Creative Juices

My creative juices are spilling all over the place, but it might be better if they stayed in the glass. It's a bit messy in my house.



I'm still working on the dining room revamp. I decided to try again with the whole slipcover thing and did some work on one of the chairs a few nights ago. I started by spray painting it an espresso color. (See original here. It's the one on the left.) And then I got lazy and decided since I'm slipcovering the top part, I didn't need to paint the whole thing.

(Ai-phone photos make this whole thing look kind of crappy but when the whole room is done, I'll use the nice camera and make the reveal look even better. Yep, all part of the plan.)

Ok, I'll admit. I'm patting myself on the back. It doesn't look half bad! Compared to my slipcovered bench, I'd say I'm making progress! Still working on some final touches to the chair. But I'm hitting some road blocks with the overall look of the room. It's just not quite speaking to me yet. Got to mix up the juices a bit and hope for some inspiration.

Running helps, and I took a nice one yesterday. This cool weather is perfect for it, because no matter how cold it is, I still sweat up a storm.

The trees of fall lining my run

It's a good thing I did the run, because this was waiting for me at work today.

calories burned in a 1/2 hour run =
calories gained after inhaling a donut in 5 seconds

Dining room v3.1

The dining room revamp continues. So far, the walls are painted, a bench has been covered, and I also finished up some of the other chairs. 

Before

After

Does Rusty approve?

I keep going back and forth on whether I want the "Ladylike Luxe" as first mentioned here or more of a Vintage Luxe. My white chairs are looking antiquey since I was a bit heavy-handed with the spray paint. I sanded down the drops of paint, which exposed the light wood beneath. I've been eyeing the dinner table, thinking of giving it a complete makeover with paint. But I can't decide on a dark brown or leaving the brown top and painting the legs white, like this one.

Vanessa de Vargas

Plus I have two other chairs without cushions that need something. Slipcover? Yeah, not so good at that yet, as seen on my imperfect bench. Would love to build some sort of hutch up in the big empty hole. An area rug too. What else?

Random thoughts and yippees

1. The pink dahlias in my garden are on steroids. I don't know where they're getting them from, but definitely not from the white dahlias.

2. This song was playing on the radio today when I was driving through the neighborhood. I heart this song. I said "Yippee!" and sang along.



Then the radio person said they were playing at Treasure Island Music Festival on October 16. And I have tickets, which I had bought to see Death Cab for Cutie. And I didn't even notice them on the line up. "Yippee!!!" I said again.

3.  As I was driving, singing and yelling "Yippee," I saw that a DSW was opening up in the mall. Another "Yippee!" came out. As much as I would love to shop in cute little boutiques, I can't justify spending $400 on a pair of shoes. (Although I did spend almost that much in NY once when I went shopping after having cocktails. Not a good idea.) And I could get 6 pairs here for the price of one at a cute little boutique. So far my record is 4 in one trip. Maybe I shouldn't be yelling "Yippee!" I really have too many shoes. DSW: Danger Shopping Within, or Disaster Strikes Woman, or Deathly Stilettos... Whatever.  That would be a cool band name: Deathly Stilettos.

4. I am diligently working on the dining room. I am not a sewer. I can sew a straight line, but if I need to go around a corner, it's pretty ugly.

I took some leftover drop cloth and used it to cover the bench. It's pretty sad looking, but who says I was looking for perfection? I read all these blogs and everyone's crafts look amazingly perfect. Totally admire that, and I can definitely crank out some awesome looking crafts. This bench cover is not awesome looking. But I'm keeping it.

I didn't even know what piping really looked like until yesterday

5. I did whip out these lovelies. My friend is turning 40 and I'm about to head out to his party. My other friend and I are putting together a joke basket, but I made a normal card, using one of those paint swatch thingys and some stencils. And then I got him a gift card, but I hate those plastic things. So I made him a customized one. Yippee!

Redecorating

Just about every room in my house is in some stage of redecorating. The two top rooms on my redecorating list are the dining room and the craft room, which is currently the "throw all your junk in here" room.

I decided to start tackling the dining room. As I'm big into repurposing, I'm really going to try to limit my purchases and use whatever I have lying around. Plus, I need to get rid of the junk in the junk room so I can finish redecorating that room.

Dining room circa 2010

When I moved into this house at the end of 2008, I was okay with the wall color. But the more I looked at it, the more peachy it became and the more I started to hate it. I finally painted the walls last month a Tiffany Bluish color after I found a can in the $5 pile at Home Depot. When it's on a little tiny box, the color is fantastic. But when it's on 10 feet of wall space, you start to feel like the Easter Bunny came in and got sick on your walls.

I started to flip through my Domino home decorating book, and came across this photo:

"Ladylike Luxe" is the title of the page. Yes, that's what I want! But can this luxe lady create a room like this on a budget? The wall is a bit busy for me, so I decided to try my hand at painting free hand.

It doesn't really have that luxe feeling to it, almost a bit childish. Is it the monkey? But I love monkeys! I'll have to let it simmer a bit while I work on the furniture. My plan is to add a slipcover to the bench, repaint the chairs with the blue cushion a white color, and haven't quite figured out what to do with the other chairs. Anyhow, let's see if I can finish this before the next millenium.