As you can see

(Click to enlarge)

This is what I've been doing. It isn't particularly productive, or practical, but oh, is it fun.

Right now, my reality consists of moving boxes, dealing with accumulated stuff, broken wine glasses, one increasingly chaotic house (Binghamton) and the kind of dirt you encounter when you pull long-stationary furniture away from the wall. Poring through beautiful images is the perfect antidote.

Where do you go when you need to escape reality? What's your favorite source for inspiring decor images?

Happy Friday, everyone! I'm doing battle with the stairwell tonight, and I'm bringing my war face.

Meet the Stack

Hello. This is my stack. Maybe you have one, too. Mine sits by my sewing machine, and lately it's been growing. It's been growing, in fact, since December. It is getting really quite burgeoning. Now it is time to work on shrinking it.

Stacks expand and contract in my world. Sometimes, there is inspiration but no work ethic. Sometimes, there is work ethic but no inspiration. But lo, for when inspiration and work ethic collide, maximum stack shrinkage is enabled!

I have a plan. I am going to shrink my stack, hopefully down to nothing, by doing the following:

• Sewing curtains
• Sewing pillows
• Sewing a duvet cover (hopefully)
• Sewing a tablecloth
• Sewing even more curtains

For full disclosure, I should note that the delicate fold of fabric in the middle of the stack has already been made into curtains for the master bedroom. And after sewing curtains for a mere two windows, (two out of the twenty-five in our house) I have to say, I'm not sure my current plan to make curtains for all the windows was such a good one. That's a lot of sewing, but. I am committed to my stack. I will make it disappear, one way or the other.

I will sew long straight lines. It might be boring. But, it will result in beautiful curtains. LOTS of beautiful curtains. I will buy presents, instead of making presents, for every gift-related occasion until Christmas. I will focus my sewing on myself, on us, on our new house. I never do this. I always just sew gifts. It will be good. A beautiful house full of beautiful curtains is a worthy goal. And my stack is just what it'll take to make that happen.

Double door bling

Sometimes it's the little things. As I've mentioned, whenever I can look at something in our new house, and say, done!-- I get ecstatic. The vision lines up with the reality. I do a happy dance. Before this weekend, I thought that phenomenon applied to light fixtures, paint colors, maybe furnishing choices... but door knobs? Apparently so.

The double doors divide what we call the great room from what we call the sitting room. Why just have a "living room" when you can call it something crazy? Anyway, these doors are gorgeous, it goes without saying. But they came sans door knobs. Well. That's an easy enough fix, with a lucky strike at the antique store and ten minutes with a screwdriver.

(For locals-- check Old, Odd, and Unique first, and Charlie Brown's second, for antique hardware like this.)

At least, it should've been ten minutes. One door knob was cooperative, and slid right into place. The other one had been bastardized a bit. In place of a screw holding it onto the stem (metal doohickey that connects one door knob to the other) it had a nail. No problemo, right? Just yank out the nail and you're in business. In theory.

In practice, yanking out the nail involved three pairs of pliers, a hammer, lithium grease, and a lot of impassioned pounding. Eventually there was triumph. For just twenty bucks total, our lovely double doors have bling. I love easy projects like this.

The moral of the story: If you buy an antique door knob, don't buy one held together by a nail. Good advice.

That is going to be a good day

This was one of those breakthrough weekends. My epic painted wall project, shown above, is really starting to look good. It's starting to look like the wallpaper it's intended to emulate, shown below.

In person, the colors look a little clearer. The breakthrough moment was like, hey, this might actually work, when I started adding in some pretty green leaves. I don't know why the leaves made it work, but they did. Look.

I can't wait to see this done. Making progress on it is really enjoyable. As our interior work winds down (winds down! I never thought I'd be able to say that!) and the snow is still piled high outside, many times per weekend I find myself wandering around looking for something to do. Usually I end up in the Great room, here, with the space heater going and a paintbrush in hand. It's the perfect little mindful project.

Other Accomplishments of the Weekend

• We procured a quote for having our floors refinished. And guess what? We'll be doing them ourselves.
• But think of all the money we're going to save! Just think! Sigh.
• I battled our extremely stubborn aforementioned nicotine-stained ceiling with a can of extremely stinky oil-based primer. It is now white as freakin' snow, and that is that.
• Patrick painted our laundry room (formerly the upstairs kitchen) and I somehow forgot to take a picture!
• Mainly, though, we focused on getting the stairwell ready for paint. It's going to take a lot. It has taken a lot.

Since buying the house, we have:

• Torn up rug, plywood and tarpaper from the top of the stairs.
• Removed the ceiling that had closed the stairwell off when they converted the house into two units.
• Removed awful vinyl flooring from the bottom landing and floor.
• Painted the trim. Two coats.
• Removed the upstairs doorbell.
• Patched, patched, patched.
• Sanded, sanded, sanded.
• Painted the stairwell ceilings.

Most of the work, I think, is still to come. The wainscoting is going to be painted white (because as much as we love the original dark wood, it's pretty damaged in places and it'll look better painted). The walls are going pale gray. I really love the color we chose, and can't wait to show it off next weekend. Beyond that, we have a whole heap of trimwork-- including purchasing some new pieces and trying to make them look original-- balustrades, banister, etc. AND, not to forget, painting the actual stairs themselves. Boy howdy, we do have a ways to go. But, my goodness, it's going to look so good when it's done.

This is what motivates me.

Thinking of this view when the wainscoting is white, the walls are pretty gray, the risers are white, the treads are dark brown, the balustrades are re-installed and gleaming, and there's pretty things hung on the walls... and I can sit here, where I sat to take this picture, and look up, and just marvel at all the work we've done... That is going to be a good day. I can't wait for that day.

You've Come a Long Way, Baby: Master Bedroom

A view of our new house, past and present. A reminder of how far we've come, and a morale-booster for the upcoming weekend of work.

Showing off the old, make-my-eyes-bleed colors is too much fun. This might be the last time I say this. It might not. But, What were they thinking?! Yellow and green? Bamboo chair rail? Yyeeesh.

My plan for this room is pretty solid, I think. More solid than for any other room, which is odd, since it was our bedroom in Binghamton that gave me the most trouble, and the least inspiration, decoration-wise. But that'll happen, with popcorn walls and bi-fold doors. I'm ready to say goodbye to those.

I have some really pretty voile which is going to become curtains. It's pale and covered in sprays of dainty little flowers-- turquoise, rust, and ocher. We are going to be selling our IKEA bedroom set-- it's the Malm, in birch. I have nothing against IKEA, but this set is just wayyy too modern for us. I like to decorate with antique table fans, and old chipped flower pots. And those things look wrong, wrong, wrong perched atop a sleek, featureless IKEA dresser.

So, we're going to replace our bed with an el-cheapo metal frame, and use an old door (from the attic of our current house, which is nice) for a headboard. Patrick's parents have offered a great pair of Depression-era dressers, which will look right at home with my antique table fans and old chipped flower pots. I love "borrowing" furniture from family. Aside from that, all we really need is a rug. And maybe a new ceiling fan. I even think I know what's going to hang on the walls. I love a plan.

This weekend, a guy is coming to appraise our hardwood floors and hopefully give us a quote. We haven't ruled out doing the work ourselves, but if the quote fits... It's pretty exciting to be at this point, after four solid months of painting. There's the laundry room, and there's the stairwell to go. And the floors need to be re-finished. Then we can move.

We are really that close.

A long time coming

All those new house pictures didn't fool you into thinking I wasn't spending any time sewing these days, did they? Oh, I've been sewing. In between the deadlines and busy weekends, I've been slowly and contemplatively pulling this little blanket together. Because deadlines and busy weekends are nothing when you have a friend with a due date.

I love little quilts like this. There are no steps to follow, no directions to consult. Just cut a bunch of squares, lay them out on the floor, and play. I love playing. The colors, the patterns... it's my favorite kind of sewing. This time, I set myself the challenge of working with things I already had on-hand. Sometimes a limitation like that brings out the best in creativity, and I think this was one of those times.

Four more weeks until we get to meet the little one!

What can you do?

March gave us a blizzard. We didn't particularly want a blizzard, now, with my garden seeds on order and my head buzzing with the upcoming task of breaking garden ground in Gilbertsville (say that three times fast!). But we got one, all the same. Eighteen inches.

The silver lining--and it was a good silver lining-- was a county-wide state of emergency that lasted until 5pm... thus keeping Patrick and myself home, home, home. We made pancakes with strawberry-rhubarb compote on top. We took a long walk around in the drifts and the sunshine. And, well, yes, we did spend quite awhile shoveling. It ain't so bad, really. Today's going to be forty degrees, and tomorrow it rains. Spring comes every year, but it takes a special set of circumstances to have a true snowday.