Annual Sewing Room Refit

Do I really do this every December/January?  I do, don't I?  Weird.

Anyway, the gray and white that I did last year was boring the heck out of me.  This is a creative space.  Grayscale?  Really?  I have no idea.

Before (last year)

Beige linen curtain (love), fabric boxes on wall shelves,
white above, grey below with grey trim. 

Closet shelves.  Grey and white and grey and white. 

What has turned out to be an awesome fabric storage idea, 

What's happening now... 

Fabric bins moved into the newly-pink closet

Doors back on.  The curtain was always a pain in the rear;
I ended up taking it down, and then the closet was
just this great big gaping hole.  

Last week and over the weekend I did a LOT of painting, refinishing, spray-painting, and re-arranging.  I'm not quite done yet; but by way of a preview, the whole room is going in somewhat this direction:

made using Olioboard

Update soon!


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New Living Room Arrangement FTW

I had great fun over the summer rearranging my living room furniture, and then the other week with the new coffee table.  After living several months with the new floorplan, though, it just wasn't working.  The open space behind the couch was handy for getting around with the vacuum cleaner, but it bugged me that it was wasted.  There wasn't enough floor space in the room for me to dance, hula hoop, or work out with a DVD, and I wasn't digging the little nightstand I had made over into an electronics console - and I wasn't digging the electronics, either, really.  So last weekend, I overhauled the entire room:

Before

Sadly, there must be a "before" picture:

Ignore the blanket over the couch for the moment (slipcover SOON, I swear), and take a look at the arrangement:  couch and wing chair in the center of the room, anchored by the area rug, with at least 3' all around of open space.  There's a console on the wall behind the couch, with the mirror over it.

And the long view...eww, I know.  A true "before', hehe, complete with jackets over the chair and various detritus on the floor as a result of those lazy dogs getting into the trash and strewing random things all over the room.  Mutts.

So:

1. more floor space
2. better use of space
3. pretty couch under the pretty windows
4. new tv console? 

After

Yay!  Okay, so, now there are different blankets on the couch.  Just go with it for the moment.  At least they're the right color, LOL. 

And from the north end of the room:  LOTS more open space.  The last time I was at Ikea I picked up an UPPLEVA (seriously, Ikea product namers?  hehe) swivel/tilt tv bracket; so while the couch is pretty far away from the television, I can pull the tv out from the wall by a foot, and angle it for better viewing.  I don't watch tv anyway; it's basically a video game delivery system.  :)

Here's the console that was behind the couch now serving a new purpose.  I ditched a 20-year-old CD changer and stereo receiver (not ditched, just removed from the setup) in favor of the electronics I actually use: DVD, X-Box, and laptop!  I charge it here, and blog from it on the couch or in the big wing chair, now that I don't have a computer desk anymore (which I love, since it's a piano now).  

I took the opportunity, while I was working, to clean the cuh-rap out of the fireplace, too.  MAN that thing was dusty.  The screen did it's job - I had no idea, hehe.

A little candle arrangement in front of the screen gives me pretty flames when I don't feel like burning a whole fire in the fireplace;  this is that silver "Moroccan" tray I got at Ikea a million years ago that you've seen on this blog as a wall hanging and table top in years past.  

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A Very Girly Lamp

I believe I mentioned that I have several new lighting projects lined up;  here's the first:

Before 

This is an antique "oil lamp" style lamp that was given to me over the summer by a friend.

It has a pink milk glass body, a horrifically tarnished and somewhat rusted brass base, and a modern brass cup at the top that someone at one point used to replace whatever was there before.

The glass was in great shape; but the brass base was really, really gross.  I tried everything to clean it, from lemon juice to scary chemical cleaners.  I got it clean, but I couldn't restore the finish - and it was certainly never going to match the bright gold color of the modern cup at the top.

Spray paint to the rescue.

After

A thin coat of silver metallic-finish spray paint, light enough to allow some of the dark, tarnished brass to show through in the relief of the fluting and pierced feet;  and then a light dusting with a brilliant gold spray paint over that, to warm up the silver to almost a metallic-champagne color (since the silver paint by itself is very blue-gray, and not really silverish at all).

 I *love* the way it came out.

And I ADORE the little key-shaped switch.  Hee!

New super-girly bedside lamp!

And this light bulb, while VERY cool (and I WILL find a use for it), is nooooot working with this lamp base, LOL.  Bit ridiculous.  I don't have a shade that works at all;  but I'll figure something out, hehe.


Nice base, though.  ;)
















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SUCCESS!!!

It took two trips to Lowe's, two trips to Home Depot, and lots of blood and cussing, but I finally got the water line hooked up, and the new dishwasher up and running!

That is a working dishwasher, my friends!  See the little red lights?  That means it's WASHING MY DISHES FOR ME.  I was in ANOTHER ROOM while the dishes were being washed!  It's almost like living like normal people, LOL.

Clean counters!  Clean, empty sink!

The brass part I needed to hook up the water?  I ended up buying three different versions, trying to find something to replace the coupling I couldn't get off the old machine.   On my last visit, a very nice man named Terry actually took the old part from me (still attached to the mounting plate, which I removed and brought with me), and managed to get it apart!  I had tried everything, but I thought it was stuck permanently - turns out I just wasn't strong enough.  Yay, Terry!

And that clean, empty counter space above the WORKING DISHWASHER?   No more Ikea dishrack and stacks of dishes!  My kitchen is finally returned to the way it should be.

Daisy was a bit concerned about the weird sounds it was making.  It's quiet, as dishwashers go; but she's only three, and in her life has never heard one working.  O_O






By the way, something else visible in these photos?

I finally put on the rest of the Ikea cabinet handles that I got in ...um...oh, I guess I never mentioned it, at least, not that I can find.  Look, new cabinet handles!  They're $7 a pair at Ikea, but I got these in the as-is section for half that.  Yay!

I actually need four more (have I mentioned I suck at math?), so, next time I'm there, the set will be completed.

I still have the smoky glass knobs on the upper cabinets;  the gold handles actually look really great with them, with the white uppers and wood lower cabinets.  Yay!


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New Life For That POS Footstool

You know the one.  Just a quick refresher:

It took way more than a coat of paint and a new top (see previous post) , but, well, here's the after:

Tada!   Blurry photo, sorry.  I'm not using the damn phone camera anymore, I apologize for all the crappy pics.

It's repaired.  It's black.  It has a bigger (and structurally sound) top.

And it's covered in music!  :D  (Can you guess which room it's going into?)

This is all sheet music from my musical exploits in the SCA.  So, it's Medieval stuff, mostly canonical, with a couple of popular love songs of the day (various days);  and where there are visible lyrics, they're in Italian and French.  Because: nerd.  

Plain ol' decoupage, nothing fancy.  Homemade medium (craft glue +  water, sealed with polyurethane).

via

And la piece de resistance?  Well,  I was thinking something like this, but for storage of music books and small musical instruments, instead of plants.


What ended up happening was more of a "fishtank on a table with junk in it."

...yeah.

It just needs some cool decoration.  And a more organized method of music storage than "just dump it all in there for now."

Update soon. :)














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Cheater Post

Holy COW do I have some updates.  But at the moment, this week, I'm up to my ears in social engagements and catching-up with other things, so for now, here's some more jewelry I made last week when I was on my jewelry-making kick:

Iolite and glass

anklet for my sex!boots (wore to a wedding recently)

tiny blue glass drop at the clasp

Lots of blue drops happened.  The
moonstone bracelet is old, but I made
it, too, back in the day. 

By the way?  Fuck the camera on my phone. 

An old beaded memory wire bracelet that I
made fit again.  

pink and black glass with silver, earrings 

ipnk and black necklace to go with the earrings;
I made the little charm loop in the center, too. 

One last phone-cam pic of a "ruby" and "topaz" + "gold"
costume piece I made for the SCA

Some of the blue and silver beaded jewelry here is part of a set I made to wear with a specific outfit, that I'm sewing myself, and which I haven't talked about, lol. Sorry.  Been posting about that over at my SCA sewing blog, since it's clothing stuff; you can read those posts here.  Should be a finished product photo in a couple of days.  :)


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Nail Polish + Jewelry

And now for something completely different!  This is what I did last night:

Incidentally, I give UP on the camera on this new phone.  The focus and quality are for CRAP, and there's no damned macro focus!!  I love 99.999% of this new phone, but fuck the camera.
So anyway, I had the bracelet on the upper left already - a gold chain with an oversized gold lobster clasp and ring closure, and a single clay scarab bead.  I wanted more stuff to go with it.

Using remnants of the same chain I used for the bracelet, I made the choker next to it, and the pair of earrings.

I wanted big, chunky, blue stones, but I didn't have any.  What I did have were some big, chunky green stones that I didn't like.

I made this a while back, but only wore it once, because I hated it.  The stones were far too heavy for the chain, and I just don't like that shade of green directly on my skin.

So I painted them with teal nail polish!  The result was a set of stones that look like slightly-iridescent sea glass.  I really wish I had a better picture for you, they look REALLY cool.

The earrings were made in the same way, but with two old pieces of rainbow fluorite painted with the same polish.

And because I know at least one person is going to ask:  yes, I painted natural stones with nail polish.  In addition to the serpentines being the wrong color for me, they were also old and chipped and had strange inclusions that marred the look of the stones - I only used my crappy ones for this.  Ditto on the fluorites.  :)

  The black bracelet on the left is where the gold nail polish came in.  The elastic connecting the four metal pieces was shot, and I couldn't wear the bracelet anymore.  Also, the gold paint was coming off and the copper underneath was starting to show through.
And so I painted it gold.  It's not the same yellowy gold as the other pieces, but I like it a lot.  Re-stringing this thing was a major pain in the bitch.







Nail Polish colors used:  

Sinful Colors "Gorgeous"

Nina Ultra Pro by Sally Beauty Supply "Big Spender"

Better pics, and pics of the outfit all of this was specifically made to go with, very soon.  :)


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They Say, If You Can't Laugh At Yourself...

So, you guys got to see my new coffee table Wednesday:

I was goldbricking at work re-organizing some of my Pinterest boards yesterday, and while perusing my Furniture board, I came across these old pins from long ago:

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c===3

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Gee, do you think I've been into this style for a while or what?  Heehee.  Just a neat little moment of, "HEY!!"

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Stuff N Thing, Part Troix

Before:  

*DRUMROLLLLLLL*

After:  

Coffee table.


The story is, and you got some of it a while back, that my existing coffee table, though lovely, and dear to my heart, was just too large for the current living room arrangement, and the furniture therein.  I plan to keep it, though I don't know yet what I'll do with it - probably just store it until someday when my living room expands again, or something.

Meanwhile, between an old trunk which became a shelf, (and then another shelf), a bulk-trash-day side table find, and a whole bunch of spray paint, a new, smaller coffee table was born.

the new table receives a cat scan

The dog loves it.  Her favorite spot in the house was under the coffee table, and I was worried that the new one would be too short for her to get beneath, but it works great for her.  Hee.

Truth:  it IS a bit small for the couch, LOL.  But honestly, functionally, it's *exactly* the right size.  And it's pretty.  And it looks awesome with the wing chair and the little gold side table between it and the couch.  Even though it makes the couch look enormous, I really love my new wee coffee table.  (And to be honest, the couch doesn't look so large without a bunch of old blankets draped over it.  Hopefully there's slipcover news in the near future).

I really  should think up a tag/label for "furniture that's been cobbled together from parts cannibalized from parts of other stuff."  But shorter.

Aside:  No shit, a friend of an ex, years ago, was the WORST at mis-using words.  One night while the boys were gaming, I overheard him describing a pirate ship that had been "galvanized" from parts of other ships, and I just could NOT keep from bursting out laughing.  I was dying laughing, and yes, I had to explain why - and then I had to explain what "galvanized" and "cannibalized" meant, and he didn't believe me,  and he was SO MAD.  Shitforbrains.