Shower Curtain Wall Art

Hello all!  Long time no update!

I though this would be as good of a time as any to revive the ol’ blog given that I recently completed a project I was pretty proud of…  I came up with it on my own and it wasn’t a total disaster!  WOO-HOO! So we’ve been in the house ALMOST a year now, and things are ALMOST how I want them.  We do, however, still have a few empty walls and a few empty bookcases.  The problem is they’re all BIG walls and filling BIG walls tends to cost BIG bucks.

I love the old trick of wrapping fabric around canvas, but the walls I needed to fill in the upstairs living room probably required something wider than your average by-the-bolt fabric, so I thought “shower curtain!” The next obstacle was the canvas.  A canvas for the size I was needing wouldn’t be cheap, so I went to Home Depot to see how expensive some lumber would be to build the frames myself.

They had 8′ boards that were the perfect width/depth for my project!  And they were seventy-five cents!!!!!  YES! For each shower curtain, I purchased 3 boards.  One 8′ board got cut in half to make 2 4′ boards.  The other 2 boards were cut down to 5′ (which Home Depot does on the spot for free, in case you’ve never done anything like this.) Once home, I assembled them like so (and used some of those U-shaped staple/nails to put them together). From there the process is just like wrapping canvas, although on a larger scale.  Position the shower curtain where you want it, wrap around the frame, pull taught and staple in place. Your frames are not only inexpensive, but also lightweight (which is often an issue when dealing with “art” of this size, so your shower curtain wall-art can be easily hung with even just a single nail.) I must say, I’m pretty impressed with the end result!  These particular shower curtains are definitely inexpensive – I purchased them from Target.com!  (roughly $35 each, making the total cost for each hanging right at $40).

Forgive the less-than-sharp pictures.  I only realized last night (having owned my phone for a year) that I had the camera set to a fairly-low resolution.  HA!

There are a lot of really great shower curtains out there from geometric patters to movie scenes, periodic tables or maps of the London Underground.  Have fun with it!  Just make sure before you click “add to cart” that the curtain you’re looking at is fabric and not plastic 🙂

Children’s chairs: before and after

A couple of months ago, my mom found “some children’s chairs” at Goodwill for $2 a piece, so she called and asked if I wanted them for Dono.  “Sure!” I said.  If there’s one thing kids love, its small versions of grown-up things.

Note to self: In the future, ask mom to quantify "a few".

A few days later, mom shows up at my house, her SUV cram-packed with small wooden chairs.

My first thought was “how am I going to explain ALL these tiny chairs too Pool Boy?”  Fortunately he quit looking for explanations years ago and just rolls with it now.

7 of the chairs are identical and 2 are slightly “fancier”.  I immediately invisioned having all of the major holidays at our house, complete with a proper children’s table including these adorable little chairs.    To be fair, PB does have a massive family with several children under the age of 4, so there’s a good chance these chairs will be actually put to use at least a few times.

"We've had a hard life."

The only problem is that they weren’t in great shape.  They had  belonged to some school where they were apparently used and abused for years.  Still, once the screws were tightned they were sturdy enough to easily hold me and/or PB, so the only thing left to do was cover up their battle scars. 

In an effort to NOT spend tons of money on $2 chairs which will likely be used a few times at most, I started looking around the house.  I had navy paint left over from my dumpster-desk project and 2 other shades of blue left from the bathroom spruce up.  My first thought was to paint each chair a solid color, but then I decided they might look a little disjointed all sitting together.  So instead, I decided to colorblock them and mix up which colors went where with each chair.  That way they will coordinate but not be too matchy-matchy.  I think the final result is sort of Ralph Lauren-esque, if RL made tiny little chairs!

All my various projects, now in one handy place!

I thought I’d throw together all of my “before and after” shots of the furniture I’ve done so far.  I don’t normally think of myself as “crafty”, but it turns out I love the Anthropologie look but I sure as hell can’t afford it.  Plus there is a certain thrill in discovering some FANTASTIC couch or chair at somewhere like Goodwill.

I have one more loveseat I’m working on, but unfortunately this HAS to be my last project.  As Pool Boy pointed out, “there’s a finite amount of space in our house.”

Also, emberassingly, I titled these pics (“bf1”, “bf2”, etc) which in my mind stood for “before/after”.  I’ve only just realized “after” doesn’t start with an F.  Well done, Sarah.

Nothing in these pics cost more than $100 originally, and the desk pictured was actually drunkenly pulled from a dumpster one night.  SCORE!

The centerpiece on the left (of the “before and after” picture) is one from Anthropologie that retails for $800.  The one on the right was put together from white glass bits found at Goodwill purchased for roughly $20 total and then glued together.