Hello! I'm Suzannah, a serious DIYer and mom of two little ones. Follow along with my DIY fixer upper house renovations, sewing and crafty projects, real food recipes, and de-stressing goals.
I believe you can love your home just the way it is, AND have the power to design and make big changes to make it better.
I’ve been looking for a new, smaller dresser for Otto's room since we got the bunkbed because the layout of his room is so funky and his large painted IKEA dresser is very functional, but means you can’t access the ladder without being crushed up against it. The kids don’t seem to mind, but it’s weird. I had a small space, 36" wide, between the bunkbed and the other wall that could accommodate a dresser instead.
I wasn’t finding anything in the traditional antique/dresser styles I like because they tend to be more like 42" wide. Then I found this English pine dresser on Facebook for $40 was the perfect size, and I thought, maybe I can sand it down, sort of stain it, and make it really charming!
I’ve been looking for a dining table for about two years, since I started refreshing my dining room with some more traditional pieces and getting rid of the modern traditional/Farmhouse look I liked when I first moved in. This house was built in 1937 and is a Tudor revival, but has a few federal revival elements in it too, and that’s my favorite style of old houses.
I’d been scouring Facebook Marketplace and had given up my search, but then this vintage Ethan Allen table with three leaves and lovely curved legs popped up in my feed. It was in rough shape, but I think it was $60. And miraculously fit in my car. I picked it up after work and then my dad helped me get it out of the car and into the garage where it’s at for months, overwhelming me.
I mentioned to a friend that I had a dining table to refinish and she said she’d help me. I should’ve asked her before, I knew she was good at refinishing furniture! Anyway, I’m so happy I did and I now have a much better dining table in my dining room!
I wanted a really unique, cool headboard for my One Room Challenge guest room but I wasn't prepared for a full-on from-scratch plywood etc. DIY headboard. I found a curved headboard with nailhead trim (not my favorite) for $10 on Facebook Marketplace and recovered it with a beautiful fabric, and found a great solution for covering up the nailhead trim. I didn't even have to remove it! Easy tutorial here!
DIY recovered curved headboard tutorial
You will need:
Headboard
Fabric (plan to run the fabric vertically, so enough for the width and height of the headboard plus 6"+ on each side--I had to use two widths of my 53" wide fabric for my full/queen headboard)
Optional/if your headboard is dark and your fabric is light: white spray paint
The biggest DIY project in my recent home office renovation was a sewing project! Back to my roots, I guess! I found a really nice slipcovered armchair on Facebook Marketplace for $40 and honestly, the slipcover was fine as-is, just neutral cotton canvas, but I wanted something definitely not neutral!
I've made slipcovers before (like this one in 2014 and these in 2016) but I was definitely more confident doing it by cutting apart the previous slipcover and modifying it (or doing a simpler chair style). I didn't want to do that this time since the original slipcover was still in great shape! I could have two outfits for this chair!
So I figured it out. I used the previous slipcover as a pattern and made this new beautiful linen ruffled slipcover!
How to make a slipcover using and preserving the old one
Here she is! That blue linen is this one from Fashion Fabrics Club. The original one is a heavy cotton twill and it looks loose and wrinkly in the photo below, but really it just wasn't tucked in all the way to the chair's deep crevices, ha.
I'm working on our bedroom now that we've moved upstairs, and going piece by piece. Now that we have a king-sized bed and more traditional padded headboard than we had in our downstairs/previous bedroom, I wanted larger, slightly grander nightstands. My top choices were waaaaay out of my budget, so I made something similar for way less!
Target hack DIY black and brass nightstand
Here's a look at the pretty brass and black nightstands I admired. They all have black hardware, and a nontraditional layout of drawers and maybe a shelf or two. I think this was my fave--$640 each.
See that cute $160 alternative there? Target nightstand, not quite as wide as some of the pricier ones unfortunately, but I really love the shape and knew it could look more like the others with contrasting hardware.
One of the knobs is teeny-tiny. I'm sure it's possible to find hardware that size but I had some of this nicer gold spray paint and voila, added a couple of light coats to the ones the nightstands came with. They really don't get that much wear so I think it should hold up pretty well. If not, I'll hunt for little brass knobs that match more standard size ones for the drawers.
I'm sure it's not the quality of the $1,950 ones!!, but it is solid wood, and we only need one drawer of this size anyway. In a larger room, with a king sized bed, I think wider nightstands would be great, but for us for now this is just fine and leaves some nice white space on either side.
There is still SO much I have planned for this room (even since taking these photos I've already added sconces) but having the nightstands and bed locked down is great progress!
I'll share sources when it's all done, but here are links to the rug, quilt, and more.
Yay! This project looks so great and I’m so excited to share it with you! I have wanted to do it since I bought these chairs back in 2018. I knew I wouldn’t get to recovering them for a while, and we really needed sitting in our living room!, so I just lived with them in a color I didn’t really like (and that awkwardly blended in to the dresser behind them).
I knew I wanted a light color, but that definitely made me nervous with a toddler in the house. I did some research and decided that the only way I could get the color I wanted would be by making my own sewing my own covers out of a durable, stain-resistant fabric.
I had heard of Sunbrella fabrics for outdoor use, but they have tons and tons of options on the website of stain resistant, washable indoor upholstery fabric stew. I reached out to them and got some great swatches for a light-colored fabric for these chairs that will be durable and easy to clean!
Thanks so much to Sunbrella for providing this fabric for my review and sharing with you in this tutorial!
I have been working on updates to our dining room and I knew I would need to hunt a while for ONE final piece to finish it off! We were lacking in storage and furniture in this almost-square room that had a lot of extra space on the sides because our dining table is rectangular. Plus we have one perfect, blank, long back wall just screaming for a statement piece of furniture!
I hunted and hunted on Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace, and online sources, but my budget was small and I wanted a specific color, so I planned to DIY. Well, about a month ago I got very lucky and found a fantastic piece!!
It's now sanded, primed, painted, sealed, and installed and looking great! This is a really fun before/after!
A couple months ago I posted a round-up of 14 cute rocking chairs that aren't crazy expensive. I had been researching them for months but we didn't have a place for one in our apartment, so I finally just bought one recently. The verdict: we love it!! Nicest chair we've owned in a long time, and so cute in the nursery! (Which is coming along, progress pics below!)
It has been too long since I've done a DIY project or house update! We have our own apartment now so I have a little freedom and have been hanging art, etc. (see updates on Instagram) but we don't have a lot of room to work with and are trying not to buy new furniture until we have our next house.
The exception is baby stuff. We have a crib and I've done some nursery mood board-ing, but we don't have room for it yet so have this bassinet set up and most of the baby stuff is in our big hall closet built-ins.
I knew I needed a dresser for baby clothes and more... I dreamed of a medium wood tone mid-century one, but couldn't find one the right width on Craigslist and didn't want to spend $$$$$ on a new one when the style for the nursery might change at the next house. So, I bought an IKEA Hemnes on Craiglist and did a minor IKEA hack on it to make it look good in our current place!
The Hemnes is a nice traditional style line, but I haaaate the big black cartoon-ey bug eye handles they come with. (I changed them out for a pull style on our Hemnes bathroom vanity--big improvement.) For this dresser, I thought about a pull or wider handle, but didn't feel like drilling the second holes... so this is a really easy project!
I looked at different knob options and thought about hexagons, midcentury look cones, and more... but ended up going with this simple modern "finger pull." I got a pack of 10 so I might use them on something else, too. I really like them!
Moooooore baseboards. We did a lot of the downstairs last week but there's still so much to do! Good news is it went much faster this weekend and we made big progress. And on some other little projects... and I finally got a piece I've been looking for on Craigslist!!!
On Saturday we got the living room and hall done (those involved some tricky pieces, angles, teeeeny floor pieces we had to recut, etc.....) and on Sunday we powered through the spare room and upstairs hall in less than 2 hours. SO glad it's getting faster!!
Oops, we didn't actually finish all of those rooms--still need to caulk them. Turns out Jason sort of enjoys caulking?? which is great since neither me nor my parents do and this has been a team effort so far. Now Jason needs to finish caulking some baseboards while I do something else!
So, my dresser search. Since around the time we moved in I've kept tabs open on my phone for Craigslist searches, so at least twice a day I refresh each of them and look for rugs, dressers, bathroom vanities, and a few others. I've been desperate for another dresser for our bedroom so I can move the fabulous midcentury low one down to the living room for the TV. I don't know what style our bedroom is going to be yet, so I wasn't too picky on dresser type, but wanted something affordable, real wood, clean, and large enough for all my folded clothes.
Friday I found one for $60 from someone who lives 10 blocks from us. SOLD!
It's missing some handles (I found replacements online) and has a few scratches, so maybe I'll clean it up, use it for a while, not sure if it'll stay in this room or not.
The BEST part is our beautiful vintage midcentury dresser looks great in the living room!
Should we put some art above it or on the side wall?? I was thinking a large plant would look good to the right but there's not quite enough room.
We also checked some lingering to-dos off the list including installing the new laundry room/garage door (with functioning handle! This is a big improvement.) and putting the last piece of the butcher block countertops in. Phew. So grateful for the weekend at home!
I have always loved bedroom decor. Bedrooms can be so pretty and personal. That means I love playing around with our decor at home!
Unfortunately for my husband, who likes things to stay the same... I have often been a serial bed owner. Until I did the pro tufting on the headboard my dad built for us, we owned several beds, several versions of that tufted headboard, lots of Craigslist updates and nightstand changes to go with. I loooooooved that grey velvet headboard but in our new home, I wanted to change more than just the bed. A whole new look.
I've gravitated toward the mid-century natural wood look, but this fab bed from West Elm is not quite in the budget right now. Maybe someday. I also found this black four-poster bed look and just fell in love! It's way more traditional than most of my favorite bedrooms, but somehow totally fresh and clean, too.
I found a couple black four poster beds online, but nothing fabulous. I scrolled Craigslist and actually found several cool ones, usually for less than $100! It looks like Sears made a lot of pine four-posters in the 90s that are now available on the used furniture circuit and may have a few scratches or missing finials, but are just great for this purpose.
I found this one for $40 and transformed it! Here's how I did it!
Painted Four Poster Bed Makeover Tutorial
You will need:
Wooden bed frame
Wood filler (if any scratches/dents)
Spackle knife (if any scratches/dents)
Sandpaper
Primer (tinted if you will be using a dark color of paint)
Semi-gloss or satin sheen trim paint (I used Benjamin Moore Advance in Black)
Painting tools including small roller
Instructions:
1. Lightly sand down the bed (not to remove all of the finish, just to rough it up and even out small scratches). Brush dust off with damp cloth.
2. If you notice any scratches or gouges, apply wood filler with spackle knife. Let dry and sand and brush down. It's amazing what wood filler can do for dents and imperfections, especially when you're going to paint over it!
3. Prime bed pieces using an angled paint brush for the corners and inside areas and a small paint roller for the flat sides. Again, tinted primer if you're doing a dark paint color. Let dry. I did this step once for each side, flipping all of the pieces over about 24 hours after priming the first side.
4. Paint the first coat of paint, again doing the corners first with the brush and then the large, flat areas. I used a full size roller for the first coat but it was a bad choice. I used a small foam paint roller for the primer and second coat, much easier!! Let dry. Repeat second side.
5. Paint the second coat; let dry. Repeat second side.
6. Once fully dry, assemble bed.
I found that this was a great weeknight project cause I could do one coat in 30 minutes or so and then easily wait 24 hours for it to dry. And I don't have enough energy to do much else house project-wise on weeknights so it was nice to have a small project I could work on!
This particular bed was once an actual canopy bed, with a metal frame that has since been lost. It came with four wooden pegs that go in holes on top of the posts. They're plain disc shapes, but I did shop around online for decorative finials. I even ordered some, but ended up liking the posts just as they are so I didn't use them!
I did find a similar bed online for less than $400--if you're not into DIYing. I linked it and the other products we've decorated the bedroom with so far in this post! (This rug was an awesome price and we actually have it in blue in the dining room and tan in the bedroom.)
I've done a few leather projects before, but I'm sometimes a little intimidated and it feels like a big commitment to do a project with a big piece of leather! I've been really loving medium tan slightly distressed leather lately, though, particularly for smaller accent pieces like ottomans. Leather Hide Store has tons and tons of leather pieces and colors and sent me some gorgeous tan leather for this project!
The color I got has a very slightly weathered, vintage-ey look which was perfect for what I wanted. If you want to work with leather, definitely visit Leather Hide Store - they have all kinds of textures and colors, plus remnants, closeouts, and a leather-buying guide.
Phew! What an accomplishment! This weekend I crossed a major to-do off my list: Update my amazing vintage slipper chairs with new covers, since the slightly too-thin white canvas ones I made in 2010 (!) were getting pretty tired. They never fit perfectly, and I didn't have a good solution for the bottom edge so I just left them hanging, mostly covering the fabric, and they were a little too tight so it worked... but it was time for an upgrade.
Part of the reason I didn't upgrade sooner was that the home decor selection at most fabric stores is pretty limited if you want a basic color. There are tons of fancy prints, sure, but if I wanted a solid color, the best choice is the canvas-ey stuff I used back in 2010 (it comes in lots of colors) and it's just not strong enough. So when Organic Cotton Plus wanted to work with me on another project, I thought using one of their many durable, upholstery-weight fabrics would be perfect!
I asked Yasmin at Organic Cotton Plus which fabrics would be good for upholstery--she recommended their canvas, duck (including finished duck which is noticeably softer and pre-shrunk), natural denim, and the colorgrowns. I really liked several of the choices and colors, so Yasmin helped me choose the denim for the chairs, since it's super soft and still very strong, so it would be the most comfortable choice while still holding up to plenty of use over time. (Organic Cotton Plus sent me the fabric for this post.)
Again I used the previous slipcover pieces for my pattern, but had to add and subtract inches here and there to make them fit better. For the bottom edge, I found a super strong corded elastic and made a casing for it to keep things in place.
I also sanded, filled, stained, and finished the wood! It was really looking shabby but I hadn't taken the time before. It really makes them look much better!
The "before"...
...and the "after." Fixed the wood, made the slipcovers!
Much better fit this time.
They looked so plain without throw pillows on them, but my pillows are pure white and grey--do they clash with the off-white, or is it okay because everything else in the room is also a neutral?
I love these vintage chairs so much (I paid $5 each for them at Goodwill Outlet in 2008 or 2009, I kid you not... they rolled them out onto the floor and my friend and I pointed to them and said "We'll take them!") and am so glad to have them looking good again!
Thanks to Organic Cotton Plus for sending me the fabric for these slipcovers!
I've been working a lot this fall and winter on loving my home just the way it is and making small improvements that make me even more happy in it. I've always loved bedrooms, bedding, and comfortable decor more than decor for any other room, and our bedroom had become a little stale and no longer expressed my style, so I knew I would need to update it soon!
I've been working on some upgrades to our bedroom since around Christmas when I bought this beautiful vintage dresser, swapped out our lamps, and traded out our matching painted nightstands for another DIY and a vintage one. But this past weekend, I completed the makeover with some more re-arranging and repurposing plus some beautiful new bedding from Garnet Hill! (They provided me some of their new spring bedding in exchange for my review.)
Our bedroom has gone through several changes since we moved in to our new townhome a few years back, but for the most part it's looked a lot like this. Pastels, soft shapes, vintage shiny painted matching nightstands, matching white lamps... it was a little too girly and delicate for me now (although I do still absolutely love this DIY painting I did). I'd played with several different art pieces and DIYs above the bed, actually (the black/white windowpane ribbon canvases, the gold initials), but I keep going back to the gold 60's-ey sunburst mirror. As you'll see from other "before"s, the room was much darker with darker curtains and bedding, no matter what pretty pillows and art I put with the bed. So this time I realized I needed to do something more drastic, and I switched out our very dark grey curtains for lighter grey linen-ey weave ones, and switches the bedding to almost all white.
I've decided I like the mismatch nightstand look for now--and this DIY Ikea Rast dresser paint job we did has served us very well and I love it in our room now instead of our guest room.
Back on the opposite wall... I totally redid the top of my dresser. I love the vintage dresser I recently bought when I sold our big black Ikea Malm! Plus, adding the plants brightens up a previously unused corner.
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