Happy New Year!

 

Just wanted to wish everyone a very happy New Year.

I had great plans this week - to finish decorating the room that I had finished painting last New Year's Eve.  I know, I'm a little slow, don't stick to one project, etc., etc.  But I did make headway, and the whole business is taking much longer than I thought, because it's not like there's nothing else to do at this time of year.

Guess I should start at the beginning.  This used to be my son's room.  It was painted black.  Yes, I'm stupid.  I allowed black walls in my house - my only stipulation was that the trim and ceiling remain white.  Those black walls then became chalkboards for all the budding artist friends that came to call on the room's inhabitant.   Son moves away - room becomes a place to dump things that don't seem to have a place.  Well, it didn't help that the moving out process took years, literally.  Last year I finally decided to claim the room as my own.  A lovely room where I could sit and watch movies, do my hand sewing, read - that was the vision.  Painting the walls was a bit of an ordeal, but I survived.  The paint I chose was called "biscotti"- yummy (if you haven't notice, I tend to have a thing for colours named for food).  I dragged back the bed that had been banished, due to necessity of keeping mattress on the floor.  I unearthed an ugly pink armchair with potential.  I threw some odd remnant of fabric on the bed "just for now" and there things stayed.  The room became the dog's favourite place to lounge.  You're getting the picture?  It was slowly becoming the dog's room, not mine.  The problem was that I envisioned robin's egg blue fabric, and I did find what I liked, but this year there has been no budget for the amounts of yardage that I had calculated.  Shame on me!  It's not like there isn't all sorts of fabric to be used in this house.  So this has now become the zero-budget decorating project.  It's a sort of challenge to myself.  It's taking longer than I thought.  (I said that already, didn't I?)  So here's what's done to date.

 

I covered the bed in a piece of fabric that was left over from a costume that I made a few years back.  Every flat pancake of a pillow in the house was rounded up.  The pillow slips were all made from assorted odds and ends that were lying around - some pieces new, some pieces vintage (they were doing no good lying around in a trunk in the basement, as they were).  The rug (if that's what it is) was also lying around with no designation.

It's a little difficult to photograph white on white, but you get the picture.  I did spend some time making things "pretty".

I also managed to dress the window.  The blind - well, there's one less white shirt that I'll be making.  The lace is vintage bought at an antique fair back when I lived in California, and that's a long time ago.  Time it was put to good use.  As for the side panels - that's my old Battenburg lace duvet cover.  The central medallion got cut out (it was definitely beyond help), some extensions sewn on, and there we have - from bed to window.  Not, perhaps the "perfect" decorating, but it is certainly better than what was there.  The pink chair is slotted for a slipcover - there's a white sheet with its name on it.  There's still some furniture painting in process.  Pictures need to get hung.  There are a few pieces of furniture that I would like to buy, when that becomes possible.  With time I will replace the pancake pillows with feather inserts.  All of this white extravaganza is washable and bleachable - the reason being:

There's a creature in this house that thinks that this is all for his comfort.  Not!