In a newly remodeled home on a shady street in Charlotte there is a young mother who is decorating her home one room at a time. Kathleen, who is my daughter, and her husband, Patrick, remodeled a 1950’s ranch. They added a second story after moving walls and repurposing rooms on the first floor. I did a blog a short time ago and featured the dining room that used to be the kitchen. (To see the new dining room, go to my blog for February 9, 2015).
They have recently completed what was the 1950 master bedroom. Now, it is a guest room/jewelry studio. What I want to show you is the clever way that Kathleen used stock IKEA cabinets and then glued overlays to them.
Like me, you may be wondering just what a furniture overlay is. Let us begin by looking at the room just after they moved in and the once master was a guest room/place for the treadmill. You can barely see the treadmill because it is hiding behind the screen. My youngest granddaughter is in the foreground. I doubt that Kathleen needs to treadmill anymore. She has Amelia!
While it was a perfectly comfortable guest room, and a nice place to exercise, it was a room little used. Amelia needed a toy room and the jewelry studio was in her way just down the hall. The domino effect went like this: The treadmill was relocated upstairs. The jewelry room was moved to this guest bedroom and the toy room moved into the former jewelry room. Patrick gets his office back once the toys make a move.
Kathleen and Patrick studied the IKEA catalog and after more than a few field trips to the store, they decided on these stock IKEA cabinets. This photo was taken after they were installed in the room.
The interiors of them are designed to hold all of the pieces and parts that Kathleen needs to make necklaces, earrings, and bracelets for her growing Charlotte jewelry company, Murphy Jewelry.com.
Now, I probably would have been content just adding handles but not Kathleen. She researched furniture overlays and now the cabinets look like this. Yes, really!
Pictured above are the furniture overlays that Kathleen ordered over the inter net from this company:
Last Friday they featured Kathleen’s cabinets on their web site because no one had ever put them on such large IKEA cabinets before.
I visited the company website to learn more about this fabulous idea.
O’verlays® are lightweight, decorative fretwork panels that come in several patterns and sizes. They are paintable and easily attach to furniture, mirrors, walls and glass. Customize your IKEA® furniture and accessories with O’verlays® Kits that are sized to fit many of IKEA®’s most popular pieces.
Perfect for your next D.I.Y. project!
Kathleen painted her overlays first and then adhered them to the IKEA cabinets with liquid nails. Here are more pictures from Pinterest:
Overlays for IKEA Malm 6 drawer chest.
Overlays kit for Ikea Tarva.
They can be installed over mirror! Who knew?
found on gorgeousshinythings.blogspot.com
Greek key overlays to dress up a plain door.
I am thinking of adding a strip to my mantel to make it look more custom. I’ll get Kathleen to help!
By the way, here is the guest room part of her new guest room/jewelry studio.
I used to be more fearless when it came to designing projects and then following through with them but I became complacent. I think that I need to be more like my daughter, Beth, who is a gifted seamstress and like Kathleen who plunges head first into projects. “Where there is fear, there is no creativity.” Remember that!
I love the Asian motif on this chest.
If you want to learn more about the overlay companies, I suggest that you pay a visit to Pinterest. You can get a wealth of information there and begin your research. You are welcome!
Create and be happy!
deborahwoodmurphy 