About That Chair...

So when I said I was going to re-upholster the chaise and the green wing chair, I may have lied a bit.  Accidentally.  I'd been trying to decide whether or not to try something else with that chair first, and last night the mood struck me and off I went. The project isn't finished yet; but I'm halfway through and it's looking really promising!

The "green" wing chair before: 

• faded in very weird and random patterns
• several horrible shades of ex-green

I thought about re-upholstering the chair.  And about simply making a slipcover for it - or even just buying a cheap one.  But then I kept seeing blog posts like this one, and pins like this.  I decided that I'd try it, and if it didn't work I could always just make a cheap slipcover out of some old cotton twill I have from a previous furniture project. 

And so I mixed a capful of liquid Rit dye, in black, with about a 1/4tsp salt and a 1-1/4c HOT HOT HOT water, put it into a spray bottle, and went to town: 

During...

I chose to go with a spray bottle instead of a brush after a test on the bottom of the chair showed me that a brush would take A FRILLION YEARS and also ruin my brush, because of the lumpy-bumpy weave of the fabric.

I was concerned about striping, but figured if I can spray paint things, I could do this.  And, as it turns out, the same technique kept striping and blotching from happening:  sweeping, side-to-side motions with the sprayer.  I noticed it also helped greatly to (a) follow the grain/nap of the fabric, (b) spray in vertical sections, and (c) work from bottom to top, which keeps the top from dripping off the dry fabric below it if to much builds up in one place and begins to run. 

Other things I learned: 

WEAR GLOVES.  

Not-Really-After...yet...

So, here's the wing chair, sans seat cushion, after a single coat of black Rit dye. After I sprayed it (in sections), I went over it with a hot blow dryer to begin heat-sealing the color.   The next stage will be to apply a second coat, and then to spray it with vinegar to set the color even further and heat-treat it again; once all that's dried completely I'll take it outside and spray it with a fabric sealant.  

The best thing about it so far - aside from the chair already looking velvety and lush - is that this morning, without any further treatment at all, I couldn't get any color off the fabric with my hand!  

The color's pretty even, especially given how faded the fabric was to begin with.  A second coat will even it out completely;  and it'll also darken the color to actual black.  Rit's "black" does a great job of dyeing things purple when you don't use enough of it!   I also still have to do the seat cushion.  So far, I've only used about half a bottle of dye (I had two bottles to start with). 

More on this as soon as it's done!  :D




P.S. - my knees hurt. Something I always forget about spraying large objects? It's basically like doing three hours of squats and deep knee-bends.  >_<

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Speaking of Rugs...

So, I totally missed Bulk Item pickup last week.  Totally forgot about it.  I managed to throw my old kitchen sink out to the curb before the trucks started passing through, but that's about it.

But then, on the way home from work that day, I passed a pile that hadn't been there before, and on top of it was this:

DON'T JUDGE ME.  I know this whole picture looks like grandma's house.  The chair and the chaise are soon to be reupholstered in fabric FAR less grannyrific.  Just hang in there.

Look at the RUG.  That's a free, 9x11" area rug.  It's a cheap rug.  It's a thin rug.  But overall it's in great shape.  I don't know why someone chucked it to the curb, except that maybe they just got a new one, but it's perfect for my big living room, and looks fantastic.  (The Surya rug that I won last year is now in my guest room; and I'll be talking about that more later this week).  It needed some serious vacuuming, and I used the shampoo-er/steamer on this rug, too, and now it's fantastic-looking.

It's also a bit more wine-colored than it looks in the picture, which is kinda BRIGHT RED.

But anyway - yay!

So, more on the guest room, and about some more free furniture later this week!


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The Magic Sucking Machine

I borrowed a Hoover SteamVac from a friend this week.  It was heavy. And slow.  And it worked AWESOME.  Holy crap, my rugs are clean.  Look:

This is  my Surya rug before cleaning.  It's a year old and I have three dogs.






Please to be ignoring the furniture in the background.

And this is after.  The colors are sharper, and so is the definition in the pattern.  Not all, but most of the lighter stains even came out.




I didn't have any carpet solution, so I made my own, which I've used successfully in a Bissel hand-held steamer before, which is basically just a squirt of laundry detergent and about 1/2c peroxide in the hot water tank.

The $10 Goodwill rug in the master bedroom before cleaning...

And after.  Again, colors and definition sharper.




I know, I know - all I did was clean my rugs.  But I'm impressed with the Hoover.  I'm thinking about getting one of my own.

Rory supervised this activity.


















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Gettin' Stoned: A Wee Side Project

There once was a box made of wood: 

That I thought I might paint, if I could.  

I sat down to begin

With a brush and a grin

And I think it came out pretty good!  

. 

I See A Nightstand and I Want To...

WAY before - when I found this little guy on a curb.

Then I smoked some crack and painted it this color.

 And now it's black.

I also painted the matching blue file cart from the ex-art space/craft poop dumping ground black, like this one.






More on that soon.






Meanwhile, I've been playing Houseplant Rodeo in the living room again:

I had this big ol' Bird of Paradise plant (Strelitzia reginae) in the big window corner behind the wing chair, because (a) light and (b) sitting in the jungle.  On a wing chair.

See the loooong green stick sticking up out of the center of the plant? That's a leaf that formed but then never opened.  I finally realized it was because that one leaf was getting no sunlight, ever.

(yes, the lampshade is too small. deal with it)

So I put it on the floor back there, and shifted the living room furniture a bit to make sure it fit without being crammed-in.  I miss the visual height, but I like that it actually makes it look like the room is bigger than it is, because there are things tucked away behind the main seating area.

Also a ZZ Plant (Zamioculcas) on the little music table I made a while back, in that corner.

This is my view when I'm loafing about, usually playing games on my phone while waiting for my nails to dry, on the chaise lounge in the living room.  Whee.








More stuff coming soon.


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Chuggin' Right Along

Things I've gotten done this week:

First I cleaned the sewing room.  

Then I emptied what was my "art space" (read: "storage

 pit"), except for a few items which are staying in the 

room or just couldn't be moved elsewhere. 

Most of what was in the "art space" got moved into

 the sewing room; but the actual ART stuff I moved into the 

"music  room" side of  my looooong living room.  

It's a bit of a clusterfuck.

Then I moved this little white ceiling

fan, which was WAY too small to do 

much good in my 16x18' bedroom...

...into the 10x11' ex-art-space, which 

works MUCH better. 

Then I took this old ceiling fan, which HAD been in

the "art space" (and was originally the living room fan

when the house was built in '04)...

...took it apart and spray-painted the entire thing

(props to Pretty Handy Girl, without whose blog I

wouldn't have been brave enough to try lots of things)

...and put it into the master bedroom, which needed 

more air flow.  The fan is still dated and ugly...

but at least it's not bright brassy gold anymore. Eugh. 

Oh, and I also spray-painted this $1 Ikea clock gold. 

I hate it. But whatever, LOL. 

More soon.

P.S. ...

Have I mentioned how much I HATE the
Ikea flooring I put in the side rooms because
it was cheap?   I dropped this screwdriver from a
height of about 8'.  IT STUCK IN THE FLOOR.
Buy the real flooring, kids.  

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Artin' Around

For all my talk (mostly, admittedly, to myself) about making my spare room into an art studio/craft space, I sure didn't get around to it, aside from dealing with the windows, the lanterns you see here, and re-organizing the closet.  That was a big deal in itself, but even as the room started coming together, I realized one pretty major thing:

I don't like painting in that room.

It's 10x10', with 9' ceilings, just like my sewing room.  My sewing room, though, is
(a) well-organized
(b) mostly sitting down-activities


In the "art room", though, is a HUGE wooden trestle table (my ex-b/f's, until such time as he has room for it in his new place), and a whole bunch of small storage furniture for art supplies - a rolling taboret, rolling file cart, and couple of small shelving units that house things like paper and sketchbooks and blank canvases.  There are also now *three* easels in the room.

I like to stand up to paint.  I like to walk around.  I like to step back from a canvas and walk around looking at it, periodically.  When I work with pastels, I like to sprawl out on the ground or on some comfy furniture, with all my supplies arranged around me in a big circle.  And so I've found that when I art, I art in the living room, a big, open space with great lighting and plenty of room to move and spread out.  The extra room became a storage space dumping ground for art supplies I "put away" by piling them up on the work table instead of putting in the extra three seconds of effort to put them actually away. 


But then a goddamned miracle happened.  The next two weeks of my life will involved a complete overhaul of this room AND of my craft room, and bunch of other stuff, too.  Because of reasons.

To be continued...

And Now For Something Completely Different...

Hey, check it out, guys, I'm selling my artwork!

Visit   my new Etsy shop: 

Shop now! 

What: 

• soft pastel drawings and sketches
• acrylic paintings
• available framed or un-framed

Why?  

• Because where the hell would I hang dozens of drawings and paintings?  I must make it...therefore eventually, I must sell it. 

When:

• Right now! Go buy art!   

For updates and new product info:

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