Decoupagers Anonymous

My name is Lara and I'm a Decoupager.

Before last month, I had never, to my knowledge, decoupaged before. I don't know what I have been waiting for. I knew I always wanted to, but I just never had the balls and opportunity to actually do it. My "This New House" project gave me the perfect excuse x 2!

My first chance came when my mother purchased a pair of fairly plain but size and color appropriate night stands for one of the bedrooms. You saw them in the previous This New House post about headboards in their final state. 

Their original state in their amazon photo.

I unfortunately did not use any common sense and take a picture of the roll of contact paper I used for this project. I got it from a bin of contact paper at a local Goodwill. Total find. You can see it fairly well in the next picture.

Starting this project, I realized that I had a problem. I fell in love with decoupage. It took two fairly boring tables and totally classed them up. Decoupage can be pretty neat, pretty tacky, or just plain pretty. I think I did a good job of keeping it  simple and not going the crazy scattered route. Maybe I can go that way another time when I sack up enough to commit. 

I don't think I really need to explain the decoupage process. There are about a thousand videos and instruction blogs for that. 

Well after I finished those little tables, I soon got another opportunity to do it again. I found this banged up coffee table at a Goodwill for $12.50. It was tagged as $25 but it was half off that day! SUPER! 

It just managed to fit in the back of the car, but only just. I got it back, scrubbed it down, oiled and shined up up, and decided it was perfect for decoupage. I got a roll of wallpaper for cheap down at Menard's and went to it! This project was a bit more difficult owing to the shear size of the surface. Air bubbles abounding. I managed though and even put on a shiny sealant coat and new knob for the fake drawer. (Why won't this section stop being centered? Weird.)

I think it turned out perfectly even though it had air bubbles. I think That's enough decoupage for me for a while. It's a pretty involved process. Maybe on a smaller scale? I don't know. 

Next on This New House: Seat cushion recovering!

Convertible DIY Headboards

So as I have mentioned before, I am currently staying a house owned by my parents in South Bend, IN while the ultimate destination home in St. Louis is being built. So that I don't feel useless and so I don't go stir crazy while I'm there I have been making little projects for myself to help my parents get the house ready for renting during next years football season. The goal here is to have it look like something that you would spend $800 for a weekend in shared between 5-10 people. In my opinion that's a pretty reasonable price. 

That said, one of the first projects I knew need need needed to happen was some headboards for each of the main bedrooms. They each have a "king" sized bed in them. When I say "king" though, I mean that it is two twin beds strapped together with something called a bed band and a bit of soft sheep thing in the middle to bridge the gap. This may seem janky to you, but there is a method to our madness. Not only is it way cheaper to get 4 twin beds, but also if you have say a group of bros that want to rent the house but think it's way skeezy to sleep together, then, voila!, four twin beds. 

My challenge: Create 2 Beautiful King Sized Headboards that could convert easily into 4 Beautiful Twin Sized Headboards.

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I did a lot of DIY research on the headboard front. At first I thought it would be neat to make something out of upcycled dresser drawers for additional storage. But realistically, how much do you bring to a hotel that needs to be stored directly behind you. Also, interesting dresser drawers are hard to find on short notice at thrift stores. I ultimately decided on padded slat style headboards. 

Now I'm not the most experienced when it comes to building something out of nothing, so believe me when I say I was just making it up as I went along.