Client Projects
Bon Journee
My newest gig entails sewing three pillows that look like this:
My client chose this graphic, and slightly international fabric to complement the decor of his new downtown loft which is currently being renovated. He also selected industrial metal zippers instead of the invisible white zippers that I normally use.
Honestly I wasn’t sure about the shiny metal zippers at first, but now that they are sewn, I think they look pretty awesome. Very rugged but also discreet enough to not scratch your head when you are actually using the pillow.
Once these babies and their three red friends are out the door I will be filing metal zippers away under “things not to forget to use.”
Check It
File this project under “things we’re really glad we were able to do for someone.”
This project was a birthday gift to Jeb from his wife Anna – who happened to be expecting twins and unable to jump in there and swing the hammer herself. I was thrilled to be able to come in and help her give him the perfect addition to his game room.
As we’ve mentioned in this earlier post, I took some measurements, made a plan, went shopping and then made it all happen. Which took two full days of work.
We accomplished the following last Saturday:
1. Remove the existing wire closet shelf.
2. Fill in the door hinge marks.
3. Remove the old door magnets and fill in marks in door frame.
4. Remove the old baseboards from the back and right side wall. Reattach them at the end of the project.
5. Pull back the carpet, and cut and reattach it where needed.
6. Fill in the screw holes on the wall left behind from the old wire shelf and touch up the paint where needed.
7. Build base of bottom shelves with 2×4 studs.
8. Build a shelving unit on top of and around the studs using 2′ x 4′ handy boards from Lowes.
9. Prime and paint these lower shelves.
10. Tile the countertop and backsplash.
11. Hang two wall shelves, stemware holders and artwork.
12. Paint shelves and brackets.
13. Caulk and touch up the entire project.
14. Add Accessories and photograph.
15. Nap.
Leaving behind a pretty unfinished looking project.
Meh.
Luckily Sunday afternoon checked every item off of our list.
These pictures just include the decorative items that we brought in, we’re sure they’ll come in behind us and fill the shelves with lots of items that make the nook feel uniquely them.
They’ve been cool enough to allow us to share the sources for everything we used in this project – we made sure to ask since this was a paid project.
- Backsplash Tile: Home Depot on sale for $3.94 a square foot. Jeb found the tile himself, for a bargain compared to the $10.98 version we located at another big box store that rhymes with “Moe’s”.
- All wood: also from Home Depot
- Pine Brackets and Stemware Holders: Lowes (rhymes with Moe’s)
- Wall Paint: Kilim Beige by Sherwin Williams
- Lower Cabinet Paint: Hopsack by Sherwin Williams
- Countertop Tile: 4 inch travertine from Lowes, Grout is Casual Beige ready mix grout also from Lowes.
- Keep Calm and Play On Print: Happy Landings via Etsy. Jeb and Anna are soccer players but Happy Landings has tons of designs to choose from. The frame is a RIBBA from IKEA.
- Pewter Tray: Home Goods, on clearance for $20.00
- Red Ostrich Frame: Home Goods, holding a picture of the couple’s pup a la veterinary cone.
- Black and White Zig Zag Tray: Honeymoon at Home, $14.00
- Nambe Bowl: their own
- Bar Coaster Art Work: their own
- Baskets: Home Goods, $16.99 each
- Q: An impulse buy from Michael’s checkout aisle, $1.00
After all this time and effort, I think my favorite piece in the bar is the artwork the couple already had, which you may remember was their entire inspiration for the closet. We pretty much pulled colors and themes from the items that the couple already had to balance out the look.
Our biggest dilemma was that black minifridge. My first thought going into their nice tan and white room was “how am I going to make that fridge blend in?” We think it worked out okay but just added carefully place black accents near and around the fridge such as the soccer print and the black weave on the baskets.
It didn’t hurt that we used a darker brown paint to ground the fridge and lower cabinet, leaving the lighter color for the top shelves. Not unlike our own bar area and kitchen cabinets. We’re predictable if nothing else. The whole space has a very similar feel to our own closet, but we’re thinking that’s okay since that’s why we got the call in the first place.
In the end the only Chad and Amy-ism I couldn’t sell was a skull bottle opener. It’s a pretty personal taste – we must admit.
Not too bad for a weekend job right? We hope Anna and Jeb love it as much as we loved helping them out!
Bar Closet Building – Day One
Have we mentioned how excited we are that we were asked to create a bar space in someone else’s closet? As in, someone else that we didn’t even know?
Here is how it all started. Way back when I climbed up into our own living room closet-turned-bar in order to paint some stripes on the walls.
My new friend Anna saw said shenanigans and decided to leave a little comment. Just enough to peak my interest.
After several e-mails and a visit to Anna’s casa we were in. Here is what it was looking like.
Our first step in the entire process was to find out exactly what Anna and her husband Jeb were looking for. This closet is in a room with a tv and a pool table so they were just looking for a nice little nook to keep the mini fridge and some adult beverages. Storage for board games and other items was also something they were looking for. Right now the standard closet set up was just not working for them.
They liked the way our bar closet was done with a painted cabinet below, open shelving above and a tile countertop and backsplash. Simple enough right?
Well after taking some measurements, we pretty quickly discovered that this 22″ deep closet would not be able to accomodate lower cabinets like our 36″ deep closet could. Okay, so we could have installed lower cabinets but opening the doors could have been tricky in parts. Darn doors.
This led to a slightly more elaborate plan of building custom shelving, to include space for the mini fridge. This is where the previously mentioned sweat fest began. You see we rig build things for ourselves all the time but this was for someone else. The stakes are quite a bit higher. Looking back on it all the easy way out could have been to install a cabinet but just remove the doors for the look of open shelving. Live and learn.
Luckily Anna and her husband Jeb are a super nice and very understanding couple who were looking for someone just like us to DIY their closet rather than come in and charge them a million dollars for professional contracting. This is good because professionals we are not.
As evidenced by my really coherent and well-designed planning notes.
And my uber-organized shopping list.
I promise it all felt more in check than these documents would lead you to believe.
Here was the plan for how it would all go:
1. Remove the existing wire closet shelf.
2. Fill in the door hinge marks.
3. Remove the old door magnets and fill in marks in door frame.
4. Remove the old baseboards from the back and right side wall. Reattach them at the end of the project.
5. Pull back the carpet, and cut and reattach it where needed.
6. Fill in the screw holes on the wall left behind from the old wire shelf and touch up the paint where needed.
7. Build base of bottom shelves with 2×4 studs.
8. Build a shelving unit on top of and around the studs using 2′ x 4′ handy boards from Lowes.
9. Prime and paint these lower shelves.
10. Tile the countertop and backsplash.
11. Hang two wall shelves, stemware holders and artwork.
12. Paint shelves and brackets.
13. Caulk and touch up the entire project.
14. Add Accessories and photograph.
15. Nap.
Some of this grand scheme worked while other items on the list were definite road blocks. All in all it took us two full days to complete the work and I’ll be headed back another night sometime soon just to do a couple of touch ups.
We accomplished the following on Saturday:
1. Remove the existing wire closet shelf.
2. Fill in the door hinge marks.
3. Remove the old door magnets and fill in marks in door frame.
4. Remove the old baseboards from the back and right side wall. Reattach them at the end of the project. DID NOT WORK! THAT STUFF WASN’T GOING ANYWHERE SO WE BUILT ON TOP OF IT.
5. Pull back the carpet, and cut and reattach it where needed. SEE NUMBER FOUR.
6. Fill in the screw holes on the wall left behind from the old wire shelf and touch up the paint where needed. WE ENDED UP REPAINTING THE ENTIRE INSIDE WALL OF THE CLOSET AFTER DISCOVERING OUR TOUCH UP PAINT WAS NOT THE SAME COLOR AS THE ORIGINAL INSIDE WALLS OF THE CLOSET. IT LOOKS WAY BETTER THOUGH SO THIS WAS A GOOD HICCUP.
7. Build base of bottom shelves with 2×4 studs. SANITY SAVING TIP: DRILL PILOT HOLES. YOU MIGHT NOT KILL YOURSELF OR YOUR WORK PARTNER IF YOU TAKE THIS ADVICE.
8. Build a shelving unit on top of and around the studs using 2′ x 4′ handy boards from Lowes.
9. Prime and paint these lower shelves.
10. Tile the countertop and backsplash.
11. Hang two wall shelves, stemware holders and artwork.
12. Paint shelves and brackets.
13. Caulk and touch up the entire project.
14. Add Accessories and photograph.
15. Nap.
All in all it wasn’t too bad for the first day’s work. Especially since a few things didn’t go as planned. A la HGTV style, here is how things look after night one.
This is the part where we look dramatically into the camera and confess about how tired we are and how many things that we still have to get done and how we don’t know if we’ll be able to finish in time tomorrow. You -the viewer- will be nervous for us.
Don’t worry though, we know how it ends. It will be okay.
Cutting Travertine Tile at Home
Just this weekend we completed our first ever client project by way of installing a closet bar area for a couple about our age here in Durham. The bar ended up being very similar to the one in our home.
After spending many many hours in their home drilling, painting, groutng and reminding them that I’m not a builder or a handyman – I think it came out pretty well considering it was my first outside project.
More pictures will be up later this week when all is really done. We’ve got a few touch-ups to take care of before its close-up.
In the meantime, as the title of this post might indicate I do have some photos of the countertop tile to share. You’ll remember that we put together this little inspiration board for our new friends.
The tile we chose for the counter (we have a second tile that went up on the backsplash) are 4×4″ travertine tiles from Lowe’s that came in boxes of 9 for only $4.48. This tile has a pretty high end look for something so inexpensive.
We knew that each box covers about one square foot so we scooped up 12 for this project. You’ll see later that the countertop we’re working with is preety l-o-n-g.
In order to save time when physically in our client’s home we measured out a space on our dining room table – which is oh so beaten up anyway and will only get better with some tile scratches and dents - and laid out their tile pattern ahead of time, making any cuts where needed.
We were amazingly lucky in that the depth of the bar space will be exactly 5 tiles even. However, we didn’t want the look of square, square, square, square all across the counter. We wanted a pattern that was a bit more interesting, and that would hide any lines that were not perfectly straight.Remember this is our first time to do this for someone else, so I was pretty much a little sweat machine throughout the entire process.
My sweaty little self decided to stagger every other row of tiles, cutting the end tiles in half. We think it looks pretty snazzy and makes things more interesting for sure.
There wasn’t even that much extra effort needed for cutting either. I was worried when purchasing the travertine that the tile was going to be too thick for a hand held tile cutter so I picked up a larger model than my little nippers, last seen here. It uses the exact same principle. Score and snap. Worked like a charm. By the way we used a $19.99 MD 14′” tile cutter from Lowe’s for this.
If you do this at home just make sure to wear some sweet glasses or goggles, and also score and snap the smooth tops side of the travertine. We tried the underside which is much rougher, and well – the snapping made it kind of crumble.
And no one needs that.
We’ll be back soon with more details on this first little adventure. Including more notes on planning, shopping, receipt keeping, installing and the best stuff – the before and after photos. But for now you just get 538 words about scoring, snapping and sweating. Sounds a little creepy.
Make That 2 Bar Closets Por Favor
You guys have seen and read all about our living room bar closet most recently updated here.
Soon we’ll be adding a second closet to our resume by way of our first real life client. That’s right. And by client we mean, person we did not know that contact us via blog to ask for our help on a project – with compensation. How crazy is that?
We’re super excited about this little adventure and can’t wait to get starting installing a bar cabinet and shelving for our new friends.
A few weeks ago you saw their inspiration for the closet here. We’ve added to the art they already have and created a mini mood board for the project to incorporate paint colors they already have in the room, tile we’ve found on sale and a couple of items to add some of their personalities to the small space.
It’s going to look great. We seriously can’t wait to put it all together and share the juicy details with you guys.
In the meantime if you need help with a little corner of your world either in person or virtually shoot us an e-mail at chadandamy@trianglehoneymoon.com. We’re happy to help and super cheap. Wait that didn’t come out right…
