Kim's Decorating Tips

I have one more Linda story for you, but I'm postponing it until tomorrow. Instead, I thought that today I'd share with you a couple of decorating ideas.

If you, like Carole, have been waiting for three years for your husband's best friend to make carved panels for a half-finished laundry cabinet, then this may be the perfect idea for you. Or maybe you'll just like the concept. Either way, here is Kim's Decorating Tip #26:

Some time back, I made built in cabinets for my daughter's room and was stymied when it came time to decide what to do for the cabinet doors. I wanted something kind of cool to go with her animal themed room, but I knew I didn't want anything that I couldn't change reasonably easily. Here's the solution I came up with:

These panels fit into the opening created by the trim and magically stay in place until you pry them out with your toenail clippers. Well, okay, you could probably use something other than toenail clippers, but that's what I had handy last night when I wanted to show you how these are made. Here's what the "naked" door fronts look like as well as the back of the panel insert:

To make these, I measured the opening between the door trim and cut a piece of foam core board to size. (You could also use a good quality, sturdy cardboard.) I then covered one side with a poly batting to the thickness I wanted and, using a glue gun, tacked the batting in place. Then I cut fabric to size, leaving about an 1-1/2" to 2" overhang all around. With the fabric "good" side down, I placed the batting side of the foam core board on top, and again using a glue gun, wrapped the fabric around and secured. (I started by gluing the corners.)

Now how did I come up with this idea, you may well be asking? Well here's Kim's Decorating Tip #14:

When I last redid my bedroom, I used a similar concept for the space above my bed. I knew I didn't want to hang a traditional picture or a quilt, so I tacked up painted molding strips to form three squares and made the same type of foam core board panels. The first set I made are shown in the photo below, and I added a trim to the edges of these (the glue gun is my friend!). Since that time, I've made two more sets of panels, so I can change them out for the time of the year/bedding used. One set is made from quilt-pieced stars to match my fall quilt. On the wall and the backs of the panels, I've attached Velcro to keep them up on the wall so they don't fall on our heads in the middle of the night. Mostly.

I've been working a bit on quilting this gi-normous quilt I posted about last weekend and am making slow progress. I haven't been able to work on it the last two nights, but I hope to get some quality quilting time in this evening. If all goes well, maybe by this weekend, I'll at least be able to show you how I've quilted the quilt shop/house in the center.