Rabbit Rabbit Rabbit

This year, the bunniest of holidays (Easter) falls on the funniest of holidays (April Fool's Day), so first off... "rabbit rabbit rabbit!" Second, all the critters hanging around our place are getting in on the hijinx!


Rabbit Ramon would not stand for the other household t-rex getting all the giggles, so he insisted on his own set of custom bunny ears.

Looky! Dino scales in the ears! And a more color-accurate photo.

Rabbit Mavis is going for redundant ear-age.

I couldn't let it lie, so amped up the ridiculous with a pink nose and front teeth.

Rabbit Dale... er, uh... where did Dale get off to?

Springtime In The Rockies: Rabbit-based Decorations

jazz hands!

I've been focusing on trying to use up my rather... let's say "thorough"... stash of craft supplies. I've already completed a few rather intense sewing projects (not shown) with my cotton print fabrics, but what I feel compelled to share here are a couple of seasonal decorations I pulled together entirely from various supplies stashes over the St. Patrick's Day weekend.

First, Easter T-rex dares you to hunt Easter eggs.

Second, weird pile of bits arranged in a bleached & dyed bottle brush tree sprouting out of a rabbit head mug.

Third, I repaired this yarn doll rabbit that Betty roughed up once in a fit of separation anxiety... within hours of my finishing making it. Now that Betty has left this mortal coil, I guess it is safe to bring back Mr. E. Rabbit.

Before the "accident":

What was left:

Post surgery:

I added a hat to cover the sprung eyeball situation.

I couldn't face making new polymer clay eggs, then painting them. So one row of felt grass and one large egg from a box of wee bits & bobs I scored at the 50-mile Garage Sale last year.

With the doe rabbit the inspired the project in the first place, made my my grandmother.

Finally, this super cool jackalope ornament that was a birthday gift from one of my besties over at Fizzy Party!

He fits right in with the faux chocolate jackalope I made last year and Dale, our resident jackalope, but he doesn't fit quite right on the cabinet handle. I'm still on the search for just the right spot.

Take Cover, Chair!

Once I got going with all the other projects in the guest room, I decided I really didn't want to live with the 1980s dusty blue upholstery on this chair. The chair is perfectly serviceable otherwise and not without its charms, but the upholstery is just too not-right.

I don't have the skills to truly reupholster it and I'm committed to cheapskate-ing this guest room update project to the bitter end... hence, the quick-n-dirty slipcover.

I scoured the small selection of upholstery fabric at JoAnn which is the only place I know of to buy upholstery fabric around here and came up with this as the least offensive of the cheap options. Only later did I realize the herringbone texture echoes the the pattern on the window shade fabric which is also the fabric used on the back of the duvet set. So there!

That's right, in order to get enough fabric to make both window shades from the fabric I had already, I had to orient the herringbone sideways! What's the world coming to?

This just needed to be quick, easy, and done.*

Although I steam pressed that crease out most of the way, it's obviously still there. Hopefully it will just kind of diminish over time. As it faces the wall most of the time and is a clean crease rather than a messy wrinkle, I'm not going to worry about it.

I got to use some of these great buttons that were a gift from my friend, Tiffany, over at Fizzy Party.

On my last post - Loads of Fun Laundry Room - I added a Real ________ Room Situation photo at the end so I wanted to do that here, too. But first a reminder of the recent work I've completed in the guest room.

 And now for the Real Guest Room Situation (RGRS) ...

Apologies for the blurriness. One has to act quickly with photographing Delia as she doesn't have time for such nonsense and will take measures to avoid the camera.

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For this part of the guest room update project all I needed to purchase was 2 yards of fabric. 

    OUT OF POCKET COSTS:

      $  7.98 - clearance upholstery fabric
      

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*In the interest of full disclosure: I am not quick; I spent about five hours making this, not including sourcing materials. It wasn't hard-hard, but it did take some time planning in order to not waste materials or have a bunch of weird seams. I have no amendments to "done," because it is. Done, I mean.

A Loads of Fun Laundry Room

The next steps for updating the guest room and taking care of some other projects upstairs are kind of intimidating - they're just big and/or uncharted territory, not really difficult. So, I decided to do some other, simpler projects that I have had in mind & partly sourced for awhile... to decorate the laundry room. Well, it's really more of a glorified closet than a room. Now that I think about it, it's probably smaller than the master closet which is big, but not glamour-big.

I actually painted this room in the first couple of weeks of our moving in five-and-a-half years ago. It had been a sort of 1970s baby blue with hyperlink blue on the fuse box and washing machine outlet box. Why someone would want to call attention to those things is a mystery to me... especially if they're going to do a sloppy job of painting them. So I made sure to cover it with an equally distinctive, but more contemporary color that is more my jam before we got the washer and dryer in there. Sadly, I didn't have the time to replace these 1980s looking peel-and-stick vinyl floor tiles, but I do have a plan in mind when I feel up to disconnecting the water heater for a day and struggling with shoving around the stacked washer/dryer.

Oh, hey, look! There's also some probably-original, 1976, faux brick-ish, sheet vinyl under the water heater! Sigh.

I had picked up these vintage flash cards at various vintage markets over the last few years with intent to frame them using thrifted frames. But digging around in thrift store frame piles - and aren't they usually just horizontally oriented piles? - is something I find really easy to put off until next time... the next-time-that-never-comes, apparently. So I set out to look specifically one afternoon and luckily found three that were close enough at one shop and for under $8.

Not sure why I am so attracted to these things, but I am. Obviously, because I made these xmas decorations with some, too.

I'm still committed to trying to use up stash materials whenever possible and feel like what I got from my scrapbook paper stash worked pretty well to mount the flashcards on, both for colors and for sort of a fabric-inspired theme.

Here are the frames with the glass and "pictures" out, ready to be refinished. On the two oak ones I used the old pickling treatment and the black and "cherry" I used house primer and paint. Spray paint probably would've been faster, but I'm not a fan of how spray paint looks on oak and I already had these other materials on hand, anyway.

Once they were dry, I thoroughly cleaned the glass and got them all put together! 

The reason I chose white? I painted them all white to coordinate with... this laundry soap jug diorama! I had saved the pin that inspired it years ago and was able to make this whole diorama with materials in stash and on-hand.

The washer/dryer set is vintage Fisher Price Little People stuff... which I LOVE!

Most of this is "merely" assembled, but I did make the little clothes rack and the wee hangers on it. I'm trying to come up with just the right thing to sit on the shelf, but am considering this done-enough.

YAHOO! This is where we're at now; just a bit cheerier and a lot less plain. It will feel a little nicer to go in there now and it feels quite nice to have a couple long-simmering project complete.

And now for some REAL TRUTH! The photo below is closer to the Real Laundry Room Situation (RLRS)... at least the RLRS after a good cleaning and de-cluttering. The Real Real Laundry Room Situation (RRLRS) is TOO REAL for public viewing.

Paint It (Almost) Black

But before we get to the paint, let's talk window shades.

This project was more of a stash buster: the grey fabric is left over flannel from making the back of the duvet set - which was originally a queen sheet set. I guess I never posted about that project specifically, but a photo of the duvet set can be seen in the post about the bedside tables I made last spring. As with the shelf-backers project, I had to buy fusible interfacing to stabilize the flannel so it would hang nicely and be easier to work with.

The back is black-out liner I was given back when we lived in Portland; the same batch I used for the first set of blinds for the guest room. I also had all the roman shade hardware except the cleat in my stash. Aw, yeah!

Entirely plain shades did not sit will with me, but adding a color to them didn't either. While poking around on the internet looking at all kinds of window blinds trim I came upon giant pompon trim on an ottoman and became immediately smitten. Now here is my little bit of ridiculous! I picked up some yarn to coordinate with the flannel on sale + coupon. I already had the pompon makers.

I also already had all the little hardware bits for the shades themselves (rings, screw eyes, cleats, cord pulls). Originally I imagined cast iron cleats and did not want to use the clear plastic ones I had, but I really like the feeling I get when I use what I have and since the cord management isn't a design statement in this case, I decided to stick with the clear plastic. I also wasn't excited about the white plastic cord pulls, so I dug around in my "non-paper ephemera" and bead stashes until I found these funny plastic bowler hats that come on Broker's Gin bottles!

The new window shades sort of demanded new paint colors, particularly for the ceiling. I still love that green ceiling, but it just wasn't right anymore. Plus the new light fixture didn't have as large of a footprint - or is it a "headprint" when it's on the ceiling? - as the old builders' boob light.

I know it's counter to just about everyone else's love of Light & Bright, but both Eric and I prefer Dark & Serene. That inclination combined with the colors in the duvet set, lead to me being sort of obsessed with dark grey. Not for the walls, but... for the ceiling! After deciding on the window shades, I wanted to do the window wall, too. Of course, we didn't have this paint on hand, so we had to purchase it. It was easily the most costly part of this whole project... which says something about our (by which I mean MY*) skills at thriftiness, because DIY painting is widely considered one of the least costly ways to update a room.

That cozy, embracing, darkness...

While I was at it, I chose a new color for the rest of the walls. It coordinates better with the duvet and new shelf backers better... and I think it looks better with Eric's guitars, too. That said, it's not so different that any return guests will likely notice, but I feel better about it. 

... with some warm, pecan-y lightness to balance it out.

Anyone who knows me from my decorative painting contractor days knows how I feel about outlets and switches; I hate the "look at my white rectangle" vibe that can happen when applying dark or bright colors and finishes to walls. Sure, I'm just-painting this room, but when I had worked with clients and designers to come up with fancy finishes in just the right tones and shades, it was a big old bummer to have the distraction of white/ivory/almond rectangles popping out at every switch and outlet. Soooooo, I was not going to have the old ivory outlet on my new dark grey wall, even if it's practically behind the bed & under the bedside "table." We decided to go for it and put in an outlet with USB ports so our guests can charge their devices conveniently. And while I was at it, I went ahead and got the screwless cover. And while I was at that, I went ahead and got replacements for the other two outlets and the two switches and all the covers in there, too. Not as much for color, but for my preferred styles of outlets and switches and also so I could get the screwless covers. These are small changes that probably hardly anyone else cares about or even notices, but I care and notice. Because I can install them myself, they aren't that big of an expense - except the USB outlet which was very close to half the cost of updating/upgrading these.

It seems to me that a good way to determine where to place the switch for the light you're adding to the closet, is to use the placement of other light switches; maybe even the one just a yard or so to the left, but what do I know?

As is typical with me, I added another while-I'm-at-it part to the painting project: cleaning off all the slop and spatter "applied" by prior painters to the mouldings and even the baseboard heater. Sigh + eye roll. Luckily, all the past paints were latex and removable with some denatured alcohol which I happened to have on hand. Luckily, it only added about an hour to this project to get clean up the mouldings. I still have to do some thinking and testing on dealing with the baseboard heater.

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I had masking materials, drop clothes, roller covers, paint brushes, etc. I did need to replace my roller frame and buy paint. I also had most of the materials for the roman shade.

    OUT OF POCKET COSTS:
      PAINT
      $  93.00 - 2 gallons of paint
      $    7.45 -  roller frame
      $100.45

     WINDOW SHADES
      $ 14.93 - fusible interfacing
      $   3.61 - 1x3 MDF
      $   2.88 - screen moulding
      $ 11.98 - yarn
      $ 33.40

      ELECTRICAL
      $  55.29

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I have just a one more - hopefully simpler - project before I take another break from gussying the guest room and hopefully it will be completed and shared within a few weeks. After that, all that's left in here that is not just details is removing the awful, blue carpet. This blue had its day, but that day was decades ago... and let's face it, any broadloom carpet that is decades old is probably awful in one way or another. New flooring that room is not in the cards right now since we want to do all or most of the second floor with the same material. Either we'll live with it or do something advanced-half-ass. Let's call it "three-quarter-ass."

*Eric is plenty thrifty. PLENTY. But these kinds of purchases and DIY skills are not in his wheel house.