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...

Another Post-Vacation Project Idea, Re: Guest Room Makeover

Because of the sort of cottage-y look the guest room ended up with, I'm considering maybe painting some  trompe-l'oeil "architectural" stuff in this room.  I made some mock-ups in MS Paint (hi-tech, baby!), but I can't decide which I like the best...

The first pic is unaltered.  The second is a sort of horizontal siding/clapboard cottage thing.  Which I really
love, because of the height it adds to the room;  I also feel like it makes the room seem bigger. 

The third picture is a paneled wainscoting, about picture-rail height (probably about up to my shoulder). 

I'm just not sure.  I love the wainscoting behind the bed; but I love the paneling pretty much everywhere
else. I also sort of love the wonky lines in the mock-ups, hehe...makes me wonder about freehanding this
with a laser level instead of taping or stenciling it on straight.  Hm. 

What do YOU think?

Guest Room Before & After!

Sweet Pea approves of ur makeover.

Holy cow, did Kress and I work our collective BUTT OFF yesterday!  The guest room went from a big empty space to a finished guest room in about 7 hours.  My back huuuuuuurts.  But it's done!

Not everything is as it should be, or will be in the "final," "finished" room; but the room's ready for an actual guest - who will be arriving next week.

Wanna see the room "before"?  Hope you're sitting down...

Before


Toldja!  Crammed full of music gear, a drum set, and 8-year-old carpet that was naaaaasty.  The drum set was sold, and the carpet removed - Kress suprised me last week by removing the carpet and readying the slab floor while I was at work.  Yay!

The white walls are really just primer'd white, from baseboard to ceiling fan.  Bo-ring.  One day there'll be a color in here...once I decide what that color is going to be.

a garage full of crap that was waiting to go into the room

After 

Bed and nightstand: free, from a friend.

Curtain, and the tablecloth over the wooden bookcase:  already had.

Wooden bookcase:  already had (actually, Kress' dad built that, a million years ago).

All of the bedding is new, from Kohl's - the only new pieces we bought for the room, aside from the flooring that we installed yesterday, which is the same flooring from Ikea that we used in the craft room.

Most of the artwork was already in the room;  I added the mirror, and one of the document frames.

The clock is the one from my sewing room.

While the room isn't finished, I do like the overall feel of it.  The comforter is polyester, and feels pretty gross.  It was a quick, cheap, "Oh, shit, we don't have a comforter" type thing.  It'll do for now, but I do plan on replacing it pretty much as soon as I can.

The closet doors are the blue ones that were once in the craft room, when I thought I wanted a blue closet, lol.

There's Sweet Pea on the bed again.  He and Rabi CLAIMED this bed pretty much the second it was set up and dressed - neither of them have left it since.

The more I look at this room, the more I really, really like it.  It's kind of random and homey.

Kress, hard at work on nailing the baseboards back on, after five hours of putting down the floor itself.

I'm pretty impressed with our materials estimation abilities, LOL.  We ended up with only half a box of planks left over - not much to store, and perfect for finishing out the thresholds in this room and the craft room (whenever we get around to that).

This room still has to double as a music room, which will require some creative furniture arrangement in the future;  but for now it's ready for company next week.
:)

Tiny crappy screwdriver:  not a nail set!
Whoops.  (My bad).








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+3 Vacuum Cleaner of Awesome

Introducing: Da Bomb

Seriously, this little blue thing for the WIN.  Got a new vacuum this week.  A canister, for the first time - I dunno where this thing's been all my life, but I'm pretty much never going back.  I can't even describe the filth that happens to my floors with eight four-legged animals running around the house;  this thing made sweeping twice, vacuuming twice, then mopping into...just vacuuming.  Once.  0_0



Other things going on in the Land of Me: 

• MAJOR preparations for Gulf Wars, a big honkin' SCA event in two weeks, that I'm actually pretty prepared for, except for the part where I'm going to be spending the next twelve days sewing like a woman possessed. 
• I got the HOA approval to hang the storm door (seriously, guys? a month?), so, next spare ten minutes I get that's not taken up by sewing is going to get devoted to spray-priming and -painting the door and mounting hardware to match the trim on the house, and getting it hung in place.  Can't wait!
• I'm also in the process of putting the flooring - and everything else! - into the guest room all in one fell swoop.  Gulf Wars is out of state, and so Kress' mom is coming to house-sit and dog-sit, so we're sprucing up the guest room for her.  We got an entirely new set of bedding and linens for the room from Kohl's recently;  and I've been gathering furniture from Craigslist and friends.  I can't wait to show you! 

More updates as soon as I can!

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