DIY chalk paint drawers with world map dividers – The reveal!

The drawers are complete! Here’s the big reveal and a few more details for you :)  After a few pics, there is also a super simple recipe to create your own!

Finished! Complete with Etsy barn mirror from Upcycle Avenue and copper wire string lights from Frux Home and Yard

Custom map lining and dividers – see below for details!

Now we just need some pictures on the wall….

OK, here’s what we did for the drawers and the linings

THE DRAWERS – start with my last post here

 – Find old chest of drawers from a charity store

 – Remove old drawer knobs, fill the holes with pollyfiller/spacking and give it a quick clean

 – Give it 2-3 coats of grey chalk paint (recipe and instructions in my last post here).  Some people also give the furniture a coat of wax but we decided we liked the chalky texture

 – Measure and drill new holes.  Screw in new drawer handles.  We chose these from Lowes

Lowes drawer pulls

J creating new drawer pull holes

J hard at work

THE LINING

 – The first part is simple. I found some old map wrapping paper at PaperChase and on E-bay, then cut and glued it into the base of the drawer 

 – For the drawer dividers, I cut some plywood wine bottle separators to size (available for free from any good wine store!), stuck some cardboard on either side to make a smooth surface, then wrapped them as though they were presents in a world map.   Really pleased with them!

making drawer dividers

World map drawer dividers. With my two homes in Europe and America, and my work in Africa!

and voila!  Completed drawers :) Much better than IKEA!

Xx

Starting in the living room

A few months ago, my fiancé and I emigrated to the US and moved into the most British house we could find! It’s a 100 year old brick house on a cobbled street, with a lovely relaxed landlord who didn’t mind us decorating.

Apart from it’s beautiful wooden floors, it’s also all a little bit run-down, which leaves plenty of room for DIY and to make it our own :)

We started with the living room, which is currently a tired old yellow.

The living room with it’s wonderful floors and yellow paint. It looks rather cosy here, but a little bit tired and dark in real life

I love modern rustic designs, with lots of glass and reclaimed wood and plants and pops of colour.  The type of thing that’s airy and elegant and full of light and space:

Or something a little like a less cluttered version of our old apartment

My old apartment furnishings

Plenty of books and light and colour

So it was a little on the cluttered side!

So the first part is to paint the living room a bright neutral colour and to buy a slipcover for the sofa. But which colour? Neutral? Red?

I quite like the idea of red…..

Stars, stripes and pine trees

Howdy!

Around a year ago, my fiancé was offered a job as a rocket scientist in Iowa. Yep, that really happens to some people! My fiancé, J, is a physicist and I research weather and climate in Africa, so both very cool jobs that in reality involve lots of swearing at computer screens.

At the time we were based in Milton Keynes in the UK, a town famous for concrete cows, roundabouts and 60s architecture, so the idea of emigrating to start a dream job was exciting and scary in equal measure.  We know nothing of the mid-west, apart from the vague idea that it would be flat!

After a lot of packing and a new job for me, we said our goodbyes and jumped on a plane to Iowa… only to find that it wasn’t so flat after all.  We spent a few panicked weeks house-hunting and watching spring start to arrive and ended up in a beautiful old brick house on a cobbled street, surrounded by pine trees.

This blog is mostly about that house, and how we are making it our own.  In October, we are also returning home to the beautiful Welsh boarders to get married, so there might be a little about that too.  I’ll try and write a blog post every week, but if I go quiet occasionally then bear with me!

And finally it’s about settling into life in Iowa, the strangeness and the fun.  And if you’re really interested, the rocket science ;)

Concrete cows in Milton Keynes

 

Our lovely new house

Complete with pine trees