One Week Each

Let's see, what have I been up to?  Well first of all, I feel like a truck hit me.  I've been working my tail off.

I know you're wondering what in the world that title means, huh?

Well, as my Christmas present for my two oldest,  I decided to give them each ONE WEEK of my time.

This is for their houses.  Yep, one week to use me however they choose.  Paint, decorate, hang drapes, buy drapes, make drapes, make dust ruffles, cook, sew, watch kids, whatever.   So, this was (partially Jordan's week)  Actually I'm kind of splitting it up while I'm here in Birmingham as today I go over and start on Greg and Amy's house.  Anyway, the inside of J's house needed some big time work done. (no offense J) but it was a little overwhelming to say the least.  And with 2 little ones, well, you know how that goes.  SO,  GIGI TO THE RESCUE (sort of).  And do you know what?  Didn't even take a before pic. so you are going to have to use your [vivid] imagination on the first project. Do you ever do that?  Say, oh I'm going to take a picture before I do this and wham, before you know it, the project is done and you have no before pics? I do it all the time.

Let's see, I got here Monday and quickly got to work.  She is having a painter come today to start painting the entire inside of her house, but there were a couple of projects for moi to do.

Mainly a hideous bookcase that stared at you like a jealous girlfriend when you first walk in the front door.

What WERE the previous owners thinking?  Seriously. You walk in the front door and the dining room is to the right.  Then you walk through a door straight in front of you and WHAM.  A sea of bookcases.  Now, picture this. Everything in the den was painted neutral colors.  The paneling is a beautiful soft beige with an ivory white trim. Very nice. Then the bookcases? (I'm humming the theme from oh dang, what's that movie, you know with the shark that eats every one?) (hey, it's early) Oh wait, it's Jaws. So, the bookcase was this hideous dark stain.  And not like an ebony, I'm talkin that 80's stain color.  

Anyway, what I had wanted to do was to build a seat there and do like a reading nook.  (The entire bookcase measures 100" long.)  Broken up into two pieces.  Dang WHY didn't I take a before pic????

Well, I really wanted to do that, but, we're on a budget here, and really we only had 12" of depth to work with.  I know MY butt wadn't gonna fit on that seat.  But, I thought it would be cute to do that and have storage underneath for toys.  Well, that didn't happen, so the next idea was to paint the entire bookcase the soft white of the trim color and paint the back a soft grey (but not too soft, we needed some definition here).  The couches (I'll get to that in minute) are a soft beige with hints of grey in them and there is like a burnt gold in the pillow.  We are both really into gold and grey right now.

So, here is the partially finished project:

As you can see, we aren't finished accessorizing.  That's going to happen next week. We are looking for baskets to line the bottom shelf.  (like 6 of them).  See the picture frame?  That is barnwood and a black and white 8 x 10 photo will go in there.  I really struggled with that top part because, seriously, what DO you do?  It needed something big and interesting.  I thought about some art work, but then ditched that idea.  I think when we get the baskets and some more accessories, I'll be happy. And, now that I'm lookin at this pic, I've decided I'm going to hang a wider molding on the top there.  Yep, that is gonna be done tomorrow.   Okay, on to the next project. (After making a dust ruffle)  We covered a coffee table ottoman.  The previous fabric didn't match her couches or pillows and, I wanted to bring out more gold.

Sorry, but I don't have a tutorial on this.  You are welcome to ask any questions though!!! :)   PLEASE!

Here is the before:

and after!

nice and clean cut with indoor, outdoor fabric, ready for sticky fingers and crackers.  The piano over there was left by the previous owners and I'm going to paint something to go above that. Or maybe do 3 pictures of the kids (when baby Cate arrives) Black and white of course.  And now that I'm looking at this pic, we need to lower the painting over the couch. Then, I'm going to make two charcoal grey roman shades.

now, if my body holds up, I'm gonna start painting Greg and Amy's living room.

TODAY.

Have a wonderful day y'all!

kb