Many unrelated things

This is a post about lots of things, mostly unrelated to each other.

1. Adam got a new job...or he's transitioning to one. He's staying at the same company but changing positions, so he'll be training his replacement as well as training for his new job at the same time. He'll be traveling a LOT less when he's doing the new job full time. Probably on the road only a few times a year, rather than 2 weeks every month. I'll be glad to have him home, but it will be change on the homefront, too. Our entire relationship we've either lived far enough apart that we only saw each other on weekends, or he's had this job where he's gone most of the week and home weekends. We may have to set some groundrules regarding sharing the TV...

2. On a less "big life step" note, we picked a color for the office upstairs. It was between 3 Valspar colors - Fishnet, Shade Green and Marine Reef (in order, left to right)

We're going with Shade Green, in the middle. 

I've bought the paint, I just haven't started painting yet. It'll happen when it happens. It's a big job because Adam uses his desktop computer on a daily basis and I need access to my printer for Etsy purposes, so it's a bit of a pain to disassemble the room.

3. We bought this little lady to be our "comfy reading chair" in the office. Okay...so it's not a chair. It's a chaise (which is only 2 letters off "chair"). She is small, as chaises go. With my bum in corner, my heels are at the edge on the right side. It's like a love-seat sized chaise. The cats LOVE it, and we find them on it constantly. I found her at Marshall's, marked $300, down from $550 in regular stores.

But I got her for only $200. Why? This is why:

A little hole, about the size of a nickle on the side of the arm. For $100 off I can find some matching thread and sew this bad boy up so it doesn't get any bigger and make it less visible then cover it with a throw blanket. We probably would have put a throw on it anyway, for cuddle up with a good book purposes. Two birds, one stone.

Now we just have to hope it fits when the table comes. We'll make it work, Tim Gunn Style.

4. Speaking of the table (the Mission Dining Table from World Market that we'll be using for a desk) the freight company tracking website says it's not longer in California, and was loaded on a truck in Indiana yesterday. It should be here sometime in the next 7 days.

5. I am counting down the days until I can pre-order an iPhone with Verizon. No, it's not house related...but I don't care. I really want that phone.

6. I had a snow day yesterday, so I recovered this office chair with some lovely fabric by Dwell Studios for Robert Allen Home. It's going to my office at school.

 

One chair down, 3 to go. 

I got these for free from my Mom's office. I'm not sure why they were getting rid of them, there's nothing wrong with them, except maybe the fabric is worn out, but who cares because I'm recovering them. The big one on the left is going in our office at home with a diamond print fabric I'll reveal later. The medium one on the right is going to my classroom at work so I can have a cushioned seat as opposed to the hard plastic one I have now, I'm deciding among several fabrics for that one. The little one...doesn't have a specific home yet. I might just put it in the basement until the need arises for it. Or Freecycle it. Or recover it and sell it on Craigslist.

And actually, it's 4 to go, because I'm recovering this chair, too. So that both our office chairs will be in the same fabric. (This photo is from the apartment we lived in 1.5 years ago...ugh, so cluttered.)

UPDATE: I started painting upstairs today, it being my second snow day in a row. While the office itself is going to require some semi-serious thought when it comes to coordinating painting the room and continuing to USE the room, the hallway was a breeze. Got the trim painted, 1 side of 1 door painted and 1 coat of wall color on. Touch-ups tomorrow and continued door painting through the weekend. Pictures at some point, when the doors are done and I've peeled all the tape off.

Rock and Roll

The rocking chair make-over is officially finished. Let's reminisce about its past. Here is the chair when I received it, for free, from my aunt.

This is, admittedly, after I did a little sanding on it, because I get about 10 minutes into any project and remember, "oh right, blog". The seat cushion was cross stitched by my Great Aunt Bet. 

After gently removing the cushion and giving the whole chair a light sanding, it was time to prime.

I pretty much always give everything two coats of primer before I paint. 2-3 coats of paint and some aqua pillow ticking stripe fabric later, I had a lovely new chair! Man oh man do I dislike painting spindles, though. It was touch up city fixing up the spots I missed.

The color is Behr's Spring Stream from their Premium Plus Ultra line, which is paint and primer in one; but I had it color matched and mixed in Glidden because it was cheaper and I didn't need the paint & primer.

Here's a close-up of the seat.

And for effect, let's do a quick side-by-side of the before and after. You can really see the difference this way.

The red rosette pillow is O-L-D, left over from when I redid my bedroom in my parent's house freshman year of college, nearly 8 years ago. I believe its from the now closed Value City (which is where half my life was from before they went out of business).

Tomorrow I hope to be showing off the cornices and giving you a little step by step on how to make them (they're super easy and require zero sewing).

And Aunty Kathy, if you're reading this, I hope you like the chair! Thanks so much for giving it to me.

Free Chair to Fab Chair

Ahhh, exam week. It's a good week to be an art teacher. Since I don't give midterms, I don't have to grade midterms. So this week I've only had to work 2 days and even then it was only proctoring tests and I was done around 11 am both days. I am off work for the rest of the week! I have a little bit of grading to do, but I brought it home with me.

So, this week I'm working on some little sewing projects that I've been putting off. I'm not going to call myself much of a seamstress, I mostly make things up on the fly but somehow they usually work out...or they're a huge failure. Today, Mom's office chair. Fabulous or flop?

Every once in a while my Mom's work gives away old office chairs that have seen better days. I got one one last summer and my Mom got one a few weeks later. I recovered mine some time ago but didn't take step-by-step photos, but this time, I knew better!

What you need:
One old junky looking office chair
2 yards upholstery fabric of your choice
coordinating thread
strong string or ribbon (thin, 1/4 inch or smaller)
pins
scissors
measuring tape
sewing machine (nothing fancy, mine is a little $129 dealy)

Here's the chair at first:

Now, when beginning a makeover it's very important that America's Next Top Model be on the TV, otherwise you're asking for trouble.

Okay...kidding.

Anyway, that chair is not looking good, is it now? I mean, it was pretty blah to begin with, and then add in a bunch of stains and it's just a sad sad little thing.

1. First things first, disassemble the chair. This is where keeping all those allen wrenches from all your Ikea furniture comes in handy.

 

2. Lay out your fabric of choice, good side down. Lay the seat cushion of the chair face down on the fabric and cut out a piece of the fabric roughly the shape of your seat but bigger. Probably about 6 inches bigger. I am not big on measuring, just guestimate. Cut it smaller if your seat cushion is thinner.

3. Do the same with the back of the chair, but this time you only want about 4 extra inches around the shape, and you need to cut out one with the front of the back facing down and one with the back of the back facing down.

4. This is the only measuring I did. Measure how thick the side of your chair back is. Mine was 3.25", roughly (are you seeing a pattern here? everything is very "uhhh, yeah, that looks fine" with me)

5. Cut 2 strips of fabric that are 1.5 to 2 inches wider than the measurement you just took of your chair's back and half the length of the perimeter of your chair back.

6. Now, let's assemble the cover for the back. You just need to lay the pieces, right side down, on the back of the chair and then pin along where the seams will be. Your two long strips should meet at the top in the middle so there will be a seam there.

7. You don't want to enclose the bottom of this portion. You want to be able to slip the cover off the chair with the pins and slip it back on after you've sewn. You should leave flaps at the bottom. So, about 3 inches or so from the bottom of the back stop sewing the seams together and leave flaps of fabric on all 4 pieces. Fold the edges of the flaps over and sew them down so they look finshed. (This photo was taken AFTER sewing because it was REALLY hard to show with all the pins)

8. Now, carefully slide the pinned fabric off the back cushion and sew. I didn't take any photos of sewing because there's not much to see. You just want to sew along your pin lines, keeping the fabric inside out and removing the pins as you go. 

9. Returning to your seat cushion, take the shape you cut out and fold over and pin 1 inch all the way around the edge. Now, sew this fold down, leaving 1/2" between the fold and the stitch. YOU MUST LEAVE ABOUT 1.5" BETWEEN THE START OF YOUR STITCH AND THE END OF YOUR STITCH. This is where you will thread the drawstring (think of the drawstring on sweatpants, there's a gap between the two holes where the strings come out).

10. Tie a string or ribbon (ribbon was the strongest thing I had on hand, you want something that won't break with tension) to a safety pin and thread the pin and ribbon around your seat cushion cover.

11. Great, now you can put covers on! For the seat, place the cushion in the middle of your sewn/threaded fabric and pull your drawstring until the fabric closes up and is pretty tight.

 

12. Now you can slide your back cushion cover on and if you need to cut small holes in your fabric to get any screws through. Finally, reassemble the chair, and you're done!

Much better, right? Like I said, this one is for my Mom. Mine is a little more modern looking, with fabric from Ikea, but was made in the exact same way except that it had fabric on the arms that needed to be replaced.

 

Possibly most importantly, cost. It depends on the fabric you buy, but the total cost of this little project was a whopping $10 ($5/yard for 2 yards of fabric). Everything else I had on hand. You might need to spend an extra buck on the ribbon. And remember, the chair was free!

Enjoy it Mom!

(Actually, Mom uses a laptop on the couch...Dad will get the bulk of the benefit from the chair)

Have a seat...or 16.

Christmas has come and gone and we survived (although I think our waistlines are a little worse for the wear). The family party for my Mom's side of the family was held at her house, but a good dozen of my family members came over to see our house (we only live 5 blocks from my parents). They all heartily approved and a few jaws dropped when they asked "how many bedrooms does this place have?" and I answered 5.

I had some friends over for Boxing Day Brunch on the day after Christmas, which was lovely and I think I might do it again next year and in the future. I neglected to take any pictures but my friend Lauren did, so I'm hoping to get some from her and post them here soon.

A little filler today because the life of a teacher during Christmas break is a little dull. I found this today on Neatorama:

It's called Flexible Love and while I'm not sure it's the most stylish thing (I wish the end cap pieces were a color or just white) I do think it's pretty awesome. Mostly because, in my house, I always feel like there's not enough seating for all the people when I have a party. At the same time, I don't want to clutter up my house with chairs...and this is just so much cooler than folding chairs. It comes in an 8 person and 16 person model. Of course, that would probably be about 10 American keesters.

Will I be putting Flexible Love on next year's Christmas list? Unlikely. You can't even buy it in the US yet and it comes in at £390 for the 16 seat model (at the current exchange rate that's a cool $624) for a "chair" you only bring out for parties.