custom canvases.

remember the custom canvases i made for megan's baby nursery? i painted 4 1' by 1' canvases to hang in a group for her nursery, and match the bedding. the nursery is all done now, and here is a little peek of the canvases.

here is the bedding, and a snippet of the stars & swirls painting i did above the bed:

new kitchen.

last week, i had the fun job of painting my best friend's kitchen!

she bought her house a couple of years ago, and always felt like the cabinets should've been black. you know when something just doesn't seem right? welp, now they are! it was really fun to work at your friend's house, and we love the way they came out.

here is her kitchen before:

it just seems like SO much wood in the room - not very much contrast. plus, besides having wooden floors and wooden cabinets, her countertops kind of blended in with the same tones as the floors and cabinets.

after!

we love the way the colors in the room now pop! and, her hardware "matches" the new look much better than before.

just a reminder.

good morrrrning...it's friday! the beginning of the end of a very long week. anyway, i just wanted to re-post this pics because a) i love them. and, b) this dresser is still available!

email me if you are interested at kristen.fountain@gmail.com

unfortunately the cupcakes have been eaten, and kitty now has a home, but the dresser is still there for the taking. :) here is the original post on it. it'd be a really great dresser for a fun kid's room, or a perfect changing table for a nursery.

oh my!

a while back, i transformed this dresser for sweet little baby charlotte. her mom, who is an awesome photographer, sent me this picture yesterday.

babies as accessories. so chic.

to read about the dresser transformation (and to see "before" pics), go here.

more chalkboards.

went back to 5th st. cafe to do some more chalkboard work...it was fun, so i thought i'd share the photos.

the designers decided to have me paint the back hallway in chalkboard paint, then draw on it. here's the end of the hallway, next to the restrooms:

i drew a little louis chair (since it's got the "french" theme), and some hanging mirrors.

looking down into the hallway, to the kitchen:

these are lyrics from 'les meserable'...they asked me to draw them on :)

go eat there!

shelves!

this weekend, my dad and i started and almost finished my grand plan for the living room (which i talked about a LONG time ago, here and also recently here). prett-ay, prett-ay exciting (name that show) for me. i sold the console that i posted on the blog the other day, so i went to ikea this weekend, and bought two billy bookcases for the wall. i searched for a console to put in the middle of them, but couldn't find anything perfect for the spot. i measured everything 100 times, and, thankfully, it worked perfectly.

the area used to look like this. not much storage, and not very attractive with visible cords everywhere:

after i sold the console, i cleared the area out and we started out with the big, blank wall. notice the light fixture above, too (hate it).

when you buy the billy bookcases, they come with a cut-out where the shoe moulding is supposed to go (against the wall), so that your bookcases are flush with the wall. i saw john and sherry's post on young house love about how they altered their's, so i decided to do the same. our moulding is a little taller, so we held a piece of cardboard up against the end of the wall, and traced it. i cut it out with scissors, and we held it back up to the wall to make sure that the template was correct: (naturally, mika models)

...it was! yay.

we took the shelves back to our makeshift cutting station and used a jigsaw to cut along the little traced marks we made with the template:

here's the pencil marks before we sawed that puppy.

this was my first experience with a jigsaw, and it was a lovely one. i'm super excited to have a new tool added to my collection, and really happy with the possibilities of being able to build things...

followed along the edge and sawed that bad boy OFF.

then, we brought all of the side pieces back in, and assembled, assembled, assembled. you just follow the ikea instructions at this point...

working...

teamwork

even though it looks like i'm about to stab my dad in the head with a screwdriver...oops!

this is after we had all of the shelves in place, and i realized my measurements were, in fact, correct!

once we made sure everything was going to fit properly (dad is the king of measuring), we screwed L-brackets to the top of the shelves to make sure they were securely attached to the wall. i had to hold it so that dad could drill the L-bracket into the top of the shelf:

see?

my genius father decided we should build a shelf between the two ikea shelves instead of buying one. i loved the idea, so we bought a plain 4-foot shelf at lowe's and two smaller boards to build our shelf with. we drilled two across, horizontally, then placed the white shelf on top and screwed it in as well. perfect!

my problem was that jordan's record player was 13 inches, and extended out further than the ikea shelves would go, so i needed something deeper that could hold it. the new shelf does the trick perfectly! we also drilled two holes on either side of the shelf for cords to go through, and mounted the tv on the wall!

ta-da!

notice we (dad) removed the light fixture, and i put these flat white plates up to cover the holes. easier than painting the entire ceiling, for now.

view from the sofa:

i also made a little skirt for the front of the shelf with left-over burlap from my curtain project. it was the perfect size. all i did was hem the two ends under, and adhere velcro to the shelf/skirt to attach it. it hides the record player speakers and the comcast box. :)

obviously, we have a LOT more storage now. i'm sure i'll tweak around the items on the shelves, and i want to install bookshelf lights at the tops of the shelves for extra lighting. i was considering hanging a pendant light of some sort above the tv - what do you think? i'm still thinking on this one.

i found some knick-knacks like these perfectly-tarnished cups at the thrift store, and got those dvd storage containers at ikea.

anyway, i'm realllllly happy with my new bookshelves, and here's my shout-out to my sweet dad for helping me do all this!

black & white.

last week, i promised some more shots of the restaurant project i've been working on...here they are! i'm actually still doing a little work there, but here is some of the other stuff i have done. the restaurant used to be eno (for you atlantans), near the fox, and they totally reinvented it, and now it's called 5th street cafe. i was working with a very creative design team, which was wonderful. it's nice to be around other creative thinkers, and it was a blast to draw on chalkboards all day (which is what i'm doing again today!).

one half of the restaurant was turned into a cafe, which will serve sandwiches, cakes, cupcakes, etc., for lunch. they also sell specialty gourmet items. i painted a good bit of the furniture on this side this pale-ish grey, and wrote the menus on the chalkboards...

(i didn't paint the clouds on that chair, but isn't it cute? love it!)

here is some of the furniture in the cafe:

the tops of the counters are covered in old book pages - how cool is that? i didn't do that, by the way, but i love the idea!

looking into the cafe, from the restaurant side: here is the bar that i painted...

again, i didn't paint the ceiling, but it amaaazing!

little cafe tables i painted:

don't you love the burlap seats and the wildflowers in jars on the tables? pretty awesome vibe here.

here are two more consoles i painted. i didn't paint the grey part, but after it was finished being painted grey, i added the black linework and side detail:

i tried to do a sort of french-looking frame on either side of the consoles, since the place has a french theme...

here is a wall that is in the middle of the restaurant, which has a TV on either side of it. i painted it in chalkboard paint, and drew on both sides:

here is another little console beneath the tv on the other side of this wall:

here are the signs on on the bathroom doors i did:

and last, remember the hostess stand and bike i painted as well?

***

you've probably noticed i put 'kfd designs' on all of the photos this time around. i'd really prefer not to, but i have found some people using my photos as reference without a link back! please link back to my work if you are using my photos. thanks! :)