Search Results for: window mistreatment

As An Added Bonus, Maude Would Be Totally At Home Here

5 July 2011 by

So there’s this little room off of our kitchen/breakfast area, and we’ve used it several different ways in the almost five years that we’ve lived here. I’m a little fascinated/obsessed by what the room was used for originally, but we have no idea. I think maybe it was a small den with louvered doors (that have since been removed) so that MAMA COULD HAVE SOME PEACE, but it’s hard to tell. It might have been an office (did houses built in the early 70s have offices?), or maybe it was a morning room.

I have no idea what a morning room is, by the way. I’m just grabbing at straws here.

But as far as how we’ve used the room – well, first it was a playroom for the little man.

Then it was an office for me when my Hoopty Laptop died.

Then it was a slightly redecorated office.

This is riveting, isn’t it?

THE ROOM NEXT TO OUR KITCHEN: A PORTRAIT SERIES.

Anyway.

As I’ve mentioned before, a few months ago D and I decided that the room would be a great place for the eight year-old and his buddies to hang out and watch movies and play the Wii and whathaveyou. That’s why I bought a groovy sofa at an estate sale back in May.

You’ll be happy to know that we did in fact move it off of the driveway. Moved it all the way into our garage, in fact. Where it’s been for, you know, about the last six weeks. -Ish.

Yesterday, however, I finally got around to rearranging/repurposing the room ONCE AGAIN, and I have to say that I think this incarnation is my favorite yet.

But first, a disclaimer: if an, um, ecelectic home environment isn’t your thing, then you may find that these pictures make you long for a quiet corner and soft music and some matching chairs. It’s just that I like a mix of things, and I especially like color. I operate by the theory that if I’m drawn to something, then that something will work in my house. And if the something has a history, then all the better.

So.

This is from the hallway by the kitchen:

And this is from the breakfast room:

And we should probably talk about that gigantor painting above the sofa, shouldn’t we?

Oh, all right.

That painting is one of those things that I saw and immediately loved for no logical reason. I was in my hometown at a flea market where a family friend, Ben, sells some antiques and collectibles and whatnots. The painting was in his booth, so I said, “Ben? Is it wrong that I kind of love that painting? Because I really, really like it.”

And Ben said, “Oh, I totally get it. It’s so bad that it’s fabulous.”

So I bought it for very few American dollars. And when I hung it up yesterday, it made me smile.

And yes, I could have moved all the other stuff on the wall, but that would have been a lot of trouble. Plus, everything on that wall means something to me or to our family, so it’s not going anywhere.

I also thought about having some pillows made in the same fabric as that little window mistreatment, and I still may do that down the road. I’m still not settled on my throw pillow combination – I have some extras in the back of my car right now, just waiting to return to World Market and Target – but I’ll keep working on it. It’s already different than it was when I took pictures this afternoon, mainly BECAUSE I’M INSANE.

I had something bolder pictured in my head, but anything bolder will fight with the fabric on the windows. And I’m really sentimental about the fabric on the windows.

I know. I’m weird. But I totally welcome any pillow-related advice you have to offer.

The best part of the whole process, though, was that I had barely finished moving the furniture when A came inside with our neighbor, B. I put on a movie for them, and they settled in like they’d been hanging out in there forever.

B even moved the ottoman in front of the computer so that she could stretch out across it, and I thought that was perfect – I’d been thinking of moving the ottoman to that spot anyway and letting it work as a little coffee table.

So there you have it. I guess the room is officially a den now. A 1970s den.

And something about that just tickles me to pieces.

Filed Under: Decorating, Family Fun

It’s Curtains For Me

19 October 2010 by

I’ve been meaning to hang curtains in my dining room for a sweet forever. I didn’t want anything elaborate or fancy or complicated – just simple panels – but I knew that they were probably going to have to be made by somebody else because, well, I don’t sew. Unless you count those six cloth napkins with gapped seams that I managed to put together back in 2001, of course. They were a real treasure.

This past spring I actually saw some curtains that I loved at World Market, but I didn’t buy them because, well, I just didn’t. I also looked at fabric a couple of times over the summer – even thought about the possibility of doing some mistreatments – but I couldn’t commit.

The draperies, they overwhelmed me.

A couple of weeks ago I was in World Market with Sister in Nashville, and I remembered the curtains I’d seen several months before. I walked over to the window treatments section, looked around for a second and then I saw them – just as cute as I remembered – ONLY NOW ON SALE. I was intrigued.

When I got home I kept thinking about those World Market curtains and how they might be just the thing to add some warmth to my dining room. After all, I’d discovered them a while ago, but the magic was still there. The thrill wasn’t gone. And since I’d set aside some money for house stuff and still had a little left over, I knew I could swing the curtains purchase without breaking the bank. Plus, curtain rods were also on sale, SO CLEARLY THE LORD WAS IN ALL OF IT.

Now normally my spiritual gift is to overthink things to the point of complete inaction, but since I’ve been shielding my eyes from the morning glare in the dining room for about four years, I figured that it was time to commit to either the curtains or some blinds or maybe even a big ole sheet. And that is why, after seven whole months of thinking about the various and sundry window treatment-related possibilities, I marched (okay. drove.) right over to the World Market and bought me some curtains.

I KNOW.

And guess what?

I love them.

(However, I should probably make the Martha-esque disclaimer that I don’t LOVE them LOVE them! I just really like them! Because you love God! You love people! But you don’t love things! Unless it’s a jacket from Steinmarts! I mean, it just stands to reason! Their jackets are perfectly beautiful! And so handy if you need a light sleeve!)

The curtains really do add so much color to the room, and they make me smile. So I’d call that a win.

The only drawback? The length on them isn’t exactly right because the molding around our windows interfered a little bit with the ideal height for the brackets, but I’m not nearly as interested in perfection as I am in the fact that I FINALLY GOT SOME CURTAINS. Eventually I may add a little piece of coordinating fabric or trim to the bottom, or I may not. There’s just not a bit of telling.

So there you have it. I can now check one more item off of my to-do list – which means that the DVR and I are about to have a marathon catch-up session. It’s time.

(I’ve missed you terribly, 30 Rock and Survivor.)

(The curtains and I will be there soon!)

Filed Under: Decorating

So I Painted My Kitchen Cabinets, Part Two

9 June 2009 by

Before I bore you to crashing new lows with pictures of how I put up some window treatments in my kitchen without sewing a single stitch, I feel like I need to say something.

I still haven’t watched the most recent episode of The Bachelorette. I know. I KNOW.

So, since I haven’t seen it, I haven’t blogged about it. Some sweet friends spent the night with us Monday, and we ate good Mexican food and painted canvases (oh yes we did) and played spades and ate strawberry cake. It just didn’t seem right to interrupt all the fun to watchThe Bachelorette and then have to listen to Tanner P. talk about Jillian’s feet.

Any. way.

A few of y’all have emailed me with cabinet-painting questions, and considering that I have painted kitchen cabinets one whole time in my life, I don’t know that I’m your best resource. But as far as my personal experience: no, I didn’t sand the doors. Well, that’s not entirely true. I sanded one of them, hated the mess it made all over my countertops, decided that sanding would make my life miserable since it would essentially shut down my kitchen for a full day and the people around here are real funny in that they expect to eat and stuff, so I didn’t sand. I also didn’t take the doors off before I painted because the hinges had already been painted, so it wasn’t like I could restore them to their original glory. I just painted over them again. I also didn’t paint my shelves because they didn’t really need it.

Another also: since our house is about 35 years old, our cabinets are real-live wood, and I think that’s one reason the painting was pretty easy. Maybe. I don’t know. Maybe laminate is easier. I don’t know. Why am I giving advice? I’m an amateur. Don’t listen to me.

I have some issues with confidence.

After I finished painting the cabinets, I decided to recover my chairs in the fabric I showed you a couple of days ago. You know. This stuff.

So I recovered the chairs and really liked the results but felt a little sad that you couldn’t see the fabric as soon as you walked in the kitchen. It seemed like the fabric needed to be on the windows, but how in the world could I do that because I’m not a very strong seamstress, and by that I mean that while yes, I could sew on a button for you, you wouldn’t necessarily want for me to do that. Because of how horrid it would look after I was finished and all.

But.

Saturday afternoon Melanie reminded me of a post of The Nester’s where she documented how she made window treatments in her sister’s kitchen. So I re-read it. And I thought about my fabric. And I decided that if I could just figure out the right places to fold it, I could do something similar.

The Nester uses upholstery tacks when she does no-sew window treatments, and while I did have some upholstery tacks, I was working by myself and couldn’t seem to keep the fabric in the right place AND nail in the tack. So I used clear push pins like you’d use on a bulletin board (obviously I am very, very fancy). I’ll go back at some point and replace the push pins with upholstery tacks, but for now they’re fine. You can barely see them.

I made a practice treatment on our garage door – I just cut about a yard of fabric, then folded it and folded it until the part of the pattern that I wanted to show was showing AND until I figured out what length worked best on our window panes. This part of the process probably took me 30 or 45 minutes – there was lots of folding and refolding and pushpinning and whathaveyou – but once I figured out a little system, it was easy breezy from there on out (Nester’s instructions are way more specific and helpful, by the way).

And here’s the almost-final result, except for the part where I replace the push pins with upholstery tacks and make a few little daily adjustments because I am an obsessive adjuster and also quite annoying.

This is in the little office off of the kitchen, only now it’s totally even because you’d better know I spent some quality time getting everything JUST SO Sunday afternoon.

And this is in the actual kitchen, only now the one on the far right is a little bit shorter so that it matches up better with the others. The big window in the center actually has two separate window treatments – I just tried to pin them so they’d look like one big thing.

(Yes, I know the animal print on the table doesn’t match. I’ll cross that bridge in a couple of days or maybe sometime in 2012.)

Best part?

TOTALLY FREE.

Zero dollars and zero cents.

And on top of that, the kitchen feels so much warmer and cozier and betterer. I can’t even tell you how much more “finished” it feels. Makes me smile every single time I walk in there – maybe even moreso because the fabric was Aunt Roxie’s and I just know she’d be so tickled that I’m getting to enjoy it every single day.

Here’s the thing: if you can fold fabric and use a thumbtack, you can TOTALLY do this. Oh yes ma’am you can. It may not be perfect, but it’ll be bright and crisp and colorful and cheerful. And that is always delightful.

The end.

Filed Under: Rambling