Catching up on 2015

So...2015. Quite a year, huh?

As I've mentioned in a previous post, I had a lot of trouble with my arthritis last winter, and it followed me into spring and summer (which were very late). I missed a lot of work, either not being able to come in at all or, more often, coming in late because my joints are worse first thing in the morning.

I finally got a mixture of medications that seemed to work pretty well, but by that time I'd given some serious thought to trying the work-from-home route. It's something I've always wanted to do but, as a secretary, my skill-set didn't lend itself to remote working. However, in the past few years I've picked up a fair amount of copy-editing experience and, more importantly, contacts. So, in August, I finished up my job and went into business for myself.

I am now sole proprietor of Taylor+Foote, freelance research and copy-editing. So far I have four clients, two of which are fairly substantial and one which may become so. I don't have enough coming in yet to match what I made before, but I think I can build it up in the coming year.

In the meantime, I very much enjoy getting to sleep in, slouch around the house in pajamas if I feel like it, and work whatever hours suit me (when the work comes in). I may have mentioned that I am not a morning person.

I'm also really loving having the time and energy to do more things around the house. Especially cooking. I've been making bread, and finally managed to get a wild-yeast sourdough starter going (after a few failures). I've also been experimenting with fermenting vegetables and kombucha, which I'll post about another time.

I've also been rearranging my work spaces. I decided to have the room upstairs strictly as an office and move my sewing and crafts to the basement (except the yarn, which, as Bartholomew-bait, stays shut up upstairs). I cleared a corner of the basement, moved down my sewing table, and put up some shelves and I'm gradually getting things organized and put away down there.

I haven't been knitting a lot - I suffer from startitis, but not much motivation to get things finished. I'll try and get some pictures of the few things I have done.

Now I'm off to peruse seed catalogs - it is January, after all.

Wendy

The Dresser that didn't make it Upstairs

When we moved from our 800ish sq ft, semi-detached house in Reading to our 2,000 sq ft Colonial (not including the finished basement) in Maryland we had enough furniture to use in one bedroom, the smaller of the two receptions and the dining room. Since then we've been thrifting our way to a properly furnished house but there are still several issues we have to deal with. One is clothes storage. In Reading we had no built in closets so we hung our clothes on poles we'd fastened across the alcoves on either side of the chimney breast, and anything folded went into a single, two-drawer dresser (the one now in the guest room) and our cheap, melamine bed-side tables..

Now we have a walk-in closet (such luxury) but are still sharing a dresser, so when I saw this for sale on Craigslist for $100 I thought it would be perfect as a dresser for David, with some extra storage in the bottom drawer for bed linens/blankets.

At this point I had a brain-freeze and completely miscalculated how big the dresser was in relation to our Hyundai but the sellers, bless them, bundled the thing into the back of their SUV and followed me home with it (it was only a couple of miles).

It's a nice chest of drawers - about 4 1/2 ft high by 4 ft wide, has a distressed finish and the previous owners had replaced the original wood knobs with these ornate pulls.

The only real issue is with some of the drawer slides and I've ordered new parts to fix those.

The black however, was not going to work in our pale coloured bedroom. I played around with paint chips at Home Depot and found a pale green that looked really lovely against a really white-white so I bought a quart of each in the flat finish to try out the homemade chalk paint again.

I painted the body of the dresser white -

  and the drawers green -

The cracks and "woodworm" holes of the original finish show up nicely with the chalk paint. I sanded the edges a little and then finished it with two coats of Minwax paste.

I gave the pulls two coats of the green, lightly dry-brushed on a little of the white and sealed it with spray polycrylic. I'm not wildly excited about how they look but I'll live with it for a little while until I'm inspired to try something else.

Now that I've got it done, however, it's living downstairs because it is a beast of a thing and frickin' HEAVY! With David's bad shoulder and my arthritis there's no way we can get it up the stairs by ourselves. I'm inclined to offer a home cooked meal as incentive for a couple of the single guys at work to come and lug it up for us.

Wendy

Sharing this at: A Stroll Thru Life

Decorating Style

It may be slightly weird, but I love taking online quizzes. Whether it's to find out my personality type, or what character from Harry Potter I might be. It's Ron Weasley, in case you are interested, and I always, always get sorted into Hufflepuff.

Recently, with all the DIY and home decorating blogs I've been stalking following, I decided to take a couple (or more) of the "What is your decorating style?" quizzes. They basically fall into two categories: written and visual.

An example of the written category might be:

Your living room floor is:

• Painted pine, covered with only slightly worn Oriental rugs, bought at a yard sale (what were they thinking?)
• Deep-stained oak strip, left bare or covered by sisal rugs.
• Custom-cut Marmoleum, in swooping swaths of grey-blue and mustard
• Heirloom Aubusson and Persian rugs.

Based on your answers to a series of these types of questions they will give you an approximation of your style.

The visual category, which is more fun, gives you a series of pictures to choose from.

Source

Again, based on your answers, you get results at the end, but the visuals feel more intuitive, while the written questions can be open to all sorts of interpretations.

Here are a few of my favourite quizzes, the ones I felt got closest to describing what I like in my home.

Homegoods
Farmhouse Glam with a touch of Boho/Traveler
Farmhouse Glam is the delicate, exquisite balance between beautiful femininity and rustic nonchalance. She's all about the discovery of unexpected sparkle amidst the less polished. She wears high heels and a denim jacket, a string of pearls and bare feet. And her home feels as special as it does comfortable.

Source

Interestingly, the answer page gave a list of "Who is Blogging Farmhouse Glam" and the top two were Miss Mustard Seed and Perfectly Imperfect, two of my favourite bloggers.

Style At Home
Country Charmer 
You're a born romantic, and you love pieces that show something of the lives their past owners lived. You don't need to impress with fine things; you'd rather look for the piece whose beauty others somehow passed by. You're resourceful and eclectic, and follow your own instincts in both decorating and life. Your sunny outlook is charming, but be careful not to let your rose-tinted glasses blind you to the real world -- at least not all of the time!

Source

BHG
Cottage
"Laid-back" best describes your way of life, which means Cottage style is right up your alley. You love rooms that feel casual, breezy, and informal. Consider slipcovered furniture and painted wood pieces to achieve a put-your-feet-up vibe. Use crisp white as the ideal backdrop for layers of soft accent colors found in pillows, rugs, and vintage accessories.

Source

Interior Design Packages
Traditional European Design Style
Should you be fortunate enough to inhabit a setting with tall ceilings and windows, stone or wood floors and even a suggestion of the ornate in accompanying cabinets, wall panels and lighting, you will have a great foundation for creating a Traditional European Style home. Refined finishes with layers of color, gold or silver leafing and a finishing glaze are the signature of fine old world furniture craftsmen whose work you will covet. Pleats, tufting, ruffling, trims, nail heads, medallions, tassels and fringe dominate chapter two in your furniture and drapery journal.
Crystal chandeliers and wall sconces or more masculine bronze, wooden or wrought iron pendants and candelabra will light the stage for the exquisite drama that enfolds as you design and furnish with stately carved wood and stone, richly textured fabrics of damask, tapestry, velvet or satin and complimentary mirrors, urns and porcelains.

HGTV
I actually took this one twice by accident, about a month apart, and got two different answers, but I think they are both right in their way.

Old World, New Way
Deep, rich and regal but muted for a time-worn effect. Finishes are distressed, woodwork is rough-hewn. A lived-in but luxurious old world.

Source

Romantic
Elegant yet relaxing. Luxurious fabrics, soft colors, fresh florals. Appeals to all the senses and sets a warm mood.

Source

Real Simple
I got about 50/50 on this one.
C. Cozy Casual
You’re about comfort and warmth, favoring warm, traditional rooms made for relaxing with family and friends. Your ideal decor draws on English and early-American furniture designs, as well as laid-back country, cottage, and farmhouse styles. Weathered, low-maintenance furnishings are easy, inviting, and built for daily life. Think golden retrievers, fuzzy slippers, and just about any movie by Nancy Meyers.

Source

D. Vintage Eclectic
You go for history, quirks, and curves. A rich, layered look combining flea-market finds, furniture designs from various time periods, and a diverse collection of accessories and artwork appeals to you. Dusty colors, timeworn or handmade textiles, and collected objects create a lived-in feel. Think Paris flea markets, Granny’s teacups, the film Grey Gardens.

Source

I had to Google "Grey Gardens" when this came up, and I'm not sure if they mean the documentary or the TV movie - either way, I've got to see them both now.

Sproost
This was the most fun. Instead of choosing between a set of pictures it asks you to value each picture on a scale between "Love It" and "Hate It" and you can see it taking out options in a grid to one side of the page. At the end it gives you a percentage breakdown of your styles and a detailed description of your main one.

I scored:
40% French Eclectic
40% Classic
20% Nantucket Style

French Eclectic
Parlez-vous français? Even if the answer is no, you can confidently say your home does! French Country, like its name, somehow manages to both be formal and casual, classy and unassuming at the same time. You like your spaces to feel inviting from the moment you (or your guest) opens the front door and this feeling should continue even after you've entered your most formal room. Even though there are French antiques here and gold details there, the rustic elements provide a balance and warmth that seems to say, "come in, relax and stay a while." Your love of antiques leads you to flea markets, garage sales and hours of eBay hunting.  

Source

Materials
The materials and pieces you are drawn to play on the mix of formal and casual. Many of the pieces look like they were passed down from your great-great-aunt (even if they are brand new!) and you managed to upholster them in a way that made that piece both then and now. Much of the furniture is wood-framed and the wood is either left natural (hey there rustic!), painted white (hey there country!) or even gold (hello refinement!). And many times there is a strong mixture of all of these. If you find yourself leaning much more towards the "country" side of things and away from the Parisian side, drop the gold details and replace them with wrought iron. 

Colors
When it comes to color, you are drawn to bright and airy options. Thoughts of the French countryside are key - warm colors such as yellows, reds and oranges hinting at fields of gold. But the nice thing about French Eclectic is you can just as easily go in the opposite direction: pale blues and greens hinting at acres of lavender fields and expansive blue skies

Space Planning
When you think about laying out your French Eclectic room the key is to invite people in and encourage them to stay. So furniture should be grouped nicely to encourage intimate conversation and the main pieces should be comfortable in both look and feel. There should be plenty of places to set drinks, prop feet and lean back. And yet the functionality of these pieces doesn't necessarily mean that they aren't beautiful antiques or replicas. 

So it looks like I'm Farmhouse Glam/Country/Cottage/Traditional/Romantic/Casual/Eclectic.

I'm not sure I'm much closer to 'defining' my decorating style, but I sure had a lot of fun.

Take a couple of the quizzes and then let me know in the comments what you came up with. Are you Contemporary/Beachy/Arts and Crafts or a Retro/Zen/Cowboy sorta styler?

Wendy

Half a Transformation

Today my study/workroom went from this

to this

I'm liking the minimalist look. It's almost a pity I have to put everything back, but now my guest room looks like this

On Sunday Value Village is having a pre-Labor Day, 50% off sale for members so I'll be there as soon as I can drag myself out of bed in the morning to buy them out of baskets and storage boxes, and hopefully I'll have a good portion of this back where it belongs by the end of the long weekend.

Wendy

The Tale of a Chair

I stalk furniture-makeover blogs. I admit it. I'm a stalker. There's nothing I like better than a good before-and-after post. So I'm making my own contribution to the genre here with this little gentlewoman in distressed circumstances.

Her story is a sad one, but it has a happy ending, as you can see.

Unfortunately I don't have any of the before-before pictures, as I bought the chair sometime while we were in California at a flea-market and I wasn't planning on blogging about it. Originally it was actually three chairs - well, parts of three chairs. One was nearly complete, one was about half a chair, and the rest were various bits and pieces from at least one other. I bought it for, I think, $5 (it may have been $5 per chair, but as I said it was a while ago). I left it with my parents, since they had a lot more storage on the farm than we had in our apartment, until not long before we had to pack up to move back to England. One weekend while I was visiting I got all the bits out and Dad helped me make one solid chair out of the wreckage. We salvaged the best pieces and I seem to remember that the seat and one arm/leg combo went together, we took the other arm/leg from the second chair and the back was one of the loose bits from the "third" chair that came with it. I really wish I'd taken pictures of it all the way I found it. We had to do a lot of drilling, hammering and gluing but I finally had a chair. Sort of.
 
When I bought it I had in mind that it could be a chair to take to SCA events but it's solid wood, and not a light-weight. It also needed a lot of cosmetic work as it was pretty bashed about, and ripped black vinyl is so not me.

 

The first thing I did was unscrew and pry off the padding from the back and seat. What was left wasn't pretty. Glue and grunge.

I filled a few holes and then sanded the wood just enough to knock off the remnants of glue and to take down the shine.

Then I gave it two coats of chalk paint made from Plaster of Paris and a $2 quart of oops paint I got from Home Depot. It wasn't the best to make chalk paint out of as it was a paint/primer combo enamel rather than a flat paint, but it was $2 so I went with it.

I only distressed it a little as David hasn't got his head round the whole "shabby chic" thing yet. I sanded it in places where it would look natural so it's fairly subtle. I finished it off with a coat of Minwax Finishing Wax and buffed it up.

I have been wanting to try upholstering with painters' drop cloth, as everyone in DIY-blogland has been doing. I also wanted script fabric, but not in French, which is the rage, because I don't speak French and, beautiful as it is, I wanted something that means something to me. So I found a font I like (based on Jane Austen's handwriting no less) and printed out a large "Rest" for the back. I traced the word onto freezer paper and then cut it out as a stencil.

I wanted it to look like old ink on parchment so I used chocolate brown fabric paint and dabbed it over the stencil.

For the seat I found a number of quotes I liked about rest and relaxation, typed them up in the Jane Austen font, and then printed them out onto four sheets of paper, which made it just about the right size to cover the seat cushion.  To get the words onto the fabric I printed them backwards and then used the Citrasolv transfer method. I started at the top and by the time I got to the bottom I was pretty tired of rubbing that spoon over the paper so the ink didn't transfer very well there. I then went over the transferred letters with a fine paintbrush and the brown fabric paint so it would match the back.

I'd ripped the vinyl off the seat and the plaque that screws into the back so I stapled the dropcloth over the existing foam and screwed the back and seat on.

 And here she is in all her impoverished-gentry glory.

Everything you see in this photo, with the exception of the lampshade and the alabaster bowl, was bought from a thrift store/flea-market/charity shop/car-boot sale or was a gift. (The bowl was bought at the Khan el-Khalili in Cairo and is a souvenir of our trip to Egypt last year).

I still have to make piping to go around the seat and the back plaque but my sewing machine is somewhere in all of this -

and I needed the seating when we had guests over so it will have to wait until I can get the dumping ground my workroom organized. Sigh.

PS - on the plus side, I recently found this desk for $10, which also needs an overhaul, to use as a sewing table (if I can ever get to it).

Wendy


Sharing at Kathe with an E, No Minimalist Here, AttaGirlSays, Not Just a Housewife, Savvy Southern Style, Knick of Time, Redoux, Jennifer Rizzo, Miss Mustard Seed, Funky Junk Interiors, Pretty Handy Girl

I was featured on Knick of Time Tuesday!

The Guest Room -After(ish) Pictures

So, you can read about the saga of trying to pick a paint colour for, and the actual painting of, the guest room last summer here.  It went from this

to this

and then I left you hanging.

Bearing in mind there is still some work to be done, here are a few pictures of a useable guest room. (And yes, I'm still very chuffed to even HAVE a guest room, after 20 years of guests, including my parents, having to sleep on a blow-up mattress on the living room floor).

 
The bed is our old frame from England, the bedside table is an old wood folding table covered with a scarf I found at the thrift store (like the little bird cage). The quilt is one my grandmother made, which Mom gave me when I told her I was doing a black & white room. The matelasse quilt was a birthday gift (thanks Mom). I'm lovin' on matelasse at the moment and I'm considering getting one in cream for our room.

The shams actually go with the bed set in the master bedroom but look better in here. The bolster pillow is a thrift store find, wrapped in black thrift store scarf and tied with some white ribbon I found in my stash.

Almost everything in this room I either owned before, was a gift, or was a thrift store deal. The chest of drawers and tri-fold mirror are actually Evie's and were given to her by David's mum when she moved back to Australia. It's an antique so I won't be repainting it. The arched mirror hung in our room in England and I'm trying to decide if I want it in this room and whether to repaint it a brighter white or black. Most of the accessories were bought at the thrift store, as was the lamp - although that was originally powder blue and I spray painted it black. The chair has been with us for about as long as we've been married and I don't even remember where we got it. It desperately needs an overhaul. I'm thinking of painting it watermelon for a little jolt of colour in the room.

My favourite things in the room are the ink sketches.

My parents bought these in London in 1973 on our way back from Nigeria and all through my childhood they hung in the main bathroom of our house. Mom had them packed away, but gave them to me when she gave me the quilt, to put up in this room. (Thanks again Mom)

Photo bombing from Bartholomew and Finian. Actually, they are very colour-coordinated for this room!

I really need to get some new knobs for the bottom drawers there. I also need to get some proper curtains up. The lace gives some privacy but this window faces east so there's nothing to block the light in the morning.

What I'm trying to decide now is what to do with the space above the bed. Whether to move the drawings over and hang them in a two over two formation (similar to the collage I've done above), or to put up the decal I bought at Michaels.

I'm kind of in love with chandelier silhouettes at the moment.

Wendy

Linked up with Common Ground, My Repurposed Life, Jennifer Rizzo, DIY Showoff