Today's Pre-Christmas-Tree Project: Patchwork Walls

After being bothered year after year by the bare wall behind-and-beside the mantel--and that is always behind our Christmas tree in pictures--I finally figured out what I wanted to do with it:  patchwork, of course--and set to work.  

I went back and forth about it for awhile this morning but decided just to use dabs of hot glue to hang the fabric pieces since I've already told the apartment's building manager I'll fix up the walls with a fresh coat of paint whenever the day comes to move out.  If I have to spackle/patch a few more spots before repainting, I'll live.  Scrap by scrap this morning, then, the narrow strip to at least one side of the mantel was transformed.  The rest will have to wait until tomorrow, but ooh la la, even this much just SENDS me.  :)

Below is what it looked like pre-Christmas tree last year. 

The green floral wall is only about three feet wide, and the formerly-bare one a little over two feet.  After Christmas, this tiny corner will become my writing corner.  I've already chosen a (black) corner-desk, since the two desks I've inherited from grandparents are both still at my parents' house and neither would fit into this little apartment anyway, and I have a few other things tucked away in the bedroom closet to add to my writing spot once it's all set up.  Before that, though, it'll be the corner for the tree. 

By tomorrow. . . !

And between this and the patchwork lampshade I dolled-up in September, I'll have used almost my entire stash of saved fabric pieces, which is a most satisfying little accomplishment.  It annoys me to have bags of things like that sitting around or squirreled away, especially in such a small home.  Stuffed approves. 

Ah, home! 

Love, love, love!  And soon, there will be a Christmas tree and twinkling lights in this picture--All the better.  ♥

Stop the World

Ah!  I woke up wishing I could stay home today instead of trudging off to work, and the feeling hasn't eased-up as the day's progressed.  I'm off the next two days, though, so here's to hanging in there this evening--and to having a job in the first place.  Tomorrow and Thursday will find me--when I'm not outside admiring leaves, at least--in this chair with this cat, so help me!     
 

Mantel Makeover (and Over and Over)

A full year and four months after my dad built this mantel for me and Mike, it is finally the way I want it and ready to display a few of our other treasures.  This is the mantel we were given for our first wedding anniversary present from my parents in April 2012.  ♥  My mom bought the wood for it, and my dad made it in just one day, in the hours before Aunt Laurie, Uncle Warren, and cousin Mark arrived from out of town for the weekend.  "Make it extra small for them," my mom had instructed my dad.  "They're in an apartment, remember."  And even though it goes goes against all his furniture-building instincts, he left the mantel unstained since he knew I would want to paint it anyway. 

It was the sweetest surprise, but since Mike and I hadn't been expecting it, of course, we hadn't rented a car for that weekend with enough trunk-space to accomodate a mantel, so it had to be stored at my parents' house another full year, until we rented a car again for our next anniversary trip. 

In the meantime, I worked on redoing the wall I knew would be the Mantel Wall.  The mantel is a little over three feet across, and this shortest wall in our apartment is only slightly longer, so this is the perfect spot for it.  Our first two Christmases in this apartment have seen our tree in a cozy nook area just to the left of this wall, so imagine this winter when our tree is beside this tiny white mantel and sweet pink wall!  ♥  But I'm getting ahead of myself.  I knew I wanted the mantel wall to be different from all the others in our home, and since we are not allowed to wallpaper, I worked around the rules by attaching a few yards of fabric to the wall instead.  This pretty print is Tanya Whelan's "Barefoot Roses."  I love it.  I nailed it up in a few spots and then decided to hot-glue painted yardsticks to its edges to make a border of sorts.  I didn't do World's Greatest Job cutting around the smoke alarm, but my mistakes aren't so noticeable in the end. 

By the time we unloaded the van--a van!  We took no chances this time--we'd rented for our anniversary and visit home to my parents this April, the wall was almost ready--I was still in the middle of hanging family photos and revamping my beloved "Home Sweet Apartment" needlepoint, but the fabric was up--and I was more than eager, after a year's wait, to finish the mantel that would grace it.  I bought a rose applique for the mantel's front, and while the combination of tape and wood glue worked its magic, I finally began painting.

First I went with the Sherwin Williams-brand "Captivating Cream" left from the hutch re-do. 

It was pretty, but I hadn't realized that the sides of the mantel's wall were almost the same shade as the now-cream mantel and yardstick-border, and it just didn't thrill me. 

By the time my birthday Tulips were resting on top, I had tried the leftover "Mesclun Green" from the hutch project.  I love bold-colored mantels.  There are some vivid Kelly green ones online that make me happy just to look at, and I've saved photos of gorgeous pink ones too. 

The green was a definite Strike Two, however, and after a couple days spent analyzing various shades of pink paint, I chose a couple, "sure" that if I didn't love one, I'd love the other and could use both for extra projects around the apartment anyway.  First up was Sherwin Williams' "In the Pink."  And by this point, Mike's parents' wedding portrait and my parents' high school graduation portraits were watching over all the action.  ♥

This was too "Barbie's Dream House" pink for me, especially against the pink wall and now-pink fabric-border, so I opened the can of "Charming Pink."  And was not at all charmed, as is evident in the mess of a photo below.  It looked more white than pink when dry, but more unintentionally-faded-white than true white.  By this point, I was tired of the entire project and took a break from all things mantel-related for awhile.

Until yesterday, when I decided that white was the "obvious" way to go.  It would connect the white of the photos' mattes to the mantel, and the brightness would "pop" against the pink wall better than any other color--except maybe black, but this was too sweet a mantel for black.  I explained to the clerk at Sherwin Williams yesterday morning that I wanted a "real" white, not at all cream, not at all gray, nothing yellowed or faded or subtle about it, but instead a true white, and he instantly said, "You probably want our 'Extra White.'"  And he was right.  This was, I see at long last, what I'd wanted all along.  ♥

It looks crisp and bold but still sweet and cottage-ey, it is striking against both the pink floral wall and the framed photos of our parents and siblings, and all the little things that have been set aside for displaying on the mantel will really shine against the bright white.  That patchwork wing chair I've been redoing?  It will be going to the left of the mantel, with the Christmas tree between them every winter.  ♥  With an overstuffed ottoman and a vintage rug in-front, and string lights.  And red hearts!  And trailing houseplants!  And!  And!  And!!

The white seems to show off the mantel's details best too.  Dad did such a beautiful job with this.

After straining back, arm, and neck all afternoon yesterday with paintbrush in-hand, I saw that I was finally done, and I called Mom late last night to tell her.  She completely "got" it and was so excited to hear the news.  "We told you you'd know the right color when you hit upon it," she reminded me.  I had shown her, Dad, and Aunt Laurie photos of the mantel during my birthday visit home a few months ago, and she and Aunt Laurie had said that it looked pretty already but that they could tell I wasn't thrilled with it.  I'm thrilled now, and it was a relief to be able to say so, especially after all the work and wait-time my family had put into this first anniversary surprise for us. 

So sweet!  ♥

And now this dear little mantel and the space around it will get to be decorated, certainly a more relaxing stage than the painting one.  I'm mailing pictures to Mom, Dad, and Aunt Laurie tomorrow.  And I'm not even looking at paintbrushes today, I assure you.  My mantel is done!  ♥

Home Sweet Apartment ~ in Pink

Since bringing back from my parents' house the mantel my dad built for me and Mike last April, I've been painting it and fixing up the things that will surround it.  My treasured old "Home Sweet Apartment" needlepoint is the first piece I've revamped for the mantel-wall.  It was one of my very first eBay finds back in 2001, that most-miserable of years, and even though--or maybe especially because--I was unexpectedly living with my parents again at the time, I was thrilled when mine was the winning bid:  This vintage sampler, like a Field of Dreams-type "If-you-find-the-decorations-for-it-the-new-home-will-come" talisman,  gave me something concrete to work toward as a frustrated twenty-four-year-old.  

In the summer of 2002 when I finally had my first all-to-myself-with-no-roommates apartment, I delighted in unpacking the needlepoint and dolling it up, and what a year before had arrived pine green and maroon with an unfinished wooden frame became pink and aqua to match the little dining nook in my new place.  

"Home Sweet Apartment" behind me as I would sit in the corner seat under it there and work on school work for my second Masters program.  "Home Sweet Apartment" beside my newly-ex-boyfriend and I as we sat across from each other at this vintage tablecloth-clad table eating bowls of my homemade soup and awkwardly figuring out our post-breakup friendship.  "Home Sweet Apartment" above me as I bawled my heart out in this pink-dotted chair the following New Year's night after realizing we weren't ready to be "just friends" just yet and that we might never be able to in this lifetime.  The sampler over me and my mom when she showed up on a whim with two chocolate muffins from the bakery and listened as I made us tea and told her all about it.  The sampler over a whole bunch of us when I hosted both my first family dinner and first birthday party and relearned that as long as I had love to give--and gave it--I wasn't down for the count.  Before I moved out of this first "all mine" apartment, a former professor joined me for cookies and lemonade under the needlepoint and commented that I was good at making people feel welcome.  "Hospitality is your thing, isn't it," he thoughtfully noted.  And that's when "Home Sweet Apartment" really clicked for me:  I really had created a home here, not just filled and decorated a rented space. 

The pink and aqua needlepoint became a more subdued and not-very-Val-like red and yellow in 2007, so as not to overwhelm Mike with my pink-and-rainbow-loving tendencies.  Our studio apartment was so tiny, it was hard to do any real decorating in it at all, so the yellow and red actually didn't bother me too much.  When you can roll out of bed in your home-sweet-apartment and land on the kitchen floor, or open the bathroom door while sitting at the dinner table, the color combination of a sampler's matte and frame isn't your biggest homemaking concern.  Besides, the sweet sampler watched over me and Mike, this time hanging from the apartment's built-in mantel, during all our goings-on for four years the same as it had when it had been pink and aqua for me before.  Home was still love-filled and our favorite place.  Be it ever so humble, you know.   

Today it became pink again, though, and I don't see it changing after this.  It finally looks just right to me.  I covered the yellow matte with the dotted pink upholstery fabric that I had used to cover the captain chairs in my little circa-2002 pink and aqua corner.  I repainted the red frame black.  And I removed the glass-front since I don't trust this apartment's wall to hold its weight.  While I continue painting the mantel and fixing up the wall around it, at least this much is done.  That I figured out a way to incorporate the old chair fabric makes me especially happy.  

"Lighten up, Val--It's a sampler," I know, but when I look at it, I remember the journey it's accompanied me on and think of it as a witness to the past twelve years.  When Mike and I eventually move on from renting, I will pass it on to its next owners with a prayer for their own resilience and contented refuge in home.  

Sweet, indeed.  ♥