Go Pink or Go Home

July 7, 2015 Cate | StyleMutt Home

A couple months ago, a dear dear friend from college honored me with two incredibly humbling questions:

1) Will you be bridesmaid?
2) Will you build me a giant pink wall for my wedding?

I gushed and naturally said yes to both. Amanda had an AMAZING vision for her wedding: vintage Hollywood glam set in a downtown Richmond, VA historic train station with burgandy, black, champagne and blush as the wedding colors. Tres Chic!

Much like mine and Caleb's wedding, Amanda & Stephan had the ceremony and reception in the same room. Super convenient (if I do say so myself) but still proves a challenge to define your "altar" space. This is where the pink wall came in. Amanda needed some sort of free-standing focal point for the ceremony that could be moved during the reception. She found this STUNNING inspiration photo on pinterest and asked me if I could adapt the idea to her venue:

Gulp. Ok I was a little nervous. This backdrop is GORGEOUS! And we did not have a slush fund to pour into such a ceremony show stopper. But then the sweetest thing happened. Other than an epic union before God, weddings are the chance for the community to come together to celebrate the couple. To help Amanda achieve her pink vignette, her community stepped up and started scrounging up the materials we needed to complete the look. The bride's mom took down all the sheer curtain panels in her house. The groom's mom went on a hunt for the perfect bolt of blush sheer fabric. Even my local Home Depot got in on it: they let me spend 3 hours monopolizing a rep and the entire PVC pipe aisle to get the measurements for the frame just right.

The end result was even more beautiful that the pinterest pic. Not because of my labor of love, but the compilation of loving family and friends that went above and beyond to love on Amanda & Stephan that it represented:

It's pale pink glow greeted the guests as they were seated for the ceremony without detracting from the glamorous venue and softly illuminated the already glowing couple.

I love that Stephan is stealing a glance at his bride in this shot.

Getting escorted out with fellow CNU alumni.

I made the 8' x 10' frame from gold painted PVC pipe. The curtains were a combination of LILL IKEA curtains, shredded shear curtain panels, pink tulle, crepe paper streamers, and 11 yards of blush organza.

To my dearest Amanda & Stephan: I am so so honored to have been a part of your big day and wish you both a lifetime of profound joy and love :)

Two Sides to Every Door ||Reversible Headboard Tutorial||

July 2, 2015 Chelsea | StyleMutt Home

Hi friends! While we've been busy moving forward tackling some new projects for an exciting event in August, (stay tuned for the juicy details!), our DC Apartment project has carved out a nice little wake for itself! Last Friday Apartment Therapy featured a sneak peek of the space in an article on decorating tricks for small spaces! We've been quite overwhelmed and humbled by the response to this project and are excited to welcome some new friends to our cozy blog!

As promised, we'll be covering some of the DIY projects we tackled to make this space extra functional, chic and customized to our client. First up is the reversible door headboard! This was a brilliant idea of Cate's that will hopefully give our client long lasting use for this piece.

The first thing you'll need is a door! We found this piece several years ago at the Lucketts Spring Market, (along with a handful of other goodies)!

I, (Chelsea), bought it to give our master bedroom a bit of height variation and to cozy up a little reading nook. I painted one side in Duck Egg blue, and used that side for about 2 years before giving our bedroom a completely fresh look.

Although we had no use for this door anymore after refreshing our bedroom, I'm so grateful I kept it! **I don't typically keep things I have no use for and don't recommend holding on to things for the sake of waiting until you find a use - this piece was one of the few items over several years that struck me as special enough to hold onto, and since it was flat, it stored easily. When we started discussing headboard options for Christine's apartment, this piece was like striking gold! It was already the perfect size, and the painted side happened to be in the color palette we were using.

Although we ultimately decided to use the wood side for now, we turned this door into a headboard in such a way that Christine can always switch sides whenever she wants a fresh look!

Here's how:

So, diagrams aren't my forte, but this is how we rocked a reversible headboard! Rather than screwing the door into the wall, we made legs for it to stand on out of 2x4s. We knew how high we wanted our headboard to stand, so we took that measurement to Home Depot and had them cut two pieces of 2x4 to size., (45" in our case). By pre-screwing an appropriate sized hole through the door and 2x4s, we were able to then use 3.5" bolts that went all the way through both, and secured with a nut on the other side. If Christine ever wants to use the painted side of the door, all she has to do is unscrew the nuts, pull out the bolt, and bring the legs around to the other side of the door, then stick the bolts back through and secure with the nuts.

Since our headboard is not attached to the wall, we made sure the legs were close enough together that the bed itself could be pushed up against them, securing the piece against the wall. The legs are completely unseen, but provide a sturdy base for the piece.

The RANARP clip light from IKEA adds a snap of sophistication for a reasonable $19.99! We opted for the screw-on attachment rather than the clamp, (the instructions on how to use either option are in the box).

A reversible headboard might be a fun option for all you fellow mind-changers out there who like to switch things up at the shift of the wind! We totally get it and hope this tutorial helps inspire new ideas for multi-functional pieces!

Thank you all so much for stopping by! Stay tuned for a colorful Reader Design tour coming all the way from Germany tomorrow - auf wiedersehen!

Card Catalog Table - || It's ok to be naked ||

April 22, 2015 Cate | StyleMutt Home

Before I go any further and you start jumping to nudist conclusions, just keep reading... It all started with a trip to my local ReStore where I scored some vintage metal finds: a task lamp and a two-drawer metal card catalog.

Neither were in great shape: the task lamp was an amputee without a base to stand on, one card catalog cabinet was two-toned and looked like it had heterochromia (a condition where your eyes are two different colors), and the other had hilariously uneven handles. I ended up only getting my blue-eyed/ green-eyed cabinet since something about it made me smile. And so I brought home more misfits to my island of misfit DIYs...

I'll have to save the lamps transformation for another post, but when I started on the card catalog, I knew I wanted to build a base for it and turn it into a table. And that's when I got naked...

Naked wood.

Was that anticlimactic for you? Well I am not sorry. I think a nude wood is totally worthy of a peep show ;) The days of our grandparents furniture modesty is over: you don't need to fill your home with dark and heavily shelacked finishes. That's right, the modern home has gone naked. There's something so simple and beautiful about light, unfinished, natural wood. Just look at these drool-worthy photos in the raw:

I mean, how tantelizingly neutral is all that nakedness?!

I fashioned this beautifully minimal base from a couple of unfinished square dowels. I was actually planing on staining the wood base until I got it all assembled and realized the natural blonde pulled out the bleached labels in the original drawer pulls - I just love how it makes that mysterious handwriting pop!

Someone may find the mis-matched drawers to be a draw back, but I find it beautiful and quirky. Wherever you are drawers J-S and T-Z, I hope you look as cute at this guy!