Hallway Floor Plan

To scale, no less.

Bedroom is Coming Along...

Current mood board (above).

Room in progress (below).

Dining Room in Blue and White

dining room in blue and white by jess-junk featuring off white furniture

I created some boards on Polyvore for the first time, just to give it a try. First, I created a "dining_room" template, then I chose products to put into those placeholders.

Which Paint Color?

Paint Color "Meander Blue" SW 6484 - Interior from Sherwin-Williams

Paint Color "Dewy" SW 6469 by Sherwin-Williams.

Stop the Plank Wall Trend in the Name of Fire Safety

Wood Planked Wall, Image and Project on Cape27 Blog

Recently, it has become popular to install wood planks (boards) on top of ordinary dry wall. It adds aesthetic warmth and visual texture and interest. The problem is that wood is not as fire-resistant as ordinary interior walls (i.e. dry wall).

Fireplace Plank Wall, Image from Design*Sponge, Rita Brownstein; See Note Below Regarding Fireplaces

I worry about all that wood making the room more susceptible to fire. This especially worries me when any of the following are true:

• The planked walls go on all four sides of a room
• A planked wall is anywhere near a fireplace* or stove
• A planked wall is anywhere near electrical work
• The wooden planks are dry, e.g. old barn wood that is left untreated

Plank Wall, Image from Do-It-Yourself

My web research has shown that the items in a room (furniture, curtains, etc.) are more likely to encourage a fire to burn than either dry wall or wood. However, when you compare wood to dry wall (apples to apples, one wall covering to another), I would think that the wood is less resistant to fire than ordinary dry wall / gypsum.

See this Flame-Spread Ratings article, excerpt below:

Flame-Spread Classification Flame-Spread Rating or Index Class I (or A) 0 - 25 (Good) Class II (or B) 26 - 75 (Medium) Class III (or C) 76 - 200 (Poor)
Material/species	FlameSpread Rating	Flame-Spread Class
Hardboard siding panels	<200	III
APA Wood Structural Panels (includes APA 303 Sidings such as T1-11)	76-200	III
Birch, Yellow	80	III
Brick	0	I
Cedar, Western Red	69	II
Douglas-fir	90	III
Fiberboard, Medium Density	167	III
Gypsum Wallboard	10-15	I
Gypsum Sheathing	15-20	I
Fiber-cement exterior materials	0	I
Hemlock, West Coast	73	II
Idaho white pine	82	III
Inorganic reinforced cement board	0	I
Maple	104	III
Masonite	<200	III
Oak, Red or White	100	III
Oriented Strand Board (OSB)	150	III
Particle Board	116-178	III
Pine, Lodgepole	98	III
Pine, Ponderosa	115	III
Plywood, Fire-retardant-treated construction	0-25	I
Plywood, Oak	125-185	III
Plywood, Pine	120-140	III
Spruce, Engelmann	55	II
T1-11	76-200	III

However, that being said, maybe you could coat the wood with layers of fire-resistant polyurethane? Or, why not use barnwood-look tiles like in the image below?

Tile Wall, Image from Houzz Article by Travis

Other tips to reduce fire-susceptibility:

• Install double-pane windows
• Use thicker gypsum, i.e. 5/8-inch thick gypsum

See this Fire-Resistant Details article.

If you are still interested in doing a real wood plank wall, The House of Smiths website does a nice tutorial.

Image from Tutorial by The House of Smiths Blog

*Note: If you are doing a plank wall near a fireplace, make sure you have at least a 6-inch separation, or whatever the building code in your area directs.

Tweaking the Master Bedroom Moodboard

I tried adding a different lamp, candle holders, stool, and headboard.

Sources for new items:
Lamp - IKEA
Candle Holders - WEST ELM (with votive candle inserts from CRATE & BARREL, not shown)
Stool - BELLACOR

Simple Silver Leaf and Typography Photoshop Tutorial

This tutorial is inspired by this Gold Leaf Photoshop Elements tutorial on Teal & Lime. However, my tutorial uses silver leaf, Photoshop CS6 software (not Elements), one file throughout (not two), and uses the Rasterize feature (not the Define Brush feature plus the Eraser tool).

Steps:

Create a document that is 11 inches wide, 8.5 inches tall, and 300 PPI (pixels per inch). Make the Mode CMYK by going to Image->Mode->CMYK Color.

Do a Google search for the background you want (e.g. search for "silver leaf background") and select a high-res image. Copy it (CTRL+C on a PC), and paste it into your document (CTRL+V on a PC).

(1)

Create a new layer on top of that (see the New Layer icon on the bottom right and click it). Then, make the new layer white, or whatever you want your other color to be (select the area with the Magic Wand tool, then use the Fill tool and choose white on the upper swatch box). I’ve named my layers but this is an unnecessary step.

(2)

Now for the letters! Create new layer on top of your white layer and type "I heart you." For the letters, choose Rockwell Extra Bold font, or another thick font. For the heart, choose Webdings and type a capital ‘Y’. I used large font (e.g. 90-pt). To help center my text, I used View->New Guide to create a vertical guide at 5.5 inches (half the width) and a horizontal guide at 4.25 inches (half the height), but the guides are optional.

(3)

Afterwards, use the rectangular marque tool and draw a rectangle around your letters.

(4)

Go to Layer->Rasterize Type. Now you can select the letters like they were shapes. Deselect the rectangle (Select->Deselect), then use the Magic Wand to select the ‘I’.

(5)

Go to Select and choose Similar to select the rest of the letters which are similar in color to the 'I'. Now, move to your white layer and turn off visibility on your upper-most layer (highlight your white layer by clicking on it, then click the eye to the left of your upper-most layer to hide it).

(6)

Now you are ready for the fun part. Hit Delete to permanently delete the letters from your white layer, thus letting the silver layer below show through!

Deselect your letters (Select->Deselect, or CTRL+D on a PC) and you have your final image!

(7)

Now, decide how big you want to print this image. For my 4x6 inch frame, I went to Image->Canvas Size and chose 4 inches tall by 6 inches wide.

(8)

And it’s that simple!

(9)

Of course, if you want to do this the easy way and just download my final image, here is a 4.5 x 6.5 inch final image. You can print it out at full size (click it to enlarge it to full size), and trim it with scissors down to a 4x6 inch size.