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 :)

Small Bath Inspo

July 7, 2015 Chelsea | StyleMutt Home

Hi Friends! As we cross the half-way threshold of summer, I'm just about ready to tackle our small master bathroom that I've been planning for about 4 years. The funny thing is the plans are really nothing grand - certainly not 4 years worth of planning grand! But it's a bathroom. Truth be told, bathrooms just don't generally excite me. Unless, of course, I've been sitting in infamous Northern Virginia traffic with a full bladder, barely inching forward, sweating like crazy, certain that bladder explosion will be my ruin. In that case, any sort of semi-private covering excites me!

But our small master bathroom doesn't excite me in the least and I'm ashamed to admit that I've been dragging my feet on perking it up the least little bit. The image below is one I found somewhere on Pinterest and is basically what we're working with. Except ours has a gray tile floor and is a little smaller - turn that tub into a stand-in shower and that's it, ladies and gents! No counter space, zip storage, and certainly not enough room for two people to use at once.

After taking some time to think about and complete our bedroom, I've finally got a direction for our master bath. This image made me really excited to go dark or go home - I love the contrast of the dark wall, the wood, and the crisp white porcelain fixtures. While subway tile is not in our initial plan, it's not something I'd rule out adding down the road!

Pulling my favorite things about this image - the dark walls and warm wood - I created a design board for our own bathroom inspiration.

The plans are already in motion! I've picked up the shower curtain, (an out of stock Target Threshold number), paint, and baskets. We've already framed out a medicine cabinet mirror before, so we just need to measure and purchase our wood and then find our light fixture.

Excited to turn the tiniest, dullest room in our home into something....less dull. Stay tuned!

Thank you for stopping by, friends!

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!