house decor – Page 8 – emerald city diaries

a housewarming.

our realtor PJ – if you need one, he is the best! – offered to throw us a housewarming party as a closing gift. pretty sweet, huh? PJ’s husband, justin, owns two local restaurants – the hanger in georgetown & the ridgeback café in ballard – & was brought in as our crepe expert. yep, we had fresh, delicious savory & sweet crepes hot off the crepe iron to serve our guests. and, it turns out, a lot of wine (i guess that is what happens when your host brings a case of wine & then every guest brings a bottle. we have enough wine to throw a few more parties!).

our little housewarming party took place this last saturday evening. it was great to get friends & family together & show off our house (most of the guests hadn’t seen it yet & others hadn’t seen all the updates we have done).

{a few appetizers to go along with the crepes.}

{me, justin, & PJ chatting about home décor & food.}

{our sweet neighbor antonia!}

{since we had to endure threatening skies & rain at times, we got a double rainbow!}

have you thrown any parties lately?

kitchen cabinet update.

as some of you know, i recently did a bit of an overhaul to our kitchen in regards to the cabinets. the process was long & tested my patience, but we now have fresh, updated kitchen cabinets & a start to an entire update to the kitchen space.

per usual, i found some pinspiration. i love the look of two-tone cabinets, don’t you? i knew this would be a great way to modernize our kitchen without totally destroying the craftsman-style feel of our house.

{via}

{our kitchen before we moved in.}

{our cabinets right before i took them down. sorry for the blurry i-Phone pictures.}

i started the update to the kitchen by doing the toughest (well, hopefully!) work first & that was priming, sanding, deglossing, & painting the kitchen cabinets {soon to follow is updating the backsplash tile & laminate countertop!}. i followed the young house love painting cabinets tutorial, which i found to be really thorough & helpful. i pretty much followed their timeline, although my project was a bit more complicated because i painted the upper & lower cabinets two different colors. i used benjamin moore cloud cover (same as YHL) on the uppers, & benjamin moore cinder on the lowers. after doing a bit of research & then chatting with aaron, we decided to pull the trigger & buy the benjamin moore advance paint (which is also what YHL used). it is a bit more expensive, & i still had to buy a primer as well (i used a valspar contractor’s bonding primer which was low-VOC), but it was money well spent. so. worth. it. the advance paint is great to work with, has no odor, & dries with an amazing finish (i chose satin). i highly, highly recommend anyone who is painting kitchen cabinets (or wood furniture?) to use benjamin moore advance paint.

we also replaced the hinges & hardware while we were at it. originally there were knobs on the cabinets, but i ~~could hardly~~ couldn’t reach the knobs on the top cabinets (like above the stove) because they were placed a few inches above the bottom of the cabinet door. we figured since we would have to wood fill, sand, & drill new holes for the knobs, we might as well replace them with something we really liked, & that ended up being handles. then we figured we needed to replace the hinges to match the color of the handles. we bought our handles & hinges from myknobs.com.

i don’t feel like i need to give you a play-by-play since the YHL tutorial is so good. i will just let the pictures fill in the details. you really just wanted to see the pictures anyways, right?

{we also hung some artwork up. this lovely corkboard was made by my mom for our wedding (the seating chart was pinned to it). we just bought an empty antique frame & my mom hot glued corks to a piece of corkboard & duck-taped/gorilla glued the board to the frame.}

the whole space has really changed just with a few coats of paint – it is awesome! we are really loving the updated cabinet colors & i am really happy we went two-tone.

next week i am going to attempt to paint the backsplash tiles (as the forest green & pink hearts really aren’t going to make the cut with the new cabinet colors). wish me luck! the following week i will attempt to paint the laminate. i am still deciding on a color, but something in the grey family.

have you painted kitchen cabinets before? would you ever want a two-toned kitchen?

my weekend in pictures.

{stocking up for the housewarming party at TJ’s.}

{ironing all six 109” long panels. so worth it! pics will be up on the blog soon.}

{measurements for curtain hanging.}

{friday was actually warm – not to be confused with hot! – enough to wear a maxi dress & sit on the back porch.}

{shared dessert with aaron from pies & pints.}

{drink & food spread for the par-tay. we also had crepes that were ah-maze-ing!}

{baubles.}

{this is how sadie holds my hand. interlocking forearms.}

{sunday night dinner at boom noodle with my grandmother.}

{we wanted to see moonrise kingdom but it was sold out. the next movie showing was that’s my boy. i knew it was going to be bad, but it was way worse than i thought it could possibly be. i had more faith in leighton meester. oh well! i think some of the upcoming summer blockbusters will make up for this one.}

we got to catch up with a few old friends & show-off our house – so fun! how was your weekend?

a color scheme for our living space.

our living room & dining room combine to form a large, wonderful living space. the big picture windows on the front & side of the house are awesome & let in so much light (when there is any light!), but the yellow color was awful. i knew i wanted to update the color in this space immediately, so i waited to unpack most of this room until i could get paint on the walls. it was a lot of taping, but it was so worth it! i left the upper portion of the wall above the picture rail the original white & also left the picture rail & baseboard the original colors. we anticipated needing to re-paint the trim, but after the new color went on the wall, it was clear that the trim color was perfect the way it was, phew!

these pictures were taken before we even moved in (& are the same as the ones on the house tour page). obviously there was a huge update in just furnishing the space.

i wanted to add some color in this space & really, really worked at not painting it grey. aaron & i both gravitate towards grey & i know it will show up in other places in the house (yep, like in the kitchen. you will see soon enough!). i knew that if i painted this big room a not grey color, i could basically paint every other room in the house grey & it would probably be fine. our couch is grey & our coffee table & bookshelf are black, so i didn’t have much of a jumping off point since basically any color would go with our furniture. i found inspiration in two places: pinterest & young house love.

{color scheme pinspiration}

when i saw this color scheme, i fell in love instantly. it was the first & last color scheme i considered for the space. the next step was finding the perfect shade of mint green for the walls.

i looked online for colors & originally thought mint julep by benjamin moore would be a good choice. even seeing it again it looks like a great choice, but when i got a color sample home & put it up on the wall, it turned into this yellow mess. i don’t know whether it was the blue-hue in our grey couch or the existing yellow wall, but it was an immediate no.

i also picked up some other mint-y green colors from the store, along with carolina inn club aqua by valspar which is the color john & sherry of young house love painted their bedroom.

i was a little hesitant about using aqua at first, but this color (the winner!) is gorgeous! you can see in some of the pictures that we have a color trifecta going on in this room: white upper walls, ivory-ish picture rail, & aqua lower walls. {i didn’t have a ton of light when i took these pictures, so i apologize for the darkness. you do get an idea of the color though, & that is the point. i will try to update the pictures once we get a little more sun!}

the three dining room lights are on the chopping block, but we need to get an electrician in the house in order to put the power over the actual table. right now the lights are centered in the middle of the room. lighting placement fail. so for now, we have really brightly colored dining room pendants.

also, i am not joining the show extreme couponing. i like to use paper cut-outs on the walls to help with art placement & coupons are what we had on hand since we don’t get the newspaper. i hope to get the rest of the art up in the living room this weekend!

source list: {if you are interested}

entryway table {antique from my mom & dad}
eiffel tower lamp & shade {target}
diy upholstered tables
lounge couch {crate & barrel}
coffee table {craigslist}
rug {overstock}
diy pillows
(old) billy bookshelf {ikea}
dining table {long term loan from a friend}
sideboard {ikea}
diy framed chalkboard
tv stand {unknown}
torchers {target}
white ceramic garden stool {target}
blue & white ceramic garden stool {vintage from my grandmother}
dog bed {fetch dog}
magazine basket with handles {pottery barn}
white throw blanket {pottery barn}

a test case: the entryway.

our entryway is small & dark, but takes care of the basics of housing a doormat & a few hooks for coats.

i wanted to jazz the space up a bit by adding some color on the wall, a little artwork, & a few hooks. at some point in the future we would like to add a light in this space, but there is no electrical in the room, so a light will have to wait.

{this is the best & only picture of the entryway before i got my hands on it.}

some of my inspiration came totally from my own head. i adore chalkboard paint & pretty much like to use it wherever i can. i loved the idea of having a chalkboard wall (you know, floor to ceiling) but there just didn’t seem to be a good space in our house for it. until i started brainstorming for the entryway. yep, it is covered in chalkboard paint. you may be thinking that i am crazy for wanting to paint such a small space with no light a dark color. you are right, i was probably a little crazy, but the great news is that the room really isn’t too dark, even with the nearly black walls.

the bad news {isn’t there always bad news?} is that i really didn’t consider how messy a chalkboard wall would be. i think all of that creativity got in the way of reality. so, i may eventually try to add some kind of board & batten wall treatment in order to keep that chalk dust at bay.

my other inspiration is actually a pinspiration.

{see original post here}

i love this simple, clean look of empty frames. i was able to find a few fun frames from etsy, but am still on the hunt for a few more. i also originally planned to paint the frames white like in the pinspiration photo, but i sort of liked the original frame color & decided to keep it until i added more frames. i am also sort of loving the idea of painting the frames gold.

so without further adieu, our entryway:

{my welcome sign in fauxligraphy & frames. that little teeny white dot next to the lower frame is actually a magnet. i painted a couple coats of magnetic primer underneath the chalkboard paint so the middle of the walls are a teeny bit magnetic.}

{two sets of hooks for aaron & me. i added a framed chalkboard mirror on this wall too.}

i did actually paint chalkboard paint in the entire little room, even above the doorways, to be consistent because it is unlikely we would ever write anything that high. although my friend amanda suggested that i write something way up high that is semi-permanent. i am still thinking about that. i seasoned the walls by rubbing them with the side of a jumbo piece of chalk. then i wiped the walls with a damp cloth many, many times to try to remove the excess chalk & help with the messiness. the purpose of seasoning a chalkboard is so that when you go to write or draw on it, whatever you write or draw won’t become permanent {well, permanent in that you will always be able to see it even after it is erased}. i am torn about the seasoning of the walls; i am glad i did so that we can erase things, but i am sad i did because (a) seasoning with the chalk is what is making the walls so messy, & (b) i wasn’t tall enough (& was too lazy to get a ladder or chair) so the seasoning only goes up about 5.5 feet. oh well.

i would like to find a fun, colorful, & durable rug for this space, but for now, our old front doormat works. any ideas on where to get a good doormat?

would you paint any of your walls with chalkboard paint, or is it just me?

source list:

doormat {target}
hooks {anthropologie}
frames {etsy}

a few updates to the bathroom.

this isn’t going to be a very exciting post, sorry in advance, but i have had a few requests for updates to the house, & one of the rooms that has received some attention in our first month as homeowners has been the bathroom.

here she was before (she being the bathroom of course) in all her beige glory. we have grand plans to do a total bathroom remodel (to include replacing the toilet, sink & bathtub) but for now, we are living with the space mostly how it was.

{the blue tile on the walls of the shower & the floor are beau-ti-ful!}

a few things that had to go, however, were: the magnifying mirror next to the medicine cabinet (neither aaron nor myself have any desire to see ourselves – or our pores – on that large of a scale), the oval shower curtain rod, the metal grip bars in the shower, & the two glass shelves that flanked the entire wall on the right side of the medicine cabinet (not pictured).

so, here are the updates. {sidenote: when i took these pictures it really was bright, but i guess bright is a relative term, especially when you consider the grey-ness of seattle. i apologize for the dark photos. but at least i didn’t use the flash (apparently that is a big no-no in the photography community).}

{former home of two glass shelves. aaron patched the wall & i painted. the two light rectangle patches are where we patched & painted. yep, paint finish fail. it is actually the same color, just a different finish & we didn’t realize until the paint was already on the wall as the paint can was incorrectly marked. so, we need to find some art or something to hang on that wall. any suggestions for bathroom art?}

{the new shower curtain rod. the old one was oval & meant to be used with a clawfoot tub, so there was about 3/4 of the rod that was never used as it was inside the shower. aaron replaced it with this curved shower rod & it is awesome! at first i thought he was going a little overboard with the curved rod, i mean, it is a pretty small bathroom, but just those extra few inches make a world of difference. i highly recommend using a curved shower rod if you are replacing an old one.}

{we, & by we i mean i, needed more storage space in the bathroom. i don’t feel like i have a lot of stuff, but the medicine cabinet was not going to cut it. so, i picked up this ikea cabinet. i liked that it had glass shelf space & hidden shelf space. plus, it was a great price! {sidenote: i originally put the little plastic legs on the bottom of the cabinet, but it was really unstable, & since we couldn’t attach the cabinet to the bathroom wall, because of the wainscoating & trim, we just opted not to have the legs.} until we are able to replace the sink with a vanity, this storage will work perfectly.}

{also, i added this sign just so that we don’t end up having to replace our old sewer line sooner rather than later!}

other than hanging some art (& a clock!) & painting (our blue tiles are awesome, but do not look awesome with the yellow walls), we probably won’t be doing much to this bathroom for some time. we would love to update the fixtures (in white), add a vanity, & radiant heat in the floors {wishful thinking, i know. at least a heated towel bar?} but that will all come in time.

have you done any updates to your bathroom?

please mr. postman.

we have been working like crazy on the house – a never-ending project & it’s only been a few weeks!

this project was an easy one, but made a huge difference in the curb appeal of our house.

{sidenote: i apologize that you can’t see the house numbers as the impact of the change isn’t really the same in these pictures as it is in real life; we want to maintain some privacy for protection since this is the internet after all.}

{before: old black metal numbers. old black metal mailbox.}

{after: new shiny silver numbers. new shiny silver mailbox.}

{i think this mailbox is my favorite update so far!}

source list:

house numbers – amazon
mailbox – pottery barn

what do you think of our mini-facelift?

pinspiration: floor cushion.

crafternoon (noun): a mid-day spent crafting.*

my friend amanda & i had a crafternoon this week and it was a perfect time to bust out another pinspiration project!

{the original tutorial link: floor cushion}

i didn’t take pictures during the process to create my own tutorial because i thought the original tutorial was really well done. we didn’t have a compass on hand, so we used a piece of string tied to a pencil which resulted in non-perfect circles that were closer to 15 inches in diameter than the original 17 inches. oh well!

this is the first time i sewed piping onto anything & it was much easier than i expected! {sidenote: i apologize for the blurry first picture. the lighting is terrible since we have grey & rainy.}

have you been crafting in the afternoon lately (that would be referred to as crafternooning)?

*i thought i was so smart thinking up this term, but alas, it has already been coined. formally. see here.

diy card book.

i saved all of the wedding cards we received & stashed them away in the back of our office closet. at the time, i didn’t know what i was going to do with all of them, but it just felt so wrong recycling them all.

then i saw this tutorial on pinterest & knew exactly why i had saved all of those cards! this is a diy that you could easily use for cards from any occasion: birthday, christmas, baby shower, wedding.

{the original pinterest link: diy card mini-album}

supplies:

cards
paper (probably different types for front & back cover, inside cover)
ribbon
initials, photo, etc. to decorate front cover
metal book ring
hole punch
2 small brads
glue or glue dots
scissors
paper trimmer (optional)
2 pieces of cardboard

first i stacked all the cards i wanted in the book (i did have to take out all of the shower cards as there were just too many) & measured out two pieces of cardboard that were slightly larger than the largest card. {sidenote: the only cardboard i had around the house was what our west elm sheets were packaged in & it was really thick. i would recommend using thinner cardboard, if you can, for this project because it will be so much easier to punch holes thru.}

then i punched holes in the top corners of all of the cards. it took awhile, but i basically punched each card individually to avoid the punch getting jammed. i punched the first card & then traced the circle onto the other cards so that it would be in relatively the same spot on each.

i really liked the glitter initials that were in the original tutorial: lower case letters & an ampersand – yes please! i searched high & low to find the perfect letters, but, alas, they could not be found. so i did the next best thing & bought glittery paper to make them myself. i just opened up a word document & typed in “m & a” and then played around with fonts & sizes until i got something perfect; this is definitely not an exact science. i ended up printing & making stencils from letters in Calisto in 120 size font. {sidenote: when i cut out the letters, though, i cut slightly bigger than the font size. in hindsight i probably would have gone slightly bigger than 120 size font as the letters were really hard to cut out.} my letters are by no means perfect but they will definitely do for a handmade book.

i trimmed paper for the front, back & inside covers. the paper that i used was grey & white zig-zag on one side (i used this for the inside covers) & grey & white paisley on the other side (i used this for the front & back cover). i was able to buy just two square sheets (they are scrapbook paper) to cover the cardboard – it was a happy accident that i liked both sides of the printed paper & only needed to buy two sheets for the project. on the front & back covers i also did a layer of printed velum paper over the paisley print (i liked the velum but didn’t want the brown of the cardboard to show thru); on the front cover i also cut up a left-over envelope from our wedding invitations to put on the bottom half; then i glued on the letters i made.

this next part was definitely the trickiest & most difficult (it is also where thin cardboard would come in handy). on the back cover you will want to attach the ribbon that will wrap around the book. you will want to glue on the back cover paper, but not the inside cover paper (i made this mistake & had to take off the inside cover paper & then re-attach it later). i made two little pencil marks on the back cover in about the middle where my brads would go in. then i lined up the ribbon (so the middle of the ribbon was between the two marks) and used scissors to make a hole. {sidenote: in hindsight, you really don’t need to punch thru the ribbon & the cardboard at the same time, especially if you are using really sheer ribbon like i did.} once i punched thru the two holes, i threaded the brads thru the ribbon & the cardboard, securing them on the inside cover. then you glue the inside cover one (covering up the back of the brads).

the last big step is to string the cards & the covers onto the ring. i couldn’t find rings at any craft stores & ended up with a multi-pack of book rings from office depot (or was it office max?) because i didn’t know what size i would need. for reference, i ended up using the biggest size ring.

the very last step is to tie the ribbon around the cards & trim the ends. voila!

this book was pretty easy to make, minus the punching thru cardboard, & though mine is definitely not as nice as the one from the tutorial, i am happy to have found a way to preserve & display our wedding cards.

are you in the habit of keeping old cards around?

diy duvet cover.

{sidenote I: i am completely a novice seamstress & while i followed a tutorial, i pretty much made this up as i went along. i am a pretty logical person, so the ways in which i did things are pretty practical – at least they seemed so at the time – but there are likely much better & more efficient (& correct!) ways to do the things in this post. sidenote II: this is a really picture heavy post. i also decided that bigger pictures would be better so that you could see details.}

as i mentioned in my monogram pillows post, i am re-doing our bed linens. we needed a bit of a change up since the sheet & duvet set have been around for a few years. we both really liked our old set, it was a great calvin klein set, but after years of washing, it was starting to fall apart at the seams. literally.

so in the interim, we acquired a couple of sets of bright white sheets. turns out, we both really liked the white sheets. really, what’s not to love: color goes with everything, nothing to match (um, any of our white pillowcases go with any of our white sheets), low to high price ranges (one calvin klein set, one set from kohl’s), etc. so we decided we should just find some kind of printed duvet & pillow shams.

i took to scouring online sites & pinterest looking for replacement bed linens but just couldn’t come up with something that i liked. {sidenote: my husband is wonderful when it comes to things like picking out bed linens or towels or fabric. he pretty much lets me pick out what i like and he is up for being a soundboard for any and all ideas.} then i saw this sheet set on the west elm site – stripey sheet set. grey & stripes? i couldn’t designed anything more perfect. well, except for the teeny fact that they were sheets & not a duvet.

but that certainly didn’t stop me. i had actually bookmarked a design sponge article about making a duvet cover months before (way before i was on pinterest, or i would have pinned it on my “to do” board). i hesitated a bit at the price of the sheets because i wanted to use two flat sheets for the duvet which meant that i would need two entire sets, making the cost of the sheets double. i waited & waited for west elm to put sheets on sale all through the holidays & when i was finally about to bite the bullet and just buy them, west elm started their bedding & bath sale (which is running until the end of january, i believe)!

at first i picked up two grey sheet sets, but after mulling it over with aaron, i returned one grey set for a navy set. that way our duvet will be reversible or we can have a little more color if we turn the top down when we make the bed (and by “we” i mean “me”).

{the original design sponge tutorial}

supplies:

two flat sheets or large amounts of fabric
thread
sewing machine, preferably with button-hole-making foot
10 to 12 buttons
iron
fabric scissors and/or rotary blade cutter
measuring tape
ruler or straight edge
needle

the very first thing that i did, well after washing, drying & ironing the sheets, was to practice sewing french seams (see above tutorial) & to practice making button holes. turns out both were pretty easy. french seams are relatively easy to sew; the trickiest part is make sure you can sew a straight 1/4 inch seam. button holes are even easier if you have a handy-dandy button hole foot for your sewing machine – like i told my friend while i was making button holes for this project: it is magical!

the next thing i did was measure & cut the sheets. one reason that using two flat sheets for a duvet cover is so nice is that you can keep the top hem & just trim the sides & the bottom. for reference, a queen-sized flat sheet is 105 inches long by 96 inches wide & a queen-sized duvet cover is 88 inches long by 92 inches wide. i did calculations (& double-checked & triple-checked) before i made any cuts: about 10 1/2 inches off the length (factoring in turning down of the top hem – which was nearly 2 inches – where the button holes would go as well as a 1/2 inch hem allowance for each side – i gave myself a 1/4 inch more than the french seams called for just in case) & about 3 inches off the width (factoring in the 1/2 inch hem).

{sidenote: on paper & in my head, the calculations seemed right; however, later in the process i discovered that the cuts i made were pretty different. my “hindsight is 20/20” suggestion would be that you either cut the two sheets at the same time, or measure them against each other before & after making the cuts.}

i decided that the easiest cuts to make would be the 10 1/2 inches off the bottom, so i did those first. this was the first time i had ever used a rotary blade cutter & it was fantastic! never using scissors to cut fabric again! the way that i measured (again, i am not a professional!) was to place a row of pins at 10 1/2 inches. then i took a ruler & lined it up with the pins, checking every other pin’s measurement as i went to make sure i wasn’t totally off-track. then i used took the rotary blade right along the straight edge of the ruler from one end of the fabric to the other.

when i cut the material off the sides of the sheets, i figured it would be easier if i did both sides with one cut. so, i pinned the sides of the sheet together & then measured 1 1/2 inches (half the width measurement from above), & then pinned & cut like i had done above with the ruler & rotary blade.

after all the cutting was complete, i started sewing. i started with the top part of one of the sheets that would be button-holed (yep, i made it a verb) & the other that would hold the buttons. there was already a 2 inch or so hem in the top of each sheet, so i just flipped that hem down (on both sheets) & sewed along the edge.

then came the magical part: making button holes! {sidenote: i have a pretty new sewing machine (i got mine christmas 2010) but i am pretty sure button hole-making feet have been around for some time. if you don’t have a button hole foot, you could use some other kind of enclosure for the duvet like a zipper, snaps or ribbons.} back to the magic. i placed one button into the top part of the foot to measure the size of button hole; i just left the button here while i sewed so i didn’t accidently change the measurements. then i attached the foot.

i measured out where i would place the button holes & put pins as markers: 2 inches in from each side & 8 3/4 inches between each button.

i made sure each pin marker was pretty straight up & down. then i placed a button over each pin & moved it around until it was in the perfect spot.

in order to know where to start the button hole, i needed to know where the bottom of the button would hit & the middle of the button. with the button still in place i made a small pen mark along the bottom of the button. then i moved the button & made a small pen mark where the middle of the button would be. this is the marker that i would line up with the button hole-making foot.

i lined up each marker with the foot & pressed down the foot pedal. my sewing machine did the rest. i told you, magic!

i didn’t really have a plan of attack when it came to cutting the fabric inside the button hole, i just figured i would figure it out once i got to that point. i had my sewing machine instruction book out to be sure i knew exactly how to use the button hole-making foot & lo and behold there was a tip about how to make that small cut inside the button hole without over-cutting (which would have likely been the case had i used scissors). first you place a pin thru the top of the button hole (to ensure you don’t cut too far). then you take your seam ripper and rib the fabric starting from the bottom & ending when you hit the pin. this is the best trick i learned during this project!

once my button holes were opened, i had to make sure the buttons would actually fit. i was a little skeptical at first, i mean, the process was SO simple, so i left the buttons in their packaging until i knew they would fit.

the next step was to start sewing the edges of the sheets together. i followed the design sponge tutorial (see above) & used french seams.

{sidenote: a tip that i picked up somewhere online that really helped me sew 1/2 inch & 1/4 inch seams: place a rubber band around the bottom arm of your sewing machine where you want your seam to be. this gives you a straight edge you can use to keep the edge of your fabric straight. i hope this makes sense; see the first picture in this section, the one with my sewing machine & the purple rubber band.}

french seams in a nutshell: sew a 1/4 inch seam with the wrong sides of the fabric together (i sewed a 1/2 inch seam as i am still a newbie at sewing); cut the excess material as close to the thread as you can; iron the seam down to one side; flip the fabric over & iron along the seam; sew a 1/4 inch seam with the right sides of the fabric together; iron the seam down to one side.

i sewed the sides first & then the bottom – no real rhyme or reason for this, it just made sense to me.

after the sides & bottom were sewed together, i was in the home stretch: only buttons remained. i have re-attached many a button in my life, but knew that i should probably learn how to properly attach a button to avoid having to re-attach buttons to this duvet cover. i googled “how to sew a button” & found this very helpful tutorial.

{sidenote: i used thread that was a bit thicker to sew on the buttons than the thread i would normally use in my machine.}

and, ta-da!, the final duvet cover in all her glory! it isn’t perfect by any means, but our down comforter actually fits inside of it, so that’s a win in my book. i am glad i did one side grey & the other side blue, this way we can either have both colors showing by flipping down the top (like it is above), or we can just have one color showing. i love the way the duvet works with the monogrammed shams. i added that little pillow that i made last year but had lying around, for now, so that everything wouldn’t be too matchy.

i hope you enjoyed this tutorial! for reference, this took me a weekend, & by “weekend” i mean the entire weekend; i stopped only to eat & walk sadie.

what is dressing your bed? would you ever make a duvet cover because you couldn’t find one that was perfect?