Blog was sort of over her brown bedroom walls, so rather than repainting the whole room, so used a can of leftover cream paint to add a chevron pattern.

I think it helps to tone down the formerly dark walls a lot. And you can't beat a free project! See Katie's instructions HERE.

Natalie (who is a decorator) loved these lamps from Shades of Light, but was not loving the high price tag.

She saw these vases at Michaels and picked up a light kit at Home Depot and glue some ring pulls on to the side medallions.

I think the result is beautiful! Check out her really well done tutorial with more photos HERE.

Maria from John's Journal used one of my favorite tricks of covering bamboo blinds with fabric. The result is super sturdy window coverings that look very professional.

I like that she trimmed out the borders too.

Also, did you spy her wine rack? Maria rescued a piece of discarded furniture and covered it in python contact paper! So pretty.

Many thanks to these contributors!! Stay tuned for Part II tomorrow. xx

Cloud Photography

I was so happy when Amber emailed me a month or two ago to introduce herself. I LOVE her style and her blog is quickly becoming a favorite.

Look at Amber's last great project. She went outside and took photos of pretty clouds and had one of the images blown up for $30.

She framed the image in a large IKEA Ribba (no mat here, which is key to making it look like expensive modern art).

Go check out Amber's blog if you haven't already. I'm sure you'll love it as much as I do!

DIY Draper Chests

We took the water taxi to IKEA on Saturday. The boat was fun, but we didn't have the best time at IKEA. That place is such a madhouse on the weekends! I left the store telling myself that I didn't want to go back there for a very long time. Then. I got home and saw an email in my inbox from Nancy. She was sharing a little link to her great blog and a new project. And just like that, I love IKEA again.

The Rast is a little $39 dresser that was absolutely MADE to be hacked and upgraded.

We all remember this great project, but did you ever imagine that the Rast would make such a lovely Draper chest?

Read all about Nancy's genius project here. It's probably one of my very favorite DIYs.

DIY Les Touches

The Brunschwig and Fils snow leopard pattern 'Les Touches' is a favorite in the design blog world (I recently posted some cheaper substitute fabrics here). I get all kinds of emails asking if I had any remnants of this pattern to sell at a discounted price, which sadly I don't. Here's a solution for you if you love Les Touches, but can't afford the price tag.

Emily sent me an email about her dining chairs that she bought on Craigslist and reupholstered in an inexpensive white vinyl fabric from Joanns.

She printed out an 8x10 image of the Les Touches pattern (first image, above) and used a sharpie to recreate the image on her vinyl seats!

I love this idea. I never would have guessed the outcome would look this good. And it kinda seems like a fun art project - like something you could do while catching up on reality shows!

I think the vinyl is a very practical choice for Emily's dining chairs, but really, the sharpie would work well on any fabric with a tighter weave, like an indoor/outdoor canvas or a brushed cotton. Then you could use the fabric for pillows or cushions if you wanted to.

Thanks for sharing your great DIY, Emily!

Do you have a project you'd like to submit? Email me: jenny@ jennykomenda.com