Interior design - DIY style

As promised yesterday...
here they are, my two favourite Interior DIY projects of the week.



INTERIOR DESIGN
DIY - Clear Side Table

First up is a DIY project by one of my favourite DIYers out there -Ivania Carpio from the Netherlands.
Ivania has a great original style and some of the most beautiful and clean designs.
You can find her original DIY projects on her blog Love Aesthetics.

find the full post and tutorial here

INTERIOR DESIGN - KIDS
DIY - Nursery lamp makeover

The second DIY project is for the little ones. It's by Project Nursery a great site for nursery design inspiration.

                   Before:

                   After:

find the full tutorial here.

Weekend projects and a DIY ottoman coffee table

the weekend is coming up and I have projects up over my ears... I am ( a bit overly positive) hoping to finish:

1. My first crochet granny square blanket - consisting of only one very big square, I am loving the process and the next one will definitely be many little squares. I will post some photos very soon...I promise.

2. The floor pillows I mentioned in an earlier post - I have cut the fabric but that's it, it's all lying in a big pile in the closet

3. A knitted Letter pillow for Chupi, the letter E for her real name Elin.

I also have plans of sewing a few diaper covers, knitting a baby hoodie and a baby coat.
I am nuts...it will never happen ... but somewhere deep inside I still believe I have superpowers.

...oh and I also want to upholster our coffee table, possibly with Kilim to create a ottoman coffee table AND I still need to paint the livingroom rug.

I will leave you with some before and after pictures of a fabulous ottoman coffee table DIY by Pepper Design.

you can read the original post and get the complete tutorial here.




I wish you all a great weekend.

More IKEA Rast DIY makeover inspiration

I still have to do something with the 2 IKEA Rast dressers from a previous post here in our living room and I just cannot seem to decide what to do with them, the fact that there are like a zillion Rast makeovers out there to be inspired by does not make this any easier.

Below are 2 more makeovers I came across when browsing through IKEA Hackers just recently.

I think the pullers on the pink one are the kind I need for the dressers in Chupi's room, not the ones that are currently on there, although cute, they don't fit with the rest of the room and now really annoy me which I guess is why that project hasn't moved forward either.

Anyways... soon I tell myself, soon I will get around to that.

For the full DIY project and more pictures visit original post here by Jenny and Louisa at For Chic Sake.

the original post for the Industrial look dresser DIY is by refresheddesigns and can be found here.

I just love a good before & after project

I am on the brim of obsessional with before & after projects and Design Sponge definitely has some good projects to ogle. Like this Before & After: Chic Bohemian Nursery by Justina Blakeney. 
She has combined so many lovely fabrics and patterns and I am absolutely in lobe with the shaggy rug.

A DIY high chair for Chupi

We always said we were going to get the Stokke® Tripp Trapp® chair in a bright colour for Chupi once she got big enough...

suddenly she was big enough and we really needed a high chair but I knew it was going to take ages until we got our thumbs out of our a**es and go get her a chair.
So Sunday a week ago I thought I could DIY a high chair instead...and I did.
It took all bloody day but it turned out pretty cool I think (my boyfriend's parents think it looks like something found in an institute for the insane), I mean improvements could still be done now looking back on it but it works and Chupi seems to really like it. 
Judge for yourselves:

You can see in the background how the chair actually looks before covered with the "high chair".

This is what I did:

I placed two square foam pillows on the seat of the chair and covered them in fabric going around the underside of the chair seat and then added push buttons to attach it all the way around.

I covered the backrest of the chair with the same fabric and sewed it onto the pillow part also fastened with push buttons at back.

I sewed the harness part seen in the picture onto the backrest fabric with lots of push buttons to make sure it would fasten securely around her and that I could make it larger as she grew.

I shoved a pillow down the back behind the fabric for back comfort and softness and that was it.

It is easily removable with the snap buttons so it can be machine washed which is necessary as I have already had to wash it twice since making it.

Sounds complicated? It was a little complicated :)  - I didn't have the patience to create a pattern so I just started sewing and I wasn't smart enough to document the progress with pictures, but should anyone be interested I can probably come up with a better description on how to do it including both photographic and hand drawn pictures, just let me know.

DIY project - IKEA Rast dresser makeover

I have just bought 4 Ikea Rast dressers.
They are cheap and untreated and great for DIY and I am definitely not the first to DIY this dresser.
Below are some Rast re-creations from others...

1. Almost Makes Perfect
2. Me, You and a Wiener
3. IKEA’s Livet Hema blog
4. Design Manifest
5. AM Dolce Vita


I bought two dressers for Chupi's room and two for the living room as a TV stand and DVD storage etc. The ones in the living room are still plain and very ugly and I haven't decided what I want to do with them. The two in Chupi's room have already been painted and only need hardware ...that's where I got stuck.
I bought and added the hardware to one of the chests and now I cant decide if I maybe liked it better with the original knobs.

What do you think, original knobs or the oriental brass ones? 

I might go for something completely different in the end... I will keep you updated on how it turns out. 


The stripey guys on the dresser are my Sock Monkeys, I am a bit of a sock monkey maniac at the moment and have to everyone's amusement started a mini sock monkey production line.

To finish today off here are some more IKEA Rast hack by other bloggers

1. Design Sponge

2. I Suwannee

3. IKEA’ s Livet Hema blog

4. Design Dump

5. + 6. I cannot find who hacked these but they are using the  decorative fretwork panels from O’verlays

See how the other pair of dressers turned out here.