The Interior DIYer
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Upcycle for Oxfam

I’m tore-up-from-the-floor up excited to finally share my Upcycle for Oxfam project with you guys! Yes, it’s not technically upcycling, but ‘upcycling’ along side ‘Oxfam’ had such a nice ring to it.

As I hinted at the end of January, I was asked by Oxfam Ireland to partake in their Heroes campaign; to celebrate the women in our lives through various mediums, and help raise funds for heroic women around the world living in poverty. 

Oxfam approached me to revamp a piece of second-hand furniture for their Heroes campaign and at the end of March, the revamped piece would go for auction. Um, WOAH. I of course said yes and I couldn’t wait to get on board. Soon I was in my element in second-hand heaven at Oxfam Home, where I came across these lonely bedside tables and I immediately knew I could give them a new lease of life. So much potential, and I loved their shape. 

Right, so what am I going to do with them? Good question. Well they should be feminine since they’re for the Heroes campaign. Unfortunately, my first thought was “they would look absolute perfection in high gloss black with modern hardware” I had to quickly remind myself this is a project for Oxfam, not for me. It has to be something that would appeal to other people, not just me. It took me about a week, but I came up with a light, modern and chic {at least I hope so} design proposal and sent it Oxfam’s way …

And luckily, they loved it! I didn’t waste any time and dove straight in that evening after work. Here are the steps I took to redecorate them …

Step 1 – I first removed the doors and hardware from both bedside tables, sanded them thoroughly, and cleaned them of all remaining dust and debris with a damp rag. Step 2 – I primed both bedside tables. After the primer dried overnight, I applied my first coat of Dulux Easycare Satinwood paint, followed by a second coat the following day. 

Step 3 – I painted the interior and back panel of the bedside tables in Ashbury Easycare pink from Dulux. I used 2 sample pots which cost about €3 altogether, in stead of buying a tin. I should say the pink paint is a lot pinker in real life. You can thank the overcast Irish weather for my muddled photos, but you get the basic idea. Step 4 – after two layers of pink paint, I started working on the decoupage. I bought some Annie Sloan decoupage glue / varnish from Rua, who were immensely helpful and suggested I check out The Graphics Fairy for pretty vintage images. I chose my favourite floral images and printed them out {in work – shhhh}. I cut out each flower and using the decoupage glue, I added each flower to the base of the bedside tables and added a thin layer of decoupage glue to seal them. In total I added 5 coats of the decoupage glue – this sounds excessive, but it really blended the edge of the paper into the base. It doesn’t take long for each coat to dry so it was done in no time. 

Step 5 – last but not least, I added new hardware onto the bedside tables. The previous hardware was incredibly rusted. It was tough to open the doors, and once they were open, it was near impossible to close them again, so I replaced everything. Since both of the doors opened in the same direction {see ‘before’ picture above}, I added one of the doors to open in the opposite direction to suit the left side of the bed, to make them a perfect pair. 

And there you have it! I’m quite sad to see these bedside tables go as I gave them my all, but at the same time I’m so very chuffed I could contribute some of my DIY and redecorating skillz to such a worthy cause. This project really made me aware of how much I adore transforming stuff, and it’s something I’d really like to get into. The cogs are turning.

To find out more details and ways to celebrate the heroic women in your life, check out the Oxfam website. What lady in your life is your hero? Your sister, mom, aunt or daughter? My hero is my mom. You name it, we’ve been through it over the years, and my mom has always put everyone else’s needs before hers. She’s so incredibly selfless and doesn’t have a bad bone in her body. Mom, you really are my hero. Oh god – who’s chopping onions at my desk?!

xx A

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Localise youth room at Sophia House – reveal!

Yesterday was the grand opening of the Localise youth room in Sophia House, and to say it was an incredibly exciting day would have been an absolute understatement. 
To give you a bit of background on the project, at the beginning of October Emily approached me about doing a project with Derek O’Cleary, the director of the local charity Localise, for a youth room in Sophia House. Sophia House provide accommodation and opportunities for families who would otherwise be homeless. Sophia House had some unused office space on their premises which they wanted transformed into a safe, positive and warm environment for the residential teens. They currently had facilities for younger kids, so it was important that the teens also had somewhere to call their own at this crucial age, in the hopes of stopping them from turning to the surrounding rough streets.

We met with the teens and took note of what they wanted from the space. They wanted a homework area, somewhere to watch TV and movies, and a space to play games. With a timeline of 6 weeks to get the space from drab to fab {sorry}, it was a bit of a sprint as Derek and I drove around Dublin to get everything done and crossed off the list. Most of the assembly and painting went down on the 9th of October thanks to the incredible student volunteers from Notre Dame University who were here as part of their study abroad program. I would literally still be standing on a ladder painting if it wasn’t for their help {again, HUGE thank you guys if you’re reading this!}.
The teens wanted sports figures and logos to be included in the design but since there were arguments between the likes of Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal etc, we chose prominent Irish athletes Robbie Keane, Katie Taylor and Brian O’Driscoll in stead to keep it a bit closer to home {and thanks dad for helping me choose the athletes! 🙂 I know zero about sports}. I sourced some high res images online, converted them to black and white and had them printed and mounted on canvases which I think it gives it a bit more of a polished feel than posters. 

I personally had the most fun when it came to the paint. There was the drip, the geometric and the street art walls. I bought sports drinks bottles {the ones where you can drink directly from the lid}, filled them with paint, got up on a ladder and dripped away. The geometric wall was simplified down a lot more from the original plan and became just triangles. I cut some templates from cereal boxes and Keri, Holly and I traced them onto the wall and ‘exploded’ them at the perimeter. Random colours were chosen and painted on by the Notre Dame students. 

And of course the graffiti wall. I’ve been a long time fan of Maser, one of Dublin’s Ireland’s top graffiti artists, so I sent him a little e-mail one day {as you do} asking if I could use one of his quotes as part of our project. He loved the project, gave me the go-ahead and 30 minutes later I was drawing it out and applying roughly 10lbs of masking tape to the wall and spraying away. I added some drippy bits to tie in with the drip wall and voila. My first piece of wall art and I’m pretty effing proud of it if I may be so bold. 

Yesterday after the big reveal I kicked everyone out of the room {in the nicest way possible} to take these pictures. While I was snapping away, the teens whose room it now is came in about 100 times asking if I was finished yet. I could hear them in the next room complaining I was taking too long, but I took it as the biggest seal of approval and compliment of the day – they wanted their room and they wanted it 10 minutes ago. A job well done I think. 

You can see the original mood and atmosphere boards I put together if you’d like. I think it turned out quite close to what was planned and we didn’t stray too far. It was very surreal to see those boards come to life. 

At running the risk of sounding incredibly emo and sappy, my heart swelled with pride today every time I looked at these pictures and watched this video by {the painfully talented} Darcie while writing this post. And thank you again Derek for the opportunity to work alongside yourself and Localise. It was an incredible project to work on, and I’m so happy to have been part of it all. xx A

Design details
Vinyl flooring – Des Kelly Interiors 
Main navy paint – Atlantic surf 1 – Dulux
Detail paint – milk white, rich honey, summer pudding, scooter red, pea pod and chance – Crown Paints
Canvases – Reads Design & Print
Chairs, table, cushions, shelves, shelving unit, faux plants, rug and throw – IKEA
Couch, cube seating and grey triangle patterned pillow – Harvey Norman
Wooden bench – handmade by Paul 

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Curated collection for Hatch.co

A couple weeks ago I got a lovely e-mail from Anastasia Leng from Hatch.co {as she said “yup, without the m at the end“}, who said she liked my blog and my style and was hoping I’d put a collection together for their website. I checked it out, and was pretty quickly lured in … 
Hatch is a website that features products and pieces that can be personalized and customized for the user, by the maker. The end result is something bespoke and personal to each person. My first thought – it’s a great site to check out if you’re stuck for a gift to get someone. You will for sure find something cute or quirky to customize on Hatch. Or if you’re like me, you get sucked in and want ALL OF THE THINGS. Speaking of which, here is my collection which I lovingly called Geek Chic … 

1 Metal accent table – this needs to happen in my life. Perfect side table in our living room.
2 Geeky cotton pillow covers – I love pillows and I love my geeky IT husband. As you can imagine, there are 3 pillows in this set. I want Alt of them. 
3 Origami paper lamp shade – really adore these delicate lamps. It’s hard to believe they’re made of paper.
4 Your photo turned into a cross stitch – oh I wish I had the cross stitch skills to do this kind of stuff, especially a pic of my childhood home back in Canada. 
5 Custom printed pet pillow – I think this is my favourite piece, hands down. Our apartment would be swimming in them. Crazy cat lady represent. 
6 Recycled vinyl LP record snack bowls – a serving bowl! It really appeals to my reduce-reuse mentality. 
7 Industrial modern table – I don’t even know what to write. I just need that table.
8 Geeky gadget sleeve – a perfect nostalgic sleeping bag for our gadgets.
9 Personalised pet figurine – this is an amazing figurine. Especially made for people like me, who miss their pets 4 hours into vacation time. With these personalized pet figurines, you can take your pet wherever you go. I can see myself even talking to it … Did I mention earlier I was a crazy cat lady? Yeah.
10 Custom monogram pillows – These are adorable, but I must point out these are me and hubby’s initials so I had to include them. Pillows. I heart pillows. One can never have too many pillows.