They Wore Blue Velvet

You guys.  I'm learning upholstery.  Our scrappy, mildly-neglected library started out with these sloppily upholstered chairs we got for free on Craigslist.

They were in such rough condition that the first thing I did when we got them home was patch them just so the stuffing wouldn't hang out.

They're actually a his and hers pair, so each chair is slightly different. They sat in our sad, unloved library like this for a looooooooooong time just waiting for me to get up the gumption to learn upholstery. Finally:

And all that was just building back the seats and structural components. On a side note, when I bought the velvet for these chairs, the woman at the cut counter called it "dreamy."  I can't agree more.

Next came the inside arms.

Then the backs, which in this case are channel backs.

Then came the fun part: using this Rifle Paper Co. fabric to close up the outsides of the chairs!

Finally, I finished the pair and moved them up to our now much-loved library.

Complete with Nancy Drew mural!

And a newly curated landscape artwork wall.

It felt way great to spend our first lazy Saturday enjoying our brand new library!

We read The Spider Sapphire Mystery, of course!

Tons of people on Facebook expressed an interest in upholstery, so here are some links to Kim's Upholstery, which is basically how I learned every single thing I needed to know along the way. She's incredibly generous and helpful as is the community of upholsterers you will find on her various pages, so feel free to check her out!

• Kim's Upholstery Website: https://kimsupholstery.com/
• Her Facebook page, where she offers a free live course every Wednesday morning: https://www.facebook.com/kimsupholstery/
• Kim's DIY Upholstery Hangout, where you can ask and answer questions with other upholsterers: https://www.facebook.com/groups/172433936288031/
• Kim's YouTube Channel with tons of free videos showing how to re-upholster: https://www.youtube.com/user/KimsUpholstery

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Nancy Drew and the Case of the Mural in our Library

This spring one of my goals was to finally give some attention to our library upstairs. We've always really wanted a library space where we could sit and read together, but we've just never quite gotten it all the way together for one reason or another.

My first project in this room was to create a mural. We deliberated long and hard over what to paint and finally settled on an image from The Spider Sapphire Mystery from the Nancy Drew series.

It's always been one of my favorite images from the series and we've both gotten really into collecting and reading the books over the years. Here's the blank wall we started with.

First, we borrowed a projector from Eddy's workplace over the Thanksgiving holidays, which seems to be a tradition for us!

Then I set up in our library for a few weeks with tons of gold metallic paint.

The metallic nature of the paint means that it's difficult to get a great picture of the final result, but it also means that as the light changes throughout the day and as you change your position in the room, the image changes as well.

It's sort of like a mystery.

A Spider Sapphire Mystery.

Here's an hypnotic gif of what it looked like as it went up.

Hypers! (As George Fayne would say)

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We're Kind of Carpenters

When we were looking for houses in Portland so many of them had these gorgeous built in benches by the front door.  Ours didn't have one, but it did have the perfect spot for one.

See that table? There's going to be a bench there someday!

After much, much, much too much planning we started by building a box.

I helped too.

Obviously.

Starting to get some stuff up on the wall.

Finally we stained out the bench seat and did some finishing work.

And here it is!

It's not actually painted yet since we're planning to repaint the trim in the house.

The stained (instead of painted) bench seat is actually my favorite part and it was a sort of spur of the moment decision.

My favorite part other than these bunny hooks, that is.

Carpenter Team Sunshine Fuzzy Bunny!

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Finally! A Library!

We attempted to make a library in our California house.  In the end, though, it ended up just being a dog room and a room we passed through to get to our bedroom.  Our Portland house, however, has the perfect space for a library.

We're not finished in there yet but yours truly, apprentice electrician, installed some new light fixtures.

The old ones were pretty yuck.

Eddy's teaching me everything he knows about wiring.

There's not too much more to tell yet, so here's what the library looks like now.

Eventually I'll recover the chairs, but there are about 3 million quilts to be made right now, so it might be awhile. Also, paint. Down with the color tan!

Forever.

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Workshop in Progress

In comparison to our previous houses, I think this house is likely to roll along slowly with little projects completed piecemeal in a variety of rooms instead of having rooms finished all at once.

In that spirit, there are a couple of recent projects that have rendered my new workshop so much more lovely and functional.

First I removed the closet doors so I had an open closet to work with and bought some IKEA furniture to create some shelving.

Then Eddy was kind enough to install a new light fixture in the closet.

Let there be light!

I bought about 1,000 of these carts and sorted all of my fabric and scraps into them by color.

So satisfying.

Here's the closet now!

I also made a standing station. Of course I didn't take any pictures other than this, rather unsexy, shot of me preparing to paint the hairpin legs I bought.

For the sake of comprehensiveness, here's one last shot of my workshop as it looks now.

Did I mention I got a TV?! How else do you expect me to watch Quantum Leap while I quilt?

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