14May | 2012

My Studio: A little fan revamp

Happy Monday everyone! Before I share the post I have for today I wanted to thank everyone for the response on Facebook, Twitter and the post where we shared the news of our little one on the way! We are so excited and it feels so awesome to feel the love from all of you, you guys are amazing and I feel so lucky that you all read and follow my online adventures.

For today I want to share an update I did on the fan of the sewing room, I was super inspired when I saw a chevron project posted on Design Sponge last year, I pinned it with the hope that someday, when we had a house of our own I could refurnish my own.

Since we are on a very tight budget for all of our house improvement projects we are going to refurnish a lot of the things that were in the house, in the case of my office/sewing room I already showed you what I did with the build-up, now it’s the time for the fan! In my case I needed a full recover for this fan because I didn’t like anything about it, as you can see in the before picture, it had flower shape lights, the blades where showing the wicked pattern side, and I definitely didn’t like the brass body.

So I took the blades out and I was super happy to find that the other side was plain wood, so I would paint and accomplish my idea on that side. For the body, I left it there and took the flower glass shared off (I need to figure what i will replace them for later) I taped and cover around the areas I didn’t want painted and spay with a metal primer, then top it with white paint.

I did the same for the metal parts of the blade and use wood paint for the blades.

After that I taped the shapes I wanted on the blades, this was my very first experience with frog tape, I totally loved it but I did a few thing wrong on this try.

I was not sure of how much pressure I should apply to the tape, and I had a few areas where tape crossed, so my advice pay extra attention to those areas, use your finger and really press there, I didn’t and my blades got pretty messy in the crossed tape areas.

After I took the tape off I had to clean up an re-touch some areas, after everything was dry I re-assemble the baldes and then re-attach them to the fan body. I really love how it ended up looking, I still have to figure what I want to do for the shades but as for now I love it just like that =]

I am really excited because I only have a few more projects to finish the sewing room of my studio, after that I plan on finishing the office room to get all done with my Studio level of the house, that way I can focus on the re-launch of my site and the projects for the baby’s room =] Hopefully I will get to it in a couple of months.


Talking about baby, I wanted to share the link to my Baby blog, I though about keeping it private because it’s more of a Diary for our future son/daughter but then I realize that I like sharing the things that are important to me, specially when I am absent here. So here you go -> Dear Seed, a little diary with the updates of my pregnancy along with my weekly pictures, just like the one above =]
I hope you all have a wonderful week!
XOXO

Joy


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10Apr | 2012

2 years a go…

…I married the love of my life. WOW! it’s crazy how fast time has pass because it still feels like it was just yesterday, I am so blessed to have him in my life and even more blessed now =]

First two images by the awesome Next Exit Photography

I am so happy to finally reveal the real reason why this place has been so quiet and why I’ve been so sick =] We have a little one on the way! So at least is a happy sickness. 2012 has been pretty crazy for us, so far we have a new house, new car (mine) and a baby on the way! talk about excitement and stress. We could not erase the smile off our faces, we are beyond excited and we feel so blessed, it’s kind of funny how everything just happened at once, but some times things are just meant to happen like this! It feels like it’s Christmas, we got it all packed in a few weeks.

So far this pregnancy has been kicking my butt pretty bad, I always get car-sick and my Mom suffered from pretty bad morning sickness when she was pregnant, so it was not a surprise to me when I started to feel sick, but it got to a point where I could not do anything or eat anything, because in less than I could walk to the bathroom I was hugging the toilet. Everything made me dizzy and I could not even walk to the kitchen without stopping because I felt I was fainting. My Doctor gave me medicine that helped me a lot and now at least I’m eating normally but I am still dizzy and super tired most of the day (specially in front of the screen) The first trimester is officially over, so I am hoping things will eventually get better, but even if they don’t – I don’t care much, I am so happy to have this little one growing inside that I would take this kind of morning-all-day sickness for the whole 9 months as long as he/she is healthy =]

Because the stress of the move-house-sickness was really getting to me I decided to close my Design Studio, that way I can slowly catch up with all the clients that are in my wait-list right now and hopefully I will also catch up with my Inbox (right now it’s a nightmare). I am still selling Blogger and WordPress premades but only on Etsy. So I am not completely out of the Design picture =]

Our house is still a huge mess because I just don’t have the energy to do much, and that’s kind of frustrating, but I know that we will slowly get there =] I try to clean and organize whenever I am too dizzy for the computer but most times I just end up in bed =[ I get dizzy even with my phone so that's why I've been so silent on Twitter and absent on Instagram. I hope to feel better soon, so I can catch up with everything (including this blog).

Last week I was lucky to finally have a normal day, one of those where I didn't look like crap so I took my first weekly pictures, I really wanted to start taking them sooner but at least I started =]

I am not planning on posting weekly updates here just because I want to keep the blog as it is now, I am keeping a side blog where I plan to post all my baby stuff but of course (as everything else in my TO-DO list) it’s not done yet, so I will share it once I get to it =] I am planning on sharing ALL the projects and stuff I want to make here – but other than that I want to keep all my baby-talk over on the other blog, because I don’t want to get you all tired with my pregnancy-issues (because I know I get tired of hearing myself) LOL.

I am so happy to finally share the news and feel free to talk about it with everyone =]
I hope you all have a bright and sunny day!
XOXO

Joy


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3Apr | 2012

My Studio: Sewing table build-in revamp

I wanted to start by saying THANK YOU! for all the lovely comments we received when we announced that we are homeowners, I loved reading all of them! It feels so good to be in our own house now. We moved weekends a go and after a full week with no internet service I am very happy to be back, but still trying to catch up with work and emails =]

The very first project I got to tackle the week we moved (other than cleaning, trying to unpack and organizing) was the revamp for the build-in desk in the sewing room, because since the minute I saw it I knew I wanted to prettify it.

The counter top was a laminate surface, so I come out with a buch of different ideas to revamp it, I though painting was not going to be a very durable option with me using it all the time, but once at the store I realized that they had a special paint for laminated surfaces! silly me =]

I guess I just needed to go out there and see what the store had, I was planning on adding a vinil sheet as one of the top ideas on my list, but they were all a lot more complicated than just paint, so I am super happy they had the exact color tint for this pain (they only carry 16 different colors).

To start I took all of the drawers and doors apart, then took all of the hardware off, clean it very well and added paper an tape around all the areas I was going to paint. The inside of the cabinets was super dark, so I also planned on painting it (white) so that I could see in there better.

Because this is a build-in taping was kind of hard on some areas but it just required some extra patience =] For the counter top I was surprised of how good of a coverage the paint had, I could have leave it with just one layer, but to be sure I did 2 anyways.

The rest of the structure was solid wood, so I end up giving it 3 layers of paint, the pink covered really well but since it had more intricate corners I preferred to give it one more =]

I also wanted to share a little trick I use every time I need to paint hardware and screws, if I need the heads of the screws to be the same color as the hardware I just pinch them to a piece of styrofoam, as for the hardware I choose the side that will be visible to paint first and then once it’s dry I take it out and finish the other side. This has always worked really well for me, so I hope it can help others too =]

I also wanted to share one of the things that excited me the most about the build-in, it has an extendable top. I think it would be the perfect space to have a Serger (since they are not needed all the time) I could easily pull it out every time I need it =]

Now I just need to buy one, but with the new house and such I don’t see it happening anytime soon, but at least it already has a place in the sewing room =] I just love the mechanism inside, it has a little handle in the botton that you pull to unlock so you can put it back it. So perfect!

For the hardware I just spray painted with a very similar color pink, it’s a shade softer but you can hardly tell. At first I wanted it to be a hotter pink but now I think it looks good and I am starting to like it more and more.

And as usual I had to share a picture of how Curly keeps me company when I work, it was pretty cold with all the doors and windows open in the studio, so he just crawl in to a ball and stayed warm. He is doing so much better now in the house, at first he was super scare of the stairs (we use to only have a 2 level house, not 3 like now) He used to cry for us to take him up and down but after a few days he goes all by himself and we play hide and seek whenever I have to go up or down =]

I can’t wait to have more time and keep on going on the rest of the projects I have lined up, so I can unpack and start to sew again =] and don’t worry I know I am still owing 2 tutorials, I hope to finish one of them next weekend so I can share it next week!

That’s it for the revamp of the build-in, more on how the studio/office/sewing room is coming together soon =]
I hope you all have a lovely and sunny day!
XOXO

Joy


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19Mar | 2012

We are Home Owners!!

I wanted to share this amazing news with all of you today because for the past 3 months I’ve been keeping it a secret that we started house hunting, I don’t think we could be any more excited because finally this weekend escrow closed and we are officially home owners!

home owners

We were so excited we wanted to move right away! but right after we took this pictures a snow storm hit the mountains and up until today there was still snow coming down, we lost power because of falling trees and it was way too difficult to even try to move things in the snow. So we will wait for the weather to get better to attempt to move.

Our new house is by no means new, it was actually build in the 70′ and needs a lot of work, no really A LOT of work! but that was exactly what we were looking. We contemplated building in order to have the house we wanted, but after we saw this house we knew right away that it was perfect for us, it had all the potential we were looking for, and since it needs so much work, we can renovate it to be exactly what we want =]

home owners

The house it’s located downhill, so in this picture you can only see one floor, but it’s actually a 3 story down, and the main level entrance is one of the things we LOVE! we used to have to carry groceries about 30 steps up from our rental driveway to the house, so this by itself it’s a great improvement! We have a two car garage with a little shop below it, we plan to renovate that too, but so far that’s last in our super long list!

And along with the news I wanted to share one of the things that excited me the most about this house – the 3rd floor -> this is actually a 1 bath/2 rooms level, and it’s all MINE to set up my studio/office!! YAY! – So I can’t wait to get started in the renovation of this space (one of my first projects in the house)

It’s funny that even before escrow closed I had everything I want to make with this space planned out in my head =] I decided to keep the wall dividing the 2 rooms (at first I wanted to get rid of it and have just one very long room) and make the front room my office/design studio and the back room as my sewing/crafting area so that way I keep things more organized.

home owners

home owners

I am so excited to share the rest of the house and the improvements we are going to be working on, since it will be mostly done by us with the professional help of Ken’s dad. We decided we want to move in and slowly work on one room at a time, for this next couple of weeks we are going to be working on cleaning, and whatever the weather allows us to do outside, and I’ll be working on my studio every time I can.

I am so happy to finally write this post, we have been crossing fingers for weeks!!
I hope you all had a wonderful weekend and if you have any moving tips I would really appreciated! since last time I moved I only brought 2 bags from Chile, this move will be a little bigger than that LOL.

Joy


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My name is Joy, I'm a Chilean Designer, sewing fanatic, obsessive crafter, upcycle passionate and lover of all things pretty. Here is where I blog about all my projects and adventures - Welcome!

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