Running With Scissors: DIY

Stained Glass in Master Bathroom

1:28 PM

Rolling Stool with Leather Upholstery and $50 Giveaway from Leather Hide Store

3:00 AM

When my husband and I designed our house, we omitted having a formal office.

In our rental we dedicated our smallest bedroom as an office but found we never used it unless we were fetching something we printed. Most of our "office" time was spent using lap tops on our couch in our main living area.

So we decided our habits probably wouldn't change, and I designed a desk on one side of our main floor family room to serve as the every day office area. Seating for the desk was a challenge. This wall is also the main traffic area for our open floor plan...so I decided rolling stools would be the best option.

When no one is at the desk, the stools can easily roll under and out of the way.

I bought two medical exam stools. I went with Brewer exam stools that have a metal base and cushioned seat and adjust up and down by spinning. I wanted a vintage industrial look but needed casters and durability.Buying them new is actually pricey, but I found one on craigslist and the other on ebay.

The chrome and medical vinyl felt like a doctor's office so I gave the metal base a coat of spray paint primer, followed by 2 thin coats of Oil Rubbed Bronze spray paint to match the desk hardware.

To refinish the upholstery, I decided to go with upholstery leather for a nicer approach than the standard vinyl. I've done a few other furniture projects with vinyl and it just doesn't last. So if you have a piece that gets a lot of traffic, or kids will touch it at all, if you can swing leather, go for upholstery leather fabric. I don't have access to leather locally, and I've ordered from The Leather Hide Store before and got a range of samples again for this project.

After looking at my samples, I decided to go with Metallic Blue upholstery leather. Stools are a nice small project so you can often find upholstery leather remnants rather than a full hide.

Leather Hide Store also has a guide to know how much leather you need for any project.

My husband and I made the counter for the desk from sheet metal. I torched it to bring out the varying colors in the steel, and felt the metallic blue upholstery leather compliments the metal desk top.

Our desk has room for two people to work, so ordering two stools meant they were originally mis-matched and looked out of place.

I LOVE the new matching metallic leather seats and it pulled this area of our house together with the industrial vibe of the metals and old schoolhouse design of the quarter-sawn oak desk.

TUTORIAL for LEATHER SEAT UPHOLSTERY

TOOLS: sharp scissors, pen, leather needle for machine, clips, staple gun, hammer

SUPPLIES: heavy duty thread, leather, staples

1. CUT OUT LEATHER

Since I was re-upholstering, I took off the vinyl original and used a straight razor to unpick it to use as a pattern. To trace the circle and rectangle for the sides, I used a regular pen and wrote on the wrong or unfinished side of the upholstery leather.

A basic round stool will have a circle for the top, and the strip for the sides.

2. SEW STOOL COVER

FIRST SOME TIPS FOR SEWING LEATHER:

To sew upholstery leather, you need a heavy duty sewing machine.
I have a basic Brother plastic home machine I bought off amazon, and there's no way that could sew leather....I have tried and it was a major fail.
I sewed this upholstery leather with an industrial 3/4 hp motor sewing machine. Tons of power and it sewed like the leather was quilting cotton.
Use a leather needle.You can't pin leather, so you can use fancy quilting clips, or cheap office binder clips.

Depending on your machine, a leather presser foot and walking foot may help, industrial don't have walking function.

Place your circle piece finished side up and the strip right side down. Leave an inch or two free and sew around the circle, leaving a 4" gap. This will create an opening with two flaps of the strip piece.

To create the side seam, I snip the two seam allowances where they will butt into each other and meet.

Then line them up and sew along the meeting edge.

The photo below shows this section isn't sewn to the circle until the arrow.

Trim any excess from your side seam, use a hammer to flatten seam open (since you can't iron leather) and sew the final 4" of curve to attach the side to the circle (the area between arrows below).

3. STAPLE TO STOOL SEAT

Both my stools had a wood circle base. I fit the new leather cover over the foam cushion, and stapled it to the underside of the wood. Start anywhere, then next put a staple directly across from that, stretching the leather tight. Then go the opposite direction, stapling 4 corners basically, then it should be tacked on with equal distribution and smooth even edge.

I used T50 1/4" tall staples.

Screw the stool seat back on the base and you're done!

Building A House

DIY Rustic Gable Beam

4:20 PM

More posts from our house building adventure!

The architecture of our home has a dominant main gable. It's the center of the home, and has a round window below. I had always wanted a detail of some kind to add character. You can see below without anything, the round window seems really low and it could use a top to ground it.

But looking for options proved to be an expensive route.

The gable would have to be custom to get what we want and cost more than our budget allowed, so I figured we'd do it ourselves. I climbed up there to figure out the overall height I wanted from the peak of the roof. I also knew our roof was 6/12 pitch (meaning every 12 ft the roof goes up 6 ft).

I mapped out the design on thick pattern paper. This helped me stand back and see how I wanted the curved arms on the diagonal. I started out coming 45 degrees from the intersection, but realized the curve needed to go more vertical and end closer to the middle.

I climbed up and taped up my design on the actual house to make sure I liked the angle.

TO CONSTRUCT:

The center vertical beam is a rough cut 4x6.

The base was a 16' 2x4.

Curved arms cut from rough cut 2x12

The only piece that is flush against the house is the vertical center, the base was notched out to hold the 16' base in front. The base and arms are flush with the front, making a 2" gap behind them.

A NOTE ON ROUGH CUT LUMBER:

Rough cut is a preliminary cut, and is obviously rough showing saw markings, which is ideal for the rustic or weathered look. It's actual measurements, so a rough cut 2x 4 is 2" thick and 4" wide, unlike dimensional lumber off the shelf which is 1.5" thick and 3.5" wide. You can't find rough cut lumber at big box stores like Home Depot or Lowes, you usually need to find an actual lumber mill.

If you're in Utah, my favorite Fishlake Lumber in Beaver, Utah.

They cut to order, and have awesome prices.

Our gable beam was around $60.

TO INSTALL:

I don't have any photos of the install, as we were all involved.

We chose to install the lag screws from inside the house, so the exterior didn't show bolt heads and washers.

All the pieces were cut, and finished while on the ground.

I used Thompsons water seal stain, semi-transparent, in Acorn Brown.

In one step you stain and seal the wood, which will be nice for future coats where I'll be on the roof.

To install, we pre-drilled through the exterior of the house into the attic space.

My husband was on the inside, and then pre-drilled into 4x6 center post while my huge little brother and I held it up from the outside.

My husband then cranked lug screws into the post from inside the house.

After the first one, we didn't need to hold the weight, but just supported it until 4 screws were holding it to the house.

To secure the long ends of the base, we repeated the process, using a 18" long drill bit to pre-drill through the beam, directly through the house. Then my husband fed the next lag screw out, and cranked it into the wood.

Lastly, the small curved arms were also attached individually and screwed through the attic and into the back of each piece, one toward the base, and another at the roof line.

Installing was kind of a beast.

Working through the attic wall was a pain, in addition to being on the roof with the incline and height of the gable.

I love the finished look, and think it adds a lot to the overall style we're heading with the exterior.

We plan to later add rustic shutters, and the posts will be trimmed out with rough cut lumber as well.

I guess I'd describe our goal as rustic cottage for the home and future landscaping.

Stained Glass in Master Bathroom

Rolling Stool with Leather Upholstery and $50 Giveaway from Leather Hide Store

DIY Rustic Gable Beam

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