Slipcovering a Sofa: A Novel In Two Parts

Part I:  The Base Unit

I have officially completed* the cover for my sofa most of my sofa!

DARE I even post the "before" pictures?  I'm afraid you won't like me anymore if I do, but hey -

...it can only go up from here, right?!?  EGAD what a nightmare.  This is my Ikea Ektorp sofa, which has been covered with old blankets for two months since I bought it - in which time Rabi has completely gutted the...I'm gonna go with "armpits" ...of my couch.  !$^@$% cat! 

 This is officially the third tailored slipcover I've made in my life; and I'm pleased to report that I did NOT sew my finger this time (the last one I made, there was a bit of a mishap which ended with my hand being pulled up under the machine, and the needle went through my fingertip and out the other side - I actually had to pull out the thread.  Yay, tetanus shots).

A bit about the process, because I took 198 photos last night, and by god, you're going to look at each and every one.   Okay, not really.

I find it easiest to do this starting with one arm, and then filling in from there.  Fabric goes inside-out on the piece (the Ritva curtains are actually the same on both sides, so I didn't have to bother with paying attention to that, thank goodness).  I pin around the edges of the arm, where the seams will be, and trim the fabric up around where I've pinned.  I keep a chalk pencil handy while I'm doing this, to mark shapes and seam lines on pieces I won't be working with for a while, in case I forget by the time I get there.  0:)

Sew; flip that sucker right-side out, and voila:   a finished arm!  Which I then rip apart and use as a pattern for the second arm, then put both together once I've made the welting that goes along the seams.

MAN do I hate making welting:

It's not difficult, but it takes FOR FREAKING EVER.  But it looks great when it's done;  small details like this make a huge difference:

Messy-looking, so far, yes, but just wait...

Same process makes the inside, front, seat, and back.  I split the back down the middle, and will close it with either velcro or a zipper, once I (a) decide which and (b) go get some/one.  The cover would have been too tight to get over the couch without an opening here;  this also enabled me to conserve fabric on the back piece, since I have a limited supply.

Anyway, Ikea's slipcovers, as it turns out, are meant to be secured along the back of the seat by means of a strip of Velcro.  On an upholstered piece, there's a gap between the seat and the back, where the lost change and remote controls live.  Normally, I'd make a long pocket of fabric across the inside seat back and stuff a long wooden rod or broom handle into the pocket, down into the joint between the back and seat, which keeps the fabric in place very well.  But noooo, Ikea has to be different.  Now I have to go buy some velcro to apply to the inside of the cover, which I've marked, so I can just cut it and pop it in when I get to it:

BUT!   

The cover for the base unit is finished*!

*  Well...mostly.   As you can see, it's still loose - the back still need to be closed, stray threads and strings trimmed off, the whole thing needs to be washed again to tighten up the fresh seams, and the bottom edge needs to be pulled tight underneath the sofa and stapled into place.

And it needs cushion covers!  And throw pillows, and throw blankets, and FEET that are not made of plastic (ew).  *falls over*

Anyhoo, lest you fall under the impression that I did this all myself, I'll have to admit that I did have help.  I'd like to give special thanks to my supporting cast:

Evie, Sasha, Daisy & Shelly, and Kress, my hawt-y heavy-metal-bassist boyfriend, who provided the soundtrack (which at one point was "Mary Had A Little Lamb" in a minor key, just to see if I was paying attention, LOL). 

Special thanks to Rabi, my Production Manager, who FUCKED WITH ME EVERY STEP OF THE WAY, ALL NIGHT LONG.
*boots the cat across the room* 

(This is the same little monster that destroyed the armpits of my sofa, and I love him to millions of itty tiny pieces.  :)



Not pictured: TWO more cats and another dog, who sat on their asses all night and didn't lift a single toe, like the lazy bastards they are.



Stay tuned for Part II:  Cushions!  


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Surprise Sofa Slipcover!

A few weeks ago, this friend I keep mentioning that I keep swapping household items with, hehe - gave me several curtain panels she didn't need anymore.  Five Ikea Ritva panels - and I had 3/4 of a panel leftover from having made a pair of pants out of them last year.  They're 100% cotton, linen-weave, chocolate-brown.

I'd been thinking about working them into some sort of roller shade for the living room windows, but I wasn't terribly excited about the idea.  This weekend I realized there was exactly enough fabric there to make the slipcover for my sofa!  I'd been planning to use a microfiber, because I like the fuzziness, but the original idea was to use the Ritvas, for the soft, casual, slightly worn and wrinkled linen-y look.

Basically, I've had a free sofa cover for like three weeks and hadn't realized it.  DERP. 

I spent yesterday preparing the fabric.  I picked out all the stitching on the hems and rod pockets, washed all the panels to pre-shrink them, and ironed those bitches for TWO HOURS.  Good GOD I hate ironing.  But at least my day ended with a trip to the fabric store for welting cord, and a berry smoothie along the way, since I had a coupon.  Mmm, smoothies.

So the fabric's all ready to go, now - if I'm not completely exhausted after work tonight, I'll start on the base unit cover when I get home.  One of the panels is faded in some spots from the sun, but I can use that one on the seat of the sofa underneath the cushions where it won't show - or I could use that one to make all the welting I'll need for the edges. We'll see how it works out.  In any case, I'll probably need to hit Ikea on payday to get one more pair of brown Ritvas; but we'll see how much is left over after the base unit is covered.

Whee!  Thank you, Couch Fabric Fairy!  :)


P.S. - speaking of stuff I wanted that I realized I already had?   The bench I was thinking about purchasing/building to use as a window seat in the dining room?  Was in my garage - the farmhouse-style dining room table that currently lives in my sewing room as a cutting table has two long benches that go with it, that I'd completely forgotten about.  I ran out to the garage all excited about them the other day...only to be stymied by the legs, which were missing.  Like, completely missing - there are no legs, there haven't been for years, according to my boyfriend (his father built the set).   Guess I'll have to make some.  :)

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Wildebeests: Jewelry Organization

After seeing the many, awesome, creative treatments of Ikea's "Fira" mini-chests on IkeaHacker, I decided two years ago to try my own.  Could. Not. Resist!

Ikea's "Fira" is one of my favorite things in the world - it's versatile, inexpensive, and pretty sturdy for being made of like, recycled tinkertoys. ;)   And since I did my jewelry box, I'd always intended to go back and purchase several more, just to have around in case I ever got around to executing my other ideas for the piece.  So many possibilities!  

And only $15!

I've seen these used to organize jewelry, tools, workshop odds-n-ends, art supplies, beads, sewing notions; I've seen them combined to create totally new furniture, mounted on walls as mini-shelving, hollowed out and made into cubby holes, used as cash registers at craft shows and festivals; I've seen them painted, decoupaged, wallpapered, beaded, trimmed with molding - you name it, it's been done to the Fira.  

 just a few of the hundreds and hundreds

of awesome Fira hacks out there

For starters, I bought a 5-drawer model to suit my particular needs:  a large drawer for bracelets, a large drawer for hair things, and the three small drawers across the top for earrings, more earrings, and small perfume bottles and lipsticks:

uh...pardon the sort-of nudity? 

The design on the front was inspired by a batik tjap (the wooden blocks they use to stamp designs onto batik in Indonesia);  the insides of the drawers were lined with a blue and black tie-dyed cotton batik (what? I like batik).   

SSF:  Sorry So Fuzzy

...And then, as I often do, I got tired of it after a while, LOL.  What can I say, I'm fickle I LIKE CHANGE.  Earlier this year I painted only the outside of the chest an intense Chinese-red, and aged it with paint and stain - the drawer fronts I left alone, because I love the design on them.  I think the red sets it off very nicely, too.  

The feet visible in this picture have been on my Fira since I brought it home - they're just not visible in the old pictures.  They're $1 wooden knobs from the hobby store, painted black. 

I also removed the fabric from the drawers when I repainted the outside.  It was nice having something soft to touch when I reached inside, but I got over it after several bracelets and earrings caught on the fabric and pulled it up from the sides of the drawers, making it a piece I constantly had to repair instead of one I could just enjoy using.  

This time, I purchased several sheets of scrapbooking paper and lined the drawers with them.  No fancy decoupage or anything - I simply painted the inside of the drawers a vivid turquoise to contrast with the red, clear-coated the insides to prevent scratches, and laid sections of the paper over the wet Polycrylic.  It wrinkled up a tad at first, but it smoothed itself out as the paint dried.  Very, very pleased with the end result.

Sadly, Ikea discontinued the Fira line in February of this year.  Noooo! I never got a chance to go back and got a frillion of them!  At least I managed to get this one.  Big poopyheads. 

"New" Living Room: Fireplace

There!  Happy now?  Hee.
 
Hell, I sure am.  I plopped the mirror up there to get it out of the way last weekend when I was painting, and a STAR WAS BORN. (I swear it was).  This puppy was $3 at Goodwill, with a broken frame, which I repaired (read: patched from the back where nobody can see my awesome kludge) and cleaned and re-painted. 

...Actually, the big empty space above the mirror is bothering me, but I'm not sure what to do about that yet.  I've got some ideas, I just haven't experimented yet.  

But let's hear it for more light in the room!  I had actually planned to put a mirror here for just that reason, just not this one.  I love the effect - but more than that, I love the way it doubles the sparkle and shine of of the objects on the mantel - silver and glass, leaves and candlelight.  Mmm.  Take a look:

I made everything on this mantel with my own two hands. Out of lima beans.

Not really.  

But not a single piece cost me more than about $6 - thrift stores FTW.

I can't decide which my favorite thing in the entire house: 

the silver dessert goblet or the blue glass jar.  Yum!

A small statue of Parvati, who is hiding behind the 

wooden candlestick in the other pictures. 

Tada.  




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Fireplace: A History

My fireplace is one of my favorite toys.  I love playing with the decor, paint colors - I've built a new mantel for it, painted it as an accent wall, done murals above and around it, and painted the tiles around it about a million times.

Past incarnations?  Glad you asked:

This is how it looked in 2004, shortly after I moved in.  The walls were painted ice-blue, and the fireplace wall was a sort of mushroom-y-taupe color.  The mantel...was...a windowsill and some molding?  Whathafah...? This is what happens when you try to combine "architecture" with cheap, cookie-cutter housing.

(Click to enlarge, and to read snarky comments
pasted onto the picture six years ago).

In 2006 I finally took down the mantel windowsill and replaced it with this nifty salvaged-lumber railroad-tie tree-trunk thing...which is totally a hollow box that I built out of plain old 6" boards, stained, and beat to hell with hammers and sanders,  and subjected to various abuses by my trusty Dremel tool.  :D


The green is Sherwin Williams' "Edamame", which I still adore; it also appears inside my pantry and the closets in both my sewing room and my boyfriend's music room.  I love a little color surprise inside of things.  [/dork]

Know what's awesome?  Floor tile on the fireplace! NOT!  At least, not when it's the same boring, ugly tile you have in your kitchen, entryway, and both bathrooms, making it pretty obvious that you live in a cheap house.

Paint and faux-tiles to the rescue! Oh, dear...that gray looks awful with that green wall.

But then, I was tired of the green anyway.  And I love blue, so - hey, here we go!  Also tried my hand at adding a faux-bois painted surround to go with the mantel...

...which you can see, if you enlarge the picture, looks like complete ass.  Which is why it only lasted about two days before I just said to hell with it and scrubbed ALL the paint off the tiles.

Except for the floor, which I had sealed well so that it wouldn't scratch...and therefore cannot be removed by conventional methods (which include sandblasting, jackhammering, and nuking from orbit).

When I painted the "Matagorda" sand color on the walls late in 2008, I decided to try not having an accent wall, which I was surprised to learn I liked very much.



 

...for a minute, anyway.  'Round about last summer I doodled a henna-esque design on the wall; and stenciled the tiles with the leftover wall paint to see how I felt about patterns up there instead of colors.

If the design looks familiar, it's because I adapted it from one that David Bromstad did on an episode of Color Splash that I can no longer locate online (HGTV, I fucking hate your website). 

I heart David Bromstad.  And Danielle, his painter. The two of them are the reason I became an artist.  Not "inspired by" so much as, "Hell, if THEY can do that, so could I."

A closer shot of the stenciling on the tiles.
Please to be ignoring the glue smears from a previous [failed] project about which we will not speak. 










 And the fireplace today?  Will have to wait for another day - maybe tomorrow, if I can get a picture to come out tonight when I get home.  Fifteenth time's the charm, right?


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Wildebeests: Small Dresser/Aquarium Cabinet

Remember Steve the newt?  And the smaller tank she got last weekend, that needed a home?  This is why:

I know, right?  UGH.   This is the small dresser I'd planned to move it onto: 

Problem was, it was really banged up, and not in a good way;  the knobs it had when it came to me looked just awful on the piece, so I replaced them with these equally-crappy but less offensive little spiral ones, just for the time being;  and there's no way the top would support the weight of even a small aquarium - it's just 1/8" plywood glued across the frame.  Also, the feet - ew.  Plus nobody was using it as a dresser!  It was just sitting in the bedroom, being in the way.

That said, I love this piece, and I have since the moment I laid eyes on it; and I really wanted it out in the living room where I could look at it more often.  So Sunday morning I de-glossed the finish, buffed out the scratches, and dry-brushed over it with black paint lightly so that some of the warm brown color would pop through in the light.  I cut a new top from a 1/2" solid wood table leaf that I had in the garage, and finished it to match - the perfect size to just lay over the top of the piece, so that if I ever decide to use it for something else, I can lift it off, no harm no foul.  Pop on some new knobs, and voila:

Yeesh, blurry.  Sorry.

I love how freaking SHINY it is now.  Wow!  Here it is in action: 

I know, I know, the tank still looks like crap - I'm in the process of spiffing it up.  At present all I've done is dump Steve and some of her stuff into it.  Plus the water's all shaken up in these photos, from me moving the tank around, which is why it looks so dark and dirty.  I promise it's not.

But, hey, look!  Something shiny: 

Oooooh, ahhhhh.  I dunno when this glass-knob-kick I'm on will be over, but today is apparently not that day.  These puppies were only $2 each, too!  I always grab a handful when Hobby Lobby puts their decorative hardware on for half off.   Because I am Bargain Hunter D. 

And because I love little secret color surprises, I painted the inside of the drawers...

...PINK?!?  I swear it was red in the can!  No no no no no no no...

Theeeeere we go.  Wrong can. Woops!  And today I wish I'd painted them turquoise.  *shrug*   Whatever color they are, they made a HUGE difference in my kitchen, believe it or not.  

Until this happened, all the aquarium supplies had been in a couple of my kitchen cabinets and drawers.  I put what I needed into this unit; and took the opportunity to throw out the stuff I didn't need anymore and wouldn't re-use;  so I gained a pretty piece of furniture for the living room, a nice stand for Steve, an empty kitchen drawer and TWO emptied kitchen cabinets!  Sweet. 

A little hand-carved and -painted box from Bali that a friend recently gave to me. 

It smells like herbs. :)

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Weekend: 99% Success!

+   Steve has a new tank!
+   The kitchen and dining room are painted!
+   The little dresser from the bedroom is refinished and re-purposed!
+   I took lots and lots of pictures!


-   And I left my camera at home, where the streets have no name computer doesn't work, so can't upload them.


Fail.

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Newts & Weekend Plans

I've hardly done anything at all this week! Woe!  Stupid shoulder.  It's healed now, has been for a couple of days, but I didn't want to push it.  Which turns out to have been a good idea, considering that it got mad at me for trying to pick up a tub of cat litter with my left hand yesterday at Target. 

But the weekend brings us more stuff to do.  If all goes well, I'll get the rest of the kitchen painted, and the dining room and entry hall, and have lots of nifty pictures for you. 

I may or may not refinish a small, 2-d dresser from my bedroom this weekend, too.  That sounds like more than it is - all I have to do is clean the surface and paint it, and add a slab of wood to the top so it'll support weight.

See, I keep newts.  They're awesome.  But I lost three of them this Spring - two were very old, and one had a serious infection that was getting better, but took a sudden turn for the worse and killed her before I could do anything about it. 

Steve, my one remaining nooticle, got her own tank last night - I spent about two hours tearing down the old ones and setting up a newer, nicer, but smaller, tank for Steve.  Hence the mini-dresser and reinforced top:  a tank full of water weighs quite a bit! 

So, more on that next week.

Romeo & Lita,  1997-2010

Oregon Newts (Taricha granulosa)

M

Margaret, 2003-2010

a Chinese Warty Newt (Paramesotriton chinensis)

Steve 

an Algerian Ribbed Newt (Pleurodeles nebulosus)

...who I thought was a boy until she started laying eggs, lol. 

Hence the name. 

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"New" Living Room: Windows

The "Wood Smoke" grey is blowing me completely away.  I'm just in love with the color - warm, soft, kind of rainy-day.  Sets all my stuff off *perfectly*.   The living room is done, and I'm in the process of doing the kitchen and dining room area right now.

But: photos!  I has them!  Well, some.  Room photos will have to wait until my house is no longer a construction zone, and until I can get that ONE perfect photo that isn't screwed up by the light in the room being all weird (or until I find a really awesome new camera abandoned on my front doorstep or something). 

For Now...

I am completely in love with the way the windows in the back of the room are coming out.  I love my wall o' windows: lots of natural light, plus a great thing to play with for someone with a curtain addiction.  0:)  

This is the window corner before, with the "Matagorda" sand colored paint (yes, it's beige, shut up) and the old window treatments (cream-colored crinkle-voile, which I'd hoped might go with the grey, because I DO love these, but not so much: they just looked dirty against the new wall color.  So I took them down, and one of the cats promptly peed on them while my back was turned. Mmm, catburgers for dinner tonight...).

You can see why light is an issue - when I took this picture, this room was so brightly lit by the windows that you might as well be outside.  But the camera sees big bright squares of light with darkness surrounding, so that's mostly what I get when I try to photograph this room;  the flash washes everything out, and turning lights on in the room only makes everything look yellow-y. 

And here's an "after" shot - again, in full daylight, not that the camera can tell.  Maybe it needs glasses. Poor thing.    

The accessories have stayed the same;  but I've raised the curtain rod up to 8" above the window frame (about 5" above where they were before); the white sheers are a placeholder.  They'll soon be replaced with some in a different fabric, and a couple more layers of color and texture.

Another thing I'm digging here is the way I separated the single large window on the south wall into two tall, narrow windows.  Demo & remo not included:  I wedged a 1x6" board into the window frame between the top and sill, caulked it in place (so it can be removed easily later, should I change my mind), and painted it to match.   This is a bad photo, but a decent shot of the nearly invisible line between the board and the wall above the window. 

The metal mini-blinds (grrr) ride up and down behind the board.  I'm working on making some brown linen curtain panels into roller shades to use instead, which will be hung in a pair to enhance the two-window look.  (One day they'll grow up to be bamboo chick blinds).

I do love me a good illusion!  From the opposite end of the room (not that I have a decent picture), three tall, narrow windows and the glass door makes a MUCH more cohesive architectural statement than two windows of completely random shape/size + door.  <--- I really just said that, didn't I?   Well, it does.

 

Anyway.

This candle lantern arrangement is one of my favorite things in the room. I love them, and I love the way they look hung in a group like this.

The accessories in this window corner hardly changed at all - the lanterns were here before, as were the giant Bird of Paradise plant and the sheer fabric screen. 


(And no, the paint color's not this dark or cement-ish.  That's the light thing again. Sigh). 

One of the changes that did end up happening back here was that I placed three of my mid-sized deity statues in the windows, one statue centered in each window.  I saw the idea online somewhere recently and decided to try it out.  I love the result - and that the statues are heavy enough that the cats can't knock them over and break them, hehe: 

Hidden behind the sheers

The Buddha and Ganesh were raffle prizes that I won at the women's festival I 

go to every year; the Kali & Shiva statue on the right was a gift from a friend. 

But wait! There's more!  For tomorrow.  MWAHAA.  :)


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Progress On Several Fronts

+     figured out how to comment on my own posts!

+    shoulder greatly improved.

+    got a tiny amount of painting done - with the other arm - in the kitchen last night. 


-    still no pics! Dammit!  Waiting for good light & functional memory.


:)

Look, It's A Hiatus!

Pulled shoulder something fierce while painting the kitchen.  Fall-down-screaming painful.  Applying ice, heat pad, advil, an ice cream. No more painting anything for for me for a while.

Bye..





Ow fuckety ow.

Lists!

Although the painting project is going really well, I have no pictures.  Yet.

I have lists instead.

Things I HAD TO HAVE When I Bought My House

Lots of large windows
"interesting" "architecture" - funky doors and windows, nifty angles, etc.
a good-sized yard
high ceilings
lots of space between my house and my neighbors'
a dishwasher
a large master bedroom/suite
NO homeowners association! 
a fireplace

Of Those, I Did Not Get

a good-sized yard.  I got a postage stamp.  Which I thought I would be fine with, but I'm not.
lots of space between houses.  NEVER. AGAIN.
no homeowners association:  instead, I HAVE ONE.  And they're FUCKERS.

And Here's the Stuff I Don't Care About Anymore

a dishwasher:  I wash my dishes by hand, yo.  Dishwasher = takes up what could be more storage space

Stuff I Wish I'd Thought of Then

the quality of the appliances that the house came with
kitchen layout
location - the next time I want to be "out in the country", I need to move to the country,  not NEAR it.
more rooms than just the ones I needed, because nowadays? I want an art studio. And a dedicated
   Music Room, and a mudroom/large laundry room, and and and and and. 
That the fireplace I wanted?  Be situated in the room where it lives in a way that makes SOME sense.
Rooms/floorplans that allow for versatility of furniture arrangement.  Having spent six years thus far trying
   to place a fucking couch, I'm pretty sure this was an important factor that I apparently overlooked.
The electrical box in the front yard:  I thought, "Oh, who cares, I'll just plant some crap around it and it'll
   be fine."  It's NOT.  *^&!@#!$ electrical box! 

(But hey - it's my first house.  Like I knew what I was doing!  Actually, I did my homework - and I came out better off than most first-time homeowners, in most respects).

What I Wish I Was Doing Right Now

ANYTHING else but sitting in this stupid office.  *repeatedly bashing head against wall*

Paint! Presents!

Not a lot to report, other than:

• The new paint color?  Is FREAKING AWESOME.  It couldn't be more perfect. 
• The pot rack project is on hold, while my drill is out helping a friend of mine to hang a tapestry in her new apartment. 
• Said friend and I had a bit of a swap last night:  I brought her a level and an extension cord, and a pack of curtain rings for that tapestry; and she gave me a set of chocolate-brown linen-weave curtain panels (Ikea's Ritva), and a gorgeous little brass statue of Kali and Shiva.  Wow!  <3 

So, more painting this weekend.  And pictures, as soon as I have enough of the room put back together to show you what the the finished product will look like - which includes an exciting new Window Thing that I haven't talked about yet that I'm dying to (a) get done! and (b) post about.  :)

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Pardon Our Dust...

What was I thinking, when I thought I was going to build a whole shelf in one evening?  I swear.  Glue has to DRY, hello! 

So I built half of the pot rack last night.  I'll finish it tonight, and then get started painting.

I have learned something about myself, though:  I hate putting joints together with dowels.  I always try to incorporate a new method or technique when I build something, in order to learn new things and broaden my experience - really, I'm still pretty much a novice carpenter, so I like to stretch my carpentry muscles as often as I can.

So, I'd never joined an entire piece with dowels - I used some when I built my bed, but for the pot rack, the entire piece is going together this way.  No screws, no nails.  Just wood and glue.

In the plus column:

• no visible hardware
• smooth seams/joints
• very sturdy end product, if you do it right

But then...

• this is totally a pain in the ass!  ARGH. 
• I have arthritis, and a very heavy drill.  So....OW!!!

I like my big heavy drill, though.  It was a gift from my ex-father-in-law a few years back - it was his favorite drill, and he liked it so much that he got one for me for my birthday that year.  (Anything with the Dad Seal of Approval is okay in my book!)  It's heavy, but it's also powerful and fast.  Mwahaha.  *flex* 

But I do wish, half the time, that either (a) it was lighter or (b) I had still a cordless to use for things that don't require the power of my big drill.  I  had a cordless once - two, actually.  But as always happens, the charger broke, and by the time I needed a new one, they didn't make that style anymore, and it wouldn't fit the universal chargers they sell, so I had to buy a whole new drill.  For some reason, this happens all the time with Black & Decker, but I've never had that problem with any other manufacturer's cordless tools.  So guess what I won't be buying, ever again!  o_ô

ANYWAY.  Half a pot rack: done.  More news as the situation develops; stay tuned.  I have to say, I'm enjoying working in my shop again.  I haven't done it in forever.  Mostly because my garage has been so messy I couldn't even go into it without wanting to run back into the house to hide.  Clean shop = awesome.



P.S. - drill or no drill, you know what I need to break down and buy for myself?  BAR CLAMPS!   I'm almost embarrassed to admit that I use nylon towing straps and weights to block joints together while they set up.  And last night?  I couldn't find my straps anywhere.  I ended up resorting to...wait for it...tape.  *facepalm*  


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♪ A Few of My Favorite Things ♪♫

Okay, so two of my favorite things:  PAINT and LUMBER! 

Having sold that antique vanity earlier this week, I found myself in possession of a small amount of cash.  I decided not to get fabric for the couch - I could only have gotten about half of it, and I'd rather buy it all at once so that I don't have to worry about going back and it not being there any longer.  That would suck.

Instead, I got materials for two projects:  new paint for the common areas of the house (half price, baby!) and lumber for the kitchen pot rack project I keep talking about but not really talking about.

New Living Room, Party of 1 

Here's a shot of the current wall and ceiling colors in the living room :

 

The ceiling looks really dark in this pic; but the wall color is pretty much spot-on.  I call it "Matagorda" - I mixed it myself to match some sand I collected the last time I was on the beach in Matagorda, TX (which was waaaay too long ago!)  I like it, but an entire houseful is getting to be a bit...beige. 

Here's the paint I brought home earlier this week - and the actual color of the ceiling. 

"Wood Smoke", by Glidden.  The paint I brought home was another brand, I forget which (American somethingorother? *shrug*). 

The color is darker, and grayer - not by much, but just enough that it'll change the entire character of the room.  I really can't wait to get started.


The entire common area of the house is painted all the same color, ceilings and walls: the entry hall, dining room, kitchen, and living room.  Since all four areas are open to each other, I went with one big color scheme when I painted the Matagorda, and I've really loved how harmonious and smooth the effect is.

The "crown molding" that you see in the first picture?  Is totally just white paint on the ceiling and the top of the walls.  And it's not fooling anybody - it's not meant to.  It serves the same purposes:  it's a visual divider between blocks of color, it calls attention to walls shapes and angles, and it creates the illusion of a higher ceiling.  Someday it'll turn into real crown molding, when it grows up; but today is not that day.  For the time being, it pleases me.  I'm actually thinking about expanding it - only by 3" on the ceiling, but extending it down the wall a good 8" or so, as though it were a dropped ceiling, and doing a stencil or trompe l'oeil border across the bottom to make it look even more like molding.  I honestly haven't decided yet. 

Which is one reason I'm not starting with the painting tonight, like I want to.  The other reason is that I'm going to just blow my kitchen UP if I don't do something about the storage in there...



My Queendom For Some *$%#2@ Storage

So, tonight I'm building this:

In the teeny-tiny inset in the top, you can see a hint of the situation now:  there's a trash can wedged between the fridge and the wall of The World's Most Annoying Pantry.  The trash is crammed in there in an attempt to keep my puppy out of it (which doesn't work);  the pantry would be great if it weren't crammed with WAY too much junk. 

Enter the pot rack - which actually is basically one of those over-the-toilet shelving units that you see in bathrooms.  Trash can underneath (with a lid that I'm hoping will prove to be puppy-proof), pots and pans and bakeware - and maybe the coffee/tea stuff, too - on the upper shelves.  And two empty shelves inside the pantry, yay! I don't know whether I'm more excited about building stuff, or about re-organizing the pantry afterward. 

The only problem is that I haven't decided yet whether to:

• stain the rack to match the kitchen cabinets, or
• paint it gray "Wood Smoke" to match the new walls, or
• paint it white to match the trim and the fridge.

Staining the rack to match the cabinets would balance them out across the room.  But it would also be a big, heavy block of darkness on that side of the room - I moved the fridge the other day when I got the new trash can, and I'm loving how huge just that small change makes the kitchen look.  It has me wondering about cluttering up that space again with a big obvious piece of furniture.  So maybe the white. 

What do you think?

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We've Been Dancing With Mr. Brownstone

Obviously, I do NOT have a brownstone, or a cute but cramped little Victorian row house, it being suburban central Texas up in here.  What I DO have, though, is a long, narrow common area:

Arranging furniture in this football field of a room has always been a challenge.  And not just because it's long and narrow;  another big factor in furniture placement is that the north and south walls of the room are made up of windows and doors, which means the seating area placement has always either been centered on the west or east wall (it doesn't help that my cable outlet is on the east wall. When I laid my laminate flooring in 2005, I ran a cable around the room underneath the baseboards so that I could use the west wall, too, if I wanted, which is what I prefer to do).

I've always hated how unbalanced the room has been - no matter which side of the room the seating area is on, it makes the whole space look lopsided and cramped. Granted, a lot of the cramped-ness comes from the fact that I have too much large furniture, and too many little pieces filling in empty space around them.

At the moment, what's been pissing me off recently is the fact that the couch is floating out in the middle of the room all by itself.

But, browsing through casaCARA's brownstone reno posts this week reminded me that there are plenty of  options for decorating a room of this shape (brownstones and row houses, ofc, being long, skinny, 2-storey homes, most often with windows and doors at either end, sometimes with a bay at one or both ends, with bedrooms (or apartments) above the main living space) ...which I knew, but you know how sometimes your brain just refuses to work with information you already have until something shiny pops up to catch its attention. :)

So I'm thinking of doing something like this, instead: 

Most of the smaller pieces are gone, as well as the large bookcases that were on the west wall (by the fireplace) - they were eight feet tall (!) and 24" deep from the wall, and were just towering over the entire space (again: I knew this, I just hadn't figured out what to do with them).  I moved them out of the room last night (into the bedroom, where they're *perfect*) and replaced them with the long, low bookshelf that had previously been under the bar at the north end of the room (bottom).  Just this small change opens up the room, and will allow me to move everything else around:

• The main seating area pulls off the east wall, out into the center of the room.  This is something I've tried before, but not since I got my new couch (my old sofa was eight feet long, and overstuffed - it dominated even this 16x24' room no matter which way I turned it!)
• Centering the seating area leaves lots of negative space around each piece and between the back of the sofa and the windows in the rear (south) of the room, and allows for traffic to flow around either side of the seating area, instead of skirting around behind it the way it's been.   (And I'd really love to stick a chair into the end of the seating arrangement, opposite the television - preferably this one)
• This leaves the TV/entertainment center alone on the east wall, and a bit too far away from the sofa for my tastes; but I plan on replacing the long, heavy unit with a small dresser made into a TV/electronics stand, with the electronic components in the space where the top drawer used to be.  I love those.  I also plan to pull it out from the wall a bit, and back it with the turquoise fabric screen that I showed you last week, for a large splash of color and a bit more space around the unit.  
• The long, low bookshelf being on the west wall also opens up the space under the bar at the north end of the room, which I'm hoping will encourage a colony of wild bar stools to take up residence on their own.  *looks around hopefully*  Having that space under the bar unoccupied also actually adds to the length of the room, visually - which I find I like very much, although if you'd asked me before, I'd have said, "No! I will MAKE this room be square if it KILLS me!"  Uh-huh. Sure.
• The next step is to flip the couch and the weird little transforming settee thing ( this thing from World Market):  the heavier (visually) couch will anchor the windows a bit, and the colors will set off the sheer, breezy curtains (er...once I get it slipcovered, hehe). 
• The settee thing itself, though cute at first sight, has proven to be a major pain in the ass - literally:  it's totally uncomfortable, even with the 8" thick cushion I made for it to replace the flat, egg-crate cushion it came with.  It's also a weird shape that fits nowhere; and the frame, when completely open, is pretty much a big padded seesaw which regularly dumps me and my friends out onto the floor when we sit on it the wrong way!  So I'm going to spend the weekend removing the back and move-able arms, and creating a new cushion for the seat, so that it becomes a large ottoman/lounger thing that will divide the room visually without taking up too much visual space and blocking the view of the seating area, and also provide extra seating for the cats parties.  

Like I needed more projects, right?  Heh.   Moving the gigantic bookcases was the biggest job in the room, though, and that's done (although I broke some of the trim molding on my floor in the process, damn it). The rest is all pushing furniture around and juggling knick-knacks and houseplants.

And eventually I'll finish painting.

And eventually I'll re-cover the couch. 


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