Living - Our Table

Enjoying these last days of Summer.  My late blooming hydrangea bushes are still going bonkers and our table is all the more beautiful for it.  These will dry beautifully.

In other news, I finally got around to adding tassels to one of my Fantastical Beastie pillows that is long, long, long overdue to a dear friend.  I printed this pillow more than 6 months ago.  Sheesh.  Now that I have proper time, I am devoting more energy to my block prints.

Off to roast a chicken for that table.

All photos and styling by Emily Vanderputten

kisses,  mrs. V

ORC Reveal Part Deux

Well gee whiz, thank you all so much for the incredible feedback on my ORC room.  What a whirlwind!  To be completely honest, there were many moments when I doubted whether I could pull it all together in time.  Staring down the barrel of WK5 with no paint yet on the walls put a serious hitch in my optimistic giddyup.    But in the end, the room exceeded even my expectations.  I am so so in love with the way everything came together - which is a great thing since I happen to be the client in this case.

 

As a matter of fact, I am having ORC withdrawal.  I have forgotten how much I thrive when working on a deadline.  I might be a procrastinator extraordinaire in many areas but throw a challenge and a deadline at me and I will attempt to run through brick walls to find a solution.  The experience and lessons learned during my corporate days in lean manufacturing as a problem-solving expert come in handy every now and again.

But back to the room.  I promised to share sources and stories about the pieces with you, and so I shall soon enough.  But first, some more vignette shots that did not make it in on reveal day as well as some sunny ones I took today because last Wednesday was raining cats and dogs when I shot the reveal pics.  So the room was not captured in its best light, so to speak.

  

Tomorrow we will take a look back at the BEFORES and my original design plan compared with the finished result as well as covering the sources in the room.  Thank you again for the overwhelming support!  Love ya, mean it!

kisses,  mrs. V

One Room Challenge - WK 4 Updates

Holy schnickes, Batman.  WK4 of the One Room Challenge link up is here and I have zoomed WAY past panic town and landed squarely in whacko jacko territory.  For serious, I am pleading temporary insanity as an excuse for agreeing to do this on a deadline, under a tight (read non-existent) budget with only myself and the mr. for labor.  Only a nutso would foolishly agree to such chicanery.  I mean, I might even have gone backwards this week.  But more on that in a minute.

Meanwhile in Pleasantville, the pros continue to knock it out over the white picket fences.  Check their WK4 progress here.  Awesome stuff happening.

As for me, WK1 is here, WK2 is here, and WK3 is here.  And for those of you just tuning in to Chez V, I dubbed this master bedroom makeover Project Chinoisy Safari Chic because I am going for a cocooning European colonial vibe with a heavy dose of chinoiserie because, much like bacon and animal prints, every thing is better with chinoiserie.  Not to mention chinoiserie accents are timeless and fit in with nearly every décor style.  But I digress.

If you recall from last week, I was not entirely satisfied with my block printed and hand-painted dragon fabric.  I just didn’t like the weight of the fabric and I couldn’t even buy the damn down inserts from my local place to turn the fabric into pillows.  Grrrr.  I was all ready to order some inserts from Lewis & Sheron and make do until I came across the Ektorp lumbar pillows at IKEA.  Right size, right fabric weight, right price.  Upside, down inserts are included and I wouldn’t have to sew pillow covers.  I have a hate hate relationship with my sewing machine.  Downside, re-printing and painting the dragon fabric.  And I am still cha cha-ing backward…

So I spent the weekend re-printing.  Fabric is a more appropriate upholstery weight but a little more textured so the print is not as clean but I am ok with that.  Last night, I scrambled to hand paint the gold detailing after my little went to sleep.  I got all the way to the last few dragons and succeeded in spilling gold paint on the printed fabric.  Triple feckety feck.  I am not doing it over a 3rd time.  I am rolling with the punches and hoping that my accent pillow will cover the little oops.  All in all, I am loving how these pillows are turning out.  I am referring to them as my ghetto version of the gorgeous Dana Gibson pillows that I wanted so badly for the space but for which I did not have the budget.

oops

And in true freak a khan fashion, where procrastination reigns supreme in the face of a looming deadline, I decided to make tassels for the pillows.  After a trial run, I decided I could swing it but it is reminding me a lot of that time I made a ginormous pom pom pillow for my daughter’s nursery and swore to never do that sillyness again.  Except that I am, with even smaller thread.  What’s wrong with me?

For all of you who cheered along on my search for the world’s perfect solution to my sconce problem – the Ranarp - well, I have an update on the search which involves a lot of who’s on first, don’t we know anyone on second, and random acts of kindness from friends of friends, in laws once removed, and social media connections, all of which may or may not end in victory due to some last minute intel gleaned from another interested party.  But you will have to tune in on Monday for that detailed account which involves a two part story from myself and Elizabeth over at Little Black Door.

As for the neverending paint story, still unfinished.  The mr. is out of town this week.  Rude. But he did bust his ass on Sunday and we are one wall away from slapping some paint on the walls. With the mr. gone, a 5 yr old in tow and a 4 day school week, that means this bizzo ain’t getting shizzo done this week.  Clearly it’s time for wine.

shit is just piling up and I have resorted to using Hello Kitty as labor - help!

Now let’s go check out those other busy bloggers and see what real progress looks like b/c sadly there isn't much here!

kisses,  mrs. V