Tag: house

Chair fabrics

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Upholstery fabrics

These are the three fabric samples I ordered for the nursing chair.  The bottom one’s very much like the fabric on our sofa at the moment, a slate grey, and the top one doesn’t look as nice in real life as it appears in pictures.  It just so happens (and this never happens!) that I like the cheapest one (the middle one).

It’s supposed to be grey-beige but looks like the platinum one we had our eye on when we went to the upholsterers.  It’s £8.99/m and the eBay seller lives about 5 minutes from my house so I can collect it.  The upholsterers thought we’d need 3.5m of material, so I think I might get 5m, just to be on the safe side.

Looking at the other items this eBay seller has, I’m wondering if I need more supplies.  They seem to have upholstery nails and jute webbing, and I don’t even know what they’re for.  Still awaiting these books from the library, hopefully they can shed some light on it.  I know I need some more foam for the arms, but I think the other cushions are fine.

My friend Charlie’s an angel and has already brought her sewing machine around for me to use once we’ve got the fabric sorted.  It’ll be a bit trial and error though because none of us can remember how to use a sewing machine.  It’ll be better than the Singer though as it has a foot pedal so there’s a real chance I might be able to sew in a somewhat straight line this time.

Nursery done!

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Nursery

The nursery’s now been painted, hurrah!  In the end we went for Sorbet (Dulux) on two walls, which is a pale pink, and then B&Q’s Grey Hints for the rest of the room.  When the decorator was painting the grey, I was worried it wasn’t quite grey enough and it would just look dirty white, but it seems to have dried really nicely and they’re good contrasting colours.

We’d quite like to put a shelf or two up (especially as we have nothing to put the baby monitor and temperature egg thing on), so we’re on the look out for reasonable shelving, although I could always paint a pine one white I suppose.

Nursery paint

It’s really satisfying to have the room painted – the furniture is all finally where we want it now, so we’re just waiting for the arrival to really complete the room!

I’m expecting a few fabric samples from eBay for the nursing chair and stool and then I’ll have a go at reupholstering that – my lovely friend Charlie is going to lend me her sewing machine (thank you!).  And if it turns out like a dog’s dinner, I’ll put a throw on it.  Nobody need ever know…

Reupholstering

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We’ve very kindly been given a nursing chair by my friend Helen, but as it doesn’t fit in with the room (that sounds very fancy pants!) and it’s a little bit worn, we thought it might be nice to see about getting the cushions for it covered in a grey material.

Nursing chair

We took the cushions and the matching footstool to a local place that does reupholstery for a quote, not having a clue how much it would be, chose a cheap fabric (£12/m), they said it would probably take 3.5m, and the total would be £190.  I needed a chair to sit in after that – it’s probably more than the chair cost in the first place!

Granted, its arm cushions are falling apart and need more foam, and I don’t think it’s the easiest item to recover but all of the cushions come off (apart from the footstool is fixed).

I’ve ordered a bunch of books from the library about reupholstery and am thinking about having a go myself (although I’m pretty sure I’ll need to borrow an electric sewing machine from a lovely friend) – it doesn’t need to be perfect!  I do think it’s a bit more than my trusty Singer could handle though.  The other option is to throw a blanket over the whole thing.

If anyone has any tips on this, they’d be gratefully received!

Pinks and greys

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photo 2

We’ve been trying out colours for the nursery in line with the inspiring photo I found and mentioned in this post a little while ago.

This is as far as we’ve got, but I still think the greys are a bit dark, so I think we need to shop around for a paler grey because I don’t want the nursery to be oppressive!

For the pink, we’re sticking with the “Sorbet” from Dulux that my friend Michelle suggested (thank you!), so it really needs to go with that.

We’ve got the decorator in this week to paint the nursery and middle floor hallway (the hallway won’t be very exciting – we’re covering magnolia paint with “Almond White”, but it’ll freshen it up), so we need to decide quickly.

Bedding

We also got some new bedding for our bedroom now we’ve moved the beds around, finally got a King Size quilt!  It’s so soft – if I had loads of money I would just have new bedding on my bed all the time!  It’s pink and stripy, and the alternative set we got is white with a cute little ditsy pattern, I’ll put a little photo up when I change the bed and remember to take a photo.

Uniformly Christmas

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Barry and I have been talking this week about Christmas decorations.  For a few years now, we’ve hauled the same stuff from under the bed to go on the tree, and that stuff is all red and silver.  Barry tried to put a red and blue bauble on the tree that someone had given us and (in my humble opinion) it stood out like a sore thumb.  It’s now mysteriously disappeared.

Which is better, coordinated colours or a festive free-for-all?  Growing up, my family’s tree was a mish-mash of various inherited baubles, balding tinsel and lights that you had to test every year, along with an artistic sprinkling of lametta at the end by my Dad.  I do think that makes for a welcoming tree, but it’s not like I’ve inherited any of these decorations, so we had to settle for Ikea’s finest.

I have been inspired by a blog for next year though – Jen from A Little Bird Told Me bought some hand-painted baubles from eBay and some ribbon and her tree looks amazing!  I think this may be the way to go next year (which, by then, our baby will be able to pull over herself, no doubt!).

Hope everyone has a very merry Christmas!

Oh, Christmas tree

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Oh Christmas tree 2012Has everyone got their Christmas decorations up yet?  I spent Friday night doing that and wrapping presents.  Not all of the presents – I have a threshold – I managed about half and now I’ll have to wait another week before I can face wrapping anything more.

There’s a rule in our house that we can’t have anything Christmassy up until at least a week after my birthday, which is at the end of November (it’s usually two weeks but I jumped ahead this year because I’m excited about Christmas).

Most of my shopping is done now, just a few bits left to get.  On more of a countdown than usual this year as I’m finishing work at Christmas (hurray!).  Nine working days to go!

Booties

One of my schoolfriends who moved away to France after university is expecting the same day as me, so I decided to get crafty and make her a little present – here’s the result…

The booties were a lot less traumatic to sew than the supergirl boots!  I’m working on a sampler at the moment for the nursery, hopefully I’ll get a bit more time to do that when I’m on maternity.

The neverending tale of the black wall has an end

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Changed radiatorFinally! We’ve had a decorator in for the last few days to paint the black wall that has been looking at me since we half painted it in, erm, well, embarrassingly… March.  Time flies!

Here’s a reminder of how the wall has looked since then.  Yes, that is indeed been like that for eight whole months.

As I mentioned recently, we asked our shiny new decorator, Josh, to split the jobs we’d asked him to quote for into three parts, and he’s been busy doing the first (and cheapest!).  And now the wall is completely black!  Hurrah!

Black wall

Our new wall is not only sleek and sexy, but it sports straight lines and a glossy newly painted bannister.  Oh yes.

Josh has whizzed through quite a few of the “to-dos” on my depressing visual representation of all the jobs left to do: the kitchen post from way back in April – sanding and repainting the rest of the kitchen ceiling and walls, glossing the skirting boards, and painting the stairs wall, ceiling and handrail.

Black wall 2

In fact, we’ve only got two jobs left on that list now – tile the kitchen walls and replace the switches with brushed silver ones.  Both things that can wait a little bit, so I’m feeling a bit smug.  I think I’ve got enough lists going on without that one anyway (do two things make a list?).

We’ve asked the decorator to come back in early January to do the next instalment (middle floor hallway/stairs up to our room/nursery), can’t wait!

Nursery inspiration

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I had a look round a lot of websites for inspiration on nursery themes and colours, and this was by far our favourite, from Project Nursery. The soft pink and grey is really soothing and calm, and it’s also very girly, which I love!

My friend Michelle saw this and immediately went and bought a tester pot of Dulux’s Sorbet, which is a similar pale pink, and it seems pretty perfect! We’ll go for a lighter grey than we’ve used in the living room, and try to break it up with the white furniture and pictures.


My friend Helen’s given us a rocking nursing chair and stool which are currently cream, but I think we’re going to try and dye the covers or re-upholster them so they’re grey to match the room.

Quote

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We’ve made a tiny bit of progress in that we finally have a quote from a decorator!  Barry had a guy round just before we went on holiday, we then had a lovely time in Majorca (see left, didn’t do much!), and when we got back, a quote was waiting for us on the doormat.

He was quite young, but Barry said he looked like he knew what he was doing and he seems to have a lot of work on, which is a good sign.

Barry asked him to quote separately for three different areas; so the quote is (excluding materials):

  • Finish sanding in kitchen, finish painting, take the black wall up the stairs and gloss the handrail and skirting board up the stairs – £120
  • Paint the middle hallway and ceiling (dealing with nail pops as he goes), the nursery walls and ceiling and gloss everything that needs it – £240
  • Paint up to our bedroom, walls, ceiling and black gloss – £240

So £600 altogether.  When you break it down into the number of days it would take (we think five), it doesn’t seem too bad, considering the same amount of work would take Barry weeks with him having two jobs now and all, but it is a bit shocking seeing it written down like that!  We’re giving him the go-ahead for the first bit so that the black wall is sorted out for Christmas as we’re having relatives over.  Think that will be done at the end of November.  For the other two bits, I think we may wait until January and get them done when I’m on maternity leave so we don’t have to take annual leave.