PAINTIN' IT BLACK

So in my neverending quest for storage space, I picked up this buffet off craigslist for all of 15 bucks. It was a truly hideous lime green so naturally, on the advice of my personal life coach, Voltaire, I painted it black! It's still waiting for me to put the new silver hardware on it but I'll get right on that as soon as I can find the screws I need.

Ultimately it's going to go into the dining room under the bar but for right now it works OK under the window.

This curio cabinet I actually bought at a garage sale from one of the doctor's I work with for $20. It was that cheesy fake walnut pressboard stuff but I painted it with a really good flat black paint that really sticks to slick surfaces and I spraypainted the brass hardware silver.

I traded my 2 wing chairs (which, I'll remind you I got for free from Hastings when they did the big move and got all new stuff) for this big comfy chair. It's really ugly but I'm going to reupholster both it and the ottoman (formerly covered up in black fabric) with these same Celtic throws. It'll look funky but fun. I have noticed that while my original plan was to have alot of light gray and silvers I'm actually ending up with a lot of black and some red. Oh well, design schemes, especially those done on the cheap like mine, have a tendency to morph.

And now, the ugly coffee table. I got this off craigslist for free, thinking it was all wood and would therefore be easy to sand and paint. Turns out that the top was that nasty laminate stuff in the ever popular fake walnut finish. I actually set it out by the garbabge bin and was just going to forget about it. But then as I was wandering the aisles of Fred Meyer I discovered Krylon spraypaint for plastic! Whoo Hoo! So I sprayed it this nice red but, not being much of a grafitti artist, it didn't come out as even as I would have liked. SO something had to be done.

Viola! "Urban Celtic" coffee table! LOL I sketched up a small drawing based on some corsstitch patterns I had, blew it up at a copy shop, and used transfer paper to get the pattern on the table. Then I went over the lines with a silver paint marker, used a small sponge brush to put in the black, then went over the lines again with a heavy silver paint and sprayed the bejesus out of it with polyurethane. So now it's a truly user friendly coffee table you can set drinks on without coasters and put your feet up on. And Mark even likes it! LOL

So the whole Celtic motif is really creeping in here but I think I like it. What do you guys think?

SOME CHANGES

Well I've acquired an ottoman for all of 10 bucks. It's gray but, like the couch, too light a gray. So I've thrown some black microsuede on it and here's Chaos and Hela giving it their stamp (and fur!) of approval. It's quite comfy but I'm as yet undecided as to whether or not it's a good replacement for the coffee table.

Yep, the couch is back in front of the window. It just works better there. It also now has a yummy velvety (but machine washable!) black slipcover that I scored off e-bay brand new for 25 bucks.

This is my favorite new addition, a red glass witch ball. More on it later.

I've moved the old bulky armoire out of the dining room and it now resides in the bedroom. So I was able to get the wretched cat tree out of the living room and stick it in the dining room. No matter where I put it, it's going to be ugly, but I think this is the best spot so far and removing the armoire really visually increased the space of the dining room. But it's still very much in progress and remains the room I've done the least to.

Yep, it's ye old green wingchairs hiding under black and white Celtic throws. It's not ideal but at least it gets me closer to my monochromatic (with little touches of red) color scheme. I'm currently trying to sell these and I plan to replace them with a big comfy club chair, hopefully in gray. It was not my original intention to do black furniture but it just kinda seems to be working out that way. Go figure.

Another shot of the couch with the cool wool embroidered pillows I recently scored 4 of at a consignment shop of all of 6 bucks.

And now, the story of the witch ball. I have been secretly coveting this particular item for over a year now. It's not on my amazon wish list nor have I told anyone I wanted it. But oh how I have wanted it! In fact, I was on the very verge of finally breaking down and buying it when I recieved it out of the blue as a birthday gift from Brandy! Is that cool or what? Sometimes, it's good to be me!

Some Goth Art

As you all know, I’m an art junkie. And so many of you have, over the years, given me cool art as gifts. Many have been wonderful prints. Alas, I’ve received most of my gift art unframed. Because, as we all also know, framing is damned expensive! And sadly, I can’t really afford it either! So, many of my pieces languish in storage tubes in the closet or, at best, get stuck in a tacky poster frame so that they are at least protected and up on the wall where I can enjoy them. But it always bugs me to see the blasted poster frames. So, I’ve been working on getting some of my art in a better displayable format. Most prints do NOT come in a “standard” frame size (I firmly believe this is because the print makers are in cahoots with the framing companies) so this leaves you with the following options: A) You have a custom frame made, which is hideously expensive. B) You buy a standard frame in a larger size. Anything over a 16” x 20” frame is going to cost a minimum of $30 if it’s anything other than plastic. And now, because your frame is bigger than your picture, you HAVE to also purchase a mat. If you buy your own mat board and cut it yourself it costs about $15, at minimum. If you have it done, it’ll run you at least $20. So, at best, you’ll usually end up shelling out around fifty bucks to frame the awesome print your friend gave you, which probably cost anywhere from $10 to $30. If you’re an art junkie like me, that ends up translating into a looooot of money. And as we all also know, in addition to being an art junkie, I’m cheap! So what’s a girl to do? She comes up with a Plan C.

Tree gave me the gorgeous “Angelique” print above and it’s been sitting in a tube on a shelf just… waiting. So, this weekend, I was fortunate enough to find the frame above at a craft store on clearance. It was originally $50. I scored it for $14. It was also originally WHITE. So, of course, out came the paint brushes! A bright shiny coat of black (more like 4 coats actually) and then some dry brushed silver over the raised areas and, voila! Cool black and silver frame for my cool Goth décor! But, as you can see, I had ended up with a frame much bigger than my print. So what to do? Let’s just say I LOVE the dollar store! For there I found rolls of deep red wrapping paper! To which I applied my fleur de lis stencil in a very random and messy pattern and back out came the silver paint and a little sponge brush. Then I carefully taped down the corners of the print onto the red and silver paper and slipped the whole thing into the frame!

But that just wasn’t enough Goth art for one day for me. The above picture (a Varga) came from a 2000 calendar that Brandy gave me and that I’ve been saving ever since, meaning to do something cool with it. Well, I’d also, quite some time ago, picked up this plain wooden frame from a thrift store that was missing its glass. I think I paid a buck for it. By happy chance, it turned out to be the exact right size for this picture. So, again, out came the black and silver paint! I then took some heavy cardboard and glued the picture down onto it. Then I brushed varnish over it (in a technique basically the same as decoupage) which not only will protect it, but gave it a nice high gloss and some depth and texture so, at a glance, it actually looks like a painting. Pretty spiffy, eh?

Lastly, I had one more thrift store frame lying around, this simple black number above. I paid a whopping $3 for this one and hey, it even still has its glass! So I used some black construction paper I had on hand to back the other pictures from the Varga calendar and while it’s simple, I still think it looks good. Eventually I’ll probably frame all of these individually because I think they’d make a cool grouping.
Now I know some of you are wondering about all my beloved pre raphaelite prints. Trust me, I’m not going total modern Goth! They’ll be getting some attention too! In fact, here’s what I’ve managed so far:

The thing I hate about this print is that big white edge. And the fact that it announces the artist and title. I bloody well know it’s a Waterhouse and I even know it’s called The Crystal Ball, because it happens to be one of my favorites. This one, Moira gave me. So, even worse than the cheesy poster frame, that white border just makes it scream “mere poster print.” But I’m not about to spend the money to have it matted, especially while it’s in the cheap poster frame. Eventually, I do have a much more elaborate plan for it. But I can at least make it look better for now! So out came more of the red paper, silver paint, and another stencil. Much better, no?

And finally, here’s another favorite, Delaroche‘s La Jeune Martyre, also a gift from Tree. Again with the big cheesy white border announcing the artist’s name! AUGH! However, this one presents a trickier problem. Since there isn’t a border all the way around and the offending bit is just at the bottom, I decided doing the same bit with the red paper in just a block at the bottom just wouldn’t look right. But I did think it might look kind of neat to have the French title of the painting showing instead of the artist’s name. It’s a bit more thought provoking. So I came up with this:

All it is, is some construction paper and silver paint. And since this particular print HAS been really nicely and professionally framed in a good frame the back is sealed, so until such time as I will be taking this print out of it to be reframed, I’ve simply affixed it to the glass. It’s far from perfect as far as solutions go but at least it minimizes that glaring white bit that was makin’ me crazy!
So that’s what I did yesterday. Yep, it was all done in a day between trips to the store and walking the dog! Well, with the exception that I started painting the Angelique frame the day before just to get all those coats of black on and dried before I went over it with the silver. So what have you guys been up to?

IT'S CURTAINS I SAY!

before :(

AFTER! :)

Yes it's true, the new curtains are finally done and up! I got ten yards of "bridal satin" (more on that later) on eBay for dirt cheap and it's 60" wide too so I had plenty to pull this off. In truth the fabric is an absolutely AWFUL plasticky feeling polyester and it was VILE to work with! Had I actually found it in a fabric store and been able to touch it I would have taken a pass. Thankfully I didn't buy it for clothing though and it worked out fine as curtains and has a nice kinda hammered silver sheen to it. Mark raised the rod brackets for me and did some creative "Dremeling" on the decorative ends of the rod so they'd fit on since they weren't the ones that originally came with it. Anyway, I think doing that, plus the fact that the curtains are a lighter color, really opened up the room and made that wall and even the window itself look bigger. So I'm pretty happy with it.

Even things like this candle holder look nicer and stand out more against the silver curtains.

In other news... here's the pedestal after another coat of bronze paint was dry brushed over it. Unfortunately, it's not the same shade of bronze as the Sappho statue and it's unlikely I'm ever going to find a perfect match. But it does look better than it did when it had way too much green on it so I'm going to call it done.

Detail of Sappho. The rest of the pics are just misc stuff about the house.

I love my Lilith statue (far left) and my Dracula castle (far right).

Mark's collection of Egyptian cats.

The marble statue of the Three Graces in the center were an Xmas gift from Mark.

Small figurines of Malificent and the Evil Queen.

Bella sez, "All this decorating is hard work!"

SOME PROBLEMS SOLVED, SOME NEW IDEAS

Well first I decided what was really bugging me about the living room arrangement was where the fish tank was. Sitting where it was on the wall meant that no one would be able to see and enjoy the fish unless they went and stood directly in front of it and bent down. Many of you suggested getting rid of the fish tank but it happens to be Mark's and he does want to set it up... once I can finally pick a spot where it's going to stay since fish tanks are rather a pain to move once they've been filled up with water and fish! So, since no one ever sits in the wing chair on the right side of the fireplace because it's both too far from the other seating and you can't see the TV from it I decided to move both the chair and the fish tank and set up a fish viewing/reading nook in the corner. I added a lamp/table combo I was actually thinking about getting rid of and now it works perfectly. I'll just change the lamp shade for something less boring than the current generic white one and I think it'll look pretty cool. As an added bonus you can see both the TV and the bookcase I moved around the corner from this spot. It's really turned out quite nicely. So that's a big problem solved. Now we just have to actually set up the fish tank!

I moved the Chinese chest over to the other side of the fireplace and it looks nice there and is out of the way as well.

Here's the bookcase I moved around the corner, which kind of bummed me out because now no one could see it with its cool displays, especially Mark's collection of Egyptian cats. But from the new position of the chair it's perfectly visible.

For now the fish tank is still pretending to be a really odd table but once it's set up it will be really nice to sit in this chair and watch the fish. To the left is my Sappho statue Mark got me for Xmas and the pedestal I painted for it. The pedestal is not actually finished. As you can see, it's much too green because the method I used for adding that aged patina the statue has was the exact opposite of the method I usually use for antiquing a piece. So now I need to get some bronze paint and dry brush over the entire piece in order to do away with a lot of that green so it won't be so overwhelming. Also, I have to move the mirror up higher now so I can put the rose shelf and my Evil Queen back beneath it. My work is never done! LOL

Bella and Chaos approve of the current furniture arrangement. However, I figured out one of the things that was bugging me. My end tables are both too big and too low. This made the lamps sit too low and they therefore did not cast enough light. So I've used some boxes I have to set the lamps on in order to make them higher and this helps a great deal. But I am now on the hunt for smaller and taller end tables. Also, once I put an ottoman at one end of the couch the coffee table won't fit very well. So I think I may end up using one of my current end tables as the coffee table. Actually, square coffee tables are referred to as cocktail tables. I don't know why and I don't know why any of us need to know that but there you have it. LOL Anyway, I've also discovered that the glass tops are a HUGE pain to keep clean. It's a losing battle actually. And I'd actually like a coffee table we could put our feet up on if we felt like it and generally just use a little harder than we're able to use the current tables. So I have yet another idea. I'm going to remove the glass from whatever table ends up being the "coffee or cocktail" table and take a piece of plywood and back it with felt and then cover the top in slate tiles and set it on top of the table. This will be pretty inexpensive and the grays of the slate will go great with my color scheme. And the whole thing will be much more user friendly.

What follws are just some more random pics of the room. This will be my last "living room update" until I actually start getting some of my projects finished. And that's going to depend largely on when my tax return decides to show up!

So what do I have left to do?

1. Window treatment! Gotta go fabric shopping!

2. Recover wing chairs in black or gray/silver. More fabric shopping!

3. Acquire and recover an ottoman. Yep, still more fabric shopping!

4. Paint the long and L shaped walls.

5. Find side table and coffee table solutions/projects.

6. Redo the art on the long wall which is going to involve a complex decoupage project.

7. Purchase and paint knicknack shelves to go on the long wall.

8. Set up the fish tank (tho that's actually Mark's job).

9. Purchase a black table cloth and black seat cushions for the dining set. I've decided against refinishing them because I use the dining table as a work table so I'm bound to damage any finish or paint job I put on it. It's easier and more effective to just cover it up with a nice table cloth. And since I'm not going to do the table there's no point in doing the chairs. So there's some work saved.

10. Paint the storage armoire in the dining room.

11. Acquire and probably refinish barstools.

12. Purchase new rug for living room in vivid shades of red.

13. Make some more pillows for the living room.

14. Acquire a floor lamp to put in the corner by the sofa.

15. Find some cool red knicknacks to bring out the red pillows and (future) rug.

So there you have it! Wish me luck!

DESIGN INDECISION

Well here's Bella enjoying the fireplace. I'm glad SHE'S relaxed, 'cause I'm not! LOL

OK as you can see I've changed up this corner a bit. First of all, I moved the bookcase around the corner and put the cat tree in its place. This helps eliminate the unbalanced look and when I paint the wall gray here it'll help the cat tree blend in better and hopefully not be so noticable. Now about the TV stand... I haven't replaced it yet for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it turns out the TV armoire I THOUGHT I wanted from Target turned out to actually be cheap particle board with cheesy veneer when I actually went to the store and looked at it. Nor did it look as cool as it did in the picture. SIGH Then there's the issue of me just being cheap. Because the fact is there's nothing actually wrong with the TV stand we have now, it happens to be in perfectly good shape. So I feel guilty replacing it. It's only REAL drawback is that it just doesn't have enough media storage. And because it's so wide there's no room for a media cabinet. Also, I just LIKE the idea of the armoire because I like the ability to just shut the doors and have all the electronics hidden away. The indecision is killing me! LOL Any ideas or suggestions?

Yes I know the window looks like crap. Fortunately, I DO know what I'm going to do here! I'll be replacing the current window treatment with curtains in a silvery fabric (yet to be determined, it'll depend on what's available when I'm finally able to go shopping for it) with a valance that will actually go in the middle rather than on a seperate rod in front of the curtains. This is because I never close my curtains. My view is too pretty! Plus I do have a blind that I can close when it's hot and I want the room to be darker. The OTHER thing I'm going to do is raise up the curtain rod to the height of the ceiling and extend it out to where it touches the walls on either side. This is because the wall surrounding the window is very narrow and our fusebox is on that wall. The curtains will hide the fusebox this way and also give the window the illusion of being much larger. And it'll hide more yucky white apartment wall! Yay!

Now here's the real bane of my existence... no not Bella! Well, not most of the time anyway. LOL No, I'm talking about the wall behind her. On the plus side I've recovered all the couch pillows. The small ones are a metallic red cotton with a cool raised pattern. The big ones are done in black crushed velvet on one side and black upholstery velvet on the other incase I want to throw them on the floor. I'll do closeups later. Anyway, I think they look pretty cool. But then there's that blasted lonf wall. It's going to be painted in textured gray like I plan to paint the L shaped wall behind the TV. I also have a plan for dealing with the art and knicknacks that will look MUCH cooler than the current arrangement. So what's the problem? I'm just not happy with my furniture arrangement! For one thing, if you look to the left of the couch and see the tall black velvet draped "table"... well that's actually the dratted fishtank again! That's right, it's been booted from the bedroom and it's now in the living room. Where I also don't like it. And we can't set it up and put fish in it until I can finally decide where it's going to go! ACK! The OTHER problem is that the furniture in general, couch, tables, chairs, just don't "flow". There's not a good conversational area and the furniture just seems to be all bunched up in one section of the room. For the life of me I just can't figure out a configuration I'm happy with. Where are you guys when I need you?????

Well, at least Chaos also enjoys the fireplace. I guess if the creatures are happy something must be right! LOL Anyway, feel free to give me some ideas! Better yet, come over and help me move my furniture around! LOL

So here's the finished project. What do you think?

Who's the fairest of them all? ;)

I have to say Ithink my Evil Queen looks awesome before this rose mirror!

And here she is above Dracula's castle and a small array of gargoyles. Somehow it all just goes together, doesn't it ? Spooky, yet rather goofy. Just like me! ;)

MIRROR, MIRROR...

So here's the story on this mirror. It belonged to my mother and is one of the few things I have left from her. However (imagine me kicking myself here for forgetting to take a "before" picture) it was kind of a cheesy looking spray painted looking gold and white. Just not my style. Nevertheless, because of its sentimental value I've lugged it all about with me. So I finally pulled it out of the closet and decided to give it a makeover so that I could have it out and enjoy it and be reminded of my mom at the same time. Hopefully, she'd understand.

I also found this nifty shelf at Michael's quite some time ago. It was originally done in that currently popular shabby chic finish of crackled off white. Since I always knew one day I was going to break down and repaint the mirror I picked it up as well. I think they make a pretty neat set.

So then I thought, "Hey wouldn't it be cool to put my Evil Queen on that shelf in front of the mirror?" Though I DO like her current mirror of bones too! LOL Anyway, I'm far from deciding where to hang it at this point and I'll need to get the wall painting done first and the furniture rearranged so for now she stays where she is and the shelf has been put away in the closet for the nonce.

Here's some details of the mirror and shelf and what it looked like with just its black base coat.

So one more small project down. Now I'm busily working on the pedestal that will hold my Sappho statue. Don't worry, I'll be sure to put up the pics when it's done!