What A Little Paint Can Do

By: ornamento.blog
Art, Home Decor, Painting, Personal History, , , 3 Comments on What A Little Paint Can Do

I’m done!  I have finished painting my bedroom and redoing my powder room.  Of course, nothing is easy in my funky little South Philly house.

HeadboARD2See the before picture here.

I bought a new fixture for the powder room sink which a friend offered to install for a dinner in return.  The faucet install, which should have taken one hour tops, took five hours and entailed trying a myriad of tools (most of which I had, believe it or not).  Why?  Because the person who first installed the sink attached the old faucet first and then nailed the sink to the wall effectively blocking the gaskets that would have to be removed 28 years later to install a new faucet.  After trying a number of things, Mike ended up chipping off the old gaskets v-e-r-y carefully with a chisel and a rubber mallet.  headboardEveryone was starving by the time we sat down to dinner.   The homemade crab and scallop pasta was good but the flourless chocolate cake almost made up for the funky faucet install.  Get the recipe here.

The walls are not straight in my bedroom and you feel like you are working on a ship in a storm as you are cutting in the paint line near the ceiling.  At least I did.

 

But at least I didn’t hit the ceiling fan with my paint pole.  That was my biggest fear.
Chiffarobe

I decided to try some decorative painting on our ultra cheap and wobbly closet doors.

 

Mirror

I think the broken mirror mirror looks better on the newly-gray walls.      Before

 

Windows

I painted the decorative frames around the windows silver with black accents.  They had been gold.

I think the gray paint sets off my husband’s night table nicely, too.

                    Camillerelaxing

I will post pictures from the powder room redo in the fullness of time.  But for now, I gotta get packing.  I’m heading to  ClayConnection2018 later this week.

My Old New Couch

By: ornamento.blog
Art, Design, dumpster diving, Hand Made, Home Decor, How to sew piping, inspiration, Personal History, Philadelphia, problem solving, Recycled furniture, recycling, repurposing, Sewing, Slipcovers, , , , , , 6 Comments on My Old New Couch

OK, so it’s not really new, but the cushion covers are. I also made floor pillows (shown on the couch here) throw pillows for the couch and leather chairs, and covers for a couple of bed pillows (the pillows slip in a slit in the back) that are  good for lounging.  I heard someone say that being “green” does not mean that you throw away your belongings and buy new things made with organic materials; it means you find a way to reuse what you already have. That’s what I did.  One less couch in a land fill.


These are called “hamburger cushions.    My mother-in-law had them on her sofa and I always admired them.  My mother taught me how to make box cushions and piping,  but I had no idea how to make hamburger cushions and could not find a pattern.  I don’t sew enough to be able to figure it out.  Then, one day, someone on my block threw out a sofa with hamburger cushions.  I swiped  one of the covers and figured out how to make my own.  Saved by my not-so-inner dumpster diver.

I tacked the striped material to the front of the couch.

Throw pillow on leather chair.  Brown fabric on reverse


This is the back of the bed pillow cover.

I had to make miles of piping for this project.  I learned a wonderful new way to cut and sew the fabric fast and neatly.  Here are the YouTube videos.

I hereby nominate Karen Erickson for a Nobel Prize in sewing!

One last thing.  Most home decor junkies are lamenting the passage of Domino Magazine. The good news is  the former editor of Domino started  Lonny Magazine which you can only read on line. Check it out!