Chair Pair Gets An Update

This cute little duo needed an update. 

I'm amping up this little upholstery business of mine, so to get started again I agreed to do an update on a friend's cute little chairs.

One down and one to be finished later today!  My plan is to really gear up after the first of the year, so if you're in the Kansas City area and have a project you need done, send me an email at jennydover@mokancomm.net

Because I Need a Smile Today

Does this make you want to crawl into a ball pit?

Dancing on the Clouds

Heaven received a beautiful soul early yesterday morning.

He was kind and funny; generous and loving; full of life and a truly inspiring young man.  I hesitate to say "was" because I know a part of him is still with all of us that love him so much and miss him so terribly.  I hope you're dancing on the clouds Auston.

From Sassy to Sexy in One Afternoon

About 2 years ago, I decided to paint my dining room orange.

I really loved the color but hated that the dining room was an open room to the left just inside the front door and I hated the taupe carpet.  Carpet in the dining room?  Genius!  So last year we did some pretty major renovations to the main floor and I moved my dining table to the kitchen where it makes much more sense, we added hardwoods to this room, had all the floors on the main level refinished, and I had a cabinet built into the weird inset along the back wall.

I decided to use this room as a lounge and turned my new cabinet into a bar cabinet.  I thought I still loved the orange so I kept it, but when we replaced the carpet on the stairs which are open to this room it just looked a little Halloweenish.

This isn't the best shot, but the carpet is a black low-pile with a beige pattern.  I finally got around to fixing the situation with some leftover paint from my son's room.  It is "Graphite" by Benjamin Moore.

Much better for a lounge don't you think?

And it fixed my Halloween theme I had going too!

Prom Scenes

What He Said

Because I can't stop thinking about the good people of Boston and the good people of the world... 

We Outnumber You

Image via blog.lib.umn.edu

You cowards, so filled with hate, intolerance, violence and evil.  You will never win.  Our fear only flashes for a moment but unfortunately for you, that flash of fear flames into a fire of resolve.  We will always defeat you.  The good always outnumbers the evil.

Welcome to the Good Life

A quick video of our recent vacation put together by my son:

And we do have a very good life...

This Little Light of Mine

There's a saying that goes around my house quite often when talking to my children.  "Wantin' and gettin' are two different things."  Well, it seems I've had to take my own advice.  You see, this tuxedo chandelier from Z Gallerie was on my "wantin' list" for  above my island in my kitchen.

But it weighs in with a hefty $799 price tag so it didn't make it on the "gettin' list."  What you can't see from this online picture is the beautiful soft gold on the inside of the shade that casts the prettiest light. Here is a really bad iPhone picture from the display at the store.

So off to the inter webs I did go and found this as a more budget friendly option.

While it is lovely and the price was right at $229, the inside of the shades were bright white and didn't give off the soft glow I was wanting.  

Enter Rub N' Buff, one of my newest favorite friends.

I put a bit of it on a paper plate and went to town on the insides of the shades.

Six shades and a handy husband later...wait that sounds wrong.  Anyway, my handy husband did hang the light for me and this is what I ended up with.

I'm thinking for a little more than 1/4 of the cost and a little elbow grease, this little light of mine was a pretty good compromise.

Little Black Dress

Fashion gurus are always telling us that a "little black dress" is a staple in any wardrobe.  Since my kitchen window has been a source of frustration for quite some time, it got me to thinking maybe that goes for windows too.  Please try not to pay too close attention to the next bad iPhone photo and the dirty dishes, but I forgot to take a true before picture and this was all I could come up with!

In all reality, this window just needs to be completely replaced, but that's just not in the budget.  You can see part of the half-round window above that has always just driven me crazy.  Why do builders put these crazy difficult windows in?

I had gotten a quote for a custom Roman shade to cover the window, but at $2000, it wasn't in the budget either.  Who spends that on a blind?  After quite a bit of searching for an alternative, I found this blind at West Elm.  It was a deal at $79.00!

It fit the space perfectly and helped hide the half-round (at least when the sun isn't shining through).  It all was still a little bland for me with the ivory cabinets and brown walls (the walls are next on my to-do list!) so I pulled the shade down and tried to work a little budget friendly magic.  I ordered 7 yards of 2 1/4" grosgrain ribbon from MJ Trim for $1.98/yd and set to work at soon as it came in the mail.

I extended the shade all the way out and started trimming the edges with the ribbon using my favorite adhesive for fabric.

I put the trim down both sides first trying to keep it as straight as possible and eyeballing equal distance from the edge on both sides.

Nest I did the bottom and top and just folded the ribbon over at both ends a bit to cover the cut edge.

While I waited for that to dry I broke out some black paint I had leftover from painting my front door and painted the trim around the window.

After the shade was dry I hung it back up and, voila!

I think those fashion gurus might just be right; everybody (or everything) could use a little black dress.