A Day Off

     So, life has been crazy this year. Lots of changes and very little free time - which translates to no time for fun house projects *sigh*...

     I realized that if I keep waiting for some free time it'll never happen and I'll never get to do any of the ideas that are percolating around in my tiny brain! Even though I don't have days and days to do anything elaborate I did manage an entire day off and decided that was enough time to perk up my entryway.

We have a very small entry - the house is open concept so as soon as you walk in, you're seeing almost the entire main floor. I decided that a little punch of color and whimsy was in order.

So I taped off a huge rectangle... painted it purple... 

Taped off 12" stripes - cause everyone looks thinner in stripes, right?

Then, painted those stripes a darker shade of purple - oh, yea.... lookin' snazzy!

Now to start the finishing part... let's add a shelf!!

Trim around the edges gives it a little depth and looks more finished.

Not bad for a days work! And it really brightens up the entrance to the humble abode!

Mr. Chuckles looks so much happier now that his view has been improved!

The Art of the Tree

I love Christmas.

I love to decorate the tree. Here's my Tree Decorating Theory: there is no such thing as too many ornaments. When the tree crashes through the floor, you're getting pretty close.

I don't have anything against that minimalist look. It's clean and sleek and easy to put away when the season is over. I just love me some Christmas ornaments! I've been collecting for over 35 years. I love them all - the cheesy stuff the kids made in kindergarten, hand blown delicate glass from Germany, shiny, sparkly, gaudy, classic, hell - I even have one of those crazy elf on the shelf guys. My goal every year to completely cover the tree - I don't want to see any green branches.

I'm getting pretty close. One of the best things I did was to get rid of all the old lights and put LED's on the tree. They're amazing, very bright, not hot, last forever and use hardly and electricity! Saving money is good - I can buy more ornaments!
Another thing that makes me happy is finding ornaments that aren't 'traditional' - not everything has to be a red and\or green sphere. I have clowns, trains, pickles, houses, martini glasses, bells, giant bulbs, shoes (lots of shoes), birds, fish (many fish, including the Trout Treetopper!) - you name it, I probably have at least one on the tree.

It makes me so happy to walk into the house and see this mass of color and lights. I spend the entire season grinning like an idiot ~ and thats what it's all about, right? The Christmas spirit is all about happiness.

 Next year.... NO Branches! .... and.... I will work on taking better pictures.... my photography skills - *sigh*

Master Bedroom Library - the CHAIR

The Perfect Chair

Let me introduce you to the inspiration chair - I found this awesome chair and its twin on the side of the road, not far from my house. The color is amazing - tomato red. The shape is inviting - it literally hugs you. It's in fabulous shape - sturdy as hell. More amazement - there were TWO of them. And, really - Naugahyde? I know - the world is jealous of this incredible chair find. 

So this pair of chairs are the inspiration for my library, a space off the master bedroom that I painted a lovely blue that is the exact color from the bedroom curtains. Then came The Dilemma! There is a huge (72") window in the library that needs curtains. My original plan was to use the same fabric I had used in the bedroom - it's one large space, the library is sort of an alcove.

So, off I go to my favorite fabric store... GASP!!... they've sold out of my fabric!! No, they will not be ordering more - its discontinued! *sigh*

 I needed to find a great fabric to make the curtains. Something to compliment the Perfect Chair and the fabric I had already used for the bedroom.

A reminder of the bedroom fabric

Here's what I found...

Whew!

I love the fabric. I'm a little nervous because I've never used two different fabrics in the same space - the color is great, I love the pattern - now I just have to decide about style and find time to get them put together. Maybe it'll snow and I'll be trapped at home....

Creating Creative Space!

Basement... ugly word.
When we moved into this house the basement was unfinished. We weren't completely sure what we were going to do with the space, so I've been pondering, thinking, planning... ! Eureka! It's going to be space for the computer on one end and my Create Space on the other. I'll finally have a place to do my sewing, painting, beading and whatever else I get into. No one else will have to see it - I won't have to start a project that I can't finish, pack it up and clean everything and set it up again when I can find a few free minutes to work on it again. Such a wonderful thought!

So - we hired an awesome local handyman who came and ran all the electrical and framed it in. Then we hung the drywall, my brother came and fixed my mistakes (thanks Joe!! Love YOU). Flooring is the next part -- waffled between laminate, hardwood, tile and carpet for a couple months. Decided that carpet was the best choice because the floor is cement and cold on the feet. I picked a beautiful Shaw brand carpet in the palest grey. Very short, sculpted wave pattern - unbelievable!

Now back to pondering - where to put everything - how to hide the ugly utility closet in the middle of the room - lights! - curtains? - cutting table? (YES!) - the color - and on and on and on....

Home Away From Home

Recently I had to go on a little business trip. The company I work for sent us on a little jaunt to meet some folks from our corporate office. So, I drove to Pennsylvania to a town called Narvon. Which is truly in the middle of nowhere. It's a camp resort called Lake in Wood - near Lancaster.

I got to stay in the most amazing little 'cottage' - a converted train caboose!

 

So, even though this isn't a home reno in MY home - I thought you'd get a kick out of seeing it! I loved all the little details in here. The 1950's kitchen table, all the railroad pictures and lights and the stove!

This is the view from the front door. All the way at the back on the left is a tiny (no REALLY tiny!!) bathroom with a little stand up shower and a very small sink.

 This is the bedroom to the left when you come in the front door - the Master Suite!!

The kitchen 'stove' is actually storage for the dishes, but the microwave, coffee pot and fridge are recent additions.

A few of the other unique options! They also have a yurt on the lake, a converted boat and frontier cabin. There are plenty of cabins, RV sites and even some tent sites as well. It was one of the most interesting business trips I've ever been on!

Custom Drapes (with grommets!)

   In which the saga of finding the perfect fabric continues...

I seem to be doing this master bedroom make over all out of order - I still need to move my workroom stuff to the as yet not built work room, I've only painted one wall, I changed my mind about the color of the dresser (again!), and instead of continuing with the paint, I made the curtains ~ this sounds like the making of a disaster, right?

Not exactly - the curtains are AWESOME! ...and I learned how to make grommet drapes! High five me!! It goes like this.....

1. Make the curtain panels
2. Figure out the spacing of the grommets. You want to start about 1 1/2" to 2" from the edge for your first grommet and about 1" down from the top. Then evenly space the grommets across the fabric. After I marked the locations with pins I folded the fabric to make sure I was happy with the spacing, using the pins as the hole centers. I used the 1" (2.54cm) grommets spaced every 5.5" on 54" wide fabric. This will give you an idea of the size of the folds your going to end up with.

3. Using the template that comes with the package, mark your circles in pencil or chalk all the way across.

4. Then came the scary part - cutting holes in my expensive fabric! Cut the holes one at a time, installing the grommet and then moving to the next hole. The grommets are two pieces, one side has a little raised lip which goes on the back of the fabric. The other side has small raised pins, this one goes on the front. The two pieces snap together. There is a small slot on the front piece, if you want to remove the grommet simply put a flat head screwdriver in the slot and twist. It pops right open.

5. Pretty simple. I ended up using 10 grommets per panel. The package said I would need 8. It depends on how full you want the panels to be, the size of the rod your using, weight of the fabric, etc... I bought the grommets at JoAnne's, they run about $8.00 per package for the 1" and $12.00 for the 2".

6. Then comes the fun part - hang 'em high!

 This is pretty heavy drapery fabric so I simply turned a 3" hem at the top. If you're using a light weight fabric adding an interfacing would be a good idea to keep the shape and support the weight of the fabric.

Master Bedroom ~ Stage ONE

   The master bedroom is not a room that I was ready to start working on just yet. It's a huge space, with a sitting room area. At the moment the sitting area is my office\work space. It's where I make jewelry, paint, sew etc... It's not what I want to do in the space, but I don't currently have a craft~art~sewing room and it's tucked out of the way upstairs. The garage will eventually be the work room but I haven't reached that room yet either!

   Anyway, sometimes creativity has a mind of its own. I found a piece of fabric.... not just any piece of fabric - the fabric. The one that you just know is the perfect fabric for that room. I'm just crazy about travel & advertising art. I especially love the work from the 50's and 60's. It's all so fun and colorful. When I saw this fabric with the awesome Hawaiian vacation motif I just knew I had to have it. So, of course I bought 10 yards of it without actually having a plan.

    As the plan began to coalesce in my tiny pea brain, I saw curtains out of the fabric and the walls in red, dusty blue and green... too much? NO!! Fabric in hand, I head for Lowe's -- I need paint samples! I'm a huge fan of paint samples - it's a great way to see if what's in your head is actually going to work out on the wall, and I had a coupon for free samples!

   I got samples of all the major colors in the fabric, even though the red is very intense. The thought being that maybe it would be okay as an accent wall - besides, my sister said it would be ok and she's very color conservative. What I like to do is try the samples out on several walls so that I can see what the paint will look like in different light sources. I also put all the colors close together to see if they're going to reflect in an odd or unpleasant way.

   I decided that the red is going to make a great accent wall and the dusty blue is going to be a nice calming influence. The green.... hmm, still thinking - might be the bathroom color... or the ceiling.... think, think... I'll get back to you on the green.

   While I'm pondering paint, I got distracted on the internet while looking for art for my new master bedroom. I found a fun, graphic piece for an airline. When I tried to order one it turned out the the largest size they had was 12"x16" - harumph! What I had in mind was more like 30"x40" - sigh. Fine, I'll do it myself.... and that's how the master bedroom project became several projects.

   I went to the Hobby Lobby - bought the biggest picture I could find on clearance - it's 33"x44" - cost me $10.00 - this is a great way to get canvas cheap, a stretched canvas that large would have cost upwards of $80.00. I got a container of Gesso, which is an awesome product for prepping a canvas for paint. I coated the ugly picture with Gesso. While I waited for it to dry - I went back to the internet and saved the picture I had found. I printed it onto a clear transparency and put it on my handy overhead projector. With a little putzing around I got the image the size I wanted and in the right spot on the canvas.

   I lightly traced the image onto the canvas in pencil and, using the poster as my guide, I painted the picture.

   Now, I have this great piece of art that will go on my very red accent wall... right - back to painting the walls. Next time I'll show you the finished walls and we'll talk about making curtains!