City Craft is an urban sewing studio with high end fabrics – mainly quilt weight cotton and a few heavier/upholstery fabrics. It reminded me of Sewtropolis in Minneapolis (where I used to work, for those of you not familiar) with a nice, big sewing studio on one side and cozy fabrics on the other. The shop is in a strip mall, shopping complex sort of place – you know the nicer kind, like, outdoor malls (is there a name for them?) The area seems pretty nice with lots of parking. It was a little hard to find, only because Google Maps got us to the general location, but then we had to troll the parking lot, looking for the rather low-profile storefront – sorry, I forgot to snap a photo!

Just check out those funky chairs and almost-naughty apron!

The first thing I saw when I walked in was a pattern wall with Colette Patterns, so I felt right at home. I didn’t see any Sewaholic patterns, alas.

I just noticed! More big, fat, rick rack! I can’t believe I totally missed that while I was there!

The fabric selection was a bit limited, compared to the selection I’m used to back in Minneapolis, but there were a lot of cute fabrics for those looking for modern quilting, kids clothes and fun accessories. I took a quick look at the website and some of my favorite designers are listed – Heather Ross, Alexander Henry, Joel Dewberry – plus there’s a nice selection of solids.

As far as garment fabrics, there was a teeny section with a couple nice wool fabrics and some of the super fine-wale corduroy that I love. I think it’s meant for kid-clothes, but with the texture so fine, it has a really nice drape for skirts so I can indulge in my love of 70′s schoolmarm fashion without feeling like I’m sewing cardboard.

There was ONE brightly colored interlock jersey with a zig-zag print and a couple of stretch ruffled novelty fabrics as well. I got a few yards of the green ruffles and a yard and a half of the grey for future dresses/shirts. Comfy and yet funky. Also, the fabric is see through… I’m going to have to go back to the Golden d’Or to peruse the giant selection of tricot to line the ruffle-dresses!

Here’s my haul…

The colors are off in the photo – the top fabric is pretty close (and aren’t I the trendy-according-to-Pantone-monkey?), but the bottom fabric is a nice graphite color. Like pencil lead. Or, um, otters.

Half the store is chock full of fabric, and the other half is a really nice, bright sewing studio. The class lineup had some familiar classes – PJ bottoms, beginning sewing, basic garments. There are a few more quilt classes and no knitting/crochet classes, which makes sense. Since there isn’t yarn.

All in all, City Craft seems like a nice little shop. While I was there a few girls were chatting away in the studio about a wedding dress and a few women were shopping on the fabric side. The staff was super nice and helpful – even jotting down the names of a few other fabric shops for me to check out! (Anyone been to Fabrique? It looks promising in a fussy seamstress way!)

Let’s take another look at the naughty-penguin-pilgrim apron, shall we? Where’s the handcuffs?

I’m sure I’ll stop by every once in a while. It’s good to know of a source for high end quilt fabrics, when I get a hankering to make accessories!

Everyone feel free to take a moment to take in my random pop culture references.

Alright. Back to business. Since the biggest poorly kept secret in 5th tier sewing blogs is that I stopped sewing when I moved to Texas, I’m sure it’ll come as no surprise to anyone that I’ve put off seeking out non-chain fabric shops in my new stomping grounds. The local Joanne’s and Hancock have been enough to tide over my need for thread and needles, and no lie, folks, my main source of fabric since moving has been Lowes, as I’ve reupholstered every surface in our house with a nice poly-cotton dropcloth from the paint department.

The Golden d’Or

Saturday Mr. Bug and I headed out to find the mythical Golden d’Or in Dallas. For anyone remotely familiar with the state of highway construction ’round these parts, holy cow. It took a Garmin, the Google app on my iPhone and some surreptitious tailing of a giant truck through a Home Depot parking lot just to get there.

The store is on a really busy “street” (highway?) next to a furniture outlet. There was a giant bazaar across the street and a few store fronts down there were a few guys with super small horses giving rides to kids in a parking lot. Also, there were a lot of designer handbag stores and jewelry outlets. When we got back to our car, someone had left a religious tract in spanish with a lurid photo of Jesus or Mary (I’ve blocked it out.) It was very purple.

When I was heading down here, folks had mentioned this place. It’s a ratty, dirty, warehouse-type place that reminded me a bit of SR Harris in Minneapolis, except the prices didn’t seem quite as good, and there’s WAY less fashion and upholstery fabric. And TONS more dance and bridal fabrics.

What’s apple green and slippery all over?

There was a pretty good silk selection suitable for garment making (i.e., no endless aisles of stiff dupioni.) Check out this… two whole bins of silk charmeuse perfect for blouses, dresses or Colette Cinnamons. I’ve been meaning to try that pattern and almost bought a few yards of that apple green silk in the lower right-hand corner.

There was also a nice bin full of silk tweed. I like the pink and black one in the center. I can’t believe I didn’t get enough for a skirt!

Dance Dance Revolution

Now let’s get to what the Golden d’Or seemed to specialize in. Bright satin, sheer georgette, spangles, fringes, sequins and glitter. I’m telling y’all, if one were making dance costumes, this place’d be heaven!

There’s a large bridal section – a lot of those rolls of white fabric are 100% silk. I’m sucha sucka for natural fibers. Bring on the worms!

Sadly, there appeared to be an imprisoned big bird in the bridal section as well…

All about the trimmings

There’s a large room chock full of trim, buttons and elastic. Mismatched buttons, etc. A lot of it looked worn, older but certainly usable. By the time I found the trim room, Mr. Bug had found me, so I didn’t examine in closely, but it looked pretty run of the mill, just a lot. Nothing too exciting – and I think all the ribbon is man-made fiber.

Nice selection of rick-rack; including the super large stuff. I spy in my right eye some crafty aprons in my future.

Ahhh… Comfort

There was also a WHOLE ROOM of spandex. Ladies (assuming ya’ll are ladies)… this is all stretchy material. Towards the back of the room is a whole rack of ITY knits appropriate for dresses, some in some really good solid colors.

There was TONS of nylon tricot, which I was pretty excited about! I’ve looked for this as a lining for stretch garments and never have seen in it the wild. Just LOOK at the color selection!!

There was also power net in black, natural and white. Nice to know of a local source!

Grrrrrr. I’m a scary monster.

For those in need of a cozy wrap, there was a lot of super-nice fake fur and a TON of minky – the good stuff from Robert Kaufman. Obviously, not great for garment making, but very good for baby gift making.

In the back of the store was a giant clearance room with everything 50% off the marked prices. NOW we’re talking! Again, a lot of the fabric didn’t really float my boat, but I’m guessing it’s hit or miss at this place.

Also – not pictured because I’m  lazy – a pretty nice little selection of suit-weight wool. Nothing in super awesome colors (like, you know, coral) but the quality felt awesome-o. Of course, since we’re in Texas, I guess it’s not surprised that the wool selection was limited! There was also a VERY small selection of fabrics in the ‘designer’ section, but I couldn’t find any note of the designer on the bolts.

Most of the bolts of fabric weren’t marked as to content, so curious minds would have to do a burn test or live with the uncertainty with finds. And Mr. Bug would like me to convey that the entire store was terrifying for the males. At least, males like him who prefer a nice stroll through Dick’s sporting goods or Target. Look at the fear and pleading in his eyes. Hey girl, let me carry that bag of fabric for you so we can LEAVE.

I got a few yards of some undetermined, man-made stretchy stuff (thicker than ITY, and I don’t want to admit to plans to make clothing from swim-wear!)

The top fabric is brown and white – the colors look funky, it was almost dark when I took the picture. I’ve been rocking the longer shirt/scandalously short dress with leggings look a lot lately, and I thought these would make nice little Kwik Sew 3856s  in a barely-covering-my-rump length.

The blue fabric is a bit out of my comfort zone, but I liked the blue and white color scheme. I’m not 100% sure about the bandana-print-meets-leopard, but I’m thinking it’ll look pretty abstract/neutral as a dress…. right?

Thanks Golden d’Or! I’ll be back tomorrow or the next day with part two of our fabric shopping safari. We’ll head on over to City Craft, an urban, fancy-quilt fabric, sewing studio by some hella big houses in Dallas!

I’ve been spending a lot of my time playing with my new puppy (more on that in a bit) and watching reruns of Numb3rs (best TV father, ever. Also, the Biscuit.) When not engaged in those all-encompassing pass-times, I’ve slowly been progressing on decorating the rest of our cardboard-suburban house. And when I say ‘decorating’ what I mean is rearranging leftover furniture in an effort to not having too many empty rooms upstairs.

Things came along delightfully a few weeks ago when Mr. Bug and I finally sprung for a new bed for our room. We’d been sleeping on the bed I’ve had for about 10 years – and it was a hand-me-down from a friend, so who knows how old it really is. Not only was a I totally ready for a new bed with a more simple bed frame, but we needed more space (see also, new puppy. More below.) We upgraded to a king size bed from Ikea. It’s awesome. And giant.

So new king bed for us, which meant our old queen sized bed went into our main guest room, and Mr. Bug’s old double bed went into the smaller guest room. I really wanted some sort of dresser or something similar in our main guest room so anyone staying with us (yeah, I’m giving you the snake eyes, would-be-visitors) will have a place to stash their things while with us. So I took to Craigslist with a vengeance and found this monstrosity for $25.

Hideous, isn’t? Don’t worry, kittens, it’s particle board. No real wood for us bears. And it weighs about 367 pounds – seriously, even forearm forklifts weren’t enough to make it a two person moving job for Mr. Bug and me. Wanna see the worst part of it?

Mmmmm…. forest green interior….

Not to worry, thought. It was $25! And the shape was just what I wanted – doors/shelves on top, drawers on bottom. Perfect for guests. I coaxed Mr. Bug into dragging it home from the shop the craigslist poster had it at (yeah, it made us fight. It’s HEAVY, yo) and I ransacked my supply of Annie Sloan paint.

The guest room is very light and bright, I wanted to get a Swedish antique vibe going with my paint and aspirations of being a faux painter. Something like this.

[image | Tone on Tone]

I covered the outside with a layer of Annie Sloan Old White. That stuff is a DREAM – it totally stuck to and mostly covered the dark green laminate and wood tones with no priming, sanding, etc. After I got the first layer on, I was running a bit short on paint and too lazy to go buy more, so I mixed what I had left of Old White and French Linen – a sort of taupey grey color. I did the second layer and then after it dried I mixed 1 part white latex with 2 parts water, brushed on, then wiped down with a dry cloth right away to lighten it up and give it a whitewashed look. After everything dried I put on a coat of the Annie Sloan clear wax and buffed it with one of those wax buffing pads from the automotive section at Target.

Voila! My fautique. Swedish style. Bork a bork.

I’d initially intended to replace the knobs with white porcelain or ‘glass’ ones, but a lot of the old Swedish pieces I like have wood painted knobs, so I decided to keep the knobs that were already on the piece.

I painted the inside with a couple of coats of Annie Sloan Provence – a totally groovy blue that reminds me of my grandma. Because she painted her dining room set this shade sometime in the early 70′s. Grandma rocks.

The interior looks COMPLETELY different. I’m glad I didn’t give in to my natural sloth-like tendencies and just leave it green.

So, I love the cabinet. It’s perfect for the room. If I had it to do again, I might take a bit of extra time and fill in those face country beadboard panels in the door with wood putty before painting. I think smooth doors would look better, but the look of the fake beadboard isn’t terrible, I just get sort of annoyed at those fake details. Funny, since I love to fake-tique things, huh?

Like I said, the rest of the room is white, white, white and bright. Here’s our old bed in it’s new low-stress life of being a guest bed. I hardly has to do ANYTHING, although my moms is coming down to Texas for Christmas in 10 short days.

Those nightstands. Good gravy. We got them a few years ago on super sale at Target – they’re meant to be in a bathroom, but the price was right and I like the little shelf – good for storing books! But the handles – I HATE them and they’re a funky size so I’m having a hard time  finding something better.

The little painting on this bedside table was a recent find at an antiques shop. I really like the dark tones and the pilgrim vibe. Also, the book is sort of a joke – it’s a VERY old text book on “business.” I thought Mr. Bug (an accountant by day) might find something useful in said book.

Speaking of dark tones and a pilgrim vibe. We did, indeed acquire a baby hound dog in early October. For any of y’all who follows me on Twitter (@pattythesnugbug) or Instragram (pattythesnugbug), you’ve had the chance to view the basset hound content, but for the rest of you, here’s baby Peppermint the day we brought her home. She was about nine weeks old.

She. Is. Adorable. And naughty. Here she was a few weeks ago, impeding my progress in sewing a bedskirt for the guest room (pictured above, ohhhh…. this is a tightly structure blog post…)

And here she was earlier today. Mr. Bug ran the Dallas Marathon this morning, so I decked out the hounds as Christmas Elves to cheer him on. And amuse myself.

Pepper’s the one on the left. She’ll be four months old tomorrow. Housetraining has been… difficult.

Speaking of difficult, I checked my blog and realized I haven’t posted a photo of myself since FEBRUARY, ya’ll!! That’s around when we decided to take the relocation offer and uproot ourselves 1,000 miles to the south. sigh. Not only do I owe you guys a few finished outfit photos (not many items there!) but I look different! I’ve been working on Charlie’s Angels hair (big, wavy, ridiculous) and finally gave in to the inevitable march of time  and allowed my hair stylist to dye my hair back into submission. I was super impressed, to tell you the truth. My hair had really lightened over the years, but the color she uses (it’s an Aveda color in the salon, don’t know which one) really just looks like MY hair color, not some crazy bottle job. It’s…. subtle.

Me last February

Me a couple weeks ago, in the throes of a Linked In update…

I have to blow that mop of hair out every day to get it under control. It seems counterintuitive, somehow, and yet I keep on with my boar bristle round brush…

So what’ve all y’all been up to?

Just to clarify – my role at work AND at the shows is marketing, not sales. While I DO go to trade shows, I don’t staff the booth. As the marketing girl, I’m headed out mainly to connect with folks in the trade press – editors, sales folks, etc. I still think that I’d present better doing what I do wearing a cute dress, but that said, I have other fish to fry than a showdown over wardrobe. Especially ‘cuz if it was anyone else digging in her heels over polo-wearing, I’d be the enforcer. Assuming the ‘she’ in question was a sales person! (And I SO wish we’d ordered sweater sets instead of polos…)

The pants vs. trouser issue, on the other hand is a decided. I am wearing skirts to the show!

SO! moving on. I think I’m going to go with the Jenny + center front faux flat-felled seam. And belt loops with a back slit. I’m considering a front slit, because I’m strangely drawn to them lately, but I’ll probably go with back as it’s a bit more conservative! I had fun with photoshop today… wanna see?

First… here’s a sketch of the skirt…

OK, OK. Not super exciting. I know. Wonder how it’ll look on?

Awwww…. I look like  a cartoon character. For anyone wondering, I always stand like that. Hands in balls, hip cocked so steeply there’s a potential for a thrown joint.

Some more fun – here’s the sketch without the fill – you can see the length compared to the black Jenny. I really like how skirts look when they are the length of the Jenny… when I’m standing. When I sit, the skirt hikes up pretty high and as I said the other day, I HATE being on a plane with a too short skirt. That reminds me… my favorite dress to travel in is Vogue 1027. The skirt’s a bit longer than most of my dresses and it’s all one piece so no belts or layers to have to strip off for security. Plus it’s comfy. I have two different ones and my green and white version ALWAYS sets off the security system so I get felt up (in public) by the nice TSA ladies. Sigh. More than agent has told me that the x-ray machines have a hard time with dresses. Yet another inequity for the dress-wearing contingent….

So! There we have it. Skirt plans! Without adding a fly, it’ll be super easy to wrangle up a pattern – add a few inches length, add the belt loops and maybe add a bit of wiggle room to the current pattern so it’s extra comfy for traveling. I have some nice, stiff khaki fabric with just a teeny bit of stretch from Joanne’s and a husband who’s traveling on business from Saturday to Tuesday, so lots of sewing time in the horizon!

Oh, and before I forget. He also had ideas on my shoewear. Sandals. But “nice ones, not the ones that flip.”

Ladies, this is very, very bad.

So. Sigh. I’ll say it right now. I’m not wearing pants. I can’t bring myself to do such a thing. Ick. Of all the unflattering garments I could wrap around my hips, pants, ‘KHAKI’ pants, are not happening. I will admit to owning two pairs of ‘capris’ (I call ‘em crops.) One pair is a grrranimals-appopriate shade of magenta that was rejected as trade-show appropriate by the current bane of my existence. My only other pair of crops was rejected by yours truly, as they are the cargo-style with strings that are my dog walking pants. Which, incidentally, is what I think crops are usually only appropriate for – kickin’ it with the dog and/or while doing weekend chores when I run the risk of accidentally getting my circle skirt wet while cleaning the toilets.

So, before we commence with trade show skirt-as-khaki pattern plotting… I have to ask. Does anyone out there generally wear dresses and skirts like I do? Thanks to on again, off again ‘what she wore’ photos I’m well aware of how I look in trousers, and I just don’t think it’s a nice silhouette on me. My narrowest spot is closer to my bust than my waist, so most trousers hit at an unflattering spot. Take that, mix it in with a polo that really needs tucking, and pants just aren’t awesome. So… what’s a girl to do when she bumps up against pant-wearing expectations? I personally think that a khaki skirt is interchangeable for khaki trousers, but my boss isn’t as much on the skirt bandwagon. I think, perhaps, it strikes some people as strange that I don’t really own trousers. Boss-in-question appeared genuinely surprised when I told him that what I wear at work is what I wear at night and on weekends. So. Who out there is a dress-wearing-freak willing to draw the line at unflattering capris? We’re not even going to discuss the non-flopping sandal issue.

Let’s talk patterns. The polos that the ‘girls’ got are sort of OK. For polos. I mean, don’t get me wrong, they still make me feel like I’m choking, but they aren’t like boy-polos. There’s a yoke with some odd pleats and a buttonless placket. They make the ‘assets’ look a bit low slung, but I’m stuck with it. I TOTALLY asked if I could alter the neckline, but for SOME REASON that was denied too!!

Here’s the sad polo in question. This is the black one. The grey one looks exactly the same. For reals.

And here’s a close up to show the awesome yoke-pleat combo. I gotta admit, I don’t even understand the thought process that went into this design. “Hey! Let’s put a YOKE on a GOLF SHIRT but add in odd PLEATS!!

I promise. You’ll see photos of me in said shirt. But not tonight. Tonight I’m still getting used to the idea that I’ll be leaving the privacy of my own home wearing this beast. I’m sure you see why the pants/capri initiative got a big thumbs down from me. You know who I’d look like if I wore this shirt and a pair of khakis??

This guy… uh, girl?

[image Wikipedia/SNL]

Let’s get down to damage control pattern picking. So I’ve got this polo and would like a skirt a bit higher waisted, made from fabric closer to chinos than crepe. You know – heaver khaki.

My FIRST thought was the Beignet from Colette.

Cute, would probably work well with a thicker, stiff cotton, right? Two problems. First, getting the button placement is a pain in the ASTERISKS, and the next show is in two weeks. My first Beignet took six months to finish due to button placement dread. Secondly, it’s a little short. I hate flying with above-the-knee skirts, because then I’m flashing thigh on the plane. In close proximity to strangers. Potentially inebriated strangers.

Another thought was, of course, the Jenny…

Totally do-able. I could lengthen just a bit to ease back on the bright, white, airplane thigh, but it just feels WRONG to make a pencil skirt in such a casual fabric.

So then I was thinking of a sort of pseudo-Jenny. AKA – take the Jenny, add a bit of length and a fly/belt loops to make a sort of denim-skirt wanna-be. Totally a thought and very likely what I’ll end up doing, but it’ll involve extra drafting that I’m too lazy too do – especially because I really want to add belt loops to facilitate stay-put belting. I’d really like to start from a pattern. Let’s take a little looksie at the big 4, shall we?

Butterick… strike. Not one skirt pattern in the right size range. NEXT!!

McCall’s… strike two. Again… only skirt patterns are odd and elastic waisted… Sigh. Now I remember why I started messing around making patterns work for me… NEXT!!

Vogue… who’s that crazy designer? Sandra Betzina? Sometimes she has good options! OK, maybe not… I briefly considered V1292, but it’s just too odd and wouldn’t work with the crisp, thick fabric.

Simplicity? Can you help me???

Ugh. Side note. SO ANNOYING that they don’t have the patterns broken down by the same categories (aka SKIRTS!) with the larger size ranges. Bastards.

Huh. OK, so 2058 COULD be an option, except that I know that that particularly silhouette isn’t that great on me…. moving on.

The vintage  number 4044 is an option, but an A line skirt without a proper wide waistband is really not the most flattering either. And not really the right silhouette for trade show garb, right?

Sigh. Hot Patterns. Let’s see what Hot Patterns has…

SCORE! Oooooo… check out HP 1004, Metropolitan Sleek and Chic Skirt. Hmmmm… let’s see if I can find any real life examples. I hate those unrealistic drawings…

Harumph. Couldn’t find anything. And now that I look at it, the waistband isn’t quite right. I may as well redraft the Jenny, right?

Alright folks! That’s it! Plotting done. A Jenny hybrid. Next up, getting the pattern right and finding some fabric…

No sewing, knitting, decorating, craigslisting, painting or other fun things like that. In fact, since my last blog post there’s been very little actual cleaning and far too many late night dinners of nachos, fast food, or spaghetti. (“again?” asks Mr. Bug, a heartbroken tone in his voice.) Also since my last blog post, I’ve been in Minneapolis for nearly a week, Denver for a few days and either created or converted something like a hundred pieces of collateral due to an annoying massive rebranding where I work. I’m sure you are starting to see the reason for the radio silence!

On the NEWS front… hmmmm… we managed to decide on a paint color and got the house painted. We hacked down some holly bushes to do so, and they are already sprouting some new holly leaves. We got a gas grill (holla!) We took a trip to Paris, Texas, and toured the home of General Sam Bell Maxey. I didn’t recognize the confederate flag in one of the paintings (“what flag is that?” she asked, in her curiously flat midwestern voice. The tour guide sighed to herself, wishing she had closed up before that last tour of the day…) Mr. Bug sold our deep freeze to a guy named Jeff who plans to fill it with feral hogs he hunts down and kills with his bare hands. While in Denver, I got to catch up with a friend from high school who I haven’t seen in five years, but have now seen twice since moving to Dallas, finally giving meaning and purpose to the whole convention/trade show schtick. The temperatures in Texas have dropped to the 80′s/90′s, rendering our pool FREEZING (WTF, amiright??) I realized there’s a Lane Bryant at the outlet mall a few miles from my house and OD’d on $10 dresses and blouses of questionable prints. And a belt. Raided the early fall boot stock at Avenue and cowboy boot selection at Target, raising my boot count to something like 18 (counting both lefties and righties, leaving out the Uggs.) Got a Blu Ray player, watched the most recent season of DEXTER (SERIOUSLY, WTF Debra!!??) Downloaded Can’t You See by the Marshall Tucker Band, listened to it 300 times. Today. And hey! Guess what Mr. Bug and I decided to do??? We’re adopting!

Baby girl puppy #4 was born almost 3 weeks ago. In a few weeks we get to go and pick our puppy (the ones in the picture above are three from the litter) – when our pick comes up, there’ll be three girls left, so I’m relatively certain (hoping) there’ll be a puppy that we like. The puppy will come and live with us in early October. Lucy has NO idea how her life is about to change! And I’m dreading house training in a house that has carpet (whole second floor.) But baby bassets are the cutest things in the world. God is a crafty one, isn’t he?

This little guy (girl?) is a puppy from a previous litter of the dad-basset. It’s mom-basset’s first litter.

Awwwwww…. right?

Now before I leave y’all…. I was busting my poor little brain trying to figure out something relevant to blog about. And this silly thing came to mind for all you knitters. The company I work for makes plastic things – meshes, fencing… stuff like that. One of the things we make and sell in our online shop is this stretchy mesh in a tube and TWO clever customers have ordered this stuff as cozies for their yarnballs! CLEVER!!

  
[online shop]

Honestly, it comes in a giant roll (OK. 82 feet), so unless you have a HUGE STASH, are in a knitting club, or have a level of OCD (like mine) that make it seem perfectly reasonable to purchase a lifetime supply of yarn cozies at once, it’s probably a reach for most folks, but I thought it’d be of some interest to all y’all.  If you decide you want some, I thinks folks have ordered the ‘lightweight green’ style (item #058532.) And if you place an order say ‘hi patty’ in the notes!**

Here are some freaky unflattering pictures of me stretching the green stuff over my hand. Hand model, I am not.

And for you curious Kate’s, the sleeve is intended for more industrial use. Like sliding over metal helium tanks or something like that…

**NOT shilling for my company – at least, not during this post Just think it’s a clever use and wanna know if any of y’all place an order.

So let’s get on with this, shall we?

This is how the living room was arranged prior to setting up the breakfast nook. In the course of nook creation, I swiped those two pink chairs for comfy seating. I also swiped the little pillows on the longer sofa – brownish linen with strips – to put on the pink chairs.

I replaced the pink chairs with two new chairs. I also swapped the placement of the longer sofa with the two chairs. Here’s a shot from the same perspective as the above photo.

When we first saw the house, the previous homeowner had her sofa against the window as well. I hated it and was resolved to NOT block the view of the backyard with a giant piece of furniture! But when I started to organize my own stuff, I ALSO didn’t want to block the view from the front door (and my office!) with the back of the sofa – below is that view. I liked how having the chairs there kept it nice and open. One could just enter and head right on into the family room with no obstructions.

I really hated the sofa in front of the window, though and decided to try it the other way around. Turns out the sofa didn’t block things off as I thought it would. Those Ikea sofas are pretty short – around 32″, so I can still see the pool even when I’m sitting at my desk, and you can see that it doesn’t really create as much of a visible wall as I’d been worried about.

Oh! About my two replacement chairs! I introduced you to the Frenchie chair last week, and here’s my other replacement chair. A pretty indoor wicker chair I found on Craigslist for $50 (includes the ottoman.) I think they are from Pier 1. Here’s how the chair looked when it came home with me.

I didn’t hate the original brown cushion, but wanted something lighter and thicker. I cut it open (the cover is not removable), stuffed it with a bunch more stuffing and made a new cushion from dropcloth material. The same stuff that’s on the seat of the Frenchie chair. I left the cover nice and loose looking.

Here’s the ottoman…

Here’s the ottoman with the new cover. I like them both much more with the lighter covers.

Here’s a different view  - you can see how rearranging the furniture opened up the view to the backyard. I like it SO much better! I also replaced all my pillows with larger ones with a more beachy/neutral colorway going on.

Same room, same furniture arrangement – old cushions and pillows.

Here’s what changed! Also, I changed our slipcovers this weekend. We have two sets of white slipcovers, one set of very light beige. The white slips are on in the ‘before’ picture, the beige in the after. I like the white slips a little more, but the beige hide lucy slobber a bit better. The beige ones are dryclean only and are relatively new, so they just got back from their first trip to the cleaners – it was $49 to clean both of them. Not a terrible amount, but certainly not free. Since I rotate with the machine washable whites, it’s doable. I WILL say they looked about a million times better when first on – no wrinkles!

Another angle showing the current arrangement with the previous collection of pillows, etc.

Same view, new pillows, new cushions. Much lighter!

Same view, pink chairs.

The main reason I swapped out the pillows was because I wanted to add larger square pillows to the mix. I also wanted to integrate more blues. I had the blue ticking/natural fabric look in mind. I’m not a huge fan of blue, but it’s Mr. Bug’s favorite color and I wanted him to love the living room too.

Once I started picking fabrics I realized I had a little problem with cohesion. The fabrics I liked looked great together and in the seating section of the family room, but they didn’t really work with the breakfast nook and the pink chairs. It was too jarring. The breakfast nook was all pink and grey, the seating area all light fabrics and blue. To alleviate, I started out by swiping the little Ralph Lauren via TJ Maxx brown striped pillows for the pink chairs. Ah. Neutrals in the breakfast room!

Here’s a shot of the pink fireplace on the other end of the room. I really needed to find a pillow with the right colors to tie the pinks and blues together without looking too Miami Vice!

Here’s what I came up with for the family room fabrics – from top to bottom: a white pillow from Ikea, same fabric as my white slipcovers and being used as the back cushion on the wicker chair; a blue and natural striped pillow (total score from a consignment shop! From Pottery Barn WITH the down insert for only $22!); the next two pillows (blue pattern and Suzani embroidered print) are both from Pottery Barn; the natural at the bottom of the stack is handmade from fabric at Joann’s. You can also see the color of the dropcloth cushions at the bottom of the pile in the cushion on the ottoman.

The embroidered Suzani was obviously my print to pull everything together. I’ve tried to stay away from Suzani’s and Ikats as they aren’t my favorite and they strike me as SO trendy. I know, I know – ticking stripe is also trendy right now (or was, a few months ago??) but I’ve always loved ticking so I don’t really care!

I really liked the pattern on this pillow, though – the rusty color is perfect with the pink and mixes with the blue without looking overly Miami Vice and girly! Perfect to make my pink chairs look like they’re intentional (I’m trying to avoid having the slipcover or reupholster ANYTHING unless necessary until the whole house is ‘done’!!)

This chair is in the corner in the breakfast nook. I had a little pillow made from ticking that I got at an estate sale for a quarter. He looks nice in the corner and brings more of the blue/natural look over by the pink chairs.

Another ‘before’ view…

And the after! I love how much lighter the fabrics are. I also LOVE the larger pillows. They look nice and are super comfy for lounging around on. All of them except for the two matching large square pillows in the natural fabric are down, so they are super comfy! Oh – the Ikea cushion isn’t down either!

And one more ‘before’ with the previous fabrics and furniture placement. I really didn’t hate it that way, but the dark ottoman, pink chairs and mustard fabric weren’t as light as I wanted things…

So much better! I really love being able to see outside. And the back of the Frenchie chair looks nice outlined against the window!

This little duck is on my mantle. I snapped a shot of him – I found him at an antiques shop in Dallas. I think he’s adorable. They eye chart was in the kitchen in Minneapolis. It’s just printed out from an eye chart I found online. I love type based artwork, I mean, I AM a graphic designer after all. Or at least, I impersonate one for my day job!

Like I said, we’re getting the family room/kitchen/breakfast area painted when we get the outside of the house painted. It’s not as obvious in photos, but our room currently has polka dots from paint touchups done with non-matching paint. These are my test swatches – the color on the left (BM Dove Wing) is the winner – a simple, nice white.

Oh! You can also see a teeny glimpse of an awesome find in the bowl of spools! It’s barely visible, but I found a nice, old spool would with a mauve thread almost identical to the upholstery on the pink chairs! I normally don’t go for the spools with thread still on ‘em but couldn’t pass this one up – it’s right below the blue and white striped pillow.

St. Francis got moved from the corner to the hearth to make room for that cute little stool I found. I like him better in his new spot and Mr. Bug even commented last night that it was a better spot for him.

Another run at the complete before and after!! Here we start out with the house as it looked when we put in an offer. The seller’s furniture all in place.

Cleared out and ready for our stuff – note the carpet in the sewing room off to the left!

The first iteration. You can see the hardwoods are already in place but I was still trying to make the alcove to the right of the fireplace into a seating area. One reason I liked this furniture placement was I was able to center everything on the fireplace. Once the sofa was moved to the left side, everything shifted towards the windows to allow enough space behind the sofa.

New furniture placement. With the small cabinet in place, it doesn’t bother me as much that the loveseat and coffee table aren’t centered on the fireplace anymore.

As it looked last night – new fabric, cushions, all.

Whew! With this we have the office, sewing room, breakfast nook and living/family room in the ‘done’ column. Still to work on are the poker room, kitchen and four bedrooms upstairs. Slowly and steady wins the race, am I right?

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[Mod Vintage Life]

Our house is mostly (pink) brick, but there’s a bit of siding here and there – almost all of it is on the back of the house…

Sigh. That whole pool area is a giant can of worms, just waiting to be opened! These pictures are pre-sale – we don’t have any furniture out here, this stuff belonged to the previous owner. I’d hoped to cleverly wait to get nice wood chaise lounges and such with end of season sales. I didn’t count on the crafty retailers, who have already mostly run out and it’s only mid-July. I don’t think there will be any great sales, come late August, because there will be no good lounges!

But I digress. In the 2nd photo our chimney is visible – see how the siding goes all the way to the ground? Well, the combination of crazy Masonite siding + sprinkler system + shrubberies = bad siding. Behind the holly, the bottom three or four pieces of siding are falling apart and need replacement.

This has been driving Mr. Bug crazy, but neither of us were really sure the right route to take. Our thought was that if we start messing with the siding, it will need to be painted, even if it’s just a small repair. And once we paint the repaired spot, we’ll really want to paint the rest of the siding, which is badly in need of such treatment. Mr. Bug painted our house himself in Minneapolis, but he really doesn’t have the time, tools or inclination to do that again, plus, how to fix the siding?

It’s the sort of thing that gnaws away at his mind, although I’m completely incapable of ignoring – I mean, it’s outside, after all – I don’t stare at it every day!

I finally decided to grab the bull by the horns the other day. Part of our problem is that we’re in a new city, and don’t know who to call. So I joined Angie’s List.

I flipped through painting contractors and called the first three in our area with a bunch of good reviews. I thought they’d be able to recommend a handyman sort to deal with the siding, but it turns out painting contractors deal with the siding themselves! They all were happy to replace, and even came up with the grand idea of replacing with a more water impervious material (Hardiboard) so I can keep the shrubs (Mr. Bug’s been threatening their continued existence) without our house falling apart from the moisture.

Turns out the siding used on our house (and a lot of the houses near me) is no longer available, so we’d have to pick out a new, non matching style anyway. OR we could re-side the house, but all three contractors, our inspector and ourselves agree that we aren’t in need of a full siding job. Just a few new boards!

So, the hard part. Colors. In Minneapolis when we repainted it was an easy choice – I wanted something crisp and a bit unusual, so we went with a very warm, dark grey (BM Silhouette) with a bright white trim (BM Gardenia) and a darkish red door (BM Caliente). The colors were neutral, but crisp…

With our new house it’s not quite so easy. We ended up getting a rather rosy pink house, after all. What colors go well with pink brick??

One of the contractors, rather charmingly, was very supportive of my house, BTW. Every time I said something about the pink brick, he’d chide me “Ohhhhh… don’t call it pink…. call it ROSE.” Like the house might overhear me and get its feelings hurt!

The brick on the exterior is the same as the fireplace brick…

So… I spent the night before last searching the interwebs, playing with Photoshop, color scheme generators and the paint chip deck one of the contractors left with me. Every single one of them is a Sherwin Williams guy, which is new to me as I’ve always used Benjamin Moore and am more familiar with those colors. I was REALLY stumped before yesterday – the first contractors really wanted me to go down the red door route again, with cream paint. It was nice, but I wanted something more in the grey family and was having a hard time coming up with options OR inspiration, as a lot of the photos I could find of brick were of the more red variety.

Lucky for me, though, the last contractor who came through seemed to have taste more like mine. He suggested Sherwin Williams Manor House (SW 7505) for the door and Sticks & Stones for the trim and siding (SW 7503) – these colors are MUCH more in the grey family and made me happy! Here’s his color scheme (I color matched the pink color to stand in for the brick!)

[The Grey on Grey Scheme]

I photoshopped up these colors to see what I thought…

The first contractor had suggested this color scheme (the dark red for the door, the creamy white for the siding)

[The Fireweed Scheme]

While I like the darker grey door a lot more, I’m not sure on the siding color from Grey on Grey scheme – I think I might like a much lighter or much darker color more. Maybe this?

Here’s the photoshopped version – not sure it’s doing it any justice…

Harumph. The contractor I liked best has a VERY cool feature through his website - he’s plotted his finished jobs onto google maps, and named the maps with some of his favorite color combinations so we can drive around to see the different colors in real life! Nice use of technology AND totally helpful in this sea of brick homes I find myself living in!

So… any suggestions out there? I haven’t paid all that much attention to color schemes with brick homes, since they’re so unusual up in Minneapolis. This is sort of a whole new realm for me! I watch the curb appeal type shows on HGTV occaisionally and I usually like when the trim get painted darker, but I think I like colors that are darker than my current options. Thoughts? Anyone? Anyone?

Oh! Just remembered where there was a before and after of a brick house I like…. Before…

After…

[images Cote de Texas]

Hmmmm…..

OK. It really doesn’t look THAT bad in the pictures. I was tickled pink to find this guy available – I’d seen him before in the shop, but the first time I spotted him there was a rather militant looking older woman camped out on him in a manner that suggested she owned the item. And perhaps the whole shop. Imagine my surprise when I stopped by over lunch and saw him still sitting there.

Even though I got him AT an antiques mall, he is most certainly NOT an antique. But he is solid wood and I liked all the carving detail, the size and how open and airy he is. Once I got him home, I nearly left the wood alone – it’s a truly horrible color with a TON of varnish or something all over it. It had a bit of whitewashing – enough to show the detail in the carving and give the yellow wood a sickly limed appearance. Exactly like my kitchen cabinets…

Oddly, the light wood sort of looked nice in the family room as a contrast point. But I really, really wanted a grey, whitewashed chair and even thought the wood sort of looked good, color-wise, at the end of the day it was just an overly shiny, slightly worn dining chair. It needed some paint.

Enter Annie Sloan French Linen…

[image Alice & Jay]

That, along with a bit of watered down Old White paint (also Annie Sloan), some clear wax and a new dropcloth upholstery job got me from here:

To here…

Yay! Even Mr. Bug liked it!

OK. Let’s talk us some chalk paint and wax for a minute. I assume that you guys OBVIOUSLY read the exact same mix of blogs that I do… shelter blogs with a country/transitional/Belgian/Swedish focus, the usual gang of sewing blogs, Texas mommy blogs written by funny people who aren’t too mommy-focused, and Jezebel, Gawker, Gizmodo (do those still count as blogs?) As such, you all automatically know everything I know. I was reminded the other day that this might not be the case by a question from Shannon (she didn’t leave a web link!) that this might not be the case – she asked what the deal is with this wax I keep mentioning. So here’s a quickie rundown on Annie Sloan chalk paint…

This paint is from British designer Annie Sloan – you can check out her website here and she sort of tells the story. I’ll start out by saying the paint is SUPER EXPENSIVE, y’all. And unlike most bloggers I’m not going to go on with an unqualified “it goes real far.” Maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t. I haven’t painted enough furniture to really gauge that. What I CAN say is that it is SUPER AWESOME to work with. First, you don’t need to prime  the paint sticks to everything. You can just start painting away. Secondly, it’s meant to be finished with wax, and it dries super chalky-smooth so it’s really easy to work with. My experience painting furniture in the past had been very frustrating, dealing with drips and brush strokes.

OK. The sorta bad. First, it dries REALLY FAST – like, 10 minutes fast. So you can’t really dawdle. Also, part of the charm of the paint is it leaves nice little brushy strokes, which gives it a lot of character, but if you’re looking for super smooth, mirror-like finishes, this is not going to be the paint for you. Finally, it makes up for the ‘no priming’ by requiring a wax finish. If you don’t finish it with wax, I guess it’s pretty delicate. Here’s the wax:

[image Annie Sloan]

It’s soft – like butter. Room-temperature butter. Perhaps I should have said Crisco. Once you’re done painting, you sort of massage the wax into the surface of the paint, a lot like rubbing lotion into your hands. It takes a bit to get the hang of it – it’s easy to put on too thick, especially if you don’t use one of the crazy-expensive wax brushes (pictured.) Of course if you DON’T use the brush, the wax is too thick and dries tacky so you either have to live with having a sticky piece of furniture or start all over with another coat of paint, which is costly.

There’s clear wax (pictured) that once applied makes the piece super smooth and awesome feeling. I’ve also used the clear wax on bare wood. It deepens the color (a bit) of what you apply it to. There’s also a really dark wax that can be used to deepen the color more and antique items. I won’t go much into that except to say it’s awesome and if you try it you HAVE TO PUT DOWN A LAYER OF CLEAR WAX FIRST – otherwise you stain the paint.

End of story: the paint and wax is pricey, but the results look WAY NICER than anything else I’ve tried. It’s been a lifesaver in furnishing our giant barn of a house, because it allows me to buy cheap furniture and make it look much, much nicer. Also, if you’re an instant gratification sort (like myself) the trade off of priming for waxing is a good deal. It’s still a lot of work, but you get great results with every new layer. And putting on the wax is sort of soothing and trance-inducing, where as sanding and priming fills me with anger and rage.

To find retailers, check out the stockist page on Annie Sloan’s website. I’m super lucky down here in Dallas there are THREE actual brick and mortar retailers (which means classes and shop examples!) but in Minneapolis there was only one and she didn’t really keep shop hours. A lot of people have to Internet order, which I know is a bummer. But it’s SO worth it!

OK… so back to my chair. I got two coats of French Linen on the chair – it’s a taupey grey color that I love. I wanted to whitewash it as well to lighten it up a bit as well as to bring out the carvings. Sort of the opposite of antiquing I suppose. This is the method I came up with…

First I dunked my brush in some paint – this is Anne Sloan Old White.

Paint some streaks on – working on small sections so the paint doesn’t dry too much.

Then I used a dry cloth to spread the paint around.

THEN I dunked a brush in water, blotted, and ‘painted’ over the section I’d just smeared around. I actually used a bigger brush for a lot of the chair – about 2″ wide with super short bristles from the cheap bin at Lowe’s. This step really spreads the paint around and you have to watch for drips. ALSO – this requires a very gentled touch as the underlying layers of paint will come off very easily at this point as they haven’t cured. But it washes out the paint well and gets the white into all the carved bits.

A final rub down with a dry cloth.

I went over the carved areas more than once, as I wanted them whiter.

Holla!

I covered the seat with dropcloth fabric. I pulled off the piping and the modesty cover, but just covered over the existing upholstery. I avoid dealing with batting unless forced. This wasn’t the easiest cover job as the seat is so curved, but I just went slow, stapling on opposite sides and working from the center out. Not perfect, but it works. I’m thinking that I’ll spritz down with water and let dry, perhaps that will help get the fabric nice and taut.

I HAVE realized that this type of upholstering works much better with shorter staples – I use 3/8″ ones – and I don’t have to hammer EVERY SINGLE one in separately! Although I see one little guy that needs tapping in this picture…

Then I stapled the modesty cover back on, reattached the seat with the same screws I’d removed when I took the chair apart and I was ready to go!

I really like the detail in this chair. It’s the perfect amount of over the top for what is a fairly casual room. And the grey color is SO pretty!

Mr. Bug seems to really like the chair, although he DID imemdiately conjecture what we could sell it for! He’s such an accountant – I think he’d be pefectly happy to sell all our furniture and just hang out on air mattresses!

One more before and after…

Alas, with this project my can of French Linen is gone Projects included… the sideboard, the breakfast nook table and this chair. I still have some of my 50/50 mix of French Linen and Old White as well, so perhaps this paint does, indeed, ‘stretch’ as everyone claims.

Next up… unless I manage to rectify the situation sometime today, tomorrow we’ll see a project flop!

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