unique design products

Someone on Pinterest or twitter posted about making your own Chevron rug for less than $100. I read through the post and thought ‘yea, I can do that’ and set off to add a custom rug to my company’s home staging inventory.

Here is goes…

After purchasing the approx 4 x 6′ sized Erslev rug from Ikea and gathering the various materials, we set out to create the pattern.  The original blog post instructed us to create a ‘V’ template/stencil  to make the lines but we found another way that worked.  We just used a ruler to evenly measure 4 inches between each line and laid the tap down accordingly. The green frog tape was easy to apply and before we knew it, we were half way done.

Coloring within the lines!

Next up, was finishing up the pattern, taking a visual look to ensure the lines were even and start prepping the paint. Since we started indoors with the measuring and taping, we moved everything outdoors to do the actual painting. The paint store was limited on the color choices so the one that I thought could work in various settings was a soft silver which ended up looking more grey.

I have to admit, I was nervous about whether we would have enough to paint to finish the entire rug.  The craft store had only 2 bottles of textile medium, which is necessary to make the acrylic craft paint work on the fabric.  If you are hunting for this in the craft store, try the paint aisle – it was NOT in the fabric section like I (and a sales person) thought it would be.

Ta-Da!! The Final Product

After sponging and painting the paint onto the rug, we were finally finished. the paint doesn’t go on easy due to the nature of the fabric, but with patience, you can make it work.

Finally – we removed the tape and set out the rug to dry!  We think it turned out pretty good, what do you think?! What color should we do the next one?

Last week, one of my realtor/clients asked to change the function of a small home office to a dressing room. The room was a pass through to a large bedroom with no closets, so a dressing room was a great idea. Of course, I had about 1 full day to shop and pull things together for this dressing room, all while keeping items as cheap as possible but still look good.

First I had to figure out what items to get for the room. I already had this great piece of art to use in the space, but needed some more items to ensure potential buyers would know it was a dressing room. I didn’t want to use a dresser for 2 reasons – 1 I didn’t want to have to lug a dresser up the stairs and 2 – I don’t typically use dressers in staged bedrooms, so that would mean I would have to purchase one, load in my car and on and on….

So after scouring sources of inspiration, I decided on a shoe rack, men’s valet and a nice mirror, coupled with a side chair and some cool 50′s art, that I already owned.   I took out some cash and headed for an estate sale and a local thrift store.

The estate sale was a loss, except for a boot planter that I picked up.

Off to the thrift store where I hit the jackpot! 

I found this really cool accent table that complemented the art (seen in the back of picure) perfectly!  Score on the valet too – just what I was looking for!  And of course, the thrift store had a nice 20% off and an additional discount for using cash!  Double Bonus!

Now all I had to do was pick up a nice mirror to complement, and accents – shoes, scarves and a men’s suit. I already had a men’s suit for the valet (I was going to tear it up to make pillows) and the shoes and scarves were easy scores from my own personal inventory and family’s old clothes pile.

A quick visit to HomeGoods landed a nice mirror, with a vintage white frame and I was good.

The next morning, my new Staging project manager met me at the house for an early morning install. Everything was going great except for when I pulled the mirror out of the car. DISASTER! The mirror had cracked, sometime between leaving the store at 7 pm and my arrival at the project at 9:30 am. UGH!

Oh well – no time to fret – we moved the desk, and loaded up the room as best we could. I still think it turned out nice, even without the mirror, don’t you agree?

Here is the room with the valet moved over to get the picture together.

Next time I will have to remember to bring a tie for the men’s suit and maybe a pair of men’s shoes for the valet too!  But I feel pretty good with 24 hours to shop and pull it together! Thanks for checking it out!

I always get questions about how to dress walls when renting, especially when painting is not an option.  There are plenty of options, from fabric covered walls, hanging large pieces of art, stencils but was still not satisfied with those options.  Since I stage so many homes with white boring walls,  I was also looking for a low-cost and low impact way to bring small portions of walls some life for staging.

So I was excited to learn about adhesive wall paper, a product I stumbled upon at last years ICFF (design trade show in NYC). It is called Tempaper which describes it perfectly – temporary wall paper!  No glue or adhesive required. You just peel the backing off the paper and adhere it to the wall.The color/design options make it look more like wallpaper than the typical Contact paper would. But the installation is VERY similar to Contact paper, except that you are installing vertically rather than horizontally.

When one of my clients for help with decorating her children’s rooms in a house they are renting, I thought this the perfect solution. A way to bring in color and design to the room with low commitment – perfect for those tweens! they change their mind quickly! The tween daughter’s favorite color is blue and after we selected the bed, Tempaper’s Aqua grey was a perfect match fo the room. Take a look!

I’ll admit – installation was a little frustrating – trying to ensure the paper went on the wall smoothly proved more challenging than I thought, but in the end – the space turned out GREAT!  I found this fabulous grey bedding set via Overstock (after scouring the DC area for bedding that would complement the walls) and everything came together nicely. And best of all – the daughter loves her room!

I would definitely use Tempaper again, and am hoping to have to chance to do just that with home staging projects in 2012. Check out the website, pick your design and color and get to covering up those white walls!  They even have wall paper for a child’s nursery – sounds perfect!