The Den

When MLW and I first bought this house, I assumed the man room would be in fact the man room. No girls allowed and all that. MLW had a guest room all to himself in the rental and I pretty much never went in there. It was a "close the door when guest come over and pretend it doesn't exist" room. But, this house has been way diffrent. I'm in this room all.the.time. I think part of it has do to with that is where I feed the dogs and let them out in the morning and the other is that it is the farthest away from our bedroom. MLW works until 4 or 5 in the morning so when I get up he is snoozing away. The farther I can be from him but still watch the Today show is a good thing.
I had been trying to be nice and neutral in the design of this room as well, but last weeks dyi gold curtains pushed me over the edge. I'm officially hanging out in this room. Thus it is no longer the man cave, but the den. Boom.
As promised, I've got another ikea hack and just a general room update. So here goes...

I bought 2 of the Ikea vittsjo shelving units and tv stand to match a few weeks back. I had visions of a navy book shelf to pick up on the navy in the kantha throw on the couch with  gold shelves. The first box we sprayed by doing each piece individually, but learned it was actually much easier to spray the shelfs once they had been assembled. 

Good navy spray paint is shockingly hard to find. I wanted a very deep rich navy and all the classic brands had too much cobalt in them. I ended up finding this paint at Michaels's in "Prussian Blue". It is a little pricey but the color is rich and perfect. It also went on really smooth, was less smelly and only needed one coat. So maybe things evened out in the end? 

                                               

A close up of the top, to show the color. The perfect navy spray paint. 

And shelf one! I ended up not spray painting the bottom "wood" peice. I'm afraid I might have to rename this blog "So I spray painted *blank* gold." But it could still happen. My lovely in-laws are coming down this weekend and I was pumped to style these babies. 

Shelf two.  

If you have read this little blog since the begging you know how much I loved these ModCloth bookends. Welp they showed up from MLW's sweet grandma as a house warming gift. They are hilarious. 

Of course there are a couple style tweaks I'm sure I'll be making but I'm pretty happy overall. MLW is happy because all his favorite books are on the shelf. Compromise baby. 

View from the couch. The navy is ready more dark grey in photos, but in person it has so much more depth. 

Ekk! Looks like a real room! 

I know ya'll have seen a preview of the couch, but here she is up close. So comphy and another Ikea steal. The chaise lounge is my favorite spot in the house.

Close up of the kantha throw. Right now I've got black pillows on the couch with the touches of navy in the throw. Normally I say black and navy are a no-no, but so far this isn't offending me. It's always a work in process though. 

Speaking of work in progress, this is the other side of the den. Its  the hot mess express. Eventually we want to create a more organized work out area/ dog wangling place. One far far (emphasis on far) away day it might even be a play room. 

And MLW's desk. I found a better desk chair on Craigslist and it is riding around in my car until I can get to the fabric store. 

But lets end a good note. Ahh so calm and cozy. Hope everyone has a fantastic weekend! 

DYI Gold Dot Curtains? Yes, please!

Curtains are tough. I love the idea of a fun patterned curtain, but can just never seem to commit to a particular pattern or color scheme. That being said most of the curtains in my house are solid and neutral. I have navy curtains in guest room 1, gettin' wild! 

I've been trying to figure out exactly what to do in MLW's "man room" and just knew that neutral would make the room kinda bland. So far, we have grey owl walls, a grey sofa and white tile floor. It was getting a little 50 shades of grey. Then I found a kantha throw at a local shop Celadon with wonderful navys, oranges, greens and reds, and a very pretty medium tone green rug from One Kings Lane and things were looking up! 

But back to the curtains. What would look good?!? This room also has 4 big windows so I needed something with a little bit of a punch, but not enough to overpower the space. I came across this pretty Caitlin Wilson fabric and knew I was on to something. I loved the metallic gold geometric pattern, the gold would look good with the kantha throw, but still add a little punch to the windows. But at $65 a yard I knew it was wayyyy out of my budget.

So then I found this post on Pinterest and things really started clicking. The original post from Cakies was about using gold dots on fabric and turning it into a tee shirt. But I thought, why couldn't this go bigger? And with an weekend trip to Ikea in the near future I knew I could make something similar happen. 

So here is how it went down: 

I picked up 4 packages of the Merete curtains in white from Ikea. They are a nice cotton blend so I figured they would take the gold well. Also they were $ 27.99 and 2 panels to a package. A pretty good deal if you have been curtain shopping lately. 

Love this stuff. I used it to paint the handles on a basket and had some left over. I love the brass color, a little more toned down than the gold, but I'm sure that would be lovely too. I ended up needing two more jars but at $7ish bucks a pop, still not too bad. 

I also picked up this dabber at Michaels for paint application. I actually didn't want each dot to be perfect and loved that I got a couple of good solid dots before it would fade a little bit. The original post mixed their paint with modge podge. I tried this at first but it turned a dark brown color that freaked me out. Needless to say I forgot that modge podge dries clear and only the gold would show through in the end. It worked out just fine though with using the liquid guilding. The fabric of the curtains soaked it right up. Tip: I wrapped my plate in plastic wrap to protect it. The liquid brass does not come off easily! I would recommend using a triple stacked paper plate if you have them laying around. (also yes, that is corgi hair on my dabber. no judgement.) 

I would also recommend using a plastic barrier, but I got excited and this curtain from our past house that didn't make the cut did the trick. It is a thicker weave and did add a bit of a pattern to the dot, but i the end the extra texture was quite nice. 

Next I laid down the clean white Merete curtains and started dotting. It took about 15 minuets per panel, so times that by 8 panels and there you go. 

Hang those bad boys up to dry over night and....

 Hang them up in the morning. The curtain rods are also Ikea finds. Love that store. MLW supervised from the couch. 

Ta-da! I love, love when an idea in my head actually turns out well! 

Close up of the various saturation of the dots. 

Man room is looking pretty cozy right about now. And I know I've kept ya'll in the dark about its transformation, but it just looked so drab until these curtains went up! 

I had a pretty good haul at ikea and I'll be customizing some other purchases pretty soon too. In the mean time I hope ya'll like these curtains as much as I do!

Love ya'll!