Bedroom Update (& Future Plans)

I can't believe it's only been a week since the Sunroom Reveal... feels like a month! On Wednesday I was honored to have my sunroom featured on one of my favorite blogs, House of Turquoise. That lead to an email from a very, very big website which I'll be on next month... more to come on that :)

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Just a quick rewind on my slipcover project for those of you wondering...

This was the chair I started with:

I picked up around $80 worth of fabric at JoAnn's (on sale), one of those soft tape measurers, and some stitch witchery. I really had no game plan for this... I just brought it home and began tracing out the shapes. A lot of it was guesswork since there are curves in the chair, but miraculously, it worked out somehow.

I was very lucky with the fabric I chose (without even realizing it beforehand). First of all, it has a bit of stretch to it, which is really helpful because it's forgiving. Secondly, the fabric has stripes in it (spaced about an inch apart) which made it super easy to cut straight and also make the seams straight. Really, I couldn't have picked a better fabric.

Here's the one and only in progress shot:

This was late at night... after about 8 hours. I ran out of fabric, so the next day I went back to finish and it took another 1-2 hours.

My advice to anyone attempting this... use this fabric. Or something with stripes in it. Make sure it has a bit of stretch to it. Wash and dry it first. Plan on spending many many hours.

In the end, it was definitely worth it, but I'm certainly not jumping at the chance to do it again.


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Our master bedroom wall has looked like this for a long time:

It was fine for a while, but I just felt that it was a bit sparse and needed something more substantial.

So I hung some 16x20" city maps:

These cities represent some of my favorite places/trips I've taken. They are shown in the 'taupe' color, and can be found and purchased at my shop.


Susie approves.




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The completion of the sunroom marks the last room in our house to be renovated. I went way back to January 2011 and found this To-Do list I had written up about all of the projects that needed to be completed in the house. When this list was written, we had been living here for around two months and had already installed the hardwood floors, smoothed the popcorn ceiling, and painted.

Here's what I had planned...

I updated and edited the list, and now it looks like this:

Green: Completed
Black: Not sure if we want to do it anymore
Black + Crossed out: Not going to do it
Red: Need to do

Can you tell where I've used my 'Jenna Sue' font to add in the new items?

As you can see... we're getting close to being done. Crazy, right? I can actually see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Just to help clarify what's going on in my head right now... the recessed lighting in the office is next up on the to-do list, purely out of necessity. It's quite difficult to run an art business when you can't clearly see the colors you are printing. This one is long overdue.

While Brad is installing them, I'm trying to convince him to do the living room and master bedroom at the same time. The Florida heat is here and it's only going to get worse up there in the attic. We'll see how that goes.

My next most pressing issue is our master closet. I mean, look at this...

It's horribly inefficient and a waste of such a large space. I'd love to drop in a ready to build closet system, but we have a challenge on our hands: angled walls. Spending 20k on custom closets isn't worth it to us, so I'll have to figure out a solution in the near future. Any ideas?

As far as front yard landscaping, that's something we've also been planning to do any day now. So far, I've only managed to get us a new mailbox:

As of Friday night, it now looks like this:

Some punk kid came barreling down our street, took out our mailbox and careened through two yards, scattering mailbox parts everywhere, damaging a car and leaving a path of yard destruction.

Luckily, the kid lives 8 houses down from us so we filed a claim with his insurance and now he's buying us a new yard. Great timing! In addition to a new mailbox and sod, I want to add a row of palm trees and some bushes on the side of the house. I'll be sure to take a good before/during/after pics to document that process.

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If you're wondering what else there is to look forward to from this blog.... well, all I can say is thank goodness for Pinterest. I'm sure I'll be finding a lot of new inspiration and projects to keep me busy until we find our next house. And if you're wondering when that will be... well, not for a while.

I have a hard time staying in one place (this is actually the longest I've been in any single residence since living with my parents before college), and Brad and I have both been thinking about our next home. Turns out I need two years of tax returns to prove my income (self employed), so we can't even start the process until next April. Realistically though, that's a good thing, because by that time we'll have saved up a lot for a house we really want.

Thank you to those of you who have made it this far! Here's to one more year of this little Florida home of ours...