Category: decorating

Tuesday Project Roundup: Mouse, Cookies, Decorating

Karen

I’ve been moving things around and putting up more pictures (and going to IKEA three times) instead of sewing this last week. When I was sewing lately, I would look around and think, “This room feels temporary.” Granted, it’s a workspace, but there was an odd collection of storage and too much blank wall space.

So I moved the mirror in the bedroom into the sewing room and put it on a blank wall, and framed up some fabric and a Maxfield Parrish postcard and it’s much improved.

Here’s the before (with all the in-progress projects, too):
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And here’s the after, with some “styling” done
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Moving that bedroom mirror has started a whole “if you give a mouse a cookie” string of events, though….because I had to replace the bedroom mirror with something, and that turned out to be the mirror in the hall bath, which needed a new mirror, and then the bedroom needed some art around its new mirror and so did the bathroom, and I think maybe the sewing room needs some more coordinated storage along the other wall, and why not get a new desk chair for the office while I’m at it?

So that’s why I haven’t been sewing. But I will enjoy the room more when I get back into it.

What I’ve Always Wanted

Karen

My parent’s home has an amazing back patio. Growing up there, I remember the variations over 30 years–brick, cement, umbrella, lattice, no lattice, shade cloth, and now fancy aluminum pergola–but there was always an outdoor table and lounging space and I always spent at least part of the summer days out there, reading,  getting tan, what have you.

When I moved out ten years ago, I missed that so much. My first apartment had no outdoor space, but I tried to make a little space in my second apartment in 2007. However, like everything else there, it was a little cramped:
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When I started looking for houses, a patio or potential patio was high on my list…until it got bumped by such things as modern wiring and attached garages. When I bought this house in 2011, I thought the tiny deck was better than nothing and got pots planted even before the landscaping was put in:
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But it wasn’t quite right. There wasn’t enough space to really lounge, and it just felt temporary, even though I’d taken out a 30-year mortgage.

Well, two summers later,  something clicked and I went from “maybe a pergola?” to “THIS is what I’ve missed;  THIS is what I’ve always wanted” in about two months. Behold, the new patio:

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That’s a 10×10 rough cut fir pergola and a 10×10 redwood deck, both designed, engineered, and built single-handedly by my dad. (Look at that trim around the edge of the deck so you don’t see the end grain! The steps! The cross bracing on the pergola!)

I didn’t know how much I wanted somewhere to hang out outside until this was all finished and furnished last week. I’m out there in the weekend mornings and afternoons and every evening until it’s dark. It’s another room, it’s my treehouse-fort, it’s what the house–and I–was missing.

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Thanks, Dad.

Tuesday Project Roundup: Art Walls and Bird Gazebos

Karen2 Comments

No sewing this weekend, but I finally got my gallery wall hung in the living room:
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And here it is with the rest of the room:
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AND, my dad came up to help me hang new blinds and brought the fanciest new bird feeder ever, which he made, down to the shingles:
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I don’t have a picture of the previous birdfeeder because it was so sad and leaning at a 30-degree angle, but this is beyond an improvement. Thanks, Dad!

 

 

Tuesday Project Roundup: Flat Pack Rodeo

Karen3 Comments
How about some furniture instead of fabric this week? I decided it was time to upgrade my bedroom dresser to something bigger. Here’s the setup before:
And here’s the after, courtesy of IKEA (the Malm dresser and Hemnes mirror) and these lasercut fretwork panels:
I’m not 100% sold on how much contrast there is (maybe the drawer fronts need to be all white?) but I’m completely happy with the capacity: 

Many, many thanks to my dad for pickup, delivery, and assembly over the course of four hours. As the IKEA instructions tell us, one person assembling this is a frowny face. But two people is a great big smile!

Tuesday Project Roundup: A House Project

Karen2 Comments

After taking down Christmas decor the house seemed barren, so my new goal is to add more decor and accessories. I started with the office and added bulletin boards on each side of the desk:

This is another fabric-covered Homasote board, just like the one in the sewing room. Since I had leftover Homasote board on hand, this project only required one yard of fabric and the loan of my dad’s staple gun again. Here’s a close up:


I’m really happy with the result (but anything turquoise and orange has a 99.9% chance of maing me happy.) There’s certainly more decor in the room than there was this time a year ago:

Giving Thanks While Seated

Karen3 Comments

I’m not hosting Thanksgiving this year, but I could:
I finally have chairs to go with that table–and for the first time in my adult life, I can entertain more than a total of two for dinner!

So I’m thankful for furniture, and that I have family and friends that I want to fill the chairs, and for what’s been a really good year, overall.

Meanwhile, Toby remains thankful for his space heater:

Enjoy the long weekend! I’ll be back Monday.

So Close To A Dinner Party

Karen2 Comments

What’s better than an IKEA dining table that gives you the impression of a Saarinen tulip table? Finding that same table on ksl.com for $20, of course!

It needed some Magic Eraser-ing and I still may need to touch up the top, but I am so pleased with this score. Suddenly I understand why people shop at thrift stores.

Now to score some chairs…

Black Is Hot, White Is Return, Green Is Ground

Karen1 Comment

Have you ever wondered why I’ve never posted a full shot of my kitchen? It was because I hated the industrial florescent light fixture in it. But now I can show pictures (and only cavil at the cabinets being wood, not white) because look–new lights!
Matching new lights! (Yes, I still need a dining table.)

I made my father come over last weekend and change out lights–but don’t worry, I watched and learned. I could totally do the next one.

Here’s a detail. These are not fancy (I had no idea how much you can spend on lighting!) but they give the look I want (mod!).

Tuesday Project Roundup: Mixed Success

Karen1 Comment

This week’s projects had about a 50% success rate. Let’s start with the one that worked out:
I finally got the shower curtain for the guest bath done. (As I didn’t have any guests clamoring to use the shower, there wasn’t a lot of motivation.) It’s just a rectangle with some buttonholes at the top, so it went pretty quickly.

Above, you can see the tiger painting ended up in the guest bath…

…but can you spot the tiger descendant in this picture?

The not-so-successful project was some DIY art I tried to paint for the living room. I was inspired by this artist’s watercolor chevrons:

But since I don’t like prints of paintings and I thought the chevrons could be even MORE colorful, I decided to try my own. I was being cocky and thought, “I’m so good with color, I don’t even need to plan out the order of my stripes–I’ll just see what inspires me.”

Well, as the boy I was desperately in love with years ago said to me after we watched Wuthering Heights, “Let this be a lesson to us all.” I don’t think I could have made this uglier if I tried:

I mean….wow. Not a success. Looking at it, I can see how re-arranging the color order would fix it, but I think I have learned that painting is not for me. I’ll stick with fabric.

Tuesday Project Roundup: What I’ve Been Doing Instead Of Sewing

Karen3 Comments

The short answer: gardening and spending money.

On Saturday, I mounted planter boxes to the railings of my tiny deck (all on my own!), visited two nurseries, and then planted lots of pots.

The long view, with some more pots:
(Ignore the fact that I STILL HAVE NO LAWN AFTER FOUR MONTHS FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, BUILDER.)

There are also pots by the front door:

Sunday I focused on the indoors and went TV and flat-pack furniture shopping. I returned with something resembling the monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey:
(I have not had to hit it with a bone. Yet.)

The TV stand is IKEA–not bad for Sweden, right? I have to thank my dad for braving IKEA with me, hauling everything around, and helping me assemble. Thanks, Dad!

And here’s one last picture showing a little more of how the monolith fits in the room: