Half Bathroom Feature - Remodelaholic!

Happy New Year!

Remember when we re-finished the bathroom counters?  And some purty new faucets?  And I wrote a gushy post about how much I loved them?  Well,the folks over at Remodelaholic thought they were pretty nice too and are featuring the half bathroom makeover today!!

I took some photos of the bathroom all fancied up for Christmas, which are included in the post.  I'd LOVE for you to head on over and check it out!  It's so exciting!!  

Foot stool re-do.

During the weeks before Christmas, Brian was working hard building shelves in the basement to organize our storage area.  While sorting through all of our stuff, it became painfully obvious that my "project" shelf was going to be, um. large.  So in an effort to clear it a bit, I grabbed this sweet little thing from the shelf.  

I snatched it up for $4.00 one day and bolted out of the store before anyone else could grab it.  I mean, $4??  A steal!  

The base was in really great condition, other than a few scratches on the metal.  I decided to just give the cushion a makeover for now.  I mean, I know that floral is pretty, but it wasn't screamin' my name.

My first thought was a faux sheepskin throw, but it wasn't quite wide enough to cover the whole cushion.  Instead, I grabbed some gray arrow fabric from my stash.  My Mom would say that I should iron it first, but ... I hate ironing.  So I just measured the fabric and rolled with it.  

First step, lay out your fabric, place the cushion on top, and be sure that you you have enough fabric to cover each side of the cushion.  

At this point, you could remove the old fabric and such, but I was going for a quick project, so I left the flowers live and just covered them up.  

So, now begins the stapling!  This project is really very, very basic.  Two things to remember: #1 Always staple into the wood edges of the cushion (too far into the center and the staples won't stick!) and #2 - Pull taught, but not too tight.  

Now, let's get stapling.  First things first, staple one side of the fabric with one single staple in the center of that side.

Then, pulling the fabric taught, put one staple into the middle of the opposite side.

Same deal for the other 2 sides.  Once all 4 sides have at least one staple in them, start the stapling process down one side, then continue to the opposite side, followed by each of the other sides.  Stop the staples about 2 inches from each end.  Don't forget to keep the fabric pulled taught the entire time!

 

Now it's time to tackle the corners.  Pull the corner piece toward you.  

Then, pull it straight up toward the center, and plant a staple into the corner.  

Next, pull one side to the side to make a nice, straight line of fabric on the corner.  Plant another staple to secure the fabric.

Last, pull the other side taught to make a pretty corner and plant another few staples in there to make them secure.

Repeat til you have 4 nice, pretty corners.  

It'll look pretty frumpy at this point, so trim the excess fabric to make her look nice and slim.

See?  Isn't she pretty?  Then I popped her back in the frame.  And BOOM - pretty little ottoman.

The whole process took 10 minutes at the very most.  And for such a cute little foot stool!

 I still love to throw a little faux fur over it, so I might explore that option some day.  But for now, I think she's really cute, fur or no fur!

Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

Happy Holidays, friends!  I hope that this season finds you well, whatever your family may celebrate. 

Our family is drowning in snot and holiday parties.  Only one of those is fun.  I'll let you decide which one.  

All kidding aside, the sweetness of this season is never lost on me.  And this year, the boys are the perfect ages for us to see that magic really come alive.  Of course Santa is fun, but teaching them the real meaning of Christmas wonderful too.  

I just want to say THANK YOU to those of you who visit my little corner of the internet.  I love having you here.  You.  Yes, YOU!  

Merry Christmas!

I'm Flying South Social Media

We have been busting arse on house projects lately.  So quickly, that I have a giant backlog of unfinished posts sitting in my drafts folder because I can't seem to finish a post before starting a new project.  So my goal for the next few weeks is to get writing!

I've also been thinking a lot lately about expanding the blog's social media presence.  Plenty of my IRL friends would love to see updates on the house, but I don't really want to get all spammy on my personal page.  So I decided to finally publish the I'm Flying South facebook page that I made a year or so ago!

And then of course while I was thinking about social media, I realized that I left out links to everything when I redesigned the blog earlier this year.  So while I get something up on the blog, here are links to all of the fun places that I post pictures of my kids and house projects and like!

• Facebook - facebook.com/imflyingsouth ... I'd love it if you'd pop on over and "Like" the page!
• Instagram - instagram.com/imflyingsouth/ ... I'll be honest, the majority of my IG posts involve my adorable offspring!
• Twitter - twitter.com/imflyingsouth ... I'm not a big "tweeter", but my FB and IG posts are usually auto-tweeted, so it's an easy place to find everything!
• Pinterest - pinterest.com/imflyingsouth/ ... Ah Pinterest.  We have a love/hate relationship!

So there's the list!  See ya 'round!