I'm on a roll...

I'm on a roll of projects not turning out as good as I'd hoped.
First my brothers curtains were not as symmetrical as I had expected.
Then my own simple curtain shortening was anything but.

I thought I'd get on with my Ikea Bekvam step stool and guess what? It's turned into something really uninspiring.

Let me refresh your memories of the step stool as it comes...

I decided to begin with staining it walnut as I wanted to use my milk paint for a bit of hardcore shabby chic, and I like the wood that shows to have a strong contrast with the paint.

So here's the walnut:

 

Already looking better I think as the wood takes on this richer tone. 

Then I mixed up my milk paint and started to paint. Several coats later, NOTHING was happening. Not a single hint of a crack.

I blame the unfinished wood. I hate to waste my milk paint on things that go wrong. It's very expensive, whether you buy it here in the UK or import it yourself from Canada to save some money. I could have used a tester pot of emulsion from Wilkinsons for the same look. Nice smooth paint. I made it really thick and there was no change.

Distressing therefore doesn't look beautifully natural and chippy, just a bit forced.

I was hoping for some of this:

And I ended up with this:

Meh! Nothing special.

Anyway, there are plenty of other ideas on pinterest if you're into colourful, floral, or work that people are actually quite proud of.

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Lost weekend...

I finally tackled the living room curtains that couldn't be shortened for four years for a very valid excuse.  And it went wrong. I'm sooo fed up with curtains now!
Curtain one was fine. Three inches off the top, new tape, all fine and dandy.
Curtain two; not so good. Three inches off the top, new tape, hung it up and it was 2.5 cm shorter than the other one.

So the next day it came down and was painstakingly measured all along it's enormulous width and rebuilt. Ugh!

I think the moral of the story is 'don't wash your lined linen curtains'. I kind of knew that anyway but they were dirty where the previous owners had shortened them but let them trail on the floor so I risked it.

We got there in the end but I feel I have lost a weekend. Just need to add the hooks to the wall so I can use tie backs like the other window.

Offensive tv stand will be painted. Husband finds the tv offensive and wants a flat screen but I'm happy to wait til this one dies. I mean, tellys are not attractive are they?

These curtain poles are the first ones I ever put up on my own without my dad. I did not want to do it. My husband bullied me as we were skint and the man in the curtain shop wanted £60 to do it.
I'm so glad I did it because I actually hit a steel lintel and melted the masonry drill bit. At this point the curtain shop man would have said, ''you can't have them there'' or ''you've got to have a track'' or something, but I went to buy a metal drill bit and carried on (after a reassuring conversation with my dad about the likelihood of causing the house to fall down if you make a drill hole in a steel beam.) 

Now I put up all the poles and shelves around the house. My husband is not that way inclined. He's great at computers and making films but cannot even paint a wall. Anyway, I'm a control freak so it's best if I get to do it all.

Also this weekend has seen the passing of a much loved washing machine. Devastating. I was just about to change all the beds.

On a happier note we have shifted a table and 4 chairs! One down, one to go!

Hope your weekend was better than mine!

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Cleaning

Just a quick little post today, to let you in on some specials with Norwex this month.
I have been a consultant with Norwex for almost 5 years and I really can't emphasize it enough how much I love these products. I have eliminated all harmful chemicals from my house, my house is cleaner than ever (uh, that is when I do clean), I am saving money and I'm protecting the environment and my families health. Can you cleaning products do that?

Anyway, if you haven't heard of Norwex I guarantee it is not a scam. I don't have time in my life to try to scam others into buying something that don't need or doesn't work, and I wouldn't want to even if I did have the time. Plus, if you don't trust me, Norwex has a 60 day guarantee on all products.
Really, you should give it a shot! I swear you won't go back to your old way of cleaning.
You can read more about Norwex in my past post, here.

Here are the February Specials, they change month to month, so these are good for another week.

 

 For more products, please visit my website. If you have ANY questions at all please contact me. 

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Home at last...

We're back home after a nightmare journey that should've taken 2 1/2 hours and took 4 1/2. And we had no snacks! Disaster!

The six year old was a star and behaved impeccably but I was very naughty and swore and refused to play travel 'Frustration' as I was too upset. (Travel Frustration - the irony!)

We managed a morning of charity shopping and a boot sale whilst up in York. The deal is, she has to come with me to the charity shops and then we can go to her favourite shop, The Disney Store. When she spots her shop her face lights up and she starts skipping. She likes charity shopping too and finds a lot of cool stuff but the Disney Store is the main event for her, and it's equal to seeing Grandad as a reason for visiting York.

So here's my haul. (I'll spare you hers!)

A Meakin milk jug. I could just see this filled with flowers on the new(est) dining table. (Currently there are three tables here!) It was £1.50 from the boot sale. 

More kitchenalia. I can't help it. I was probably a scullery maid in a past life. That would explain the state of my hands too.

The most expensive thing here is the board which wasv £2. The rest were £1.

And a wooden shoe last. Every home should have one. Just not sure why.

Gorgeous Boden dress for my daughter to grow into. Charity shop find. Not particularly cheap but I do love a bit of second hand Boden.

Also this pretty George top for her. I would wear this if it was in my size!

A huge roll of this loose weave hessian 'ribbon' for £1. Apparently it's a product plasterers used to use. But I shall use it as ribbon on brown paper parcels for a rustic look...

Also recent Hitchin finds I haven't shared; I'm in love with these...

 This is the last remaining original wallpaper in the house... these were £9 for the set from a charity shop in town. They'd be squillions on ebay!

And I had to get this...

Right, I'd better go and sell some furniture because we're running out of space to move around here. Anyone need a dining table? We have all sizes!



Linking with Blackbird has Spoken  
and Me and My Shadow: Magpie Monday

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Design for Informal Learning

What is this project? This is a proposed new design to revitalize the School of the Environment (geology and environmental sciences) and the Dept. of Physics and Astronomy entry exhibits. Designs students used behavioral observations to understand user interaction in the entry gallery with the existing interpretive displays and hands-on exhibits. Less than 10% of visitors to the entry gallery visited the exhibits. The purpose of this design is to attract the attention of visitors in the space, as well as use the cases to tell a story moving from the larger picture of the Big Bang down to the small scale of the Palouse and WSU. Students collaborated in large teams to determine the programmatic components and interpretive proposals. They met with content experts from geology and physics to determine the 'big idea' for the exhibits. If you are on the WSU-Pullman campus stop by Webster Hall and look at the proposals. We welcome your feedback!

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Feeling Blue

I am not feeling sad, or depressed, I am feeling like decorating my whole house in blue lately. I am not going to literally but I am really loving seeing all the shades of blue out and about recently.
Blue is so calming and serene. It's my favorite color but for some reason I seem to have decorated most of my house in greens and browns. That is slowly changing. I am on a mission (a slow mission) to redo each room in my house. Some rooms will have big changes, some just little ones. But the main mission is to lighten everything up!
If you've read in some of my past posts, you know I live in Washington where there is green EVERYWHERE! I also live in a wooded neighborhood. While I have no problem with green, I guess I just want a change from the colors that I see outside everyday! So out will go my green and browns and in will come some blues (which we don't see too much of around here) and light neutral colors.
Here are some of the blue accents pieces I've seen lately that I like.

Zgallerie



West Elm

West Elm

West Elm

West Elm

West Elm

West Elm

West Elm

West Elm

West Elm



PB

PB

PB

PB

PB

Williams-Sonoma Home



Williams-Sonoma Home

Serena & Lily



Serena & Lily



Williams-Sonoma Home



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A bit of a mistake...

Well, the curtain making was all going swimmingly. I was actually starting to enjoy myself and I was feeling very smug about how far my curtain making skills had come. The first curtains I made were the ones I was replacing in my brothers kitchen and they were basically made like you would make a cushion cover; front sewn to back (lining) and tape at the top. That was fifteen years ago.

Now I make them properly, lined with thermal lining to add a luxurious look and do it by the book. I was finding it so easy with the checked fabric I thought that perhaps I should start a curtain making business using only checked fabrics. The Checked Curtain Company. Measure once and follow the line.

Then I realised I had totally stuffed it up.

You see here how the pair of curtains are completely aligned and the rows of colours are mirror images?

That's how they should have been.

Here's what I did.

The fabric has been flipped upside down (how!?) and the orange rows match but the yellows are off. Doh!
Fortunately my brother, being male, will neither expect them to mirror each other, nor notice that they don't.

And luckily, once hung and opened...

..the mistake is less obvious.
But I am cross with myself and no longer want a Checked Curtain Company. It's fraught with danger.

The other window with the single curtain is fine!

Perhaps I shall start The Single Curtain Company.

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It's curtains I'm afraid...

I suddenly realised it's half term next week and I was meant to have made some curtains to take up to York for my brothers kitchen. Gah! I hate making curtains. The maths makes my head spin.
Here's the fabric I chose.

The floor still makes my heart skip a beat :)

Very colourful. I'm hoping they will tie in with his kitchen that he replaced last year.
The straight lines are very helpful for cutting. I've done one curtain and there are two more to go...

Do you see our curtains in the background? They are Laura Ashley (via ebay) and have had the hems pinned up since we got them. My excuse was, I didn't know where the flooring would come to, so I couldn't shorten them. Well, the flooring is done so I have no excuses left now.
They're coming down and being washed and shortened from the top so I don't have to faff about with the hems on the curtains and the linings. Tedious job. But not as tedious as making them from scratch.

I'm also thinking ahead to the dining room makeover that's on the horizon. We have some electrical work to do first, then more wood flooring to go down and then I can sort that room out. I've got some cream curtains stashed away and I'm thinking of replacing the pencil pleat curtain tape with this:

Sorry this is a truly awful picture

Smocked curtain tape! Isn't that pretty? I have to figure out if it's right for the curtains I have; I read that it's best for lightweight curtains and mine aren't. And I'm hoping it's easy to use...

Also thinking ahead to the dining room, I would love this:

  

French style furniture. But my husband says no. We are sticking with chunky pine but painted. It'll work with what we've got, which is a large pine bookcase/ dresser that will be painted. I did replace that with a french style dresser that I painted but I couldn't get half as much in it so it had to go. It was 99p from ebay but my books didn't fit into it as it was more of a display cabinet.

The french one

So that bit the dust. The pine one came back in.

 A bit of primer adhesion experimentation has occurred...

We also have:

...but with grungier legs and a paler top, but it's too long for the room (we were going to take a wall down but not anymore) so I've been tracking down a shorter one.
It's a bit ridiculous, the amount of furniture that passes through this house. We moved in with 3 tables, one is now in the garden and two were sold. We bought another, decided not to keep it, bought another (the one we have now that's too big) and last week bought a smaller one that's too small. You'd think we don't know how to use a tape measure! I think I'm guilty of repeatedly finding something lovely at a bargainous price on ebay and convincing myself it will be fine. When it's not.

I want to get it right and have furniture that fits the room (it's not big) and is worthy of the new flooring! Thank goodness for ebay. It means a mistake is not a costly mistake! Luckily it's all secondhand in the first place so I'm not losing money.

I'm also thinking of a plate rack like this in the dining room.

 I have some pretty plates just waiting.

Seeing as we're drowning in tables and chairs at the moment, and everything has stopped for curtain making, I've done nothing more with my Ikea step stool. Sorry.

Perhaps after we return from Yorkshire for half term? I'll take my camera so I can show you my brothers curtains in situ.
IF I finish them.

Happy half term!

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