Design Style

About once a year, I like to scour the internet for "what's my design style?" type quizzes and see what's changed.  Mostly just because I like quizzes.

They were helpful for me when I didn't know what I liked.  And they've been helpful to me when friends have asked me for pointers on design choices and paint colors.

But mostly, I just like quizzes.  So here are a couple, just for fun.  :)

BHG

Country French 

You are drawn to a rustic but refined style that feels comfortable and livable for today's families. Your version of Country French style may be rustic (think glazed pottery and chunky woven baskets) or more refined (think gilded details). Either way, patterned fabrics such as toile, stripes, and fleur-de-lis motifs will help you set the tone. Incorporate details such as stucco walls, wrought-iron accents, and furniture with carved details for an old-world look.

HGTV

Your style is Romantic

Elegant yet relaxing. Luxurious fabrics, soft colors, fresh florals. Appeals to all the senses and sets a warm mood. My home has Romantic style.

MyDesignGuide.com

And thank you to THESE PEOPLE for offering a picture of a woman by herself and smiling, amongst their "life phase" options - not "which couple are you" but "single woman" being a VALID CHOICE.  You guys rock  ("single man" was also a choice!).

Asian   Coastal   Country   Modern   Romantic   Rustic   Traditional   Tuscan

Okay, so this is neat.  You have to sign up to get the results (like everywhere else), but this one does some things I like a lot: 

• offers this handy little table, showing you what percentages of each style you picked
• shows each of your quiz choices in a sidebar so you can see them at a glance
• You can create a home design profile, room-by-room, with areas for writing notes about each space, pictures of them.  They offer design services (of which I have not availed myself). 
• Tons of articles and links to suppliers, like everywhere else. 

How neat.  

Anyway.  Back to being bored at work.  ;) 

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"Let's Re-do That Footstool Tonight!" I said.

I actually got quite a number of little, piddly things done last night.  I re-aligned the strikeplate for the deadbolt on my back door, which was making it really hard (and frustrating!) to lock the door.  I cleaned up the kitchen, and re-organized a couple of the cabinets to make a new place to put my pots and pans (well, pot and pan. I'm not a huge cook).  I tightened the bolts on all my dining room chairs, since a couple of them had legs that were getting loose.  I took my liquid-sander to the pieces of that little side table I told you about the other day.

Then I decided to tackle that little footstool - the one I picked up at the same time as that side table.  I got the thing entirely torn down before I remembered that

1. I no longer have a staple gun, because my other one was such a piece of shit that I threw it away the last time I used it, promising myself I'd get a new one soon.  *crickets* 
2. My spray paint stock is woefully depleted - I'm down to like two drops of a turquoise that's way too bright, a couple of silvers, and a really gross, poopy brown color that I don't even remember buying

Yeah, there's no refinishing the wood on this thing.  And I can't finish the project without spray paint and a new staple gun, but at least it's torn down and ready to re-boot.  In the meantime, let's talk about what a galloping piece of shit this footstool turned out to be: 

Clockwise from top left: 

1. First of all, the sides are laminate.  Crappy laminate.  Peeling, cracking laminate.  Sigh.  
2. And the laminate isn't even the same *color* as the stained wooden legs.  What?!?
3. It's not even MDF underneath.  It's pressboard.  UGH. 
4. The piece de résistance: one of the legs once split, and was "repaired" really, really badly.  Basically someone just squirted glue all over it and hoped for the best.  The leg was stuck to the frame, and some of the scrim cloth from the bottom of the upholstered top was glued to the wood.  This glue job will hold, but it'll never hold weight.  There goes the idea of this being my new piano stool. 

Then there's the seat itself.  First of all, under the wood was a bunch of crap and leaves and shit.  Spiderwebs, dead bugs...this thing must've been in a garage or storeroom for a looooong time.  

The scrim covering the bottom of the seat was glued in place all the way around - I had to rip the thing to shreds to get it off, and to get at the staples underneath. 

Speaking of staples...was this really necessary?!  Every corner was like this.  Most of the staples aren't even IN the fabric.  

HAHA FUCKERS. 

Was it the busted leg, or this nastiness, that made the previous owner chuck this damned thing?  This is GROSS.  The foam and fabric aren't just dirty - this is MOLD.  EWWWW FUCKING EW.  Into the garbage with both pieces.  

But wait! 

BWAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! What the crap!?  This is three pieces of...scrap!...glued to a thin piece of luan to form the base board of the seat.  The largest piece has a hold milled out of it - it looks like a piece left over from building an Ikea piece the wrong way.  The other bit is a drawer front, I'm pretty sure.  The dark strip along the end - I have no idea WHAT that thing is, but the wood-tone on it is a strip of corrugated plastic with a laminate wood-grain backing.  Seriously, what the hell.  

So, I have three options: 

1. Replace the foam and fabric, paint the frame and legs, and make a new footstool out of this. 
2. Paint the frame and legs, create a new top for it with no upholstery, and maybe use it as a very small table somewhere, probably out on the back porch.
3. Chuck all the pieces and call it an exercise in whatever the reverse of "don't judge a book by its cover" is. 

LOL.  Wow. 

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Table Time

This is my living room coffee table:

This is my living room coffee table on drugs:

I adore it, don't get me wrong.  In fact, though it was covered in nicks and scratches, I spent about two hours the other day scrubbing the top, running a thin sheen of stain over it to cover up the marks, and then oiling it to a nice, slick shine again.  This table's not going anywhere.

But it IS too large for the seating area in my living room right now.  I'm not sure what I'll do with it next, but it's got to come out.  I'm ready for something new.

If you've been following long, you might remember the trunk table that I turned into a small shelving unit for my printer and computer supplies.  I kept the doors that I removed from the top, thinking I might use them for something one day.

So I had an idea the other day.  I took apart that two-tiered side table I found last bulk day...

That was easy.  The legs unscrew, too, so this thing will be really easy to refinish, when I get to that stage.  First the top, though.  I had thought about a round top, like this:

Pinterest, via Helt Enkelt

But then I thought, what about those door pieces from the old trunk table?

Not sure.  Two of them will make a top exactly the right size to be useful but not [as] prone to clutter, without being too large for the base.  (All three is definitely right out).  The original top is too small.  I don't have a sheet of plywood large enough to cut out a circle...but maybe if I put the three trunk doors together and then cut a circle...Hm.  Just not sure yet. 

I'll be at an SCA event tomorrow; I'll work on this some more Sunday.  Ta! 

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And We All Fall Down

HEY GUESS WHAT I HAVE A TUMBLR

Big deal.

Just thought I'd post the link here, and put in a button, in case anyone's interested.





Dat's me.  (Madylyne is my SCA name, people call me "Mady" (Maddie) for short).

<3 nbsp="" p="">

Stuff!

I know, I know, I haven't posted in a while. Blah blah sick blah blah blah bipolar blah blah crashburnsisboombah.  Anyway.

I did something REALLY cool on the 5th, though.  A friend of mine had her bachelorette party at a place called Painting With A Twist, which is one of those studio art classes places.  We noshed on veggies and cheese and cookies, drank wine and punch, and all painted a cute little picture of fireflies in a jar along with the instructor.

IT WAS SO MUCH FUN YOU GUYS.

At the end of the class, we all took a big class photo of us holding our paintings, and then there was a raffle in which the winner (randomly drawn name) got to pick a finished piece of a showcase wall of paintings done by the instructor.  Guess who won!  ME!

Instructor's piece on the left (Austin Skyline and town lake, Van Gogh-ish-ly;  my firefly painting on the right.  Hee! 

Also, I have an update for you on those bulk day pieces from the other week...um, sort of.  Actual photos of them instead of pictures from the internet that are kinda close.

the footstool thing

Trio of 2x4' sheet mirrors!  SO EXCITED. 

Grubby little side table
(see also: put away your extension
cords damnit;  flat bike tire) 

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The little side table, I'm thinking, is going to become TOTALLY FREAKING AWESOME.  You know, once I get a spare five minutes to freaking work on it, which I haven't had lately.

☼
The mirrors are going into the master bath as I mentioned in the previous entry;  but that's going to be the end of a cascading set of projects:

• fix up a light fixture and install it in the guest bath
• move old guest bath fixture to master bath
• repaint the room
• hang the mirrors

☼
I have NO clue what I'm going to do with the footstool.  I mean, aside from refinish the wood and replace the upholstery.  I mean, what'll it be FOR?  It's tall enough to be a piano stool, I think.  I dunno yet.

☼
The secret project in this entry is what the footstool is propped on/in in above:  it's a counter-height kitchen cabinet, about 24" square, with drawer and door, and single shelf inside.  It's going to be the end piece of my new garage worktable, once I get off my !#@% and build the goddamned thing.

Stay tuned!


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