Don't Stress, Creatively Hide That Mess!

A very important thing to keep in mind when decorating is that beauty has to include functionality and sometimes functionality inspires the beauty.  This was the case with that darn elliptical machine that I barely used.  I wanted the functionality of being able to exercise at home, but the machine is hardly beautiful, so I got creative and designed a pretty way to hide the machine.  Let me explain. 

I got this idea to use curtains to drape around the machine.  Sitting on the couch, just looking around the room, I would just see pretty fabric hanging. But, when it was time to use the darn thing, I would be able to pull the curtains back, pull the machine out slightly from the wall and be able to jump on it and exercise my little heart out.  In my previous post, A Bedroom Fit For A Queen, I talked about the curtain room divider I devised.  I decided to use the same curtains for the exercise machine enclosure.  I also stored my suitcases in this area.  I got a fancy federal valance that went with the pattern which was called Serenity Paisely by Croscill.  I purchased them from Bed, Bath and Beyond, as usual.  The federal valance was perfect because it made a great shape due to the pleating and folds.  I hung the valance from the ceiling by pre-drilling holes, inserting screw anchors and then using curved hooks. I attached the valance to the curved hooks using very small clip on curtain rings.  I then used three panels of the Serenity Paisley and using safety pins, of all things, I attached the panels to the hanging valance.  One panel on the left, one on the right and the third in the middle to slightly cover the other two.  I installed a curtain hold back on the wall, so that I could sweep the three panels over to the holdback and get the curtains out of the way completely.  In my last two posts, I talked about the other half of my apartment for the most part, here is the other half of my old apartment.  Please excuse the mess, I was making my way over to that side and besides Rome wasn't built in a day.  On the right you will see the built-ins I re-purposed, see my previous two posts for more detail. Next to the built-ins, you will see the curtain storage area of which I have been describing.  A close-up pending.  On the left side you will see the red computer armoire and my new study area, which I will talk about shortly.  Straight ahead is the tiny kitchen and the long hallway where my closets were and the bathroom and the front door. Note my lovely track lighting and my tiny disco ball!  On the wall between the kitchen and the hallway, I was planning on getting or making a very small fireplace mantel (because I just love fireplace mantels!)  You can see the cardboard box I was using to see how the mantel would fit.  You can also see my red Harmony Rocket electric guitar from the 1950's, thanks to my friend Sheala!  And you can also see the canvas fabric covering the upper built-ins on the left, another crafty way to hide open storage.  Way down the hall, you can almost make out my coveted painted cabinet (Future Post Alert).

Because I just have to, here are pictures of my old really old tiny kitchen.

I did say old, didn't I? Old, Old, Old!

Walk in, turn to the left, turn to the right, you have now seen the whole kitchen. 

Fun times... but I digress.  Here is a close up of the curtain enclosure.

Believe it or not, those curtains are covering a 6 foot long elliptical machine.  Pretty though, isn't it? I wish I had a picture of the curtains pulled back, but I don't.  You would never know that the panels and valance are connected by safety pins!  Okay, moving on to the computer area.  Remember in my older post, I had a huge L shaped desk on the other side of the room?  Well, that was too big and not pretty enough for my new design.  I found this computer armoire from Home Decorators, www.homedecorators.com.  It was a bit hard to put together by myself, but I managed it. I also got a matching tall three drawer file cabinet.  I would watch out for buying file cabinets online because the file drawers  didn't open all the way and the hanging file orientation for letter size was sideways.  Anyway, just make sure you know what you are getting yourself into.  I also picked up a side table to match the armoire and the filing cabinet.  Another way to hide the clutter, close the doors.

Okay, so you can't see the file cabinet which was on the right and I apparently never took a picture of it.  I got all these pretty storage boxes and put my pens and supplies in them to keep them looking good. For example, I had a box with my computer's software CDs.  Decorative boxes really do the trick.  

Thanks for stopping by and Stay tuned for more creativity!

"Windows are the eyes of a room, drapes are the eyelashes"

Drapes, Curtains, what's the difference?  Beats me.  I just know that I like them and needed them on my windows.  Like everything else I've purchased or made in my new place, the search was long and I confess probably obsessive.  Ands it funny, sometimes I have a vision of what I think I want and it turns out to be totally different and other times, I know exactly what I want and if I can't find it (or afford it), I have to make it happen. 

I have three windows in my apartment.  Two large picture windows and one regular sized window.   Because of the saturated colors I have in my place (blue in the living room, red in the bedroom, white in the dining room), most of the furniture is white or light so as to not compete with the color.  More on that later, but after trying a few options, I decided to go with light/white curtains. And I decided to use the same pattern for all the windows in the main living space because they were all on the same wall, despite the different wall color.

So one day, I happened to be in Bed, Bath and Beyond passing the shower curtain section and my eye was caught by a shimmering curtain hanging up.  Hmm, I thought, this is cool.

I really liked the hourglass pattern.  I really liked the silver sequins that made up the hourglass pattern and I liked the shinier background which reminded me of the sheen of raw silk.  Luxury! I love diamonds and sparkle. I'm not afraid to decorate with them! So, I grabbed a few packages and brought them home, opened one and spent days looking at it against the blue painted wall of the living room and the swatch of wallpaper to eventually go up in the dining room.   Just in case, I brought home a few other options and swatches of fabric to compare and in the end this one won the battle. It is called Infinity Shower Curtain. 

All was going well, I finally made a decision.  The only problem was that the dimensions of a shower curtain (72 x 72) are very different than the dimensions of a window curtain (usually longer and not as wide).  I bunched up the 72 inches wide shower curtain to see if it was too much fabric, but it worked.  So yay, I didn't have to make changes to the width.  My ceiling height is 8 feet or 96 inches and I wanted some pooling of fabric on the floor.  This meant that I had to add length to the pre-made shower curtain.   But how to connect the pieces so it looked good?  A ribbon to hide the edges of both pieces and to connect them, but what kind of ribbon?  Another thing to obsess about.  I tried a few options and didn't like anything.  I ended up making a custom sash with a strip of the shower curtain and metallic silver ribbon sewed on both edges.  Now just keep in mind, I said I was creative, I didn't say I was a master sewer.  Unless you look really close, you don't notice anything that might possibly not be perfect!

I picked up some really cool clear faceted crystal curtain hardware from JCPenny to hang the curtains on.  The trick to making a window and ceiling look taller/higher, is to hang curtains as high as possible.  I plan on getting crown molding, so I left a little room when I installed the curtain rods.  Then I sewed away and here is what the curtains look like now.  Oh, one more note.  I didn't like all of the silver metal of the curtain rods (very long curtain rod, not easy to install alone) and decided to try covering the rods with extra fabric.  I think it came out cool.  What do you think?

Please ignore the shade on the window, that was there from previous owner and will be replaced eventually! Oh, can't wait.  Here's the dining room.

And one more picture - with the sunlight streaming through!

Kitty makes a cameo. You can see some of my pretty flower on the terrace.

Okay, one more thing.  For the bedroom, which to remind you is RED, I wanted a geometric bold pattern with bright white as the background and red as the pattern color.  I was inspired by some fabrics I saw online but the colors were all wrong.  So I found a website, www.spoonflower.com where you can create your own patterns and get them printed on different types of fabric.  So, that is exactly what I did.  I made my own pattern using mostly Photoshop and then uploaded it to spoonflower and now I (and everyone) can order the fabric (when I get a job) and make curtains for the picture window in my bedroom.  Here is what the pattern looks like that I call Red Trellis.  Don't even get me started on picking the right RGB pantone color so it would print the right color.  Actually, I should say a few words about this.  What you see on the computer screen, is not necessarily what others see on their computer screens and not necessarily what will print out from the computer.  So, in order to ensure the color you want comes out right, you must make sure you use the right settings.  Really simply, because its more complicated, there are codes for different colors.  On spoonflower, there is an option to print on a yard of fabric, color charts.  You can see a tiny bit of it on the very right of the picture of the finished curtains in the dining room. This is a yard of thumb size color swatches very close together.  Put it this way, it took me a while in different lighting to figure out which red to use.  Luckily, it came out well when printed.  One last note, a red that was medium in color, turned out to be coral when printed on fabric so I had to have real red, the color I picked looks much darker on screen.

Okay, that's it for now. Time to go to sleep. 

Thanks for stopping by and stay tuned for more creativity!