Before and After: New Chair!

So we've had our first piece of furniture re-covered! We've had this great chair for a few years now but it was covered in a burnt orange velvet (you can see the before in the last image), and I've finally had it recovered. I chose black and white ticking because to me it's timeless and looks classic and modern at the same time. I LOVE it! Thanks to MN who referred the upholsterer, Romano Falchi. He did a great job and at a very reasonable price. If you're in the London area and need something re-upholstered, contact Romano. He even sent me images of the new chair in progress! I think I will paint the legs a coral color, at Lisa's suggestion. I couldn't decide what color would look best and that's what she had in mind and I agree. Love, love the chair now!

Room to Sew

You might remember that when we were looking for a new apartment last winter, one major draw to our current place was an extra room. I say "extra" room because our place isn't technically a three bedroom, but there is a small third room next door. It's more of a utility room in that it has exposed pipes and wires, and doesn't have a bathroom, but it does have pretty nice wood floors and heat, so I decided to make it into a guest room / craft room. Initially I thought I would make it an office for Andrew and try to give it a masculine vibe, but he thought I might use the room more than him and suggested I let it be a room to sew. He does like to work in there as it is though. He thinks it's pretty cozy. The daybed that used to be in Lois's room is in there, and our old bar, turned potting table, is now my sewing table (and desk), and my bike lives in there too. It was a lot of work getting it to this point. Do you remember what it looked like before? Like this (scroll down), ugh. My sister helped me so much at first when she was visiting, but then for a while I was stuck. There were so many things in there that we wanted to keep like camping stuff, old baby things, Christmas decorations, etc. Every time I'd go in there I felt overwhelmed. And when I'd start to unpack and sort it out, for a while I ended up just making a bigger mess. But somehow I got it to this point. Behind the curtain all our storage stuff and my craft supplies, fabric and whatnot, is stored in bins and stacked almost to the ceiling. I still have some work to do in there--one wall (across from the daybed) has a ledge that is holding a bunch of random stuff right now. But it's a good start. Now I just need to get busy stitching! 

Progress

Hi Lois! There she is in our new place before we crammed in all our stuff. I've been unpacking like mad since we got here because I hate being surrounded by boxes, and I'm excited to be here. Though this flat itself wouldn't be our top pick, we do like a lot of things about it, and we love the neighborhood (northwest London). We have a third bedroom, sort of anyway--it's more of a storeroom and it has its own entrance, but it does have wood floors and heat, so I'm planning to make it into an office / guest bedroom if everything can fit. We have part of the living room together now. That's one wall that's pretty much done, but I have to work on the rest of the room. If we paint the walls, it will be a while before we do that, so I went ahead and hung things. I'm a little tired of some of our stuff and would like to get a pick-up truck and go hunting for new junk, but in the meantime, here's the usual in a new-ish configuration. Hi again Lois! Cookies make her happy :)

And here's the 3rd room. Gotta get working on that mess. 

Sewing Nook

A while back I gave you a little peek at my sewing nook. I'm pretty much finished with it now. I was just waiting to amass enough buttons to make a button border on my inspiration board. And my mom helped me out with that. Over Thanksgiving she let me raid her button stash and take all I wanted. Oooh, buttons, so fun! This little space is a work in progress, but it's a start. This area started as the bar (see how it started looking as a bar here), but the shelves were too narrow and too far apart to make it look good with bar accessories, and since we rent here, and I know the landlord isn't too keen on changes, I thought it would work better as a something else, and I've been wanting a craft space. Now that my machine and supplies are out of the closet, I have no excuses! Here's to more sewing in 2011. Happy New Year!!

O Christmas Tree

This year our tree is really just some ornaments on branches in a vase. There really isn't a good spot in our apartment for an entire tree, so I thought a little tree on a table would do. I've had branches in a vase for a while now and thought it would be easy and cute to decorate them instead of a real tree. Unfortunately the vase this was originally in fell over and broke so I decided to used a glass canister from the kitchen instead. So here it is our wee branch tree, including one new ornament--a salt dough elephant ornament that Lois made! And of course it includes a few family pictures too. Merry Christmas!

Just Because it's Pretty

Yesterday when I was running errands I popped into a fun shop that sells housewares--things like lighting, furniture, kitchen goods and the like. Even though they have a lot of big, shiny merchandise, my eye was immediately drawn to a row of tiny heart bud vases they had on a narrow wooden board. They looked so sweet. I had to get one of those little heart bud vases. It looks pretty on our windowsill. 

Lolo's Room

Lois's room is finished! It's been pretty much finished for months, but I wanted to make something to cover the dark fireplace and finally did that this week. I also wanted to finish her bunting. Both are done so welcome to Lois's room! If you saw her room in San Francisco or saw pictures on my blog, it's basically the same, mostly all the same stuff anyway, but I hung things in a different arrangement and she has some different curtains now. Almost everything in her room is either from Ikea, a flea market, or a thrift store. Here's the tour...

Daybed from Ikea and lots of pillows. One can never have too many pillows! At least I can't.

Some of the pillows are store bought, but a few are handmade. My aunt made this red ruffle pillow that I love. 

This bird and tulip pillow came from a thrift store and I made the patchwork pillow behind it from one of Alicia Paulson's patterns. 

Little doll named Lois came from the Alemany flea market in San Francisco. 

Stripes here is from Laku, one of my favorite San Francisco shops. 

Artwork by my nephews. Frames from Ikea. 

Artwork from a high school friend. You can see it larger here.

Vintage books in a pew holder and "L" is for Lion vintage fabric from my friend Alex. 

The wheels on the bus go round and round! Bus painting my Mose Tolliver. One time when I was in, I dunno, maybe middle school, I painted over one of his watermelon paintings--eek! I guess I just thought I could improve it. Woops. 

You are Beautiful by Cathy Nichols on etsy. 

Vintage Child Life magazines. Lisa gave these to me. I love them (just look!) and wish I could win bids on them on ebay, but I never do. The magazine holder is from Anthropologie. 

Bunting! I made this bunting with her name on it this week. This is above her crib (which is from Ikea). My mom found the apron in an antique store. The dress on the far left is from Vintage Touch on etsy and the one on the right is from a shop in Atlanta, but I can't think of the store right now!

Curtains and her dresser (the top of it anyway). My aunt made the floral curtain, but I can't remember the name of the fabric right now. It's an older Amy Butler fabric. I think it's from her Gypsy Caravan collection. I made the yellow gingham panels to go underneath. 

Custom bookplates from Oiseaux on etsy. 

Lots of vintage books on a spinning rack my mom bought at a flea market (this thing weighs a ton and has been all over the place).

Above the book rack is artwork by my friend Michelle. 

Flea market treasures and a party hat made by moi.

One of her birth announcements that I made. 

My solution to a very dark red brick and black fireplace. It's actually very pretty under the curtain, but it just didn't go with the room. The curtain isn't perfect by any means, and I couldn't find a pole to fit close enough to the top, so I should have made a wider hem at the top to let it ruffle out, but this is at least better than before!

That's all for the show, folks. Hope you enjoyed it!