Pushing Furniture

OMG LOOK A POST

2012-02-14T20:16:00.000-06:00

I haven't died. That's a relief to some of you, not so much to others.

GUESS WHAT.

ooh, ahh.

The last time I decided to tweak the master bedroom (remember that?) I sort of got halfway through - took a bunch of stuff down/apart...and then never got around to putting it all back together. Sigh.

<-- this is what the window situation has been in the room for, oh, I dunno, the better part of a year now?

And yes, the blinds really ARE that dirty. They're eight years old! Why do you think I started spray-painting the ones in the living room last year?

The other day I found a huge pile of nifty sort of taupe-y crinkle-charmeuse panels at the thrift store for like $2 each. Whee!

That's a little better. Bear with me, it's a work in progress. (There's a second layer that's going up behind these curtains, now that I know I like them; and at some point I plan to change the blinds).

I still miss having all the red in the room before (the sari that used to hang over the bed was the wrong shade, which is what prompted the removal of dang near everything in the room except the big stuff and the stuff on the walls last year).

That's better - little touch of magenta (one of the sheer Ikea panels that used to be on the windows).

Next stop: EVERYTHING ELSE ABOUT THE ROOM. Okay, not really. But the nightstand situation, while convenient, is dumb and boring. And I miss the curtains around the bed - I keep meaning to put up posts and rails like the old bed had, but I keep not getting around to it (story of my life this year).

And while I love the little lamp I made, (a) I want it in the living room, and (b) I have a really, really cool idea for a pendant for the bedroom...

tbc...

Dear Blog,

2012-02-10T15:06:00.000-06:00

I haven't forgotten about you, I swear. And yes, I've been updating my other blogs more, but that doesn't mean anything - it's not you, I swear!

Coming soon:

more flooring, this time for the guest room
lots of furniture for the guest room
storm door on the front of the house, if the !#^@#$% HOA ever bothers to get back to me
new curtains in the bedroom
can I get a vacuum cleaner up in here, for the love of god?
painty painty
yard stuff?!?

<3,
Me

When One Door Closes, Another Opens Somewhere Else

2012-01-10T12:54:00.000-06:00

It's true!

First, last night, I visited a friend I hadn't seen in some months, and she showed me this fantastic giant metal storm door that she'd picked up for free and couldn't use...and offered it to me. I hemmed and hawed - my front door is just slightly a funky size, enough that most other doors don't work with it. Hers was exactly right! YAY!!!

And then I ~~got in my truck to leave~~ attempted to get into my truck to leave, and couldn't get the key into the lock. I had to go in through the passenger side to unlock the driver's side door! The hell? I got it fixed this morning, though, so it's all good.

Soon as my friend and I can get that door across town (when we both have time, since it won't fit in my truck), I'll have a new storm door to refinish and hang. Yay!

It's Finished!!!

2012-01-09T09:15:00.000-06:00

This is what a finished craft room looks like!

YAY!

Back to its old, cluttered, workroom-looking self - but with organized shelves, an updated and brighter paint job, art, and a REAL FLOOR.

And a vacuum cleaner, for some reason.
Sorry about that.

I have to give props to Kress, who spent Friday afternoon while I was at work, re-installing all the baseboards and door trim as a surprise for me! Wow!

And this picture was taken with A REAL CAMERA! I haven't gotten a new one yet; I borrowed a friend's Saturday for a short trip out of town.

As always, I still have a bit of work to do. The naked floor lamp by the window is my task lighting, which I can't sew without. I'd like to replace it with something more attractive, and that I can position over the table where I need it. Then there's the ceiling, which I still haven't decided about. I also need to re-cover the taupe office chair! The cover I made for it not 3 months ago got a big hole ripped in the front of the fabric somehow during all this business with the floor! AUGH!

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Almost there...

2012-01-06T14:14:00.000-06:00

Just need to get those baseboards back into place, patch a gap (oops), and then put the room back together!

:D

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Ikea Shopping List

2012-01-05T14:26:00.003-06:00

It's going to be a few more days until I can get the craft room situated enough to bring you "after" pics, and introduce you to the next project I have lined up. In the meantime, here's what's on my radar the next time I trek out to my "local" (an hour away) Big Blue Swedish Box:

ALSEDA woven "stool." Floor cushion with internal scaffolding, really. Made of woven banana fibers, and I ADORE the smell of them. I've meant to grab a couple of these for the house/patio forever, but I never seem to get around to it.

BOLLO folding wooden table...which, for some reason, I couldn't find on my last trip, even though I looked all over the place. Now when I look for it on the website, I can find the page for the BOLLO series, but it looks like all they have left is the chair. Sad panda! That would have been perfect for back patio, SCA camping... . Sigh.

INDIRA woven cotton bedspread. I want several of these, actually - for camping, for a light summer throw on the bed or the couch, for wrapping up in on the patio on a cool Spring night. It comes in several colors I really like, and they're starting to go on sale as they get ready for Spring stock.

NARHET stemware. So cute! I'm picky about stuff like this - and I really shouldn't be, considering how much glassware I've broken in my life, I'm pretty clumsy - but there's a certain shape and feel that I'm always on the lookout for, and these are it. Ikea, I love you. So pretty, and simple.

KVIST duvet cover & sham set. This is the same fabric as on my big ironing board in the sewing room, and I'm in love with it. I've always wanted this duvet cover, but it didn't work in my bedroom - so it's going in the guest room...that I'm going to start talking about next week. :)

First DIY of the New Year: Going With the Flo'

2012-01-03T14:19:00.000-06:00

Hey, check it out:

This was Sunday morning, after about two hours' work, all by myself. Once Kress got home from work and we worked on it together, we zinged out the rest of the floor in two hours total.

The flooring is done! But I still have to clean up the baseboards (remove nails, caulk, etc.) and put them back up, so, "after" pics when I'm really done. :)

In case anyone's wondering, this is Ikea's TUNDRA laminate flooring (this color's not on the website). I thought it was that easy snap-together "click lock" stuff, but it's not - plain ol' tongue and groove. Whatevs. The foam underlayment is generic stuff from the hardware store - same price as Ikea's, and Ikea was out of it the day I bought the laminate!

Also, Kress and I signed the concrete underneath the floor. Little gift for the next owners of the house. :o)

To be continued...

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Alive

2011-12-31T10:56:00.003-06:00

I got a wild hair this morning and just felt like mowing the grass in the back yard. What little there is. With the weed-eater, since the mower actually doesn't work. There was enough grass, enough weeds, and enough dead leaves floating around that I thought I might be able to get the compost bin re-booted with what I could cut and scrape up with the rake.

Imagine my surprise when, upon digging out and turning over what I thought was a dead compost bin - not having been fed or turned since it got so blisteringly hot in June this year - I found a compost bin very much alive. Gross and dry on top from not having been turned, yes (and there was a sock in it - wth?), but underneath was fluffy, rich, soft, black, fragrant compost. Mmm.

And I also found that the 'Delfino' Cilantro that I found back in the corner by the compost bin has not only come back, but re-seeded itself all over that corner - the whole area is filled with baby Cilantros, and baby Yarrows. Seemingy out of "nowhere".

A promise for the turning of the year? Hope is a thing with leaves.

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December In Review, and 2011 Favorites

2011-12-29T10:14:00.000-06:00

One post to bind them all! (Because I don't feel like doing two of these).

December:

epic thrift shopping at the Goodwill Outlet/Distribution center
Table Rodeo, which yielded "new" nightstands, a little devotional altar in my meditation space, and a "new" end table in the living room
knew knobs in the guest bath, now that the cabinets are put back together
made an old trunk table into a shelf for my office
put together a wee coffee bar in my kitchen
opened up a can of whoopass in my craft room!

2011: Favorites & Major Transformations

post here

January: replaced my metal back door with a pretty wooden one - with paint!

"wtf??" "idk."

February: it snowed! In central Texas! That's like the THIRD time that's ever happened! (Not really, but it's pretty rare).

(And actually, my pipes froze, and I didn't have any water for three days, but, no harm done, thankfully).

March: re-arranged the bedroom. I still love it, though I'm ready to start tweaking some stuff. Or, I will be, as soon as the guest room is finished.

I also spray-painted the mini-blinds in the living room. I spent about $15 per blind, rather than upwards of $40 each to replace them with wood. Yay!

June: Until June, I was excited about sprucing up the backyard. Then the worst drought in 100 years hit , and derailed everything for everyone. Giant trees - hell, whole forests died, between the drought and the horrible wildfires that raged through over the Summer.

I managed to get a couple of small trees in and going strong this Fall, though, and I plan to reboot my efforts in the Spring.

July: Re-arranged the living room like whoa.

August: started another blog, for my SCA stuff. :)

October: re-did the guest bathroom

November: once the weather finally started cooling off, I got busy cleaning up the yard and getting parts of it ready for the Garden-stravaganza I have planned for 2012.

December: just about finished re-doing my craft room.

On to 2012!!! Hope everyone has a safe and fun New Year's, and a happy, fulfilling new year!

Now For the Little Things...

2011-12-28T10:32:00.001-06:00

Couple of extra touches in the craft room (some; not all):

Replaced the plain white muslin café curtain with a soft linen one; plant, more artwork.

I made this curtain, and the one below, Monday evening, which was the first time I'd used the new sewing table + file cabinet setup. It's AWESOME. Idk how I was dealing with that awful, rattle-y, shelf/box situation before.

Yup. I still hate the clock.

Linen curtains over the closet door, to hide the mess when there's a mess.

<-- cat eating breakfast in the mirror. hee.

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Before & After: Craft Room Whoopass

2011-12-27T09:23:00.000-06:00

I opened up a HUGE can of whoopass on my craft room over the long holiday weekend! I'm tired, and sore, and at this particular moment I pretty much never want to paint anything ever again - but the room is 99% finished, and I'm SO excited about that! Check it out:

Before:

Loooong sewing table. Stained plywood top (ok, but the finish was wearing off), on black wire shelves for legs (wobbly, ugly, cramped legroom).

Gray walls. Soft and relaxing, but boring.

Green painted concrete floor. (Hey, the paint was free, and at the time it was better than bare concrete).

3 of 4 wood plank shelves, fabric s l o w l y being moved from bins on the floor underneath to "neatly" "folded" stacks, pending storage box decision.

Closet packed to bursting, half-assed, mis-matched carboard and paper boxes, and big plastic bins.

The bottom shelf was supposed to be an extra work surface for me to roll my chair up to. Do YOU see any place to work??

<-- 8yo carpet

After:
After a loooong four-day weekend of taking shelves down and re-painting them, painting the walls, sorting and organizing until I thought I'd die from it, and making some furniture changes:

I painted the top 2/3 of the walls a fresh, crisp white.

The wooden shelves were painted a cool, charcoal gray - kinda reminds me of the color of those old, metal, Steelcase desks.

The closet, formerly a weird, too-light blue, got the same treatment: white walls (top and bottom), and "Steelcase" gray on the shelves.

I like the gray "frame" around the closet opening.

<-- the carpet's been removed in here, as well. Finally.

The sewing table top also got painted gray; the shelf "legs" were replaced by Ikea's CURRY legs, in silver.

While the dimensions of the top haven't changed, the table itself is about 3" shorter than it was - which I was REALLY worried about doing, but it actually turned out to be exactly what this table needed. No more shoulder strain!

A LOT of art went into this room, much of it my own. These four are actually the very first "real paintings" I ever did.

The black bulletin board that used to sit behind the sewing machine on the right is now hanging vertically at the end of the desk. Less looming, and more space for art! :)

<-- Ikea's HELMER file cabinet. SO cute, and SO incredibly perfect for all of my sewing things. No more shelves full of random boxes of loose stuff! :D

ALL of the shelves and fabric boxes are now in place! The boxes still need labels.

There's a gray "frame" around the window, too - since the walls were already gray, I just taped off everything I wanted to refrain from painting. The inside of the window casing is still gray, too, and I really like the effect.

Look, a ceiling fan!!! Belive it or not, this is nearly my favorite part of the room. This room is ridiculously hot in the summers. Now I don't have to wheel in a big ugly box fan to keep me cool in here.

Note the gray border around the top of the walls. There's a nifty ceiling thing that hasn't happened in this room quite yet, so I left space. :)

That's a lot of change, for a LOT of work - but really, not so much. Really, all that happened in this room was:

painting
changing the table legs
installing a ceiling fan
bringing in that little Ikea file cabinet

But it took four days to do. Four days of nearly non-stop work - Saturday and Monday were like 14-hour days. I'm actually looking forward to going back to work this week, so I can sit still, hehe.

There are a couple more things in this room to show you, which will happen in their own post - like curtains, plants, and other "soft" things, to break up all this gray-and-white, which, in these pictures, seems a bit stark. The fabric boxes still need labels, and I have a nifty idea about that to experiment with. Over the course of the next few weeks I'll be finishing up the ceiling, too.

The next big thing, though, will be putting real flooring down in this room, and its neighbor. If things go the way I'd like them to, that'll happen this next weekend. Woohoo!

du Café

2011-12-22T10:03:00.000-06:00

Mmm, coffee. About a month ago, sick of the coffee maker being in the way of my cooking, and the coffee supplies and cups taking up cabinet room where I needed more mixing bowls, I moved the whole kit and caboodle* to the opposite side of the kitchen, to a corner counter that I wasn't really using...except to pile stuff on.

ok, not really. this was while I was re-doing the laundry room

After:

coffee station!

This is more stuff from my Ikea trip this week. That's a SNUDDA lousy susan, with a SOARE woven mat on top, just for kicks. (Those of you who've been to Ikea with me, like, ever, know that every time I'm there I practically stick my face into the bin of these things and smell them. I *love* the way dried banana fibers smell. I finally broke down and bought some of them to use around the house, just because I love the scent.. The silver tray was a thrift store find many moons ago. More coffee and extra supplies in the cabinets directly above.

My favorite part, though, is this adorbs little creamer. The pattern is being discontinued, and so I scored this little dude for a buck. Squee!

* Yes, I just wanted to say, "kit and caboodle."

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Before & After: Tableshelf Printerstand Badkitty

2011-12-21T10:27:00.000-06:00

Many moons ago (many, many moons), I bought one of those Southwestern-y looking square trunk tables. You know: rustic pine wood, pre-dinged for your battered furnishing convenience, with rusted iron hardware (because mmm, tetanus*). Shortly thereafter, I realized I had been smoking crack when I bought it.

I refinished it a number of times, and eventually just painted it black, but it was still a big, flat, clunky table, and I'm WAY too clumsy for large, low-to-the-ground furniture. I have the broken toes to prove it.

"cabinet"

Eventually, as unwanted furniture in my house is wont to do, it ended up in my sewing room, upended, as a "cabinet." Yuh-huh. I wasn't even keeping anything in it, just piling crap on top of it. (As I am wont to do).

I thought about knocking it completely apart and actually building something out of the sides, but I gave up after realizing I could really only make...a big square table with it. (I've had a serious creativity cramp the last few months, around the house).

"table"

Not to be defeated by a table, I finally decided to just remove the table-y parts and use it as a big square shelf. You can never have enough big square shelves, after all.

I dragged it out to the garage, removed the feet, the doors, and the center top piece that didn't open (why, exactly...?), and all the trim molding around the bottom edge.

a good start

I wrestled with what to do with the finish.

Leave it, and claim that it was beautiful in its curbside-find simplicity? Paint it a bright, snazzy, eye-catching color? Nope, don't have any of those, don't feel like buying new paint for this. Touch up with more black? Nope, don't have any of that, either.

In the end I settled on using this ~~table~~ shelf to use up the leftover gray paint from the guest bath.

heyloogidat!

There! Waaay better than the ex-coffee table that used to sit in this corner, which was constantly piled with books and papers, and which invited A Very Bad Cat to sit on the scanner whenever the hell he felt like it. Something missing, though...

Now the top of the ~~table~~ shelf is full, which means there's no room for the aforementioned Very Bad Cat to hop up there and screw with the printer, or the curtains. Or the plant (which is an Elephant's Foot Palm, related to the Ponytail Palm (Baucarnia recurvata), both of which apparently taste really good to cats).

everything needs a plant on it (in my house)

Vertical magazine and file organizers courtesy of Ikea. Five of them for two bucks. Aw, yeah.

P.S.:

Before. Yowza.

* And, because I said that, I have to say this, because it's an odd pet peeve of mine: you don't really get tetanus from rusty metal. The condition of tetanus, aka lockjaw, (which is actually quite serious, by the way) is caused by any one of a number of tetanus bacteria, which are soil-borne, anaerobic bacteria, and which die when in contact with oxygen. A rusty nail buried in the ground? Sure, maybe (boots and gloves in the garden, people). A rusty nail sticking out of a table in your house? No way. Certainly not a clean sewing needle in a sewing machine, Dr. Guy Who Made Me Get That Horrible Shot For No Reason).

Ikea Alphabet Game

2011-12-20T09:43:00.000-06:00

Go to Ikea's website. Type a letter in the search bar, and then a second, if necessary, and explore the first Swedish product name that comes up in the search.

This is Ikea's BRADA laptop support, for $2.49. I don't have a laptop, but I bet it'd make a nice lap-top support for an art pad - especially since I've recently started experimenting with calligraphy, and with painting Very Small Pictures. Looks like the lip on the front of it might be tall enough to cut into my wrist, though.

This post brought to you by Ikea, and their dearth of laminate flooring solutions on the website; and by my total lack of posts lately. I swear I have a shelf drying the garage that I can post about just ANY day now...

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Knobby McKnobberson

2011-12-09T11:43:00.001-06:00

Another "small thing" in the guest bath that's hugely important to the overall look:

Hooray Knobs!

TADA

Matches the one on the upper cabinet...

...which had been there for like a year, LOL.

Table Rodeo, Part 2

2011-12-08T14:45:00.000-06:00

When last we met my living room and it's end tables, it went a little something like this:

There's a wee one with a silver tray and a plant on it to the left of the min-couch (covered with a white blanket in this picture).

This post is about the corner between the two couches, though, where until just the other day, there was a round, black, wicker table with a silver tray on top, next to the silver standing lamp I refinished, and a pretty painting behind it on a wooden easel.

Here it is ~~after~~ ...in transition, let's say. This is the tall, antique (Victorian) plant stand that had been, until the other day, the nightstand on my side of the bed.

It's a bit tall, which I thought would be weird; but I really like it where it is.

That tall Bird of Paradise plant is looking a little pekid these days. Sigh.

....I started this entry with every intention of doing MUCH more to this corner, and then I got REALLY REALLY SICK. I haven't had the energy to do anything this week. Next time we see this corner there'll be art on the wall (no, really!) and some more stuff happening with that table and behind the couch.

Maybe after the weekend, if I have time and can, you know, stay vertical for more than an hour at a time, hehe.

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Yippie-Kai-Yay

2011-12-05T14:33:00.001-06:00

Is that how that's even spelled? Does anyone really know? Anyhoo: TABLE RODEO this weekend! Similar to the "Houseplant Rodeo" I do 3-4 times a year, wherein houseplants get moved around, put into new pots, trimmed, bathed, and generally spruced up and reorganized. This time with tables!

#1 Altar + Meditation Corner
My little prayer altar got moved from the tower of cube-furniture in the bedroom, to a small wooden chowki in the "back" of my living room where my little meditation corner has been set up.

Before: the meditation corner, with the "tower" altar next to it, before I moved the tower into the bedroom. Also before I moved the couch into its current spot. Old picture.

After: The new Meditation Corner, rotated 90º (because it functions, and is more comfy, that direction), and the new little devotional altar next to it.

I like this version a lot better. It's simple, and quiet, and pretty.

<-- also some new cushions. :)

Talk to you about #2 later this week...when it's finished, hehe.

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RUG!

2011-12-03T17:06:00.001-06:00

Hey, you guys wanna see a really crappy photograph? I thought you did.

ooh, ahh.

That would be a nine-dollar area rug. Yup, that's what I said: this baby cost me a whopping $9.99 at the Goodwill outlet the other weekend. Are you freaking shocked? I couldn't believe it. I couldn't not buy it. It's practically brand-new, too. There's a bit of wear on one of the short edges, which I tucked up under the mini-couch when I put it in my living room, and that's *it*. It's gorgeous.

*see below

Tada.

Believe it or not, I DID actually dust off the ol' real camera for this one, and took some fabulous photos. And then I couldn't find the cord that connects it to my computer. #&!!#%@*!!!

It took about three minutes after I got the furniture in place and stopped moving things around before two dogs went to lay down on the new rug, and a cat walked over and started sharpening his claws on it. The dogs I'm okay with, but I'm pretty sure I scared the cat so badly that he'll never go near that rug again.

For at least an hour.

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* Yes, those are the same papers I taped to the wall three months ago in order to test-drive placement for some canvases I'd planned to paint and hang up there. I still haven't done anything more on them...not even put the ones that fell down back up, which is why there are only three in the picture. Because I'm (1) lazy and have (2) been doing other things.
...And I still haven't covered the mini-couch aside from throwing blankets over it, because I suck.
JUST LOOK AT THE RUG OKAY.

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Pics Or It Didn't Happen

2011-12-02T15:21:00.001-06:00

WHEW! I've been so busy with work this week, I haven't had time to make a blog post! I have been getting things done around the house, though.

I've begun a little Side Table Rodeo in the house which will end up affecting three different rooms.

I went EPIC THRIFT SHOPPING with some friends last weekend and acquired a big honkin' area rug for ten dollars.

I'm making some art.

I've started more painting in the guest bath.

Soon as I have time to finish projects, put that new rug in place, take pics, and post about it, you'll read about it! In the meantime, everybody have a great weekend. :)

*woman

When Closets Attack!

2011-11-27T09:52:00.001-06:00

I believe I've mentioned before that my bedroom closet is a great big hot mess. The dream is something along these lines...

wouldn't this be nice?

And to be fair, while the reality is something slightly less organized, I am getting there, albeit slowly. My closet doesn't affect anyone but me, so I'm allowing bits and pieces of it to come to me whenever it does, and spending my focus right now on the guest bath and guest bedroom.

A couple of weeks ago, though, I paid a visit to the small north Texas town of Burkburnett, and while I was there, I stopped at an indoor city-wide garage sale type of event to poke around. It was cute in that Tiny-Texas-Town kind of way, there were lots of really nice people, and even live music in the center of the auditorium, which was nifty. And I found a pair of cute little mirrors - about 15x18" - for $8 for the pair!

I had them sitting on my kitchen counter for two weeks before I figured out what to do with them - well, with one of them anyway. Into the bedroom closet they went!

Ooh, ahh.

It was...okay. I actually cleaned up this portion of my closet quite a bit - removed some storage bins I wasn't using that I'd set on top of the dresser and then ignored, for example (remember that dresser?) I also put the dresser up on bed riser feet so I can get to my socks without throwing my back out (it's a little small, but it'll do until I find the perfect one for this space ).

But it wasn't...quite...

THERE!

A nicer, newer basket for my hair things and scarves, and some gold paint for that mirror. I painted it on, then wiped the edges down to "weather" it a bit.

~*sparkle*~

Now to
(a) figure out what to do with the other mirror like this, and to
(b) do something about the rest of the closet...

º~º

"Ikea Hack"?

2011-11-18T15:11:00.000-06:00

That candle holder in the guest bath, by the way, is actually pretty much just a stack of candle holders, LOL.

The wooden base is a candlestick from Ikea. I glued a blue glass flat pillar candle plate on top of that, and then, for the bathroom, I stuck a brown glass votive holder on top.

It's like Jenga, but with fire and broken glass danger. I'm kidding. It's totally secure.

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Craft Room Shelves, Take III

2011-11-17T14:04:00.000-06:00

Craft Room Shelves

I don't think I've ever, in my life, taken THIS long to put up one damned set of shelves. I keep finding myself one bracket short (and cue Peanut Gallery).

three out of four ain't bad?

The good news is, I'm one bracket away from putting up the fourth and final shelf, and then I can go get some plastic boxes from Ikea to store all that fabric in, to keep dust off of them. I also need to re-organize the closet a bit so I can fit those last two gray bins into it: they're both full of old costumes, and upholstery fabric, none of which I want to put out on the shelves.

before: stacks of tubs, ack!

I also moved all the cat boxes from the guest bath cabinet into this room. They're on the floor under the shelves, for now, until I can get some sort of enclosure built around them to keep the litter dust from flying, and to camouflage the, er, boxes of turds and sand. º~º So, building stuff YAY.

To be [perennially] continued...

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Even More Guest Bath

2011-11-16T15:34:00.000-06:00

It's not a major accomplishment or anything, but I did two things on Sunday, after having paint the lower half of the room on Saturday:

Guest Bath Cabinet
The vanity cabinet is litterbox-free, scrubbed, disinfected, and deodorized. No more litterbox smell in this tiny room, and no more throw rug full of litter overspray in front of the cabinet on the floor! Ewww!

It's a small thing, but it's a HUGE thing.

Next for this room: cabinet hardware, and maybe a paint job on the lower cabinets. Haven't decided yet.

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More Guest Bath!

2011-11-14T11:53:00.000-06:00

Look! I did some more painting in there!

~~Before~~ Okay, Well, Last Week:

After:

It's gray on the bottom! See, once I get every single room in my house painted gray, then I can move to a new house. Not really. I cut the leftover Behr "Woodsmoke" paint from the living room in half with plain white to make it a soft dove-gray (okay, okay, actually, it was to make sure I had enough paint).

look, Ma, no toilet paper!

I like the effect quite a bit - and it IS level around the room, in spite of the photo through the mirror making it look like it's not. I did play with the artwork a bit, and made the frame over the towel rack horizontal instead of vertical, and I like that a lot better. It still sticks up above the shower rod, but that's going to get moved up higher anyway once I get the curtains in place.

Curtains which I don't have, by the way: curtains, a new (and washable) rug, and some towels. Next, though, some practical things need to be addressed:

the missing cabinet door
cabinet door hardware
litterbox...issues.
possibly another paint detail I haven't decided about yet

Month In Review

2011-11-10T10:21:00.000-06:00

October In Review (10 days late, lol)

Hung a room-divider sheer curtain between the living room and office
Gave all my big houseplants a much-needed and long-overdue bath outdoors
Got some more work done on The Aquarium Stand That Wouldn't Die
Went to Ikea
Finished the second of two couch covers I made for a friend
Found a coffee table on bulk trash day with awesome feet, which I refinished and put on my couch
Re-covered a desk chair I got from Ikea, for my sewing room
Hung the third shelf in the craft room (one shelf at a time? really? I swear)
Cleaned out and painted the guest bathroom.

I also put a towel rack in the bathroom, but have yet to actually hang it on the wall. Lot of good THAT does all of your wet hands. So...

To-Do List for November

Hang the towel rack in the guest bath
Do the second phase of the painting/color scheme in the guest bath
Finish the aquarium stand???
Lots and lots of yard cleanup
Plant another tree in the backyard, and some grass seed in the front before it gets too cold
Hang the final shelf in the craft room, and get some of the rest of the painting done in there that I want to do.

once upon a time, I had a beautiful garden.

Vee shall zee...

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More Progress In the Guest Bath

2011-11-09T11:04:00.000-06:00

There's still a bunch of painting to be done in the guest bath, and some new textiles in there (shower curtains, rugs, towels). But for the time being, I got the freaking towel rack put up tonight, and some art and tchotchkes thrown in. I like it so far.

vanity corner. garden print via blessedwildapplegirl

LOOK A TOWEL RACK

"Girl Combing Her Hair" by Wm. McGregor Paxton

My fave thing about the old bathroom: the art over the throne.

Which is sideways. I'll get to that. Photo via Pinterest.

So far, so good. I need to do something with that Paxton print - it's too high up on the wall. It looks fine in person, but in the picture...Idk. I'll look at it, and play with it some more. I think I might stick it next to the mirror instead of the little garden-window print, and do something horizontal above the towel rack.

hmm.

It's all coming down this weekend anyway, so I can do the rest of the painting in here. But for what is basically a trial-run of all the stuff on the walls and the vanity, I'm pleased.

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When You Care Enough To Send the Very BAWK

2011-11-08T12:37:00.001-06:00

Sometimes you just need a pair of brightly-colored, ceramic chickens.

My BFF got me these for my birthday a few weeks ago. They're silly and cute, and I love them to pieces. And no, I'm not normally into decorating my house with livestock figurines of any kind, but these are special.

My mother had a pair of them when I was little, and I loved them SO much. I never could explain why, there was just something about them. My mother decorated for each holiday, and all sorts of other special occasions, but her chickens never came out of the cabinet, and were never displayed. She didn't really like them, and I have no idea where they even came from. But I loved them, and loved to take them out of the cabinet when no one was home and arrange them on a shelf or table, and just sit and admire them for a few minutes before I put them away.

It's a long story, and one I won't burden you all with, but, suffice to say, I lost my family a long, long time ago, and have almost no mementos from that time in my life, especially ones with happy associations. And for that reason, my BFF got me a pair of chickens I loved for no reason when I was a child. It's amazing to have people in your life who care enough to think of and remember the little things like this. :')

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Another Lost Post! (Couch Feet)

2011-11-08T12:36:00.001-06:00

WTF, blogger? Here's one I thought I posted last week, which I just realized never made it through.

LOOK, COUCH FEET:

Sasha approves of this couch.

From the coffee table I rescued from the roadside on bulk trash day last month. I harvested the feet and the piano hinge that once held a folding top, and gave the rest to a friend who plans to make it into a shelf-y entertainment center type of thing.

Before:

short, plastic Ikea feet

Surprise Flowers!

2011-11-07T14:53:00.000-06:00

I love gardening moments like this, especially after the bad gardening year it's been. I went camping over the past weekend, and came back to find the 'Romantika' Clematis in the backyard, which partly covers the temporary fencing in front of the bed I built last month behind the back porch, in full bloom:

And then suddenly, seemingly for no reason, she made a hat.

2011-11-03T13:57:00.000-05:00

Oh, weird - I thought I posted this like a month ago. Here, have a random-ass, outdated post:

I can has crochet.

that's me

me again.

And then I joined Ravelry.com! Because YARN. This happens every year around this time.

Wanna see some more of my stuff? Go here.

Yardnation!

2011-11-02T14:00:00.000-05:00

Nothing fancy, but a little elbow grease (as well as a few scratches and a ruined pair of sandals) goes a long, long way towards creating the Backyard of Dreams from the chaos of the Creeping Death Fungus of 2010 and the worst drought this state has ever seen, in 2011.

Another step along that road:

Ooh, ahh. *SPARKLE*

That nice clean corner was full of THIS. O_O

It doesn't look like much, it was worth about three hours' work, and a whole lot of peace of mind. I didn't find any deadly spiders, scorpions, snakes, or rats in there...but I was always worried about it. Not for my own safety (having, as I do, boots and gloves and common sense), but for my dogs, who would chase bugs into the pile and can't tell me, "Hey, mom, I was just bitten by a Black Widow. Maybe we should go to the animal hospital right now." You know?

Plus, it clears out a HUGE corner of the yard. The one corner, actually, where I don't plan to plant anything cool. This is, to put it simply, the Dog Poop Corner. As long as they have a big, open space to use, the dogs don't use the rest of the yard, and I plan to keep it that way.

Next on the list for the back yard: a canopy over the patio, some raised beds for vegetable gardening, and some new sod in the Spring.

it's going to be seriously cool.

Guest Bath Before & After (step 2)

2011-10-17T14:06:00.001-05:00

Friday's to-do list amuses me, looking back. I had it all planned out - two days of work for a single day, for starters. Two hours to paint the guest bath? On whose planet?? Ha.

But I did get the bathroom painted. The actual work didn't take me much longer than about two hours, but if you add in breaks I took to eat, sit down for a bit after being on a ladder, rest my cramping hands, and let things dry between coats, it took more like six.

There is a teeny tiny spider crawling around on my computer screen as I'm writing this very sentence. Hee.

After (the first step):

Fresh, clean slate:

*glow*

Next up:

prime & paint the bathroom door, door trim, and baseboards, which are still original (!) and horrifyingly yellowed with age.
shower curtain, mats, towels
more wall paint, in certain spots - more to come on that
cabinet knobs
doorknob
faucet
light fixture

Before, and before that:

The first step was this $8 thrift store mirror that I re-sized and re-painted specifically for this space, because standard builders' sheet mirrors give me hives.

2010: WTF WAS I SMOKING?!

2007: *yawn*

(Actually, the white cabinets were a vast improvement: when I bought the house in '04, they were f'oak laminate (fake oak). This bathroom is so small that I constantly felt like the cabinets were pushing into the room. The white calmed them down. In 2007 I also took the hanging cabinet off the wall and cut it down to HALF the depth it had been, so that it wasn't hovering above my head when I was sitting down. That was just weird).

More to come!

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Weekend To-Do List

2011-10-14T16:32:00.004-05:00

Weekend?? Well, I'm going to be out of town at an SCA event all day tomorrow, so...

~~Weekend~~ Sunday To-Do List:

paint the guest bath, and hang a towel rack (should only be about 2 hours)
clearcoat the feet from the bulk trash table (10 minutes) and put them onto my couc
remember when I made cutting boards out of an old wooden countertop? The big one's way too big to be easy to use, so I don't - meanwhile, I always wish I had a little bitty one. I'm going to cut the big one down into smaller boards. (1 hr?)
I may or may not stain and paint a little wooden box to keep some small things in. Depends on how much time I have.
shopping! Backyard & bathroom stuff!

Let's see if I do ANY of that, or sit on my butt all day playing video games...

Grunge-Be-Gone: A Gnu Before-N-After

2011-10-12T11:27:00.000-05:00

On my last trip to Ikea I found a little office chair in the as-is section for $9.99. Yup. A $140 NOMINELL chair for ten bucks. SCORE.

Before:

It'd been a floor model. For a long, long...long...long time, it would seem:

ewww.

EWWW!

But, never fear! It only took about half an hour to remove the old (grungy, red, microfiber) cover, separate it into its pattern pieces and use them to make a new cover...

the little hooties that go around the posts under the back

After:

TADA! New clean chair that coordinates with the color scheme that will be in the room once I finish painting things, and get some real flooring down over that green-painted concrete:

oooh, aaah.

CLEEEEEAAANN!!

Awesome.

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Table Out of Nowhere

2011-10-11T10:16:00.001-05:00

Of the things on my to-do list for last weekend, the only thing I got done was the couch cover. But it's done!

Yesterday was bulky trash pickup day in my neighborhood. Whee! I was pleased to see my pile thoroughly looted after having only been out for three hours - there was practically nothing left for the trash collectors.

And I scored this coffee table:

Two points each to those of you who looked at this and wondered why the heck I'd be interested in it.
Look at the feet, though:

PERFECT! These are exactly what I've been looking for...for my couch. :)

They're undergoing a slight color modification at the moment; another couple of coats of stain and some clearcoat, and then pads on the bottom so they don't scratch my floor, and they'll be ready to go onto the couch.

Yay, couch feet! The rest of the table is probably going to be turned into a small bookshelf for a friend of mine. :)

And I swear I'll get that bathroom painted this week. Really, I will.

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Weekend!

2011-10-07T11:09:00.000-05:00

Yay, I totally fail at getting stuff done this week! :D Hee. Actually, not really. I've been puttering a bit here and there. I just don't have anything done that I can post about yet.

This weekend, I'd like to:

Finish the second couch cover - I'm almost there!

Get the rest of the sides and the doors put on the aquarium stand I've been working on.

Paint the guest bath. I kind of just...stopped...after I painted the wall behind the mirror and hung the new mirror I refinished....in July.

Start working on some new costume stuff!

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Fait Accomplit

2011-10-04T13:50:00.001-05:00

My vacation was fantastic. I got SO MUCH DONE! Which amounts to a lot of sewing, a curtain room divider in the living room, some insane house-cleaning...and not really much else, hehe. I'd intended to paint the hall bath and deal with the proto-art situation in the living room, but I ended up not having enough time, between the sewing and all the loafing I did. That's right, folks - I spent over half the week parked in front of the tv. As it should be! Hee.

I love the curtain!

And actually, I did manage to haul all my large houseplants out to the backyard for a much-needed bath. The large Dracaena in the picture above got pretty sunburned, too, unfortunately. It'd been so long since I'd left it outside for more than a minute that I'd forgotten about that. It's alive, but over half the leaves are scorched beyond belief. I feel so awful for having done that. I have no idea what I'll do with it...stick it in a side room until it's repaired as much as it will, and grown enough to prune back the damaged parts without decimating the entire plant. :'(

I also went to Ikea - hence the new set of LILL curtains in the living room as a room divider. I also grabbed a little gray MUS to go with the white one I have on my desk at work (hee), a pack of four curtain rod holders from the as-is section for like 90c, a little Airplane Plant for $2, a SKANKA saucepan (I'm slowly replacing my old, beat-up cookware), and a NOMINELL swiveling office chair from the as-is section for, I kid you not, TEN DOLLARS. :O It's in great shape, aside from being a little grungy on the top from all the hands grabbing it while it was a floor model. It's getting reupholstered as soon as I figure out what fabric I want to put on it. :o)

Thanks, Ikea!

2011-09-29T22:56:00.000-05:00

HEY, guess what this is?

If you guessed "Ikea's DIGNITET curtain wire system going up on Laura's living room ceiling," you win!

My recently-rearranged living room was working out great, floorplan- and functionality-wise...but the lack of room divider between the two rooms was REALLY getting on my NERBS.

Seriously, this is just messy-looking.

However...

HUGE difference!

It did wonders for the office, too:

not that I didn't love looking at the back of the tv...

YAY!

I absolutely love how the living room feels almost like a little fluffy cave. These are Ikea's LILL mesh curtains, by the way - I have tons of them, all over the house, I love them so much. In this case, they coordinate with the windows, divide the room without feeling heavy, and let lots of light pass through for all the frillions of houseplants I keep.

yep, still trying to figure out that art arrangement.

Sasha helped.

Success!

2011-09-28T13:06:00.000-05:00

The new backyard plans proceed apace, largely due to the fact that I'm on VACATION this week at home. No work, just work around the house that I never have time to do!

Look What I Made!

This is the couch cover I've been working on for a friend of mine for the past month:

TA DA!!!

Only one more to go, and I'm already [mostly] done with the seat cushion covers, with all this wonderful time off. :)

And also....

Kress and I hit the backyard for about thirty minutes this morning to move some fencing around, and the trellis that was behind the little Chastetree. Here it is before:

And after:

This is in the shady corner behind the patio. It's mounted on the fence with eye-bolts now, and ready for plants!

Here's the little Chastetree without the trellis and giant weed behind it (egad); we removed all that temporary wire fencing from around that half of the yard, too, and used it to corral the Chastetree and the shady corner, to keep the dogs out until they can deal with the new additions without digging them up. :)

that grass is going to be SO GREEN in the Spring.

I wonder how long this will be the "little" Chastetree - this thing is growing like crazy! No kidding, it's already settled in and has already put on about 8" of height since I planted it three weeks ago! YAY!

The Beautyberry, however, I suspect is not long for this world. It's having a REALLY hard time getting established out there. Here's hoping.

Meanwhile, I'm working on costumes today, and will update about that shortly over at my other blog. :)

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Planticular Update

2011-09-22T11:46:00.003-05:00

Gardeny-Do's Done Last Weekend/This Week:

1. Planted a white, single-flowered rose in my front garden; part of a new design plan in that bed which I haven't discussed here just yet. I will, as it slowly unfolds. :)

It's a great, healthy, strong plant. It's hard to see in this pic, but it's COVERED in flower buds which have appeared just since I planted it. I guess it's happy!

The sprinkler is a dog-digging deterrent!

2. This is the American Beautyberry bush I planted in the backyard - the variety with the white berries, insetad of purple. (Callicarpa americana var. lactea). It's planted under a bedroom window, just off the patio.

The whole area looks pretty sad in the picture - but that's not barren dirt you see under the plant. That's freshly-tilled soil mixed with fresh compost and new grass seed! The spiky thing is a stand of Garlic Chives, one of the few plants from my old herb border that survived The Creeping Death Fungus of 2010. They're not all that excited about the drought.

3. This is the "shady corner" behind the back porch I keep talking about. Another area that's not nearly as awful as it looks, LOL - my Clematis vines are shutting down for the year a bit eary, which they always do when it's been as hot and dry as it's been this year (which is hasn't, actually, since this year has been the worst drought and heatwave in Texas history, but I digress).

Tilled, composted, and mulched heavily, in preparation for the work I'll be doing in this corner next weekend.

4. The Chasteberry Tree, two weeks after planting. We had some droopy, yellow transplant shock for a few days there, but it's standing up proud now, and is already beginning to grow upward and produce new flowers. YAY!

The "trellis" behind it - which is actually a headboard from Ikea! - is what I'm doing in the "shady corner" above: it's hinged in the middle for flat-packing (bless Ikea), so I'm going to mount it on that fence corner and put another Clematis in there. A Niobe, if I can find one locally next week.

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Pseudo-Update

2011-09-21T15:01:00.000-05:00

Wow, I'm doing a great job updating this week, aren't I?

I'm really doing the stuff I said I was gonna do, too. I just keep forgetting to take pictures! So far this week, I have:

Planted a rose bush in the front garden, and cleaned up the area around it in preparation for some changes I plan to make next week
Planted a bush in the backyard (and scolded a dog who tried to dig it up, even though I'd put fencing around it, then put the sprinkler next to it to keep him away, because he's terrified of the sprinkler).
Put up some of the shelves in the craft room, and began organizing my fabric onto it, in order to (a) start getting the floor cleared of giant plastic bins, and (b) free up a couple of the bins so I can pack camping stuff into them
Taken a gigantic truckload of clothes and items to Goodwill, after having mercilessly purged my wardrobe recently to make space for (a) clothes that actually fit me and (b) costumes!

Speaking of costumes...

I started that costume blog that I was telling you about the other day. Good news on two fronts: YOU don't have to be bothered reading my costume stuff if you're only here for the plants and houses; and *I* have a shiny new toy. Hee! If you're interested, my costume blog is here:

http://clothofstars.blogspot.com

Fail! Score! And Week Ahead...

2011-09-19T12:41:00.001-05:00

The good news is, my A/C isn't broken. The FAIL! news is that it shut down this weekend because the filters were so clogged that it quit and froze over! I cannot believe I let that happen. I have the washable filters, so I didn't even have to replace anything, just take them down, hose them off on the back porch, and dry them in the sun. Fail, fail, fail! Thankfully, everything's up and running again; and I'm going to flush the condenser drain this week for good measure, too. Jeez.

I found some awesome fabric yesterday on clearance! And I'm not going to tell you about it! :D Actually, I'm going to move all the costume crap over to its own blog this week, and keep this one to house-y stuff and garden-y stuff. I'll link the new blog once it's up.

Coming up this week:

gardening!
shelves!
living room artwork!
curtains!

Stay tuned...

for Racu :)

Garden Plan Sketches!

2011-09-15T12:24:00.000-05:00

I just love making these. I finally figured out how to get my scanner to understand that they're drawings and not "documents" in plain black and white. What? I never claimed to be good with machines (well, power tools, but I digress).

Anyhow, you saw the garden "floorplans" last week that I made with Icovia Space Planner:

The following sketch is what you'd see if you were standing behind my Mulberry tree (the big green thing above) and the tree was invisible. Small (2x2') raised garden beds in front of the bedroom windows, the patio shade thing I'm going to be putting up in the next few weeks, and the two (full-grown) Chastetrees - one of which I planted last weekend.

from the west, behind the M. tree.

Looking at the yard from the east - which, technically the perspective here is from my next-door-neighbor's yard, and I certainly hope he can't see this much! (That's what the shade, the vines on the side of the porch, and the Chastetrees are for). The letters in the picture go to a key on the actual drawing, that I cut because my handwriting is atrocious.
A. The existing patio area is 10x11'. I need to remove a whole (2' wide) course of stones to make the space the size I want it to be for future plans.
B. 10' 4x4 posts, planted 18" deep in the ground, to support a canvas canopy that will swing over to the eaves of the house over the porch, to shade the patio. Painted black.
C. I'm thinking of putting a Bouganvillea by the eastern post (the west side already has my big Mexican Orchid Tree behind it). It's one of my very favorite sub-trops, and my favorite color of Bouganvillea seems to have made a comback - it's all over the nurseries this season! I'd better grab one before it's too late. Again.

from the east

There's a wee 6x4' section of lawn that sticks back behind the side of the porch, and is the only place in my yard with shade. It's a bit of a pit of dead grass at the moment, but it's perfect for some fluffy, shade-loving things I don't normally have spots for. The trellis out in the yard (near the Chastetree) is going to be hung on the corner of the fence (thank you, Ikea, for flat-packing this thing so that it hinges in the middle, making it REALLY versatile), and will become home to, I hope, a beautiful red "Niobe" Clematis. Underneath will go some Lady's Mantle, Bird's Nest ferns, and maybe a Bleeding Heart.

here's my little Chastetree! ^

I have a LOT of digging to do this Fall.

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Living Room Art Before & Not After Just Quite Yet

2011-09-14T12:24:00.003-05:00

Way Before

navy blue sheet on the mini-couch, old TV bracket still up

Then a bit later

Ikea's "Ofelia" blanket on the MC. I <3 this blanket.

You don't even want to KNOW how long it took me to get around to taking down that tv bracket, patching the holes, and touching up the paint.
And I still need to upholster that minicouch.
And now the wall's all big and empty and LOOMING.

Blocking out an art idea on the Big Gray Wall of Looming:

I love the way it fills the space, and the assymetry.

from the meditation space behind the brown couch

I like it. But something's... I think they need to be farther apart, for starters. More of a gap. I haven't decided yet on paper/canvas, watercolor/paint/oil pastels...but it's going to be one large, yet simple piece done across all the canvases (or papers), so, balancing the shape and flow of the entire arrangement is big deal.

::Edited to add:: It needed more space between the papers! I relaxed the arrangement and moved the papers farther apart, just a tiny bit, and it's perfect! Still going to live with it a while to make sure I keep liking it.

As soon as I'm reasonably happy with the arrangement, I'll sketch out the design on the papers and live with that for another few days, and then get painting. Or sketching. Or pasteling. Or whatever ends up happening.

Inspiration, In Case You're Wondering:

via pinterest

To be continued...eventually...

P.S. - I finally figured out wtf was wrong with my scanner re: the pencil sketches I do that never scan right. Garden plans coming this week! :D

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WHEW.

2011-09-12T11:35:00.001-05:00

I spent most of the weekend sewing, which will surprise exactly no one. Got caught up on everything I meant to do last weekend, when I was down with The Food Poisoning. Blech.

Not much to show for myself, photographic-evidence-wise - but later in the week there'll be a couple of posts about the costumes I worked on this weekend, some pseudo-14th century jewelry, the craft room shelves (YAY!), some organization achieved over the weekend in the craft room AND my bedroom closet, and the aquarium stand I've been working on.

Hope everyone had a great weekend! <3

just something pretty to look at, in the meantime. from Pinterest

Costumaroni & Cheese: Headgear Post #1

2011-09-09T15:27:00.000-05:00

Remember this?

the most shit I've ever had on my head at once.

See the blue ribbon around my hair, under the veil? That was a trial run, done in acrylic craft paints. Just a plain ol' little trefoil-vine design, nothing fancy. I wanted an embroidered version...so I made one.

Please keep in mind that I've never embroidered anything before, and be gentle with me. This was quite a feat for me, even though (as I'm well aware) it kinda looks like a four year old did it. It's my first try. And I'm pretty pleased with myself. :)

1. First line of vines (I sketched the pattern onto the ribbon with chalk pencil first)
2. Thicker
3. Trefoils on the fine ends (little three-lobed plant leaves)
4. Gold outlines
5. Stitching a second ribbon on the back to hide the hideous back of my work, with a little blanket-stitch
6. Reinforcing the ends with a pseudo-buttonhole stitch type situation, because...
7. Lengths of embroidery floss over the edge, and tied into a fringe, which was then...
8. Braided into three braids, which were braided together to form a single cord at each end of the ribbon.

DONE. FINALLY.

Why? Because it's pretty. :o) And because my wimple is really only half of one - it doesn't go all the way around the back or top of my head, and it's not wrapped: the upper corners of it pin to this ribbon, which hold it in place, which in turn keeps the ribbon in place.

WHEW. That took me like two weeks. I have no idea how people do this all the time. I don't hate embroidery with a bloody passion like I did before I started working on this - but I sure am tired of it.

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Organization SCORE!

2011-09-08T14:04:00.001-05:00

Coworker: "Hey, I don't suppose you have any use for these plastic boxes, do you? We have dozens. We were just going to recycle them."

Me: "HOOK A BITCH UP."

aw, yeah.

No, I'm not crazy about the green, but that's what spray paint is for! Guess whose craft room is about to get hella-organized! And the garage! And the laundry room!

MUWAHAHAHAAAA!!!

Yes, have some!

2011-09-07T10:42:00.001-05:00

My backyard, in pictures:

YAY!

Ok, not really. This is what it actually looks like.

But then there was a tree* planted, and under that did I get all muddy.

Yes, that's this same area. Stupid drought. That's a big weed behind the trellis.

So now it looks like this.

Plans for the next couple of weeks include: removing some of the stones from the patio surface, clearing the brush pile in the southwest corner, planting a second Vitex tree, erecting the shade/roof over the patio that you see in the very first picture, and raking up the dog poop from the yard (not pictured).

*Chaste Tree, aka Vitex agnus castus, the one I bought on Monday. A Mediterranean/north African native; extremely hardy, evergreen, water- and pest-resistant, covered in purple flowers and bees in most seasons here. Not really a "tree", rather a large shrub, 15' max.

(Also, the house:yard ratio is waaaaay off in the drawings - the house is basically just there to show where it IS; but in the picture it makes the yard look huge, and it's really only about 36x23').

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Landscaping?

2011-09-06T12:39:00.000-05:00

Wow, what a mind-blowingly busy three-day weekend that was! I am so tired! I did EVERYTHING!

Not really. I got some nasty food poisoning Friday night and spent almost the entire weekend either in bed or in the bathroom. And then when I finally came out of it and was able to, you know, move and speak and get on the internet, I found out half of my state is on fire. Fun times.

I did, however, get the wall support rails for the craft room shelves put up yesterday. And I bought a little Chasteberry Tree for the backyard. Also, the weather is gorgeous.

I'm gonna go worry about my friends some more now, bye.

Not a Chasteberry Tree. Isn't it pretty, though? I want.

An Adventure!

2011-09-01T10:49:00.001-05:00

I'm still up to my ass in alligators, project-wise, between the SCA and all my regular home stuff. August 2011 turned out to be a month-long exercise in maintaining my own boundaries and learning to manage my time better.

Home project-wise, I did do a lot of work on the craft room shelves and the aquarium stand; but I don't have progress pictures uploaded yet, and certainly not an afters, since I'm not finished with either project. Hopefully I'll be finishing the shelves and hanging them Saturday morning. <--- and there's your progress report for August. Fail. :c Oh, yeah, there was that little footstool, too. Yay.

Costume project-wise...oy.

Meanwhile, I had an adventure! My best friend, author Dianne Sylva n, was invited to Armadillocon last weekend, and I was invited to tag along as her +1 ("assistant", lol). Armadillocon's a sci-fi/fantasy writer's conference. Not a big, glamorous fan event; more geared towards writers and aspiring writers themselves. It was a lot of fun.

I'd fully intended to take a million pictures and bring you a wonderful and exciting blog entry about our weekend, but...I forgot. But I DO have a picture of Dianne in action:

the café in the hotel lobby had the BEST cheesecake!

I took the [glass!] elevator all the way to the top/9th floor of the Renaissance Hotel just so I could look down. I'm not afraid of heights, but they make me feel weird enough (and I'm enough of a wuss), that just riding the elevator and looking down was a pretty big rush, LOL.

There she is! Everybody wave at Dianne. And then go buy her vampire books.

Updatey Updateness!

2011-08-22T13:53:00.000-05:00

BOY did I get stuff done this weekend!

working on a pair of couch slipcovers for a friend (halfway through the first one)
sanded & stained the boards for the shelves for the craft room
attached some of the outside facing pieces for the tank stand (until I ran out of nails, d'oh! Getting more tonight)
changed the rear brakes on my truck (did the air filter last week, like I was talking about)
also did a bit of work on some costume pieces for me and Kress.

WHEW!

Pic updates later this week; in the meantime:

The Planning Stages

2011-08-19T09:31:00.000-05:00

Flowchart brought to you by yours truly.

The Oldest Wildebeest

2011-08-18T13:12:00.000-05:00

So, this wood I bought at Lowe's the other day.

As I've mentioned before, once upon a time I kept a crap-ton of aquariums. I migrated from various types of fish to newts, in my twenties; but then last year, my last aging newt finally kicked the bucket, and I took down my last aquarium. I've missed it terribly. I miss the soft bubbling in the background, the light from the water reflections bouncing around the room, watching the cats watching Fish TV, lol.

In 2006 I began building an aquarium cabinet:

July 2006

painted and sealed interior, with floor. August 2006

...And then I stopped. I had a very good reason for not finishing this cabinet...not that I remember what it was now, five years later. But all this cabinet needed was an outside, a shelf in the middle, and a top.

That's where my trip to Lowe's this week comes in: I now have materials to create walls, doors, and a shelf on the inside. Will I get it done this weekend?

To be continued...

OH MY GOD, IKEA!!!

2011-08-16T12:49:00.000-05:00

They've finally done it! They've answered my prayers, and created AN UNG DRILL MIRROR!!!

F$CK YEAH.

Now how did they know I'm going to Ikea this week? I see a new mirror in my future. :)

*hApPy DaNcE*

DIY Shopping, September Edition

2011-08-16T09:46:00.000-05:00

Not that there was a previous edition, or ever will be another. You never know.

Let's! Go! Shopping!

Lowe's

3 packages drywall anchors & screws
1 metal wall-mount shelf rail
3 metal shelf brackets (the kind that hang from said rail)
3 pieces of oak-veneer MDF, 1/4" (unrelated to the shelving parts)

Design*Sponge

Advance Auto Parts
Which is, by the way, my very favorite auto parts store. They're always nice, patient, well-informed and informative - and they don't give me that "Helpless Little Woman" crap that some auto parts places are notorious for with female customers! Yes, I CAN work on my own car, thank you very much, and I don't need testicles to do it!

air filter
gas cap (because mine broke yesterday! WTF?)

Big. Brass. Ovaries.

Ikea!!!
(Ikea with three exclamation points, because that's how much I love it).

2 packages LILL sheer mesh curtain panels
3 15" SAMLA clear storage boxes
linen fabric (AINA), white, yardage to be determined when I see the quality in person

yay!

Now to DO something with all that stuff! I did put the gas cap on yesterday before I even left the store parking lot. And I put everything away when I got home instead of dumping it on the dining room table or the garage floor, LOL.

Got caught up on my sewing last night, and repaired a table that I bought from a friend last week, which I broke the second I got home, LOL. More on that later in the week. :)

Ok, so I haven't gone to Ikea yet. Thursday!

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In Lieu of Simply Apologizing...

2011-08-15T12:01:00.000-05:00

Again, I mean. For the lack of substantive posts. I *am* actually working on things this month, though. I may or may not have a couple of nifty posts for you this week and next, if my schedule works out this week.

Here are some hints as to what I'm working on at the moment:

restorationhardware.com

trendland.net

Lotus Trio, by Mark Epling

A gorgeous planted tank at AquaTek Austin


Hans Memling

More later! :o)

A Wildebeest!

2011-08-11T10:00:00.001-05:00

The "after" shot to yesterday's "before":

Well, okay, I guess that was "during" shot. Or, if you want to get technical about it, it's an "Oh, crap, I forgot to take a 'before' picture! Where's my phone?" picture.

This cute, pretty much pointless little footstool was a $5 find at Goodwill a couple of weekends ago that I finally found a couple of hours to re-upholster this week. Violets and roses out, red velvet in! (Red velvet, I might add, that I bought a 2-yard swath of from a friend for a dollar at her garage sale. Woot! The brown gimp around the edge was a remnant from a costume I made in January).

D'oh! I took the pic before I brushed it smooth.

Just a wee bit of scenery to stow in a corner. It's still on my sewing table at the moment, until I decide where to put it (I actually bought it to take SCA-camping with me, tee-hee).

There's probably a cat on it as we speak.

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OMG SHE POSTED SOMETHING.

2011-08-10T09:24:00.000-05:00

But wait! What's this??

***drumrollllllllllllll***

Two weeks?!

2011-08-01T11:31:00.001-05:00

So. Busy. OMG.

Sorry. :'(

To-Do List Madness

2011-07-18T14:01:00.000-05:00

I can't seem to get away from my sewing machine the last few weeks, and there doesn't seem to be an end in sight! I'm okay with that, actually, but it has been keeping me away from doing house-y things.

Like...

refitting the clock in my craft room to hang in the bedroom
priming the walls in the craft room
removing the carpet in Kress' drum room...which has just recently become the non-drum room and is soon to be outfitted as a music room + sometime guest room
painting the walls in the guest bath
hanging some curtains in the living room (again, always, ad nauseum)
building a new entertainment center cabinet
painting some artwork for the living room
removing the tv wall bracket from the wall in the living room (oops)
decluttering the living room
hanging some curtains in the bedroom

AAAAA!! Okay, actually, most of those are 15-minute jobs. Not that big a deal. But when you factor in all the sewing I still have yet to do, including recovering two couches for a friend...

"Other Hobby" - Now With 30% More Bling!

2011-07-12T10:41:00.001-05:00

Since no outfit or costume is complete without the bling, I've been working on some of that. Last night I popped Gladiator into the DVD player, sat my butt on the couch with all my jewelry supplies and some recently-delivered loot, and set about making some costume jewelry:

"Emerald" faceted crystal flat-rounds set in pewter, from Michael's.

Green glass teardrop from The Bead Pusher on Etsy
Chain links and twisted bail made with silver wire endpins.

Same faceted crystal set beads from Michael's, in pink ($1 each, by the way), same chain links made from wire. Closure is a round ear wire (the same kind I use to make my nose rings) that hooks into a flat coin-sort of bead component.

I'm wearing these right now. :) The metal drops were also from The Bead Pusher; nickel-free silver french ear wires + teal glass seed beads I had sitting around.

These were to replace a nearly identical pair that I used to have (I lost one). The teal briolettes also came from The Bead Pusher; the filigree bead caps came from Michael's.

They came in a 6-pack: two each copper, silver, and gold. The gold and silver pairs I cut apart and made into aguilettes which are the [decorative versions of] the little caps they put on the ends of things like shoelaces and bolo ties. I wanted some metal ones for costume purposes (ever tried to lace up a shoe with a frayed cord? Try it sometime with a dress with 40 lace holes).

I tried using some small, plain, flat ones I found at a local bead place, but they were too weak to hold up to being clamped onto the cording I was using; these guys were prettier anyway, and made of sturdier stuff. I cut them in half, which made a small aglet out of the top half of the cone. The bottom half I flattened out, split in half lengthwise, and then re-rolled into two smaller versions of itself. So, each pair of bead caps ended up making SIX aglets! Not bad for a buck per pair!

Reflect-o-Beast (Before + After)

2011-07-08T09:52:00.001-05:00

Around the same time I was painting that lamp, I was also working on a large mirror frame.

ooh, ahh.

In October of 2010 - eight months ago! - I found a big, ugly, heavy, plastic-framed mirror from Goodwill for $7.99. I promptly took a whole slew of "before" pictures and stuffed the thing into the garage to await the day when I felt like fixing it up. Of course, I lost all the "before" pictures, and didn't realize it until it was too late take more. It was similar to this one, and probably also a dresser or vanity mirror in a previous life; this one at least has some nifty curves:

from Reloved Rubbish

The decorative "woodwork" on mine, on the other hand, looked like it came out of the fake-wood paneling from inside a van in the 80s:

I wonder what used to be in the center??

That sucker came off the second I had the frame apart and found that the glass didn't extend all the way down past the decorative panel - it was the exact length of the rest of the frame, as I'd hoped. Yay!

And you know the rest. Like the lamp, I hit it with some white spray-primer, and then silver paint. This time I used a bit of black and gold as well, to make it look old and roughed-up, and slightly more like actual metal.

enjoy the green, it's going away soon

And here it sits, in my back hallway, waiting to be hung up in its new home...

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Floorplan Mischief Managed! (Living Room Before + After)

2011-07-07T15:57:00.000-05:00

OHAI, a real post! :D

The other week I got all fired up about re-arranging the furniture in my living room. The old arrangement lacked seating space for guests, and while I had the space broken up into two rooms by function, they weren't really separated - it was just a bunch of furniture in one big space. It was cluttered, and there was a bit of a floating couch situation:

meh.

The new plan called for taking the tv/entertainment center off the wall and arranging the seating area perpendicular to the room instead of parallel to it, like this:

yay!

Having finally rendered the Minicouch functional (if not done - yet!), and finished the silver floor lamp, I have finally finished moving everything around:

<-- tv's over here

It's soooo much more comfortable. There's real conversation space, with views of the windows and the rest of the room from the seating area, instead of the couch just facing the tv. The two spaces - living area and office/music - are separated by the entertainment center and a screen behind it

Still to do in this room:

art for the big empty wall above the Minicouch (er...the black thing is the old tv wall bracket, which also needs to be taken down and the holes patched)
a slipcover for the Minicouch, too
some sort of rug situation (working on it)
a round coffee table??
an ottoman and floor cushions
the meditation pallet is still in the corner behind the brown couch, but needs de-cluttering and spiffing up

As with everything - more on all of this later! In the meantime, I really do love the new seating arrangement. This little corner between the couches, I think, is my favorite...and hey, there's that silver lamp! Tada:

To be continued...

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Off My Game (And Onto Another One)

2011-07-07T11:12:00.004-05:00

Raise your hand if you're one of those people who can work on ONE project at a time, from start to finish, before you start another one?

♫♪♫

That's what I thought. So, if case the lack of posts this week didn't clue you in, I stopped working on the living room for a bit. Got all wrapped up in sewing. Thought I'd introduce you to my other hobby today, just for something different. I'd mentioned it, but I don't think I'd posted anything here about it, aside from the cooler cover I made earlier this year.

Kress and I spend quite a ridiculous amount of time with the Society for Creative Anachronism, or SCA (a pre-1600 historical reenactment society). I find it QUITE awesome, since I'm a lifelong costume geek!

Kress' persona in the "game" is Russian, 15th century - and this is a hat I made for him last night.

It's made from scraps from a damask table runner given to me by a friend, and trimmed with faux-fur cut from a throw blanket I got from Target on clearance in January for six dollars. I'm not even kidding. I bought a white one, too.

The pieces are easy to shape: take the circumference of the head and divide by however many "sides" you want the hat to have. This hat has four, and Kress' head is 24" around.

From the top of his ears to the top of his head is 5" - I added an extra inch for ease, hem, and so there'd be a small point on top.

So, I started out with four 6x6" squares, and cut the arched sides by hand. I started wide, fitted the pieces to his head, and then brought the side seams in - the steeper the angle, the more fitted the hat. If the arch is too wide, the hat will end up being square on top, like a box.

Here are two sides put together, which is half of the hat.

As I said, I drafted the pattern myself based on Kress' measurements; but in case you were wondering, I learned about the construction of this type of hat in the first place by reading Sofya la Rus' excellent and well-researched website on historical Russian costume and recreation.

I made the lining first, to fit to his head, then used one of the lining pieces to make a paper pattern that I can use again, and then to make the upholstery pieces. Always, always, always make a paper pattern.

The fake-fur band is 2" tall, 28" long, and sewn between the outer and lining layers, then folded to the outside.

I also tacked the top of the band to the body of the hat on the outside, underneath the fur trim, to keep it from folding down while he's wearing it, so he doesn't have to worry about whether it's staying in place, or walk around court looking like a doofus. :)

I already have ideas for improving the design and the fit for the next time I do this...but that's a story for another hat.

Tada! I'd never made a hat before, aside from simple hoods and veils and elastic shower-cap type things. This was fun! And really quick, too - only took about an hour and a half.

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Surfing Craigslist

2011-07-01T11:31:00.000-05:00

I have no real updates today, since I'm in the middle of like fourteen different things and none of them are truly finished yet (story of my life). I very nearly posted an old coffee table on Craigslist this morning that I've been moving around the house for like 8 years, unable to use it, but unable to part with it...until it dawned on me that I could take it apart and make it into something new! I'm sketching out plans today; and meanwhile, I got sucked into Craigslist, and since misery loves company, I thought I'd share some nifty finds...

Here's a nifty little bookshelf with great refinishing potential. It's solid wood, about four feet high, and only $20! It would make a great hutch on top of a desk or dresser, or a media cabinet for a living room or office.

The existing finish isn't in terrible shape, and could easily be cleaned, patched with a stain pen, and re-sealed - or it could be buffed down and painted. Maybe some cute little feet for the bottom?

Glass-n-brass ceiling fan light sconces, 1984. Reminds me of the old lights they had at Pizza Huts back then, over the tables. You could put them on a ceiling fan, or use them in porch lights, small hanging fixtures; or flip them over, cap off the bottoms, and use them to make sparkly little tabletop terrariums in the garden.

A fantastic little Louis chair with a wide seat. GREAT upholstery practice piece! I'm thinking a deep cherry finish, maybe a tufted teal velvet? Yum. Not bad at $125.

Oh. My. God. Have I ever mentioned that I ADORE barrister bookcases? Only $120! Solid oak, functional doors and the glass looks to be in great shape. This one's all one piece - originally these were designed to be moved while full of lawbooks and documents, one section at a time, if need be, and several would be stacked on top of one another. The glass doors on this one flip up and slide back on top of each shelf, out of the way.

This is exactly why I don't look at Craigslist when I have a fresh paycheck in my hot little hands. I don't need food this week, right??

Brass + glass, and 36" wide. This HUGE chandelier is only $95. I'm not a fan of bright, gold-toned brass myself; it would look great antiqued a bit to darken the tone, or done in an old, tarnished-silver color.

One of several cute, cheap little room dividers. I love this one just as it is. I can totally see this in the guest room I haven't fixed up yet, or out in the lush, green, secluded garden retreat I don't have in my backyard.

Good bones on this fan. All-black is a bit much for my purposes (craft room, office, bedroom), but it's much easier (and safer) to start with a base in a metal color you like and change the blades and sconces, rather than the other way around. (You can spray-paint the motor housing, but good luck making sure the overspray doesn't get in there and screw up the motor). $50

Everyone have a fun, safe weekend!

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Wildebefore + After: Floor Lamp

2011-06-30T14:03:00.000-05:00

So, that lamp I was priming last week.
It got a shiny silver paint job, and a $13 Ikea OLLSTA shade, painted silver to match...

Here it is, tucked into a cozy little corner that is quickly becoming my favorite thing in the newly-rearranged living room.

(I'm still working on re-arranging everything, and de-cluttering certain areas, and futzing with the houseplants. My camera's working again, though, for the time being. So that's good. Real update on that coming soon!)

HGTV via Pinterest

This was my inspiration. This is a room done by Candice Olsen, on her show Candice Tells All. I fell in LOVE with the silver floor lamp back there by the windows.

Obviously, mine's no designer lamp - it's a spray-painted thrift store find with an Ikea fix. But it's silver. And I loooove the way it glows through the silver shade.
:)

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Time Out For Some Leafy Business

2011-06-29T12:48:00.000-05:00

Seems to be a little problem with uploading pictures today (argh). So, rather than blathering on about my living room some more, here are a couple of landscaping updates:

The grass on the east side of the yard is getting fluffy and thick and dark, a far cry from only three months ago when I first leveled the ground and started throwing out new seed and laying down fresh sod:

My Mexican Orchid Tree is about four feet high now. It'll be over my head in another couple of months (it grows fresh from the roots every Spring; so each Winter after it goes dormant I cut the entire thing down to the ground):

ignore the furniture - it's keeping a certain dog from digging under here

And my Mulberry Tree, which was a gift from the birds four years ago, has gone from this:

March 2007

To this! This year it's finally big enough to block the neighbors' view into my yard (and windows) on the entire western half of the yard. It's huge! And while I haven't gotten any decent berries out of it yet (and won't, until it's fully mature, which should be next year or in 2013), the birds LOVE the tiny, almost-berries it's producing now.

June 2011

Um...yeah, not much grass on the west side of the yard. Once the east half is done, this will be the next section I work on. :)

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In Which the Mini-Couch Gets A Step Ahead...

2011-06-27T12:00:00.000-05:00

Starts off on the right foot? Puts its best foot forward? WHAT? I'm tired, and I hate post titles. :P

Anyway, as you may have noticed, the mini-couch is a bit short...

Low to the ground much?

But, after a few slats of scrap wood and some feet cut from old coffee table legs I had sitting around in the garage...

Much better! (There isn't any trim on the sides of the couch in this picture; I attached it after I took the pic).

I attached the feet with these guys:

good stuff.

But wait...

Just for a bit of fun...

Tada!

Now to get this sucker slipcovered...

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More Lamps And A...?

2011-06-23T09:36:00.001-05:00

As promised, I worked on TWO whole things last night.

A whiskey glass full of warm silver paint.
(6:1 silver, soft gold).

Some stuff being primed:

1. That standing lamp from the bedroom I told you about, which is going to end up in the living room (see, I worked on the living room like I said I would).

2. Gee, what's that other thing, Laura?

More on both of these projects after the weekend, which is the next chance I'll have to work on them.

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Tale of a Lamptybeast

2011-06-22T09:12:00.001-05:00

So, once upon a time, there was this lamp...

When Daisy was a puppy, she chewed through the cord. While the lamp was ON.

Little bugger was lucky she didn't fry right then and there. Facepalm.

So, last night I fixed it! I had a set of spare lamp guts in a box in the garage - all I had to do was remove the cord from this little lamp and replace it with the cord from the box. Yay!

This is the shade I made for it a million years ago. It makes a really nifty blue glow at night when it's the only lamp on, but I never liked the shape of it: it doesn't balance the base at ALL. Plus the fabric's gotten all pulled out of place over the years, and I REALLY didn't feel like taking it off and re-arranging all the pleats.

This was much better, but it needs work. I have no idea where this thing even came from, it's been bouncing around in my stuff for so long. It was boring. And a bit grubby. So I brushed it clean.

And then I did this! :D My friend Nadia has this gorgeous lamp in her living room, which she decoupaged with some ink drawings on rice paper, and I've wanted to do something like that ever since I first saw it. Hers is covered with Buddhas and lotuses and things, but I wanted mine to be more henna-esque. I sketched out the basic shapes of everything onto the shade very lightly with a pencil, and freehanded the rest with...*drumroll*...a brown dry-erase marker that I swiped from work. (Don't worry, I brought it back this morning! And yes, the marker will probably fade from the light and the heat from the bulb - I think it might just look pretty cool. And if it doesn't, it's not like I can't just re-do the lines with something else).

It lives in my bedroom now. Um...ignore the phone charger. Oops. 0:) It also replaced the standing floor lamp that was by the bedside, so that I can give that a makeover, too, and use it in my living room. Stay tuned. :)

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To-Do List

2011-06-21T10:12:00.001-05:00

By the way, I'm still working on the craft room, little by little, as well as the mini-couch and plans for re-arranging the living room. One thing at a time...or, rather, one thing from each room at a time. I've got a looooong list from which to choose.

In the meantime, here are some cool pictures of blue things from Pinterest. Guess the relevance. ;)

Sweet Home Style

Delight By Design

Apartment Therapy

Eureka?!

2011-06-20T13:12:00.005-05:00

Work on the MiniCouch proceeds apace: in addition to having fixed the arm, it is now [fully] cleaned and ready to be covered and footed. Whee! That'll happen next payday.

In related news, this little bit of Ikea that popped into my life a few weeks ago seems to have solved all my furniture placement problems in the living room. I picked it up off the curb thinking I'd stash it in a corner or under a window and make it sort of nook-y, but, well...

made with Icovia Space Planner

This is my living room as it stands right now. There's an office/music area at the "bottom" (North), a main seating area kind of central, and my little meditation corner under the windows at the "top" (South).

The seating in the seating area is complete bollocks. Don't get me wrong, I love my little Ektorp couch that I re-covered last year; but aside from that, the only seating I have in there is that little green-and-black rattan chair (also refinished last year)...which isn't terrible comfortable or supportive--it's only there in case of extra butts.

Also, and I think I've mentioned this before, I hate that the seating area is arranged parallel to the room itself. It makes the whole thing seem more like an indoor football field. It also has the effect of having nearly all the furniture in the entire room up against the walls, except for the couch floating out in the middle of nowhere. Hate.

But then...

Enter the Minicouch--that's it there on the left against the wall, where the tv console used to be. The TV console is now perpendicular to that wall, backed by a turquoise fabric screen that separates the area from the office/music area.

The Ektorp sofa is still opposite the tv, now perpendicular to the wall, back to the windows, rendering the little meditation area back there a leeetle more private (awesome) - and I'm thinking of doing an art wall above the Minicouch, too.

Couple of floor cushions...and a rug? I have a rug. There was a dog accident if you take my meaning, a couple of years ago--I took the rug outside and rinsed it off, but all the dye came out of it and it ended up looking like it'd been in a fire. I still have it, and it's in great shape (it's one of those hand-woven cotton "chindi" rugs)...I was thinking maybe I could dye it again? Can't hurt to try, right?

The first step will be to finish the Minicouch, and then to re-arrange the furniture. I'm thinking the art might end up being my own art - I have a billion untouched and half-finished canvases I could whomp up into one big sectional thing, I think...hmmm...

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Wildebeests: The Minicouch From Beyond the Curb (Part I)

2011-06-15T10:43:00.000-05:00

Hey, remember this guy?

free Ikea minicouch!

Oh, yeah, by the way, I'm back from vacation. It kinda sucked, actually. MOVING ON...

*poke*

So, Homecouch had a bit of an issue with the right arm being...flaccid? Hollow! No padding?! I mean, how does that happen when there's no tear in the fabric for the stuffing to come out of? WHERE DID THE STUFFING GO??

SCARY

I cut the stitching on the seam of the cover and peeled it back to reveal a gaping chasm rimmed with shattered bits of MDF and hardboard...

And this, waaaaay at the bottom.

The slab of MDF nailed to the hardboard frame had split and fallen down inside the arm. Given the tiny footprints on the seat of this thing, I suspect someone was walking or jumping on it and broke through.

All I had to do was fit the broken piece back into place and secure it with glue and some heavy-duty staples. Once it was solid, I tucked the foam and batting back over the arm where it belonged, and sewed the seam back up:

Yes, the stitching shows. No, it's not the same kind of stitch on the rest of the couch. Nor do I care, since this will be covered when it's done anyway.

But for now: functional minicouch arm!

I also started cleaning it this week. Surface stuff, so far; later this week the upholstery actually needs to be scrubbed and brushed. After that, I'll add a wooden base and some feet, to raise it off the ground, and then make an awesome cover for it.

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IT LIVES!!!

2011-06-07T11:10:00.000-05:00

I've told you how I'm spending this year trying to fix up the lawn in my backyard. Last time we visited it, I had just fenced off a section of yard, leveled it, put down fresh soil and compost, and a metric ass-ton of seed, and it looked like this:

egad.

About two weeks ago, I gave up on the seed--it had never come up at all--and decided to get a few pieces of sod at a time and try that way. The sod tried to die on me, but then started coming back; and around that same time, all the grass seed started sprouting! Hooray!

LOL

Funny; if I hadn't bought sod and then nearly killed it, this whole quarter of the yard would be FULL of soft, green, fluffy grass right now, and I could move on to the next section. Whoops! It doesn't look like it in the picture, but the sod is actually doing quite well, and the whole area should be all green and fluffy in another week or week-and-a-half. (A friend of mine who saw my yard recently asked, "Hey, when did you plant the squares of dead grass?" LOL).

YAY!

P.S. - I'm about to take my yearly camping trip, so I'll be gone for the next 7 days! See you with pics when I get back. :)

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Wildebeests: Free Sh*t

2011-06-01T09:55:00.001-05:00

All hail the Craigslist/Thriftstore/Dumpster-Diving Powers That Be! I was bored at work yesterday afternoon and poking around Craigslist for a big chair to stash in a corner of the living room (more on that later)...and I found a couple, but one was too big, and one was manky...I mean, WAY grosser than I'm willing to deal with cleaning up. Granted, it was only $20, but STILL.

Oh, well, I thought. And then I drove home and discovered this baby out on the curb down the street:

FREE.

Doesn't look like much, I know. Looks better underneath:

cleaner than my garage floor

The structure is sound, and aside from a slightly crushed arm rest, it's in great shape. And it's clean, aside from some small, grubby footprints on the seat where a kid was either walking or jumping on it, hehe. No nasty stains, no smell - just some footprints that can be cleaned off easily.

This is, in case you don't recognize it, Ikea's KLOBO loveseat. Not exactly my style - but I've seen really great things done with this and with the similar KLIPPAN sofas, and I have a *fabulous* idea for this little guy.

I love the product care instructions for this thing on Ikea's website, by the way:

Care instructions

Do not wash.
Clean with upholstery shampoo.
Do not bleach.
Do not tumble dry. <---- DRAT
Do not iron.
Do not dryclean.

Bonus: for some strange reason, the people who had this loveseat before me covered it (a) by stapling t-shirt fabric all over it, and (b) right before they got rid of it, apparently: the fabric is BRAND NEW. I can use that, too.

Score!

To be continued...

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This House is CUH-LEAN!!!

2011-05-31T12:30:00.000-05:00

Last weekend I kicked ass in the craft room - it is now clean and organized, and ready for

painting
shelves hung on the wall
cutting table build & install
*decent* pics with actual camera instead of just my phone...sorry...

Waaaaay Before & Somewhat Recently:

north wall - a bunch of crap on a bunch of ugly shelves

piles of stuff! everywhere! FAIL!!!

renovated closet, two weeks ago

After (Middle):

North wall: now with organized bins, at least!

After I've painted in this room, the north wall will be getting shelves. These plastic bins are full of fabric; they'll be replaced with smaller bins that will fit into the shelves - clear bins, so that I can see what I'm after at a glance, instead of having to dig. Gonna have to do something about that litterbox in the corner, too. Bleh.

Sewing Table #1 For Two Machines & Piano Accompaniment

These wire racks holding the tabletop up will eventually be replaced with cubby-shelves with baskets, or file cabinets, or something like that - sturdier, more attractive, better storage.

wow...no. just no.

I DO still want curtains over the closet door...but not these. These I had sitting around in the fabric bins, and I threw them up there just to see what the color would look like...and I hate it. I'm thinking plain white linen. Payday.

no! more! piles! of crap!

This is the south wall, where eventually I'll build a flip-up cutting table that will fold down flat against the wall when not in use. For the time being, I'm enjoying the sight of the bare wall without shelves and boxes of crap in front of it. This room has no ceiling fan (yet), so I spray-painted this plastic fan with gray primer, and will put a metallic coat over it to make it look like steel and wire, as soon as I get some metallic spray paint.

muslin café curtain over window - light in, neighbors out

I also took about 10 minutes yesterday to sew up a wee scrap of muslin into a little café curtain for the craft room window. This is one of the darkest rooms in the house; this curtain is sheer and light enough to let in all the light I need during the day, and thick enough to keep out prying eyes at night.

Getting there!

More Ideas For Projects I'm Never Going To Get Around To

2011-05-27T14:12:00.000-05:00

So, that back patio of mine...

ooh, ahh.

Wouldn't be awesome if it looked like that, but with grass in between the stones? Actually, it does. And it's fantastic when I remember to take the weedeater to it every week, but who has time for yardwork?

::crickets::

But looking pretty cool doesn't solve the real problem with it, which is that the stones are (a) really, really, really rough underfoot (because I didn't smooth out the concrete enough when I made them, and I should've used cement anyway, NOT concrete, because it's full of tiny rocks! Ow!) Also, (c), I'm actually kinda bored with it. And (d) if I'm going to have to dig some of it up to put up posts for a pergola-type-thing overhead...why not just scrap the whole thing and do something new?

With me? Awesome.

So I keep seeing stuff like this...

O_O

And this...

if my toes could drool...

I mean, really, can't you just feel that soft, smooth wood under your bare feet? I really wish I could find the photo I'm thinking of - I saw one not too long ago that's *gorgeous* and *perfect*, but did I bookmark/pin/save it? Hell no.

It was little more than a "Hey, that's neat", until I remembered that in my ~~hoard~~ stash in the garage, I've got two buckets of black marble chips, another bucket of stones in assorted sizes/colors that have been in and out of gardens and fishtanks for years, a huge pile of lumber that's technically usable but which I know I won't ever really build anything with, including a couple of small heavy timbers and some end-grain pieces, a couple of spare bags of sand (for re-doing the base underneath the patio)...and I think I have some weed-blocking cloth in there somewhere, but I'm not sure. I even have a couple of gallons of deck sealant/stain sitting around in my paint ~~hoard~~ supplies. Even if I have to buy more weed-blocking cloth, that's an entire project for like $20, done almost entirely with stuff I already have.

see also: breezy net sheers, moroccan lantern, hanging plants, live grass, time to do all this

Yeah?

Like I have time to do that. But it's a neat idea.

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Woohoo!

2011-05-23T13:29:00.000-05:00

Hey, know what's awesome? Writing posts and then going to post them and finding that they're mysteriously not there. Especially when the pictures seem to have disappeared, too.

ARGH.

Missing post, short version: THE FREAKING CRAFT ROOM IS CLEANED UP AND ORGANIZED AND DONE OMG.

Um...new pics later this week. Argh argh argh.

HAH.

2011-05-21T15:13:00.002-05:00

Raise your hand if you re-use plastic grocery bags. I use them for, among other things, trash bags in my car...because I'm one of those people who will toss a can or a burger wrapper over my shoulder into the backseat if I'm driving, if you let me. I know, because I've seen me do it.

Seemingly unrelated, I spent about four hours today working on the craft room (no, there are no "after" pictures yet, sorry), and I found an embroidery hoop. I don't embroider, so...? But later, taking a break in front of Pinterest, I saw this laundry doodad:

cute, huh?

AHA!!!

A hoop:

Seriously, I didn't even know I had this.

A bag:

A car trash that STAYS OPEN and is easy to use while driving! Thanks, Pinterest!

Doesn't my car look clean in this shot? It's really, really not.

If I happen to find one or two of the fourteen thousand little aluminum carabiner clips that I know are in this house somewhere, in the near future, I'll use one of those to hook the hoop to the "Oh Shit Handle" in the car instead of just tying the bag on.

And yes, since you asked: there are actual updates on the way for this coming week. See ya soon. :)

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Motivation FAIL

2011-05-10T16:22:00.001-05:00

Actually, it's more of a daunting thing. I am daunted by the craft room. There's just SO much to do, and every single step is huge and time-consuming and tedious (since it involves slowly beating back the last advance of what very nearly became the beginning of a serious hoarding situation). Not to mention the fact that the rest of my life has gotten so blindingly busy lately that when I get a minute to myself I hardly know what to do with myself aside from just taking a nap, I'm so stressed out. UGH.

I'm planning some more work in there this coming weekend, if I get a minute and am feeling up to it; but for the time being, here are some photos I've collected via Pinterest to keep me inspired as I trudge along through the details of getting the hard stuff in the room taken care of so I can move on to the fun stuff:

from

The room's already gray and off-white (and green, but, we'll deal with the floor another day).

Soft linen, aged wood...

from

Gray/cream, warm and touchable wood.

I love the mirror, too.

from

Nom nom nom.

from

These blue shutters kill me.

Inspiration Strikes When and Where It Will

2011-05-06T12:58:00.000-05:00

For a bit of fun on this gorgeous Friday afternoon, I thought I'd share with you where I got the inspiration for the layout on my patio.

In 2006 I used the Quikrete Walkmaker to make a concrete patio on the back of the house. This is what it looked like the day it was finished:

Hey, look, I actually had grass before I had dogs...

(It didn't actually dip in the center like that - I had to splice two photos together to get this shot). The border around the edge would become a "hedge" of herbs surrounding the patio with green and lovely scents and lots of bees.

Last year, tired of cracking mortar, weeds, and upset stones from the ground settling, I chipped out the entire thing, fixed the grade of the sub-surface, and laid the stones in a more organic pattern; intending to allow the grass to fill in between the stones, which would (a) create a softer, prettier surface to walk on, and (b) allow Nature to take its course on the patio instead of trying to fight it every step of the way. This is what it looked like the day I finished it:

You can see here the GIANT Rosemary bush on the upper right, which was *tiny* in the first picture; the little tree behind it is my Mexican Orchid Tree (Bauhinia mexicana), which is the plant in the pot on the lower left in the first picture - barely a stick then!

it does have grass between the stones now, by the way

Another shot of the stones, which are arranged in concentric circles beginning at the four corners of the patio that meet at the edges like ripples in a pond. You can see the herb border fully grown in here - this was taken about a month before that Raging Death Fungus of Doom ripped through my entire garden and killed everything last year. Sadface. :(

But here's the fun part: the inspiration for the stone layout:

I have no idea who these players are, but they're totally cheating.

Heeheehee. This is a screenshot from the game Gauntlet: Dark Legacy for Playstation (yes, Playstation *one*). Specifically, this is the Lich's crypt, the Lich being the Big Bad Guy at the end of the first segment of the game. I love this old game, and I still play it all the time; and I've always loved the stones in the grass on the floor of this level. Ever since I first saw it I've wanted to make a little grassy stony patio like it. Obviously mine's a bit different, but this is where I got the idea.

LOL. :)

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What's Better Than Shelves? More Shelves!

2011-05-04T16:21:00.000-05:00

Having filled (and organized!) the craft room closet, my work in the craft room is about halfway done. Which is HUGE.

And because I like lists, here's what's gone on in there this week:

closet emptied and cleaned, top shelf removed, holes patched
doors removed, painted
closet painted
plywood cut into two additional shelves and a desktop/shelf, and painted to match walls
shelves/desktop hung in the closet
stuff from 2 standing shelves in the room organized into the closet
doors replaced
doors removed again, curtain rod in doorway instead

And here's what's left:

hang curtains on that rod
put the doors on the closet in the guest room, and move the guest room closet doors to storage in the garage
adjust the paint job in the rest of the room (long story, pics as soon as I'm done)
cut the rest of the plywood into 4 more floating shelves, procure extra shelf brackets for the rails I already have, paint shelves, and hang on open wall in room
procure smaller, clear bins and organize fabric into it - re-use the old (big, opaque) plastic bins in the garage
hang the art I have for the room; print out some extra stuff to fill in with blockposters.com
procure & hang a ceiling fan (hot!!!)
repair cord on desk lamp that's supposed to be on my sewing table and put it back where it goes (blind!!!)

You know, I could go on for pages and pages. At *this* moment, I'm really only concerned with #1-6. After all that's done, I have to re-organize some stuff in the garage, because I'm going on my annual Big Camping Trip the second week of June, and at the moment I can't even SEE my camping gear. Um...oops.

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Pin this!

2011-05-03T11:43:00.001-05:00

stuff

The craft room closet is REALLY coming along. Last night I got most the contents of those two black shelves into the closet, and most of the *stuff* piled up in the room organized into it, too. Success! I even restrained myself when I saw exactly the plastic totes at Target that I want to put my fabric in, because, you know, one must pay one's electricity bill before shopping. Or so I hear.

The next step is to hang a curtain over the doorway ( I decided against putting the doors back up - curtains will be easier to move out of the way, and softer, and I just happen to have some that I'd forgotten about); and do something about all those mismatched boxes.

In the meantime...

I rarely hawk for websites, but you guys have GOT to see this (if you haven't already, which you probably have; I'm often in the very last car on the Internet Train).

I even have a pin board just for BLUE STUFF :D

Pinterest kicks butt. It's kind of a visual bookmark site: create an account, create as many "boards" (albums) where you can "pin" (bookmark) pictures that you find online and browse through them all on one page instead of digging through text bookmarks and wondering which one is which. Pinterest also saves & links the sources for the things that you pin.

You can comment, "like", tag people/places/things in pins, re-pin others' pins, follow boards other people maintain, and organize your boards and the photos in them. There's even an iPhone app coming soon so you can pin from your phone. You DO have to request an invitation from the website itself and create an account, but it's free, and it's quick.

Mine is here. I'm slowly but surely migrating all of my internet bookmarks over to my pin boards. I'm not remotely done, but the process is fun, and fills many boring hours during the week. :)
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AHA!!!! (Craft Room Closet B&A!)

2011-05-02T10:51:00.000-05:00

It took six hours, and it like to killed me by the time I was done last night, but I have FINALLY fixed up the craft room closet! What was wrong with it, you ask? This...

Before

O_O

1. I mean REALLY.
2. I am so. over. the green.

catbomb!

See the "panels" on the wall back there? Once upon a time, this closet was a little computer desk nook, and those cleats were part of the support system for the desk top. When I turned it back into a closet, I left the cleats on the wall thinking maybe, just maybe I'd end up putting another desktop in there...

After

the same blue from the bedroom and laundry room

Et voila! The desktop returns, and can be used for storage or as a small work surface on occasion (when the closet was a computer nook, I really liked being able to do small crafty things in there, too).

The top shelf is the same one from the "before" picture; the middle two are adjustable, thanks to the rails and brackets. The narrow space between the top shelf and the first of the adjustable shelves is intentional: I have so much flat art stuff - canvases, giant sketchbooks, rolls of paper, trays of supplies - that I always ended up piling it on my sewing table (gah!!) or putting it on a shelf and then stacking stuff on top of my artwork because of all the wasted space on the shelf (gah!!!!) Now I have a dedicated art-stuff-shelf which is exactly the right shape and size. I am SO excited about this.

Now all I have to do is take all the stuff from here:

And put it here:


HAHA

Ah, if only it were that easy.

To be honest, though, I'm not crazy about the blue doors:

The green's gone, which is awesome. But the blue is ...wrong...for where I'm planning to go with the room (which is a completely different place than I was thinking of last year, so if you remember that post, please shake your brain's Etch-A-Sketch and erase it).

Anyhoo, I think I'd rather leave the blue closet as a surprise, and paint the doors white again, like they were before the green thing happened. They could probably use, like, knobs, too. Or...bifold doors? Or...*gasp*....curtains?? Hm...

Anyway.

FREAKING TADA!!! I did something, yay.

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Cute = Substitute For Actual Work?

2011-04-29T09:53:00.001-05:00

Actually, I'm in the middle of shaking things up in my craft room + closet pretty hardcore; but I don't have anything for you yet. I mean, unless you really WANT to see pictures of a war zone.

Didn't think so.

But look at this fish! This is Clyde - he's made of notebook paper & highlighters, as are his castle and plant. I made Clyde (et al) at work last year in a moment of boredom and he's sat on top of my desk for months and months.

is that a crappy photo or what?

Aww. Clyde's not the real story, though: Clyde went away last night. After

seeing a bunch of terrarium pics online, and
wanting more plants on my desk at work for months, and
missing the little terrarium I had at home a couple of years ago

I took Clyde and his bowl home last night and made this instead:

crab

It's nothing fancy at the moment, but it'll grow big and fluffy in no time; and I think this weekend I'll get some moss to put in there to spruce it up, and maybe a teeny tiny garden gnome or something. Hee! Or maybe a wee succulent that likes humidity. I'll see what I can find.

The plants are (left to right, in the picture above): Pothos Ivy (Epipremnum aurem), a variety of small-leaved Tradescantia with purple undersides, a couple of "baby" Ponytail Palms (Beaucarnia recurvata), and a "baby" Majesty Palm (Ravenea rivularis).

oh, and some rocks.

It looks like there's nothing but black aquarium gravel in this thing, but it's actually mostly potting soil that's kind of "wrapped" in gravel so that the soil doesn't show on the outside, because ew. Makes the glass all crusty after a while. I also mixed a handful of charcoal chips into the potting mix (available in aquarium stores and garden centers). Even in a healthy arrangement, roots and leaves die and rot and are replaced by new ones - and sometimes there's a smell, especially when there's no drainage, like in this glass bowl. The charcoal chips act as a sort of filter in the soil and for the air in the tank, and help keep things fresh.

And for no other reason than that we're on the subject, this is the other houseplant I have at work:

"Lucky Bamboo", which is NOT bamboo - try Dracaena sanderiana, one of the Dracaenas that loves keeping its feet wet. This one is two years old; the jar is a clear jar that I found at the dollar store years ago and painted with blue glass paint.

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Peek-A-Boo!

2011-04-25T13:27:00.000-05:00

I suck! I know it! I'm sorry!

In case you were wondering, work has been INSANE for two weeks now, with no end in sight - and I haven't had the time or the energy to get anything done around the house or the yard. As usual, I have lots planned, but nothing executed at the moment. I'll let you know when I do. :)

In the meantime - IT'S RAINING!!!! I can't even remember the last time that happened. Thank you, rain gods. <3

More Front Porchness

2011-04-18T12:10:00.000-05:00

Plants for me! :D

Hostas & Tradescantia ("Wandering Jew") by the front door

purple Petunias and Asparagus Fern hanging from the porch

(and some weird little nerly-black purple crinkly thing on the far left...I forget what it's called).

A plant! I've got a plant!

2011-04-14T10:08:00.000-05:00

Before:

no shit, that wall planter's been empty for six years

After:

can you spot the zip-top baggie in this picture?

That's right: a zip-top baggie. The planter's a weird shape, and it's terra cotta, which means it's dry as a bone, even though it's painted most of the way around (all but the back) - and that Schefflera needs moisture. Moisture that would ruin the fake-ceramic-glaze paint job on the pot.

Solution: a 1-gallon plastic zip-top baggie, with three rows of small drainage holes poked into the bottom, inserted into the pot's opening and filled with soil - basically lining the pot with plastic. It drains well, but not too much, and the plastic is practically invisible under the foliage. I put a few rocks on top of the soil in the pot to keep it from washing away when I water it.

Microsoft Paint: kickin' it old school

Laura Stuff.

2011-04-13T15:17:00.001-05:00

Look what my BFF made for me! :D Is that not the cutest thing ever? HEE!

I say to you again: hee!

Also... You guys need to check out Pinterest, if you haven't already. I, for one, was getting sick of going over and over and over ALL those damned bookmarks on my internet broswer. Folders and labels are great and everything, but if you collect design inspiration pics from all over the internet, it's just not enough! Pinterest allows you to "pin" favorites to a board for easy viewing (no searching for links and then waiting for them to load). They keep track of sources and stuff for you, you can look through other people's boards and "like" items and collect them yourself - and lots of other stuff. Here's one of my boards...of course the first thing I did was make a blue one. :)

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Pushing Furniture

OMG LOOK A POST

Dear Blog,

When One Door Closes, Another Opens Somewhere Else

It's Finished!!!

Almost there...

Ikea Shopping List

First DIY of the New Year: Going With the Flo'

Alive

December In Review, and 2011 Favorites

Now For the Little Things...

Before & After: Craft Room Whoopass

du Café

Before & After: Tableshelf Printerstand Badkitty

Ikea Alphabet Game

Knobby McKnobberson

Table Rodeo, Part 2

Yippie-Kai-Yay

RUG!

Pics Or It Didn't Happen

When Closets Attack!

"Ikea Hack"?

Craft Room Shelves, Take III

Even More Guest Bath

More Guest Bath!

Month In Review

More Progress In the Guest Bath

When You Care Enough To Send the Very *BAWK*

Another Lost Post! (Couch Feet)

Surprise Flowers!

And then suddenly, seemingly for no reason, she made a hat.

Yardnation!

Guest Bath Before & After (step 2)

Weekend To-Do List

Grunge-Be-Gone: A Gnu Before-N-After

Table Out of Nowhere

Weekend!

Fait Accomplit

Thanks, Ikea!

Success!

Planticular Update

Pseudo-Update

Fail! Score! And Week Ahead...

Garden Plan Sketches!

Living Room Art Before & Not After Just Quite Yet

WHEW.

Costumaroni & Cheese: Headgear Post #1

Organization SCORE!

Yes, have some!

Landscaping?

An Adventure!

Updatey Updateness!

The Planning Stages

The Oldest Wildebeest

OH MY GOD, IKEA!!!

DIY Shopping, September Edition

In Lieu of Simply Apologizing...

A Wildebeest!

OMG SHE POSTED SOMETHING.

Two weeks?!

To-Do List Madness

"Other Hobby" - Now With 30% More Bling!

Reflect-o-Beast (Before + After)

Floorplan Mischief Managed! (Living Room Before + After)

Off My Game (And Onto Another One)

Surfing Craigslist

Wildebefore + After: Floor Lamp

Time Out For Some Leafy Business

In Which the Mini-Couch Gets A Step Ahead...

More Lamps And A...?

Tale of a Lamptybeast

To-Do List

Eureka?!

Wildebeests: The Minicouch From Beyond the Curb (Part I)

IT LIVES!!!

Wildebeests: Free Sh*t

This House is CUH-LEAN!!!

More Ideas For Projects I'm Never Going To Get Around To

Woohoo!

HAH.

When You Care Enough To Send the Very BAWK