Tablecloths

Why are cool tablecloths so hard to find? For the summer I used a white lace tablecloth in the dining room because I wanted to lighten the room up a little. With leaves on the trees outside the windows and dark-ish walls and furniture, things became a little gloomy. I like the look of the lace, but it's not very practical and not very cozy feeling for the winter.

A lot of people tend to leave the table bare when not in use and only put a tablecloth on when they use the table. I understand the logic behind this, you can show off the table most of the time and have a "cleaner" look, then protect it when you use it. My problem is that I have a tendency to not use things if they require too much effort and so far, our dining room hasn't gotten much use except for when we have people over. I'd really like to use it more.

While I don't like having to treat furniture as precious, I don't want to wreck a perfectly good mid century table that's held up pretty well to this point. What I'd like is a fun, modern tablecloth that I can leave on most of the time that I don't have to be afraid of staining (ie. dark color or busy pattern). Apparently these are not easy to come by. Those at the top of this post are from Crate and Barrel and Ikea. Apparently CB@ and West Elm don't believe in table cloths. The C&B ones are too expensive for something you can easily spill red wine on, and the Ikea one is a bit uninspiring.

Then I figured I'd just go ahead and make one. It's just a big sheet, right? Even my limited sewing skills can handle that, but most fabric is 54-55" wide which would make for a somewhat narrow tablecloth. I was hoping to not have to do anything as fussy as attaching a border around the edge to lengthen it, though I may have to. I measured the one that is there now and it is 60" wide. I recently discovered that Ikea fabrics are wider than standard American fabrics due to the good ole metric system. Their fabrics are 59" wide, which after hemming the edges would produce roughly a 57 1/2" wide table cloth. I could be okay with that. I browsed through their various options online and narrowed it down a bit. First there is the Kajastina fabric in gray. I like it, but it may be a bit too "high style" for our house.Then there is the Cecilia fabrics, but I'm afraid the light color may get stained too easily.I like the food-like pattern of the Majken fabric,My favorite (for the moment) is the Gunilla prints. I like the bold, woodland-esque pattern. The black may be a bit dark, bit it will be forgiving. This last Gunilla print I think can work the best, the pattern is smaller and less likely to overwhelm the room, plus with the busier pattern and less black, it will hide stains without being too dark.None of them have colors that match our dining room really well. Do you think they can work anyway? Or will they clash too much? Is there somewhere else I could just buy a cool tablecloth that doesn't cost too much? If I could save myself the effort of making one I'd be happy, there is no shortage of projects around here.

We've got ourselves a chalkboard wall!

I love the way it turned out. Nice and smudgy. I think I may go with a light gray for the rest of the walls which will help tie it in a bit. I had plans for where I could put some chalkboard paint when we re-do our kitchen, but I realized that it was going to be a long way off and I didn't want to wait! My fiance painted it one day while I was at work then we had to wait three days before we could condition it and write on it. That was a long three days. It seems to work pretty well. Considering that we didn't really do any prep work (we probably should have scraped and sanded the wall first) the surface isn't too bad. It's not smooth, but you can write on it fairly well and it erases well enough- not perfectly, but I like it better that way.Here it is pre-conditioning. The matte black is also a really cool look. I never thought that I could get behind black walls, but they are really growing on me. I'd like to install a shelf up by the ceiling to display my vintage toasters, but I haven't fully decided where. One option is to put it over the two doors to the left of this picture in that little niche, the other is straight across the top of the black wall. I like the idea of putting it at the top of the black wall so they can stand out with a black background. I'd like to paint the shelf black to match the wall so that it blends in and looks more modern. My fiance would rather it be stained to match the wood paneling below. I don't know how I feel about that. I think it may draw too much attention to both the shelf and the paneling. It's going to support it with a pair of vintage cast iron brackets that I have that won't stand out too much, but they will be visible. What do you think? Black, natural wood, no shelf at all?

Style Quizzes

Glamorous Eclectic I think

Many of you may have already seen this on AT, but there are a couple of fun style quizzes out there on the interwebs. I just took Home Goods Style Scope and Sproost quizzes and they are pretty good. I think the Sproost one hit the nail on the head a bit more than the Style Scope According to Style Scope I'm "Glamorous Eclectic." I agree with the eclectic part and with their recommendations for creating an outdoor room and my need to organize, not so sure about the glamorous part. Though I do tend to be drawn to very elegant rooms (not neccessarily furnishings) with high ceilings, panel mouldings on the walls and tall windows.

According to Sproost I'm:

"44% Vintage Modern
33% Cottage Chic
23% Rustic Revival"

Vintage Modern

I think that's pretty spot on. Also shows how I'm not overwhelmingly one style. If I were 90% of any style I think I'd have an easier time avoiding collecting things that don't really go or that I don't really need. Oh well.

The Revolutionary Costume

I don't ever wear this in East Hampton.

Here's how my Little Edie costume turned out. Pretty well I think. I even gave myself sun damage on my skin from 50 years of sunbathing without sunscreen and penciled in eyebrows, though I don't think anyone could see that in the dim light of the Halloween party. I tied for the "peoples choice award" with Braveheart. I was surprised that many people knew who I was!

Halloween Yard Sale-ing

I wasn't expecting there to be any, but we found a bunch of yard sales on Halloween! I found these cool brass candlesticks that are sort of glam but look a little spooky in this picture.
I also found a cute little elephant and a vintage train set which isn't quite as photogenic.Of course I couldn't take any photos in the sunny spot of the house without our kitty getting involved. Here she is posing with the candlesticks.

In sadder news, our local thrift store Northern Thrift is closing. I was there yesterday picking up a few last items for my halloween costume and the store was half empty and everything was 50% off. Picked up some shoes for my Little Edie costume and a cute 70s pillowcase for $4 total. I'll post costume pictures later.
I forgot to mention that I had won a contest on Renovation Therapy! Awesome, huh? I hardly ever win stuff. Thanks Jean for the Julia Child book and the adorable little paper cutouts. I'm going to have fun with those!

Weekend Yard Sale Finds

Remember how I said I've actually added to my kitchen clutter instead of removing it? yeah, well here it is. Ain't she a beauty? I in no way needed another cast iron enameled pot (I have a few) but she was so pumpkin-y I had to get her. I also found another vintage toaster to add to my collection. I am going to install a shelf in the kitchen to display them soon...hopefully.
Here are the two paintings I mentioned. My mom found the first one at a sale on Sunday. It's from the 1950's, I'm not sure where.
This one I found at the back of a table at another yard sale. There isn't any information on it at all.
Price for each painting? $1. Now I just need to find them a home.

Miscellaneous weekend progress

Even though I was supposed to be decluttering my kitchen cabinets this weekend for the Kitchn cure, I wound up spending most of my time rearranging the living room. Even worse, I added to my kitchen clutter- more on that in another post. The living room is still not done yet - these are just progress shots, but it's looking much better. The issue of paint color is still out there, but in the mean time I'm trying to get the furniture to work. I moved the mustard colored chair from the office into the living room to replace the little chrome and white leather one which required the couch to slide down a couple of feet to make room. The wacky green table went into the corner and all the artwork got moved around.
In the opposite corner, I replaced the small bookshelf with a larger bookcase with glass doors that fills the space better. I haven't finished filling it up yet. I have to go into the basement to dig up some of the stuff I have that I haven't unpacked yet due to a lack of anywhere to put it. I'll probably drive myself nuts trying to "style" it, but that's okay, I don't have to worry about that yet. The shelf itself is pretty wonky, it's actually the top half of a dining room hutch that someone attached legs to. It's not at all square, but I'll fix that at another time.

Here is my garbage picked chair all cleaned up. I bought some danish oil, but haven't had a chance to use it yet. My afghan is covering all the tears in the vinyl on the ottoman. I looked into the problem of it leaning too far back on hte internet saturday morning and discovered that it's a pretty common problem. I guess these mechanisms aren't meant to last for 60 years. There are replacement parts out there, but in the mean time I'm just going to cut a piece of wood and wedge it in there to stop it from tipping. Right now it's leaning against the wall.Here's one of several cool yard sale finds my mom and I found recently. I'll post more once I've photographed them. This is a cool dish, made in Finland that goes remarkably well with the Portuguese lace tablecloth below it. I also found a lamp for next to the green chair and two vintage oil or acrylic paintings (can't tell which). I'll try to post them tomorrow once I can get a photo with some decent light.

And completely unrelated to anything else in this post, I went to see Handmade Nation this weekend at our local independant cinema. The director was there and there was also a craft fair. It was good to meet some local crafters, I even got some crochet tips!