Bedroom: A History

Once upon a time...

 

 2008, post-divorce, big empty house with almost no furniture! OHNOES! I slept for months on this inflatable camping mattress. I sewed some curtains into a little canopy hanging from the ceiling.  You can't see it well in this shot, but the "headboard" is a slab of plywood with a sarong draped over it. Awww. Memories and stuff.

 Finally, early in 2009, I bought myself a real mattress from Ikea (which I drove home strapped to the top of my little Honda CRV...for thirty miles...going 40mph in the slow lane with my flashers on the whole way, terrified that it was going to fall off and kill someone). 

I built this 2x4 platform to go underneath it, and stapled pretty blue fabric around it to hide the frame.

A few months later, I took the platform apart, bought some more lumber, and built a REAL bed!



<-- see how clean my garage was back then?

 And painted the bedroom blue, and bought myself some new sheets and a new comforter, and a used box spring from Craigslist:  voila!  A BIG BLUE ROOM.  Monochromatic and soothing as all heck.  Love!

And while I did love the Superblue, I found myself craving something darker, more layered, and a touch exotic. A die-hard Firefly fan, I was inspired by Inara's chambers at the Companion Training House as seen in the movie Serenity...and everything got all weird.
Me likey.

 This is the current incarnation:  slightly paler- and greener-blue on the walls (same color as the laundry room), wooden jali from World Market (a birthday gift from Kress!), and the same light blue comforter, which I use in the Spring (the darker one in the pic above is heavier, hence: bedroom Winter-wear).

night

And so is this: curtains now forming a bit of a canopy over the head of the bed instead of surrounding it entirely, art wall off to the side filled with naked women, Sacred Lovers, and music. 

day

Off to the left, the sheers on the windows are a deep magenta (thank you once again, Ikea), and there's a large variegated Ficus tree between the window and the bed (thank you, Racu!) 

But what's next?

I'm glad you asked!  My queen-sized mattress just doesn't cut it anymore, with two humans (one of whom is over 6' tall) and any number of cats sleeping on the bed with us.  Bigger bed omg!  Plus...props to Ikea for making me a mattress that lasted for over three years...but, unfortunately,  that's about as much as it had in it.  So the old SULTAN HAMNO (no longer available) gets cleaned and relegated to the nascent guest room, and...

Stay tuned!  Dun-dun-DUNNNN!  :)


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5 Things I Didn't Think I'd Like But Totally Do

1.  Visible media on open shelving:  no!  You must HIDE your dvds! Or else!  Except...not so much.  I'm finding I really, really love this in my living room:

like a home library, but you don't have to read anything ;)

2.  Open cabinets in the kitchen.  But...it'd have to look nice all the time, and then where would I keep all my STUFF?   Turns out, I didn't actually need all that STUFF.  I love the way the cabinets look - opening them up and painting the innards light blue-gray took some of the weight out of them, so they feel less looming; plus the openness forces me to keep the cabinets clean!

*sparkle*

3.  Gray walls...I mean, really, HOW boring.   Until I painted my craft room gray a couple of years ago, just to paint it something (wanna know a secret? That gray was a mixing mistake)...and fell in love with it so much that last year I painted the entire Known World gray (kitchen, dining, living room, hallways).  It's restful, relaxing, neutral without being blah or too pale, and really makes my treasured teals and greens pop.  It's like a quiet, rainy afternoon in my house all the time. <3

 4.  Piles of stuff:  believe it or not, when I first really got into decorating, I was totally into anything minimalist, especially asian/"zen" design.  I know, right?  You wouldn't know it, looking at my house now.  I suppose it may have been a reaction to my mother's houseful of fluffy pink Victoriana, hehe.  And I tried for years to exclude all things "clutter" from my living spaces, until I embraced the idea that "clutter" doesn't have to be, if it's stuff that's meaningful, fulfilling to the soul and senses to look upon.  Yay, beautiful things that I love...on every available surface, LOL:

oooh shinyyyy

5.  A haphazard riot of colors.  My bedroom started out monochromatic, and I loved it, but on a whim, three years ago, I decided to try just throwing a bunch of stuff together...and it turns out, I absolutely love it.  It's not exactly a "riot", since most of the colors are dark or at least muted...but I love it, all the same. :)

more bedroom stuff coming up the next 2 weeks!

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Wildebeests: Nice Rack (Part II)

Remember this bit o' headboard from Friday?

And the front hall with the hook and wad of jackets and scarves?

After: 

door open for light

 Couple of cuts, some paint, some decorative glass knobs, some wall anchors - voila!  

Green glass knobs from World Market*.  There are two of these, and four other styles/colors, all mixed in there together.   Hee. <3

(See what I mean about the carving not being even, in that last picture?  Must've been a cheap headboard, LOL.  I don't care.  I love my new "old" coatrack thingy). 





* You know, they have some amber-colored ones, too, that I didn't like at first...but now they haunt me.  I must find an excuse to use them for something.  Possibly even...*GASP*...drawers! 


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Wildebeests: Nice Rack (Part I)

Look! I posted something!  I actually DID something this week! :)

Okay, well, I've done a lot this week so far, just no project-y things.  But I got this one good and started:

This was a section from a queen-sized headboard that I found on the side of the road last year.  It's been sitting in my garage since then...leaning on things.  I had no idea what to do with it.  Until last week.

I cut it into thirds - a middle and two "identical" end sections* - then deglossed the finish and went over it with a bit of black-brown paint to change the color and also make it look a bit worn.   (It's halfway done in this shot - no judging!)

*  "Identical" is in quotes because although the ends looked identical, they're totally not!  Who carved this thing, anyway?  Hee.

It's going to be a coat rack when it grows up.  Just you wait.


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This is me, lately...

 

Bwaha!  :) 

Ah Ah Ah Ah Stayin' Alive...

I'm still here! I haven't frozen to death yet, though I think I may die of frustration with this weather.  This is Texas, you guys.  It's February 10th.  It should be well into the sixties by now...but it's 23º.  *fallsover*


Anyhoo, it's been an "interesting" past several days, so I haven't really been doing anything crafty or decorate-y to report on ye olde blog.  But I have a list of mini-things to do tonight - art I've been meaning to put up for a week, a bit of a Wildebeest I've almost started on like eight times and haven't gotten around to...and lots and lots of cleaning, but I'll spare you the, er, before pictures on that one.  Yeesh. o_O

Stay tuned!  Sorry I'm so up and down lately.  I'm always like this around the end of Winter.  Gah!

tool organizer in my garage

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H2O In All Its Glory

H2OMG!  My water's running!  My pipes thawed out and there's no sign of a break.  I took a shower!  I washed dishes!  I re-insulated all the exposed pipes, checked all the cleanouts and shutoff valves in the ground outside, de-iced the filter cleanout, and re-wrapped all the exposed faucets.  And I "shoveled" the driveway (with a carpet scraper).  And then I fell down on it*.

Becaaaaaause...

"Wtf?"                     "Idk."

IT SNOWED FRIDAY NIGHT!   O_O   For those of you not from 'round these parts, this here is central Texas:  it doesn't do that! Okay, well, maybe for like five minutes every four years.  How cool is this?

the Mulberry Tree in the backyard

Me in the backyard (and Shelly)

And Kress in the backyard.

WHERE'S THE ROAD???

A little garden Buddha-face a friend made for me :)

My neighbor's kids made angels in my driveway.

This is just weird.

* I'm fine.  Actually, it was kinda hilarious.  Is it just me, or does the ground get farther away the older you get?  Oy. 



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Oh, F....

Hey, you know what's awesome about waking up at 6am to find that your pipes are frozen and you have no running water in your house?  NOTHING!

It's supposed to thaw out enough by tomorrow afternoon for the pipes to flow again; I get to find out then if the pipes are broken and will need to be repaired, or just simply frozen and will start running just fine when it warms up over the weekend.

So: FUN!  This just doesn't happen in central Texas, and while I'm not at a complete loss as to how to handle this (thanks to an entire internet full of friends in North Places and some great advice), I am still freaking just a little bit.  I'm a planner.  I plan things.  I schedule things.  Not knowing how this ends is pretty much killing me.

Please excuse Laura from the blogosphere for a few days, she's come down with a case of FAIL.

Brb...


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Before + After: Secret Beer!

Before: 

After:

"furniture"

That's a storage ottoman that keeps things cold - and it only cost me $8, since this drapery fabric was on uber-clearance at Hobby Lobby.  I already had cord for the welting and thick quilt batting in The Storage Pit (what Kress has taken to calling my supply stores...or maybe he's referring to my craft room.  I really don't know.  Maybe I should clean it again at some point).

the buttons are TOO SMALL - but it's what I had

Really, I just like saying "secret beer."  At the event this weekend, this cooler will actually hold ice, bottled water, a couple of sodas, and finger-munchies to snack on during the day before the big feast in the evening.  :)


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January In Review

Remember that "month in review" thing I was going to start doing, so that I can keep track of myself?  Yeah, I forgot, too.  But since the first month of 2011 is over [already!], I figured it'd be a good time to start. 

January In Review:

• Painted my back door
• lots and lots of costume sewing
• Spray-painted one of the mini-blinds in my living room;  came out so well that I plan to do the rest of them as soon as I can find the time
• Sewed a couple of quick throw pillows from a $5 drapery remnant
• Started a new project list-book to keep in my purse
• Working on plans to re-do my craft room + music/guest room + guest bath
• Started throwing together a drop-cover to turn a cooler into a cushioned ottoman; pics when I'm finished!

 Whew! 


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Holly Looya!

I'm finished sewing those freaking costumes!!! 

Currently working on one of the projects I posted sketches of last week.  Stay tuned!



<3 Ya


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