Lines

There is a time each morning that the sun gets to a particular angle and my bathroom fairly glows. The light spills out of the doorway and lights up the hallway and the living area.

I ventured in with my camera when that happened on Saturday to see what I could find.  Almost every set of lines I thought were interesting were juxtaposed against some curves.

See for yourself:

Saturday Morning

Stack

Before my guests arrived last week, I gathered up all the catalogs I had saved to look at "when I had a minute".  Because it only takes a minute to scan them, right?

Anyway, here you have it.  I think this is a month's worth.  Hard to tell because time has been flying by so quickly.

There's a blog, Simple Mom, that is encouraging living more simply.  Go see it.  The first week was to clean out your closet.  So I'm two weeks behind, but plan to get that closet project done this weekend.  I'm the original "as soon as I give that away, I'll need it".  The fact is, I don't wear half of what I have.  Time to purge.

Nostalgia

The other day I was visiting my friend, Maria. We stood in her kitchen admiring the china/crystal place setting her daughter selected...she had put it out for the in-laws-to-be's visit.  I turned and saw a punch of coral red among the ivy in her back yard.

Spider lilies!

It instantly took me back to my grandparent's home in Troy.  To the front corner of the front yard, to be precise.  Each September spider lilies would materialize overnight.

It was magic.

So Monday morning I went out to take out the trash.  The bin is on the side of the house.  The side with the ivy.

And I found my own spider lily, just one, growing in the ivy on the side of the house.

It felt like a visit from my grandmother.

And Again...

Here are some photos of the installed silhouettes.  I am pretty pleased with how they turned out.

In this one, you will notice the right side of the window is bare.  That's because I dream of finding a shallow covered cabinet for storage.  Sigh. 

Then reality struck.  I didn't do such a hot job installing the hanger on the top silhouette and it fell last night.  I had some freaked out dogs when it happened, let me tell you. 

So tonight will be reinstall and re-hang.  And repair the frame. 

Then again

Did you ever buy anything only to find later you can't imagine what you saw in it? 

And then you shove it under your bed because you don't have much storage space.

Where it proves that unless you yourself pull out the bed and haul the vacuum up from the basement, with attachments, no one else will vacuum up the dust behind and under the bed?

Then when you are faced with shoving all the other container store containers back under the bed you think I really detest those things.

Then again...with new images and hung on the bathroom wall, the simple black frame will be an asset.  Or spray painted another color, like off white, they could frame something on the bedroom wall.

Then again, the black would go well with the silhouettes I've been meaning to make of the dogs.

Hmmm....maybe it's time to try that silhouette thing in Photoshop again.

Here's Gus:

And Cotton:

I just printed them on orange peel Bazzill paper and stuck them over the original images.

And I'll hang them up later today.

Reuse, repurpose, make do. 

I'm getting there. 

Details

This is a light I bought at the monthly market south of town for my 'new' house.  It isn't perfect; it has a crack in the lip of the glass, and I think it shows here.  And it was supposed to have come from a prominent family's home (that I can't recall the name of) from around Philadelphia or somewhere else in the Northeast.

I had to put lightbulbs in the other day and was forced to dust the light - I couldn't avoid it any longer when the dust and I were face to face - and I remembered why I liked the light so much in the first place:  the details.

Hope you see the details in your day today!

Everyday Beauty

Do you remember those things that were popular in the 70s and 80s that showed you a seemingly random number of geographic shapes that once you 'saw' it the right way became a word?  Or the ones that if you let your eyes go slightly out of focus the secret image appeared?  There was one that was a letter sized series of lines that ended up being a wizened old crone-like woman.

Once you 'saw' it and knew it was there you didn't miss it again.

I have things like that in my day.  Things that are easy to overlook, but once you notice, you wonder how it escaped you.

In this house, built in 1936, it's almost 50-50 between good and bad.  I try to overlook the bad.  Like the way the toe mold doesn't hug the floor, but floats a good half inch away from the floor.  Or the crack in the bathroom floor that is slowly lengthening. 

Then there are the good things.  The cool plaster walls. The wavy glass window panes.  The floor in the attic.  The glass or crystal door knobs throughout with brass fixtures.  Except for the one on the back of the bathroom door, which is chrome and must be as bright as the day it was installed.  The smaller glass knobs on the built in corner cabinet.  The built in corner cabinet itself.  The bowed out windows in the dining room. The french doors to the screened porch. 

What do you see in your everyday?

Grace Notes

Hi, there.  My two classes are over, so I have time to take some pictures and I have really missed it. Every day has grace notes in it.  Little things that give you a moment to pause, refresh, let go or just enjoy. I thought I'd share some of mine from the past few days. 

Not sure which was brighter, the daffodil or the sun...I'm also not sure where I was focusing

And these always make me think of the yard on Elm Street. Those tiny little green dots are just perfect.

And by now I can hear my cousin singing "this is my Father's world" at age 10 or so as we walked down her street in Birmingham.

Didn't see that coming did you?  Me, either.  While I changed into dogwalking attire, Gus made off with a pump and promptly mistreated the lining.  Like he usually does.

Back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Love, love, love mossy pots.

This last one captivated me.  When I got home from dog walking, the sky was a lovely pinky rosey shade from the out of sight horizon up about a third of the sky.  By the time I got back out to photograph it, this is what I saw.

'Night, all.

Attic possibilities

Molly's Folly

Ignore the messily hung tower on the towel bar. Ignore the clothes hanger on the window. Ignore the dog who has crumpled up the bath mat. Oh, and ignore that bath mat, too.

Now, focus on the shower curtain. Or as I like to call it: Molly's Folly. I call it that because it took forever to find the fabrics to put together to match my vision and then it was quite expensive. I'm not admitting how much. But a lot.

It's got black fabric on top with gold bees and gold piping and then the body of the curtain is a black / cream check and the black stripes have gold edges. It all goes together quite grandly and it was my "grown up shower curtain" back when I foolishly thought I would have a pulled together, color coordinated house.

So, after Molly's Folly had been hanging for about a year, a flaw in the fabric opened up in a totally random place were there was no stress and I safety pinned it. Then it got spotted with bathroom cleaner (read little bleach spots all over) and the hem got really dirty. So after letting it hang another year in such a sad state, I recently took Molly's Folly down and to the cleaners. I entered it into their "Can this Shower Curtain be Saved?" contest. I doubt it.

In it's place I hung two $29 dollar Simply Shabby Chic shower curtains from Target. See the cool ruffle above? Technically, only one shower curtain is in these pictures because I had to go to a second store to find a second curtain.

I've decided that they fit my lifestyle much better. And they lighten up the joint.

So we'll see about Molly's Folly and whether it can be rehabilitated. In the meantime, the plain white curtain will do.

Any Follies at your house?

Coffee Table

I've been in my house since 2005. Still I do not have a respectable coffee table. Once I saw this one on The Lettered Cottage, I became hopeful I could find a thrift store table and come up with something along these lines.


There must have been a run on coffee table material, because to date? No serviceable options.

Love the coffee table in the shot above. Love the art over the fireplace, for that matter. Back to coffee tables.

This is one from the old Shabby Chic site. It gives me ideas also. But see paragraph 2 above.

This coffee table? I swoon for this coffee table. And it works in a small space.

So, there you have it. The tour of coffee tables - do you have a favorite?

See you tomorrow!

Illuminating

I am not especially stubborn. But when it comes to this light fixture, I have become downright

mulish.

Obstinate.

Dogged.

Pertinacious.

This chandelier has 6 bulbs. They never burn out together. I think they should burn out together so that I don't have multiple partial packages stowed all over the house (this is an organization theory gone awry - store bulbs in one place all together, or near the light fixture they were meant for?).

This is not much to ask.

So I will outwait, outwit, outlive these light bulbs and install 6 new bulbs at one time.

"As God is my witness, I'll never replace fewer than six again."

Just call me Scarlett.

View to a...View?

Here you have my latest design challenge...the view to their view. Yes, the window in my bathroom looks into the neighbor's dining room. Either end of the spectrum, I suppose.

Sorry.

Anyway, with the blinds open the hall has light. I love light. However, window, next to well, you know, so blinds can't be open that often.

Until I actually applied my brain and remembered one can buy window film, like this:

What do you think, internets?

To Answer Your Question

Several folks have asked if having thrift store finds re-upholstered is cost effective.



I think you have to make the call each time you find a piece. Sometimes it won't be worth the price of upholstery. But here's how my chairs worked out. [Forgive me Grandmother, I know you didn't like talking money.]



I paid $5 for each chair. With a start like this, it's hard to goof up.



Upholstery has two charges: the fabric and the labor. I knew exactly what the look was that I wanted. I found a linen that was reasonable, but there wasn't enough for two chairs and the fabric that could be ordered was double or more the price. Then I went back and looked for something that would give that look, and found the mini-check and a khaki colored solid for the piping. The second choice fabric, which has ended up looking better than the original linen chairs I saw in a magazine, was less than the linen I found that there wasn't enough of. Trims, like fringe, are extra. I wasn't interested in any of that this time.

I didn't use a decorator or a designer, so there was no markup fee.



The labor was $295/chair and the fabric worked out to $60/chair. I expect that labor would be less outside a major metropolitan area. This shop had done a chair for me before, and they did a good job, delivered on time and were pleasant and helpful.



Each chair cost a total of $360.



For $360, I got a custom covered chair. In this market, a new custom covered, good quality chair can run you $750 per chair and up (a quick internet search showed $299 at JC Penney , 2 fabric choices, and $800-$1200 at Pottery Barn, +50 fabric choices). You have to take my word for it, but these chairs are very high quality, and in very good shape. They didn't have any odors, so the foam under the fabric didn't have to be replaced.



The answer is yes, you could go with a new chair and possibly save money, or break even. Conversely, your fabric selections are limited.



If you live even remotely near a trade school, you can get your upholstery done for even less. My grandmother (same one who said you didn't discuss money in polite conversation) used to get some of her upholstery done that way, unless the upholstery came with the purchase of the piece of furniture. She said she saved about 33% off retail prices. Fabric would have to be purchased separately.

One last thing: using furniture from thrift stores and antique stores saves our natural resources and keeps things out of landfills. And usually the hardwoods and workmanship from the past can't be beat.


And with that, I endeth the upholstered chair show and tell.

Show and Tell: Wing Chairs

Back in December, I found these at a thrift store. Many times in Country Home, Country Living, Cottage Living, etc., I read how someone found chairs with great bones for very little, and had them recovered, and voila!, fabulous chairs. Now here I was with a pair of great chairs for very little. I finally settled on how I wanted the room to look, and took them to the upholsterer two weeks ago.

Before:




Fabric selection:




Drum roll, please.....at last, the chairs!













(no you aren't tipsy, the table is - but I've finally found a fix for that and will work on that next)

They are so crisp and fresh, I think.

The next thing I can obsess over will be what pillows to put in them. I've been thinking of a coral for summertime...

The Gate

The gate has a tenuous grasp on the right fencepost. I've resorted to putting an old dog lead around the left fencepost and gate so it doesn't just lie down in a light breeze and become a door mat for the dogs. And Gus or Cotton could bring down the whole house of cards by jumping up and placing front feet against the gate just to look out, providing more than enough reason for the hinge to abandon all claim to the fencepost.

It is one of the things that Tim is going to repair.

But one thing led to another and our schedules to get started haven't meshed.

Then, Tim lost his eldest son in a car wreck, just a couple of weeks ago. Tim and his wife are devastated, and their lives will never be the same.

Seems to me we're all like that gate, with the most tenuous of holds on life.

The slightest push or pull can changes things forever, and the gate is thrown open.

Impulse Buy

I went to one of my favorite stores today...Home Goods.




And I saw these lamps. As it turns out, I'm long over due for lamps for the living room.



These fit my major criteria: cost effective, interesting shape, white, texture...



all the tags are still on so if I wake up tomorrow with regrets, I can take them back.

But it's looking good. Real good.

Gingham

So, remember the chairs I bought at a thrift store in December for a ridiculously low price? Well, I was all set to have them covered in a natural linen and piped in black.

But.

Then.

I hemmed. I hawed. I couldn't commit. It was a sign, I decided, that the plan had a flaw.

Still, in the months that I have weighed my options, flipped through magazines and read countless decor blogs, nothing more appealing presented itself.

So, today I took myself and the chairs to the little upholstery place that was near where my best friend once lived. They covered a chair for me some time back, and did great work for a reasonable price.

I quickly found a linen fabric, for a reasonable price - $17.95. First hitch? There were only 8 yards, only enough for one chair. Other linens that could be ordered were more costly and the colors weren't just right, as the one in the store was.

There was this check, a gingham really, that I had noticed. Here it is with a swatch that will be the piping:



And here's one of the chairs:



The only decision left is whether to paint the legs a french grey or taupe or leave them as they are, a little dinged, and suggesting character.

They are supposed to be ready May 27.

I'm holding my breath 'til then.