nursery – dresser drawer saga

It’s an IKEA dresser so you know I couldn’t leave it just like it was supposed to be, right?  I wasn’t planning anything more major than lining the drawers and swapping out the knobs – I’ve seen some crazy awesome IKEA hacks on Apartment Therapy but nah…

I just went simple.  I lined the drawers and swapped out the knobs. 

Unfortunately, lining the drawers proved bizarrely complicated.  Or maybe I just made it overly complicated.  I don’t know.

The bottoms of the drawers are yellow and white stripes.  I think I’ve mentioned my distaste for yellow, right? So I bought 4 different scrapbook papers – 8 drawers, each paper for 2 drawers – to line them.  I decided that it would be easiest to do this before putting the drawers together so that I could just deal with the flat bottoms of the drawers rather than wholly made up drawers.


My materials – paper, drawer bottoms, DIY modpodge (I don’t recommend it or find better directions than the 50/50 mix of elmer’s and water that I was working with), and a foam brush.

Apply glue with brush.  Stick paper on…

and watch your paper destroy itself :(

Try the rolling pin… no dice.

Try stacking a whole bunch of flat weight on top… no pictures but this didn’t work either.  Actually, that was a complete disaster.  It all stuck together.  No, actually, first it worked but the paper peeled right back off so then I tried to put the “modpodge” on the top surface too and that stuck to everything.

Finally move on to Plan B – use spray mount to stick the paper down and then cover in clear contact paper.  That actually worked like a charm.  I lapped the contact paper over the edges since they would be hidden under the edges of the drawers once they were put together.  I figured that might add to the staying power and make for a more seamless look.

Will put the the rest of the drawers together.

With his little supervisor watching every move, of course ;-)
 
These are the smaller top drawers – the bigger bottom drawers are lined in the green polka dots you see above or pretty plain turquoise-y.

The dresser comes with dark, nearly black knobs which I didn’t think “went” with a pretty white dresser in a baby’s room.  So awhile back, I picked up some pretty pink glass knobs half off at Hobby Lobby.  I know I said that I was going gender neutral but that doesn’t mean that I can’t put in pops of girly that can be easily swapped out if the next munchkin turns out to be a boy.  I also convinced my mom to give me all the brushed nickel knobs that she got for her kitchen cabinets but had to replace since they were too shallow.  Score!

Complete!

 
Bonus – you can almost tell that the walls are 2 different colors in this picture! But – oops!, I just realized that this picture is actually from before I swapped out the rest of the knobs.  D’oh!  Oh well, other things changed too so you’ll see later.

So that’s my very basic, simple IKEA hack on the Hemnes dresser.  Here’s the first part of the story.

a quick question

This question is mostly directed at my mom since she is my long distance (hopefully soon-to-be local) decorator.   Hi Mom!

It’s about our living room.

Here’s our living room:

Over that rattan chair to the right of the picture (with a table and another rattan chair next to it out of the frame) is a big blank wall – I’m not sure why I don’t have a picture of it.  The picture you see on the wall is a framed picture of an actual London Underground map.  It’s the only picture on the walls at the moment.

We tried to make this work:

But it’s WAY too big…. like cover the whole wall plus 2 out of the 3 light switches.  Oops.  So it’s upstairs.  Will likes to wander into the front bedroom and study it.

Then I was thinking of doing this:

Source: everythingfab.com via Marcy on Pinterest

 

It’s maps of where you met (Maryland), where you got married (NJ), and where you honeymooned (NZ) but the more I thought about it, I don’t think it would take up enough wall space.  I still love the idea though.

So here’s my new idea. 
 
Now, these are just temporary for now (held up with binder clips and pushpins) since I would definitely get them framed properly if this is what we decide to do.  It’s DC Metro map and a NYC Subway map – also authentic like the London one.

What do you think?  Yay or nay?  Will it be too much if I get them both framed like the other one?

redecorating a bit

Once we got everything all settled in the drawers, we put all the “stuff” back on top. 

Sadly, my precious little pewter lamp (inherited from my Aunt Rosie – well, she was really my grandmother’s best friend) is absolutely dwarfed by the dresser.

The proportions are just all off.

Funny how one change leads to many others.

I went home a couple of weeks ago and went shopping with my mother – who can figure out space and proportion in her sleep – for a new lamp.  HomeGoods to the rescue.

 

This is what I ended up with.  I think it works but I’m not sure which is why the tags and the plastic are still on it.  What do you think?

(yes, the shade is crooked.  I dropped the finial as I was packing the car and left it in NJ.)

Next up – something to put on that wall.