Sunday, January 30, 2011

Thrift find.... lamp shade

So, I'm taking a break from my multiple projects to blog. Partly because I'm tired and excited to share:) I found an amazing lamp (picture to come) at a thrift stop for my family room redo so I needed a cool shade. Thankfully, I looked up in another thrift store because all his lamp shades were on a shelf collecting dust. I spotted this beauty! Love the lines! The picture does a poor job showing it's current fabric which is a minty light green with small cream dots. It's nice the way it is but it doesn't match what I have going on in my room.

Deconstructing the shade

The new fabric and trim is a silk like material with details gold thread running through it. It has a different color tone when you look at it from varying angles. It will be the perfect accent of silvery blue I'm looking for. Now off to finish my kitchen valence. Lowe's here I come:)

Saturday, January 22, 2011

Ottoman transformed!!

BEFORE
Can you tell I lived in Florida!



AFTER


I think it looks amazing!

It has changed the character of the room completely. I have quite a bit of warm colors on the first floor so the silvery blue adds a nice contrast.

Here's a close up. We made the cording from striped fabric that I'm using on coordinating reversible pillows. And below, is one of those pillows I made last night. I stayed up way past my bedtime to get it going. All I have is the hand sewn closure to do. I envision more late night to come in order to complete the seven pillows left!

Not bad if I do say so myself. This is the first real pillow I've made! I have to give a big shout out to my partner in redecorating crime, Deb! She has given the push and guidance to just go for it. Thanks!!


Here's the striped fabric on the reverse of the pillow. That will also be used as cording of other pillows. So much to do but it'll be well worth it!

Saturday, January 15, 2011

A sneak peak of more things in to come in the family room...

As I previously posted, my new chairs are set to arrive this Thursday. I've been anxiously awaiting them to make some changes in our family room. As you can see below, our ottoman is in a Florida state of mind. We've been in Virginia for 4 years now - it's time to de-palm tree the house! The geometric print in cream and brown will be the top and the silvery blue diamond fabric will be around the bottom with the stripe made into cording. It will look amazing!!


The pillows will be in the fabrics with alternating fabrics for cording and some will have fancy prefab cording.

T

I'm going to find spray paint in that silvery blue color and paint some of the decorative vases on the shelves to add more contrast.

Here's another look at my fabric finds - gotta love Williams and Sherrill (especially when there's a 20% off sale!!!)

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Table with some old fashion character - literally!

This is a view of the bay window area in our family room. As you can see, it's overrun by kid stuff. I'm reclaiming it as adult! My long awaited chairs from Arhaus are being delivered next week - very excited! I bought them about 8 weeks ago for a great price. They are now nearly double so I got them for almost a 2 for 1 price. I thought about finding used ones then recovering them but Scott has a serious cat allergy that worries me.

Today, on my always anticipated Mom's AM out, my partner in redecorating crime and I found an amazing table at Town and Country (a furniture consignment store I love). I saw it in the window as we pulled up and immediately loved it's shape. From the beginning, I wanted a round or oval table to nestle between my new chairs. Upon closer inspection, it had so much character. As you see above, the top has a old faint portrait of George and Betsy Washington.

The side edge has a flower metal running strip and the top of each leg has a painted bow.


The love the distressed look and shape of the table. It'll set higher than the arm of the chairs but I think it'll add the height the area needs especially with a lamp. I nearly passed on it because my husband now claims I'm added to much antiques. What does he know about decorating?!

Sunday, January 2, 2011

Curtain panel becomes valence


I had these velvet dark green curtain panels in their original packages for years. In my last house, I purchased them for pocketing sliding doors. But, they weren't long enough so I just tucked them away. Several times I've considered just putting them up for Goodwill but didn't. Now I'm glad I kept them. I made them into valences for my living room. I didn't even need to sew. I cut them in half and stapled the top to a 2x1 board then L bracketed to the wall. Ok, I did have to sew several plastic circle pieced to the back to create the gathered affect. But, they were made in a matter of hours. I love them! They really polished off the room.


DC, here we come!


After surviving the Christmas holidays with sanity intack (sort of), Scott decide that we should take a train ride to DC. It quickly turned from a one day trip to see the dinosaur exhibit at the Smithsonian to ...well, we should just go from a couple nights so we can really see things and not be rushed. An hour after booking the train tickets and reserving a hotel room, I remembered! We have a dog! Poor Cody! I had completely forgotten him! Thankfully, our vet was open to take him that evening. So, off we went! Above is Jackson admiring the lion in front of Embassy Suites (which by the way rocked! Free buffet bfast in the AM!!).

The day we arrived. We went to see the White House. Julia and Jackson were thrilled just to be off the 2 hour train ride more than anything.

We toured the Natural History Museum. The rock exhibit was really cool! I love that they definitely have children in mind. And know they just need to touch things.

While Julia was taking a much needed nap, Jackson and I escaped to the Capital Building. This was his favorite! He talked about wanting to live here. But, after I said he couldn't climb a tree (just didn't think that was a good idea with a cramp load of armed guards around), he quickly decided there were too many rules to live in DC.

The Christmas tree was huge!! We never made it there at night to see it light up.

Jackson and I also ventured into the botanical garden (mainly b/c he had to go "pee"). He told me that Ms. Ann just lets him go in the bushes (again, didn't think that was a great idea given the armed guards). The gardens were beautiful. I'm glad he had to go to the bathroom:)

The last day was a trip to the Air Space Museum. Julia earned the "worst kid in the place award" that day. She threw her shoes and laid out on the floor over not getting marbles from the gift store. Two and marbles - don't think so! Anyway, we quickly forget those tantrums and focus on the adventure of fun! Scott has the dinosaur fossil pictures on his phone. I'll post once they are uploaded.