getting ready

ok kids.

this weekend i pruned the hell out of one of the lilac bushes, and partially pruned the hell out of the other one. there's still a ton more to cut away, but pruning is like crack, it's so addictive.

and in other news, it's almost Memorial Day! which means it's almost time for me to have 1/2 day summer Fridays!

which naturally means it's time for me to ...
a) finish the kitchen, which entails...
i) striping the rest of the wallpaper
ii) repairing and skimcoating the walls
iii) picking a damn paint color already
iv) putting up the luan, and then tin ceiling backsplash
b) window fixing!
i) first kitchen window, taking it apart, stripping it (heat gun! whoo!) and reglazing
ii) bathroom window
iii) our bedroom windows
c) cutting all the crap out of the yard and if we have time
d) powder room demo and redo


We'll see how much of that I actually get to, considering the first summer friday will be a boozy margarita lunch.

organizing thoughts

You know, the comment on my previous post about my office/craft room got me thinking about practicality, and how that word means different things to different people.

Poor John, I hope he doesn't think that I don't appreciate his well thought out and thoughtful ideas! I do, I promise! It's jsut that you inadvertantly hit on something that has been a bit of a thorn in my side for a while now...

Specifically, the reccomendation to ignore Blueprint for a while in favor of researching craft storage in craft magazines. This statement tells me right off that John and I aren't really on the same page when it comes to craft magazines. Or maybe he hasn't seen Blueprint?

Why are there so few places that take both how something looks and how it functions into consideration? I think this is why I responded so strongly to Blueprint layouts, Martha Stewart's own personal brand of anal crazy, and to Adorn's gorgeous and practical layouts.
With the exeption of Adorn, and possibly Craft magzine, craft magazines do not fit with my own sense of aesthetics, not to mention the extreme amount of ugly chaff you have to sort through to find the one bit of wheat-potential. I've already tried and rejected the "go to Michaels and by a cheap piece of ugly molded plastic that won't quite fit for the space and probably won't fit your supplies anyway" approach.

Too many places go for plastic everything, with no thought to design. I'd like to work in a room with some sense of elegance, not a room covered in clear and white plastic crap. Or worse, brightly colored plastic crap. Organization TV shows also never seem to take into consideration how people function in a specific space. Dump stuff into a shitload of ugly rubbermaid containers and cover the whole shebang with a curtain. Well, curtains are wickedly impractial coverings-they get dirty and dusty and look sloppy. And for me, hiding everything in a plastic bin is far from useful. There's no good way of accessing your supplies, short of knocking a towering stack over.

Design sites and magazines are even worse. The first suggestion is to throw away your stuff (apartmenttherapy.com commenters are horrible in this respect). Gee, thanks. That's already been done. It's not clutter; it's supplies, dude. Bet you don't have a pantry either

The second suggestion is usually quite pretty and wildly impractical, ignoring how crafting items need to be stored both for ease of use and for maintaining integrity of the item. The comment on the previous post suggested using a wine bottle display to store yarn, which is a gorgeous and creative idea. But alas, it's more appropriate for a window display than actual everyday use. (a large footprint for very little yarn; you'd need to store yarn as skiens, not as balls, knocking out all yarns that come in balls and any yarns that you've already balled up on the winder as "ready to go"; can't keep your dye lots together easily; yarn shouldn't be stored out in the open air like that as dyes are prone to fading with UV light, it exposes the fiber to potential moth and bug infestation, not to mention dust and the cats. )

but a non-fiber person wouldn't know all that. And again, poor John, I don't mean to slag him for trying to help. It's a great visual idea, and exceptionally creative reuse. It's just impractical for a fiber collection.

So now I need to go look at the reqirements of my supplies, then head off in search of the pieces that make the cut. I think the tall worktable will be the most problematic.

I am attempting to ignore the unholy mess that is our backyard "landscaping" for a while. It's pretty bad. Like, painfully bad. Like rip it all out and let god sort 'em out bad.

Other than bulbs, which, frankly, I can always get more of, there are maybe two plants I would like to save in the backl--the climbing rose and the japanese maple--and two towards the front--the lilacs and the hydrangeas. And even those? ehhh...

So instead, I am obsessing about how to decorate and organize my office/craft room.

The room that no longer has teh devil wallpaper and the two-face style finish work in the double "doorway" that opens to JBB's office (we're closing it up, btw). Which, apparently, I don't have any finish pictures of. (How do I not have any pictures of this? I mean, I freaking skim coated that damn wall?? Ok, tonight, I take pictures.)
before:

Two-face! Devil Wallpaper! I hate you wallpaper!

during:

no wallpaper! smooth! but still baby poo brown!

after:
imagine that during picture with a very bright, clear granny smith green walls (LOVE) and white trim. And piles and boxes of crap in front of it.

Now, dear readers, those of you who know me in person know that I have a shit-ton of craft supplies in a wide range of activites--some of which came courtesy of the research and writing of my book
DIY GIRL: A Girl's Guide to Making Everything From Lipgloss to Lamps (go buy a copy today! Yeah, I have no shame!)

but really, I can't blame the book. too much of my crap just showed up on one of those days I could not resist the siren call of Michaels (we all know the launch of this will come to no good for me). Or worse, the fancy pants paper store. Or, fancy pants bead store. Or, the absolute worst, the super ultra giant huge Stitches knitting convention with their insane yarn marketplace. mmmm yarn.

So anyway, if you could see the crap that stacked up in this room (i know, pictures.) you could see why it is driving me batty and driving me to plan and obsess about the container store and martha stewart and ikea and pegboards and shit.

I want to incorporate the following things, and I'm not quite sure how to do cram them all in there yet:

-a largish tall craft/cutting table, tall enough to stand at, or sit at with a stool (maybe with the short end against a wall, jutting out like a penninsula?)

-an idea board/bulletin board

-wire grids or pegboards for tools-a sewing desk/table

-storage for yarn (both enclosed and for display)

-storage for fabric

-storage for random craft supplies

-my five foot long cherry desk (dad made it for me when i was in 8th(?) grade)

-bookcases and magazine storage

-storage for childrens/YA books I've worked on

-this awesome photo of a bunch of balls of yarn that I bought on the street in Dublin.

-a rug of some sort.

-curtains--I'm thinking about getting white sheers and stenciling them in black with (yet another) damask stencil--and maybe keeping the black less-than-opaque?

I blame Blueprint magazine and their pretty pretty spreads of gorgeous workrooms--they also have a fabulous blog that I am hooked on. them and my already anal tendencies for order and everything having a place. Not that I put things in their places, but still, I like those places to EXIST.

I am crazy. I know.

Did I mention I'm trying to distract myself from the garden? I am.