Let me introduce you to my new favorite corner of this little house.
It doesn’t really look like much but it’s my favorite because it’s chock full of fun diy’s I’ve been knocking out over the past couple of weeks. Still on the list is a hook system (just like this one) that I want to get up on that empty wall to the right of the door. Hopefully that will happen before school rolls in this fall so we have a place to park backpacks. :)
To jog your memory, here’s what that corner looked like just after we moved in:
We desperately needed a place to store shoes since this is the door we use most often and so we bought Ikea’s Mackapar, hacked it, and still love it. I finally got around to painting the living room last month too. Goodbye tan! With all of the orangey-wood trim and lack of light during the majority of the day, white was the clear winner. We went with Pure White by Sherwin-Williams. The door was in a sad state; dinged and stained. It was begging for a new coat of paint.
I made a few quick color mock-ups to show Anthony and he voted white. I voted black. The other option was gray. I let Anthony win and then I found out after I painted it that there was some sort of miscommunication and he had actually voted gray! Oops. Sometimes those quick decisions made in passing comments will getcha. Haha!
We oh-welled though and decided white was the best anyway since I was able to use paint we already had, leftover from painting the kitchen cabinets.
The framed picture of Christ, the yarn art on the door, and the little hanging flower vase are all fun diys that I’m excited to share with you! To fit them all into one post might be a little stuffy so we’ll focus on one at a time. First and foremost, Jesus. #religiouspun
My best friend drew this picture of Christ in high school and I’ve had a copy of her original since college, where we met. It’s been rolled up along with some other pieces of special art and stored away for, oh let’s see…over twelve years now. Those of you who ogle at how many projects I get done, have a good laugh! For every project I do get done, there are probably at least ten I still haven’t. ;)
Another thing I’ve had squirreled away is this framed art:
I found it at TJ Maxx on many moons ago (read, 8-9 years) and on clearance for $12. About five years ago I realized that Megan’s portrait of Christ and this frame might go perfect together…and then made a mental note to make that happen…someday.
When it finally DID, here’s how:
This frame isn’t one you open up in back to switch out the art when you feel like it, like many framed pieces of art. So, the back was covered in brown paper that had to be removed before any changing of the pictures inside could happen.
PS, I’ve seen TONS of frames like this at thrift stores and I know I’ve written about how to get inside them before but…here she goes again…
First, I grabbed a razor blade and sliced through the paper right along the back inside edge of the frame. No need to press too hard.
Then it was easy to pull the paper back to reveal the contents of the frame.
Holding the glass, mat, picture, and cardboard backing in were staples all around the inside edge of the frame.
A quick lift and bend of each of those allowed me to remove all of that.
I wanted to reuse the mat but the existing picture was taped to it really well.
I had started ripping it off but the tape pulled some of the paper of the mat away with it. I didn’t know how bad it would get if I kept removing tape so I just grabbed my razor again and cut around the edge of the picture to remove it.
Once I had the mat out and by itself, I grabbed the picture of Christ, placed it behind the mat, and realized it was slightly too big to perfectly fit the mat. Womp womp.
I still wanted it to work though so my first thought was to make the opening of the mat larger by using my razor to cut within a decorative groove that was already there.
After I was done cutting, the edge of the matt was feathered with ripped paper and wasn’t looking so professional. 
But a few swipes with a piece of sandpaper saved me by smoothing it right out and I was onto fitting again.
Making the mat larger worked…sort of. Now the mat was perfectly wide enough to frame the entire width of the cross but too long. Argh. I needed a filler. I rifled through my stash of papers (printer, resume, photo, watercolor…) to see if any of them matched the paper the drawing was on. Nothing was an exact enough of a match that it would blend in enough.
So I tried my fabric stash. I thought about filling that space with some patterned fabric to add contrast but it seemed like that might be too much. Then I found some excess fabric selvage (the end of a piece of fabric) and I thought that might work…it was different enough that it’d add some flair but similar enough that it might blend in. And I liked that maybe the fringe on the end would add a litte flair. Boho anyone?
First, I ironed the fabric quick-like. Then I placed it between the mat and the paper to fill that extra space.
Once I made sure everything was nice and straight, I taped the fabric to the back of the mat, put the cardboard back over the new contents of the frame, and then bent all of those staples back down to make sure everything stayed put. I didn’t put the brown paper back over all of that because it just isn’t necessary.
No, it doesn’t look pretty from the back but unless the wall really cares what it’s looking at, I sure don’t and hey, nobody else knows!…except you, of course. Shhhh…
Up onto the wall it went and surprise, surprise, against the brown cardboard backing, the fabric actually almost disappears as it matches the mat almost perfectly! Up close you can tell it’s there but even still, it looks purposefully placed and my disappointment in needing a filler in the first place is long gone.
Initially, before I had even dug into this frame to swap things out, I had planned on painting the frame itself and the mat white just because. the whites they were, seemed more ivory to me. But, when I got around to tackling this, it was raining and I couldn’t paint so I just decided to go ahead sans paint and paint later. And now I’m thankful I didn’t paint them! In the light of the living room, they pass more for a warm gray than ivory or beige and they warm up the very white space really nicely.
I’ll be back later to share the other two projects in this happy little corner plus a tour of the rest of the living room and then it’s onto the dining room!
Pax Christi!
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