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Frame j ob
Stained-glass pieces from a church, framed in poplar and hung on the wall, create the illusion of an additional window.
A beautiful home doesn’t require a huge budget. These savvy, hands-on homeowners say it just takes patience and hard work. styling LESLIE POYZER photographs ADAM ALBRIGHT words BECKY MOLLENKAMP
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1 Blank slate The previous owner of this house left it in ruins, forcing Dana and Tonya Folkerts to tackle major repairs, including the plumbing and electrical systems, and many aesthetic upgrades, such as replacing drywall and painting moldings. 2 On display The mantel is one of Tonya’s favorite creative outlets. She found this trio of mirrors at garage sales and on Craigslist, and added a satin-flower wreath and fabric garlands. “I made it all during season two of Downton Abbey,” Tonya says. “I remember a lot of my projects by what I was watching at the time.”
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DIY is more than just a trendy catchphrase or a fun hobby for Tonya and Dana Folkerts of Des Moines. It’s a way of life—one that was imprinted on their genes by parents with can-do attitudes. “The do-it-yourself mentality is part of who we are,” Tonya says. “We were both raised working for our parents’ businesses, and from that upbringing we learned the simple idea that everything can be made or fixed.” Dana wooed Tonya by showing her photos of a home he renovated. “I found it insanely attractive,” she says. Her first gift to him was a chainsaw. They later married, had four children—Drew,10, Coen, 7, Beckett, 4, and Arden, 2—and bought a 1909 Craftsman home, which they’ve spent the last six years renovating. Throughout the remodeling process, the couple has remained focused on recycling and remaking rather than buying new. In fact, Dana’s commitment to this ideal is even reflected in his career choice— manager for the local Habitat for Humanity ReStore. “He knows more about building, but he’s taught me a lot and I can handle some power tools as well,” Tonya says. “I do most of the design stuff, but every once in a while he pulls out a great idea and we run with it.” Now that renovation on their home is finished, the Folkerts are helping their neighbors update a kitchen. Friends and family often come to them for budget remodeling and redecorating advice. “There are two ways to do things,” Tonya tells them. “You can use a lot of money and get it done quickly, or you can do it for cheap yourself, but it takes a lot longer.We’ve gone slow and steady, and our patience has paid off.”
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3 Character piece
4 Pretty in paint
Although much of the home was in disrepair when the Folkerts purchased it, the living room’s original built-in bookcases with leaded-glass doors needed only sanding and fresh paint to restore them to their original glory. “I’m really glad we decided to paint them white because it makes the room feel so much brighter,” Tonya says.
Previously covered in “hideous” country-blue fabric, these secondhand wing chairs had potential, in Tonya’s eyes. Tonya used a stipple brush to apply two coats of matte latex paint to the fabric, then covered it with furniture wax mixed with dark stain. “It feels like soft leather,” she says.
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5 Send a message Tonya dresses her mantel year-round with fabric letters that spell out special messages, such as “Happy Day.” She irons fabric onto both sides of adhesive sheets, then cuts out the shapes. She adds grommets to each letter and strings them from twine.
6 Under foot Tonya painted chair legs with a mixture of equal parts gray paint and plaster of Paris, topped by furniture wax.
7 Deck the halls This fabric wreath cost just $5 to make. The flowers are stacks of four satin circles, attached in the centers with a few hand-stitched beads. Tonya singed the edges of the petals to curl them, then pinned the flowers to a foam wreath form.
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8 Piece by piece
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Table talk
Using a pallet as a coffee table made Tonya nervous because of her active kids, but she now loves its durability and character.
Tonya used a half yard of pretty fabric to make the fronts of two pillows and basic muslin for the backs.
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9 Stack it up Garage sales are a great resource for interesting odds and ends, which Tonya uses as decorative accents. She loved this $1 framed bird print but thought it was too puny to hang on its own. To make it wall worthy, she attached it to another $1 frame from the same sale. “I’m a big fan of simplicity,” she says.
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Turn the page Reflect a literary bent by rolling book pages into cones and hotgluing them to a paper-covered wreath form.
10 Sitting pretty “Our friends know we will take anything,” Tonya says. She turned a cast-off armoire into two pieces—a wardrobe for her kids’ dressup clothes and this storage bench. She cut plywood to form the bench top, covered it with fabric, and nailed it in place.
11 Found objects A fancy dining set doesn’t mesh with the Folkerts’ style. A table found on Craigslist and a hodgepodge of designer and casual chairs fits a family focused on preventing waste. “It’s a mix of things we’ve picked up along the way,” Tonya says.
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12 Word play 12
To feed her creativity and make a few bucks, Tonya sells “upcycled fabric art,” at local art shows. She kept this special piece, which features a biblical phrase on her late grandmother’s scarf.
13 Aged beauty
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When Tonya bought this music cabinet for $20 at a garage sale, she intended to restore the natural wood. Instead, she decided an aged finish was better. She painted it green, then added a coat of white paint with a dry brush. “The mirror above it was also a garage-sale find,” she says.
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“I don’t have a specific style or follow design rules. I just throw stuff where I feel like it goes. If I like it, then we do it. TONYA FOLKERTS HOMEOWNER 16
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Branch out
No scrap is too small. Tonya created this art with bits of fabric on adhesive sheets layered onto framed cardboard.
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14 Head to foot
16 Clever conversions Any scrap
Rather than drop big dollars on a new headboard, the Folkerts made their own. They found a solo footboard for $10 and raised it 3 feet by adding legs made from scrap wood. They painted the entire piece white for a cohesive look.
of fabric can find new life as a pillow, Tonya says. In this colorful family room, she turned a tablecloth, a hand towel, and a curtain into pillow fronts. She used a shower curtain and quilt scraps for the backs.
15 Play time
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To create seating and hide ductwork in the attic family room, Dana built an L-shape bank of benches using upper cabinets from the Habitat for Humanity ReStore. After the benches were built, Tonya found perfectly sized cushions on clearance at a big-box store. “That kind of thing has happened again and again,” she says. “That’s why I can’t take credit for the design. We made some decisions, but a lot of it was just determined like that.“
Nearly every corner of the Folkerts’ home features a bit of Tonya’s creative flair. To make the master bedroom more personal, she crafted a simple display of framed sayings, original fabric artwork, and a favorite thrift store find—a paint-bynumber landscape.
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Team work
Tonya tacked 1950s pennants to the wall. There are banners for all three states in which her son has lived: Kentucky, Kansas, and Iowa.
18 Girl power
19 Scrap happy
After three sons, Tonya couldn’t wait to decorate her daughter’s nursery. When she spotted these botanical prints, she knew she’d found her muse. “I wanted a vintage, feminine room, but these prints determined the rest of the look,” she says.
To make this focal-point flower, Tonya cut dozens of half circles from her stash of fabric scraps. She ironed the pieces to a circle of double-sided adhesive batting, which she attached to a plywood circle.
20 Tough stuff When looking for a dresser for Arden’s room, the Folkerts found this $80 solid-wood piece on Craigslist. A base coat of black paint topped with dry-brushed layers of silver and cream paints provides the aged look. “We prefer to buy used and quality rather than brand-new particleboard that won’t last with kids,” Tonya says.
21 On a ledge A set of mugs given to Tonya by a friend sits on a shelf she made in college.
22 Mix and match Another Craigslist find, this $20 dresser looks like a designer piece, thanks to a two-tone paint job on the cabinet and drawers. The dresser sits atop a doubleknit rug, which Tonya made using a technique she learned in high school.
23 Store more To maximize their boys’ shared bedroom, Dana built a captain’s bed—constructed around two sets of kitchen drawers—along one wall. 22
For Resources see page 108.
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