design

Makeover: From junk room to office, part 4

June 22, 2015 by Lisa Grable 8 Comments

The Tropical G office reveal!

At last, I’m free from the catch-all junk room and can work in an inspiring environment. This is Part 4 of the makeover journey from junk room to peaceful tropical office with Kathleen Mapson & Co. [See part 1, part 2, and part 3 here!]

I’ve gone back over all the texts and emails between Kathleen and me as we virtually collaborated on my home office. There were definitely some lessons learned!

Purging and emptying the room was the first step. So much paper that was no longer needed! The Gardener found a local company that would bring a truck to our house to shred and it was well worth it. And now we have two shredders in strategic spots in the house and we’ve vowed to never let the paper mail deluge get to us again. [Tip: go for a 10- or 12-page shredder. It will shred whole unopened credit card offer envelopes!]
Almost all the furniture just appeared in my driveway, in giant boxes blocking my garage door. Quite a surprise when I would go out needing to leave in the morning! Having a moving dolly was a saving grace.
I needed to buy all the items on Kathleen’s source list quickly. When working with stores like World Market, Container Store, and Target, seasonal items disappear quickly. Fortunately I had time to go online, make purchases, and check store availability for pick up. I had a great time the day I was visiting the stores. I learned it was brilliant of me to have the item numbers with me on my phone (yay Evernote!): sometimes things are not on display but someone can go get them “from the back.”
Assembling furniture takes longer than you think. It is good to have “handyman” assistance. One chair had to be taken apart and started over because the slipcover just wouldn’t fit!
A funny discussion: “I’ve found this perfect fabric for your drapes. It’s $25 a yard.” “Oh no, I never pay more than $13! I can’t do this!” “But it fits in the budget.” Trust your designer! Kathleen had the whole design budget in hand. The fabric for the drapes was absolutely worth it.
One of the hardest parts for me was the organizing of ALL THE THINGS. Office paper, ribbon, buttons, sewing tools, all had not been rethought in years. I love upgrading from mismatched tubs and milk crates and plastic reclosable storage bags to ginger jars, baskets, and pretty magazine files!

We are thrilled to show you the results of this home office makeover. Can you imagine me sitting here writing, with my palm tree framed by coral shades, my books and videos on the shelves with pieces I love, and my flower photos framed on the wall? Many thanks, sweet Kathleen, for my peaceful place to work and create!

Now here’s the story and reveal from Kathleen:

Her love for Hawaii and her home being known as the Tropical Cottage directed me to design her space with some white furniture pieces for the cottage feel, mixed with bold colors for the tropical look and feel. Although the room was going to be punched up with color, the overall feeling was to be calm and relaxed – a long way from where we began.

Lisa is one of my virtual clients and we are separated by many, many miles, like over 500! Working with a client virtually is no easy feat – the main reason – because we (the designers) want to get our hands on the space to see everything in person, to touch everything, and to style everything. Luckily for me, all the major items had arrived and she had begun putting things together. I was planning a trip home to my beautiful state, North Carolina, and planned to make a special trip to her home to finish things off as much as I could. My mom, sister, and little baby boy accompanied me and let me just say, were God Sent for this project. Love you mom and sis!

The Reveal

[Be sure to hop over to Kathleen Mapson & Co. to see the reveal photos!] Can’t you just feel the tropical vibe?! I absolutely adore this space. Removing the doors literally gave us just about half of the room back, it is packed with storage, and she has a great work surface to lay everything out for her work, crafting, sewing, and the list goes on. Read the rest of the post here!

“Hi there! I’m Kathleen and I blog over at Kathleen Mapson & Co. I am an interior designer and artist based in metro Atlanta. I love all things creative and artsy and the blog is my virtual creative space. I share my design projects and throw in a dose of design facts and rules over at my blog. I hope you enjoy viewing some of my latest projects and are inspired to turn your house into a home.”

Makeover: From junk room to office, Part 3

June 15, 2015 by Lisa Grable 5 Comments

DIY How to make roman shades

I’m sharing with you my successful directions for working, blackout roman shades. This is Part 3 of the journey from junk room to peaceful tropical office. [See part 1 and part 2 here!]

We had a little bobble when Kathleen (of Kathleen Mapson & Company) suggested roman shades for my two corner windows. Too many of the DIY links we found were for non-operational shades. So here’s my version of what works!

Kathleen chose a coral-red fabric with no pattern. So we did not have to worry about a repeat. Other supplies I needed were 1×2 pieces of wood for each window, 2 flat wood pieces for bottom of shade (1 x ¼ inch), 2 L-brackets for each window with screws, electric screwdriver or drill, electric staple gun, blackout curtain lining, roman shade tape with rings, cord for the rings, cord condensers, cord cleats, new size-18 machine needle, and 1 spool of thread to match the fabric. [I just love that the thread for this project was “Flamingo”!]

First, you need to decide if the shade will cover the window molding or not. I wanted the molding to show, but covering the molding is the much easier choice. My windows were each 27 inches wide. With side hems, I needed 31 inches of width. The fabric was 58 inches wide, so I had to buy two lengths (two shades would not sit side-by-side on 58 inches). Before buying and cutting, I like to sketch dimensions out on graph paper to make sure I’ve really thought it all through. The window height was 60 inches. When I added 6 inches for the top and bottom hems, I needed 132 inches of fabric, or 3 ¾ yards. I also needed 1 ¾ yard blackout lining (54 inches wide, so I could fit two shades on one length), 11 yards of roman shade ring tape, and 22 ½ yards of nylon cord.

Cut two pieces of fabric 31 inches wide and 66 inches long.
- Be sure to cut both pieces in the same direction (the “nap”). Choose one edge of your fabric as the “top” and make sure you cut both shades oriented towards the same top. This is a fine point, but you never know how light hitting the fabric will make a difference.
Cut two pieces of lining 27 inches wide and 63 inches long. You will not need the side and bottom hem.
- Note: the “soft” side of the blackout lining is the right side. I got this at the fabric store and I had to ask for help. It is normally kept in the drapery lining section, but it is so popular that it hardly ever stays on the shelf. If you can’t find it, be sure to ask at the cutting table.
With your iron, press up 3 inches on the bottom of the shade fabric. Press ½ inch on the raw edge. Press in 2 inches on each side, then press in 1 inch to make a double thick hem. At the bottom, where the two hems meet, miter the corners. Open out the two hems and fold the fabric in diagonally. Press. The hems should lie down flat when refolded and meet in a diagonal. Pin this.
Lay the blackout lining on the back of the drape. The wrong sides should be together. Insert the edges of the lining under the hems to the edges and pin.
Sew the two side hems with a straight stitch ¾ inch from the edge.
Sew the folded edge of the bottom hem, beginning and ending at the diagonal fold. The lining should now be caught in the hems, and the top of the shade and lining should be even.
I needed 3 lengths of ring tape for each shade. The number is a judgment call based on the width of your window. The rule of thumb is 10 inches between ring tapes. A window 32 to 42 inches wide would need 4 rows of tape. You will want the first ring to be placed at the stitching on the bottom hem. The last ring should be about 3 inches from the top edge of the shade. The rings are 6 inches apart on the roman shade tape. I started by cutting between two rings, so I had a 3-inch tail of tape. My shades were 60 inches in finished length, so I cut 66 inches of tape: 10 rings and 3-inch tails at each end.
Pin the first ring just above the stitching on the bottom hem. The stitching line on the side of the tape should be lined up with the stitching on the side hem. Fold under the tail so that the raw edge will be caught when you stitch. Pin the tape in a straight line on the shade. Fold under the raw edge of the tape at the top. Starting at the top, sew a straight stitch through all layers down one side of the tape, across the bottom, and back up the other side. This will be easier with a zipper foot.
Place the second tape in the center of the shade, and the third tape on the hem stitching of the other side. (If you are using 4 rows of tape, evenly space the two in the middle.) Make sure the rings are lined up horizontally before stitching. I found I had to hand-sew some rings onto the tape to make sure they were tight. Sew carefully because all this stitching will show on the right side of the shade (this is why you want your thread to match the fabric as closely as possible.)
Wrap the top of the shade across the width of the 1×2 board and down the 1-inch side. Use a staple gun to attach the shade to the short side of the board. Carefully mark the 2-inch bottom side for screw eyes. Each one should line up with the rings on the tape. We attached the L-brackets to the board first, so we could see where the screw eye had room to go.
Decide which way your shade cord is going to go. Which side are you attaching the cleat? This is another step where I kept going over it before I cut, because the shade on the floor is backward of how it will be in the window. Tie the nylon cording to the bottom ring on the shade farthest from the cleat. Thread the cord through the rings up to the one that is 2^nd from the top (probably 6 inches down from the board). Now go through the screw eye and over through all the screw eyes. Cut the cord 60 inches from the last screw eye. Repeat for the middle tape, going through 2 screw eyes on the board. Repeat for the tape closest to the cleat, going through only one screw eye. You can tie an overhand knot with all the cords near the screw eye with the shade extended.
Attach the shade to the top of the window with the L-bracket. This part takes two people! Slide the thin wood piece into the bottom hem. Carefully pull up the shade, folding the pleats as you go. Attach the cleats to the window frame or wall. Wrap the draw cord around the cleat to hold the shade up. You can use a cord condenser to collect the cords, knot and cut all but one, so that you are dealing with less cord.

As I mentioned before, this project is somewhat easier if you decide to cover your window molding. The L-brackets are easier to attach to the wall than the inside of the window frame. Also, you can decide how high you want the top of the shade, it could even go up to the ceiling. If you are concerned about sewing straight, choose a print for this project, to hide your stitching. Just remember to keep the repeat of the pattern in mind when measuring.

Roman shades give a nice crisp look and pulled up they look like a pleated valence. I’m loving that during the hot summer I can cool off my office by closing the shades.

I’ll look for questions in Comments or lisa[at]thecasabouquet[dot]com. If you have a sewing machine and would like to try making fabric items for your home, check out my “Home-making”posts here!

Stay tuned for the reveal post for this project. Kathleen will be posting over on her blog Kathleen Mapson & Co. You don’t want to miss it!

Affiliate links: if you make a purchase using these links, I’ll receive a small compensation towards maintaining this blog, at no extra cost to you.

Makeover: From junk room to office, Part 2

June 8, 2015 by Lisa Grable 3 Comments

DIY How to make pinch pleat drapes

The “junk room” in our house was supposed to be my office! I was sewing and working around piles that didn’t have a place to belong. This is Part 2 of the journey from junk room to peaceful tropical home office with Kathleen Mapson & Co. [See part 1 here!]

I was overcome when Kathleen first said, “You have to take down the closet doors.” She convinced me that drapes would give softness and allow more room in the office. It helped a lot that she found this gorgeous print with flowers and peacocks (Waverly Peaceful Perch Sherbert)! Today I’m sharing what I came up with for covering the closet while also being the accent wall.

First I had to order the fabric. I took measurements of the width of the opening (from molding to molding) and the height. You have to decide where you will be hanging your rod. For the most elegance, go all the way to the ceiling. I decided to make the top of the curtain be at the same height as the windows on the other side of the room. This ended up being about halfway between the top molding and the ceiling.

Next, I had to find the repeat on the fabric. Fabric with a print will repeat the pattern. Choose one item in the print, then measure straight down to where that item appears again. For this fabric, the repeat is 25 inches. If you are ordering the fabric online like I was, you need to find the repeat before you figure out the yardage. It will be listed in the details on the website. This repeat will figure in the height of drapes.

My closet opening is 67 inches wide and I wanted the finished drapes to be 94 inches high (from floor to the top of the rod). The fabric was 58 inches wide, so I decided to make two curtains, each 54 inches wide with 2 inch hems on the sides. So, how to calculate how much to buy? I wanted a finished length of 94 inches, and I added 5 inches for the top hem and 3 1/2 inches for the bottom hem for a total of 102 ½ inches. With a 25 inch repeat, I had to buy 4.1 repeats for each curtain, for a total of 9 repeats or 6 ¼ yards. If you decide to line your drapes, you would need 5 ¼ yards of fabric at least 54 inches wide.

The next step was to gather supplies. I found the curtain rod at Target. I also got multipleater white tape, 4-finger pleater hooks (10, plus 4 end hooks), 2 large spools of thread to match fabric color, new size-18 needle, and 14 curtain eyelet rings (they have to fit over the rod and match the rod color).

I laid out the fabric and used a tape measure and fabric-marking pen to mark the repeats and hems, making sure I labeled the top and bottom of each. I wanted to make sure my peacocks would be head –side up! Check and recheck before you cut. I cut each panel to 102 ½ inches, making sure the exact same flower was at the top of each panel in the same position.

Use your iron and ironing board to fold under two inches on each side. Then go back and fold one inch under. This gives a one-inch hem on the sides with clean edges on the inside. [If you plan to line the curtain, this is when you would cut the lining to the finished dimensions of the curtain. Insert the lining piece into the two side hems. All 4 hems when sewn should capture the lining piece.] Sew with a straight stitch along the two hems.
Press 3 ½ inches up for the bottom hem. Fold under ½ inch and press again. Sew with a straight stitch.
Press 5 inches along the top for the top hem. Press under ½ inch and press again. Now you will have a 4 ½ inch hem with a clean edge. Pin the pleater tape on the inside of the curtain onto this hem. The pockets on the tape are 1 ¾ inch apart. My curtain is 54 inches wide, so I cut the tape 55 ½ inches wide, trying to cut the two edges halfway between two pockets. Press the two side edges to the back of the tape, to fit the width of the curtain.
Make sure the pocket openings are facing down towards the bottom of the curtain. Stitch around all edges of the pleater tape, making sure not to close the pocket openings.
Hang the curtain rod on the wall. Put 14 rings on the rod. Put the end hooks into the ends of the curtains. Use 5 of the 4-finger pleater hooks per curtain to make the pleats. Space them out evenly (some of the pockets will not be used). Put the hooks in the eyelets on the rings and you are done!

I’ll look for questions in Comments or lisa[at]thecasabouquet[dot]com. If you have a sewing machine and would like to try making fabric items for your home, check out my “Home-making”posts here!

Stay tuned for the reveal and one more DIY post using sewing skills for this project. Kathleen will be posting over on her blog Kathleen Mapson & Co. You don’t want to miss it!

Affiliate links: if you make a purchase using these links, I’ll receive a small compensation towards maintaining this blog, at no extra cost to you.

Makeover: From junk room to office

June 1, 2015 by Lisa Grable 6 Comments

This is a hard post to write. I think everybody must have a junk room, but ours was supposed to be my office, and now you are seeing the pictures! From family and friends moving away and leaving a few bits behind to straightening the house for parties and piling all unorganized stuff in there, I was sewing and working around piles that didn’t have a place to belong.

Once I started to work from home full-time, something had to change! So I got in touch with Kathleen Mapson & Co. I fell in love with Kathleen’s design aesthetic a long time ago. From her painting to her design work, I know she has such a great way of mixing the practical with the fun. She is sharing with us her approach to working with me as virtual and highly opinionated client.

There were two starting points from my end. I wanted a soft green on the walls, so we bought samples of several greens at Sherwin-Williams and painted them on several spots on the walls. I wanted to see how each color looked in the different lights during the day and evening. Kathleen told me she was looking at turquoise and coral. I got out my nail polishes to look at the colors and send photos to Kathleen. The winner was Sherwin-Williams 6715 Lime Granita.

We love to shop at furniture stores at the beach. We seem to have better luck finding items to go with our tropical cottage theme. A trip to Morehead City, NC scored us a turquoise dresser with carved fish on the drawers. More photos to send to Kathleen! She approved and our second starting point is the Guildmaster Waterfront Harmony chest.

Now here’s the story from Kathleen:

Working from home can sometimes be a difficult task as there are always things to do to tidy up around the house. But even more difficult than working from home, is working from home in an office that is lackluster. An office that is unorganized, serves as a ‘catch all’, and where things are not so easy to find and there isn’t anything pretty to look at, is not necessarily conducive to an inspiring or functional place to work. Well, this is exactly how my virtual client felt about her home office when she contacted me.

As a retired professor and now an educational consultant and avid DIYer of everything I can think of, she needed a multifunctional space. Let me give you a quick run down of everything she does in this space. She conducts educational research and writes proposals for her clients, and crafts all kinds of scholarly articles and scientific research projects. She sews like nobody’s business – drapes, roman shades, dresses, and all kinds of outfits and costumes for her sweet little grand baby, and she crafts and does gift wrapping with all kinds of papers. You can read all about her and what she loves on her colorful and informative blog Casa Bouquet.

So why the list above? I wanted you to know what she has to do in this space, so I had to plan accordingly. I called this project Tropical G because of her love for Hawaii and tropical colors. She and her husband refer to their home as a Tropical Cottage and that it is. Her home is eclectic with a fun mix of furniture and it is FULL of color. And when I say color I don’t mean your typical brightly colored floral pillow or painted accent wall. I mean serious color like turquoise bathrooms, an orchid-colored dining room with black floral print drapes, a citrusy lime kitchen with parrot wall paper, and a raspberry pink family room. I know I just made your eyes pop! =) But although each room has a different palette, the colors beautifully and unexpectedly blend. So taking cues from the rest of her home, the office needed to be colorful also.

What we needed to do to create a colorful, yet serene place to work:

Paint – She had her heart set on a calm turquoisey green for the wall color by the time she contacted me. I actually tried to change her mind a bit, but in the end she won. Even as a designer you have to know which battles to fight. =)
Organization – Files and folders, bookshelves, a cabinet of some sort, and baskets for odds and ends.
A Work Surface – Ample space for spreading out client paperwork and sewing and crafting projects.
Drapes – Privacy was not needed, but drapes would soften those hard lines and add some well needed color.
Artwork – She has loads of pictures from Hawaii and lots of awards and college degrees. She is actually Dr. G! They needed to be showcased.
Lighting – The space receives a nice amount of natural light, but can be a little dark at night. We needed to include general lighting and task lighting.
Flat Screen TV – Possibly. The TV was an old box TV and took up too much space.

The Plan – Design Board

Since this was a virtual project – she was located in North Carolina and I in Georgia – our communications were virtual. From planning to almost execution, we met through Google Hangouts and all correspondences were through email and text. It was such a great experience working with her this way.

This in general was the overall plan. Don’t you just love all the coral and turquoise paired with the crispness of the white. (see Kathleen Mapson & Co. to see the design boards!) Ohhh…La…Laaaa….There were other detailed items, but this gives you an idea about our direction. The dresser in the plan was the jumping off point. She found this while on a trip to Morehead City, North Carolina. She texted me photos and expressed her undying love for this piece. I mean, undying love! It was a great fit for the look we were going for, it was scaled appropriately, and the color and carvings were lovely. So why not!

After approval, the plan was in motion! Stay tuned for the reveal and a few upcoming posts about how my client used her sewing skills for this project. She will be posting those over on her blog Casa Bouquet. You don’t want to miss it!

Thanks for reading!