Inspiration And Perspiration

Room makeover in progress! To catch up on the project, read:

Ready, Set, Go!
Wild And Reckless
Baby Blues
Fresh Paint
What About Polka Dots?
Making Progress
The Undisputed Truth
The Gods Must Be Crazy
Multi-Tasking Mania
Dirty Jobs
Spray Paint: Part 1
No Turning Back
Judging Books By Their Covers
Home Tour: Peace And Harmony

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"Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration." 

-Thomas Edison

Now I'm not trying to invent the light bulb over here; all I want is a clean, comfortable office. But I think ol' Tommy is on to something. It takes not just a grand vision but also some serious elbow grease to make a dream come true.

Fortunately, I'm armed with both.

Here are a handful of my favorite eye-popping, drool-worthy inspiration photos, interspersed with my labor-intensive work plan for gettin' 'er done.

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1. Decide on colors and inspiration pieces.

2. Empty out the room. 

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3. Remove the crown molding, chair rail, baseboards and door; sand them down, then stain and re-finish them, and replace.

4. Clean, stain and re-finish the wood around the windows and door frame that cannot be removed.

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5. Paint the ceiling in Bleached Linen, to match the rest of the house.

6. Paint the walls a warm neutral - beige or grey.

7. Paint the inside of the door and/or the bit of ceiling above the window a fun color. Maybe red?

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8. Decide on a furniture arrangement using the two existing work tables and inspiration end tables. Wish list: couch, desk lamps, reading light, cabinet or cupboard.

9. Reconfigure all the ungodly wires and devices; find a way to get the tower, router, and printer off my work table.

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10. Re-finish the built-in bookcase.

11. Re-style the bookcase.

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12. Hang art, collect accessories, consider a rug and window covering, style the room.

13. Celebrate!!

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I'm tackling this list with determination and a steady pace. Still narrowing down my paint colors, I've chosen two pieces that will inspire everything else that happens in this makeover.

^ My second-born painted this oversize piece in college. I'm crazy about the rugged stripes and happy colors, which are bit softer in real life that the photo suggests. 

^ Fresh from the aisles of Target this summer, these adorably geometric turquoise tables were originally topped with padded seat covers. Prowling through her Instagram feed, my afore-mentioned second-born found this idea for substituting wooden tops and converting them to tables; we fell in love with the new and improved look.

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Tomorrow, I'm planning a date to IKEA to check out couch colors; then I'll be able to finalize my wall color, suit up in my painting clothes, haul in some ladders, and get to work. Like Mr. Edison, I'm ready to roll up my sleeves in pursuit of a dream.

Ready, Set, Go!

Things are getting ugly in my home office.

Welcome to Day 1 of a top-to-bottom remodel. For the first time in my life, I'm making an intentional plan to redo every square inch of a room.

Usually, when I take on a redecorating project, I try to pretend that I'm only going to paint the walls, and upgrade a few accessories. Then one thing leads to another, and the next thing you know, I'm cleaning the window sills with a Q-Tip, sanding down the undersides of the closet shelves, and repainting every stick of furniture.

But not this time. I've learned my lesson. I'm going in with a plan.

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These days, this room serves mostly as my computer throne. I'm the only member of the family still tethered to the desktop that lives here, so I claim sovereignty over design issues. There are two things I want to change about the way the room functions for me:

First, despite the pretty things to look at - a huge window, natural wood floor-to-ceiling bookcases, and a curiosity-satisfying view to the front door - the current furniture arrangement has me shoved in the back of the room with my face in the corner like a grade-school kid who said a bad word on the playground. Well, I'm tired of it, y'all. I want to look toward the light.

Secondly, I'll be honest. In the last digital upgrade, I somehow ended up with a huge computer monitor. In fact, it rivals our vintage TV for square footage, and so I watch a lot of movies and TV programs online. But seriously, I much prefer to do my viewing while lounging in a cozy nest. I need a couch in here, with a clear line of sight to my Hulu hotline.

Besides my wish list, this room needs some hardcore maintenance. I loved the red walls in their day, but they've been here for more than a decade and I am ready for a change. After hours of playtime in years gone by, the walls are bumped and bruised from many a little girls' game. Spackle is desperately needed.

And the windowsills...well, let me say that my previous setter, Casey, made a hobby of catching flies in the house. He would pin them down against this big glass pane, and then leap with reckless abandon, flailing against the window and scratching the woodwork to high heavens in his jubilant and usually successful attacks. Those long, sweeping claw marks make me a little sentimental, but come on, they have got to go. My sander and I have our work cut out for us.

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Technically, I eased into the project yesterday, so let's call that Day 0. We hauled most of the stuff out of the room, prised off some of the woodwork, and began experimenting with a new furniture arrangement.

And most importantly, the ceremonial towel was laid out for the Official Tool Resting Place. In Streicherville, this sight is a sure sign of a project in progress. Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines, er...paintbrushes. This race is officially underway!

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Read here to find out what happens next:

Inspiration And Perspiration
Wild And Reckless
Baby Blues
Fresh Paint
What About Polka Dots?
Making Progress
The Undisputed Truth
The Gods Must Be Crazy
Multi-Tasking Mania
Dirty Jobs
Spray Paint: Part 1
No Turning Back
Judging Books By Their Covers
Home Tour: Peace And Harmony

#WHPdoortodoor

The subject of this weekend's hashtag project is doors. 

So I've been keeping my eye out for an interesting specimen. While I was walking with Ranger near the high school today, we cruised along a row of portable classrooms and I found myself glancing between the smaller buildings toward the main structure when voila! Inspiration found me in the form of double red doors.

While the photo itself is not extraordinary, I soon discovered that the composition lends itself to lots of editing fun. The narrow, neutral walls of the passage and the high contrast section of bricks around the doors take on lots of different colors and textures, and the slivers of sunlight can be played up or down. By mixing and matching various editing tools on PicMonkey, I quickly came up with a dozen different variations, and netted that pile down to my top six, which you see here.

Now my only challenge is to decide which one of these six edits to submit before the hashtag project deadline on Sunday night.  #instaproblems

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For more of my #WHP stories, check out:

Weekend Hashtag Project

#WHPwaterdrops 

#WHPlighthouse

#WHPreflectagram

September Sunshine

Today was the kind of September day that all those sweater-wearing, pumpkin-spice-latte-sipping, autumn-loving types adore - brilliant sunshine, high fluffy clouds, a hint of fall color in the trees, and a bit of a snap in the air.

I'll agree that it was beautiful

But my favorite thing about this fall-ish afternoon was that it was still warm enough for shorts. 

Long live summer!

Autumn Album

When I was a little girl growing up in the woods of Michigan, I had a thing for collecting autumn leaves. When summer's greenery had faded to yellow, orange and red, I would gather an assortment from my favorite trees...the pin oak, the sugar maple, and especially the sassafras. After carting home armloads of prime specimens, I would iron them between layers of waxed paper, sometimes with the oh-so-colorful crayon shavings. And then I would make stuff out of them.

Books, mostly. Little albums of leaves, with the names of the trees dutifully labeling each page. I went through this ritual year after year, from probably age five until well into my teens.

Then I took a hiatus from this tradition for a few years, but I didn't give it up completely. Just a few seasons back, my pent-up enthusiasm for book-bound leaf collections exploded in a new creation.

I had so much fun making this book.

And to tell you the truth, I feel another autumn leaf extravaganza coming on. It'll still be a few weeks before the trees are in their full glory, so I have time to think about what I might make with this year's colorful crop. But you can be pretty sure that each leaf in my new autumn album will be properly labeled.

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More stories of my magical childhood adventures:

The Woods

Vintage Memories

Happy Halloween: Gathering Up Ghosties

A Lake Feels Like Home

The Story Of The Stair Steps

Hillpoint Shamrock Kelly

Lovely Lilacs

My Fairy House

Happy Fall! Banner

This year, two of my fall-loving daughters are living in lands of eternal summer. So, in order to help them stay connected to autumn, I decided to make them each an itty bitty fall garland.

Using my tried-and-true banner methodology, I gathered up tiny strips of papers, watercolors, a length of black string and a Sharpie to make the magic happen. 

I cut bits of medium weight drawing paper to 1 x 3 inch strips. I gave each one a gentle fold down the middle, and snipped out a tiny triangle to create the pointed ends. I always make a few more strips than I theoretically need because, people, accidents happen.

Haphazard dabs of watercolors in bright reds and pinks are totally my style, though I seriously considered going with a more autumnal palette of orange, rust, and brown. I also thought about painting each paper a slightly different shade, and then arranging them in an ombre effect. Hmm. Maybe next time.

Little known fact: freshly painted papers can be dried at top speed by warming them in the microwave. Several bursts of 40- to 60-second intervals work well for the impatient artist. Ask me how I know.

At the non-pointy end of the strips, I folded back about one centimeter of the paper, for gluing purposes. Making all the folds at once helps me keep the size of the folds fairly uniform; otherwise, it's easy to drift off target. Again, ask me how I know.

Write the letters of the message out, one per strip. Oh, it sounds so easy, doesn't it? But this is the crucial make-it-or-break-it stage of the project, so here are a few tips.

• Make sure your Sharpie is full of fresh ink, so you will get a rich, lush line instead of a scruffy blur.
• Decide on the style of letter you'll create, and consider practicing your font on a scratch paper before you start.
• Take care to place each letter in the same position on the strip of paper. A little variation is charming, but a reasonable level of uniformity is not all bad.
• Remember how we cut some extra strips of paper, in case of mistakes? Yeah. Don't be afraid to call for back-up.

Over-estimate the length of the string you'll need.  You can always trim it off if it's too long, but all the world hates a string too short. Arrange the strips to correctly spell out the message, then use a bit of tacky glue to smack them in place, one at a time. Start with the letters in the middle of your message, and position them in the middle of the string. 

Keep working from the center of the message to the end, and then go back to the center and work towards the beginning. From time to time, check the front side of your emerging banner to be sure the strips are in the proper order. Those little devils can play tricks on even the most alert banner-makers.

Then, spread the little darling out and admire.

Once the glue dried, I took mine out for a little adventure in the front yard. He will soon be traveling off to a land that autumn forgot, so I wanted him to soak up as much Pacific Northwest September goodness as possible. Along with this little banner, our crisp, cool sunshine and gently yellowing foliage send a cheery message: "Happy fall!"