When I was almost finished

Ok so the story on my living room furniture

I had a vintage 6ft long yellow, down filled, sofa that I loved and came home to one day out on the curb with all the down filled cushions taken already. My mother lived with me at the time and bought a nasty, dog smell infested, sante fe covered, small sofa from a friend of hers so wanted mine out to put hers in. So one day I come home to find she had someone help her heft my sofa to the curb to bring hers in and by the time I discovered this the cushions were all gone, thanks to garbage pickers, and the deed was done.

A few months later she needed to leave my home, never to move in again, but, I was left with no furniture as she was taking her sofa but had thrown mine out.

About that time my friend Lauren was moving to Florida and had a sofa, chair and a half and ottoman in her family room she wasn't taking with her. I took these off her hand years ago as she's now been back from Florida for two years...so this was all maybe 3 years ago or a little more.

You've probably seen this chair and sofa set in many images on my blog, white background with large blue stripes on the sofa and a denim blue chair and ottoman. Well it matched nothing in my house, had a few issues and i decided to recover them, 3 years ago.

Here's the chair, missing it's back cushion after a fight between some new pets in the house. The bottom cushion was worn and needed to be replaced.
The ottoman had a few holes and ware spots in the material that just got worse in my house with kids and pets.

So left uncovered this is how bad this chair would now look. I think even the cheapest of the cheap would pass this up on a curb!

Now I purchased a fabulous ultra suede in my favorite color to recover this chair. I started the cover when the back cushion was still attached and got to the point where I only had to add the skirt when that back cushion was destroyed. I was upset and didn't want to deal with it so it sat for 2 years with no back cushion, no skirt, and an over sized slip cover that now was too large for the chair. Well now it's all fixed. I had to repin the whole thing and took off 2-20x8inch sections on each side of the back. I added the skirt and closures and washed the whole set. The only issue left to tackle was the back cushion as you can't sit comfortably on the chair without something behind your back or you're hitting the bar in the structure tright on your lower back.
So I made a back cushion I thought would be large enough but by the time I stuffed it enough to fill it out to where it was comfortable to lean back on it was now to small width wise. I'll have to work on this portion again sometime and then make a matching cover for it as I still have plenty of fabric left even with the ottoman covered.


So for now I am still using the pillow I covered the other night, but, theres now a skirt to the floor, the blue is all cover and it looks finished. This pillow could pass for the back cushion and only I, and anyone reading my blog, would know it's suppose to be other wise.

Now I only have the sofa left to slip cover in the living room and I will once again have a matching set.

Honey do list.....

I'm not sure about everyone else, although I here from my husbands aunts life is like this for them as well, but, the house never seems done. There is always a job to do. Once you finish something off something else is broken, cracked, messed up, disorganized you name it and requires your attention.

Well here the jobs get divided for certain reasons like I do all the laundry because if anyone else in the house touches the machine they will break it (has happened before) and I don't want to go naked because of them....so thats my job

The hubby mows the lawn and does lawn work because I'm 1. not an outdoorsy person and 2. I'm allergic to most of what grows in our yard;grass, evergreens etc.

But, it seems lately My honey do list is bigger then my honeys! How did that happen???
I have been working on claning it up some though and since I haven't shared many pics of the house post construction here's an item from my list now checked off!
These are the new windows we had installed on the enclosed porches. This is the front porch where there are 4 like this and the back porch is the same minus the triangular windows at the top. I needed curtains though as with 4 huge picture windows on the afternoon sun side of the house the whole front porch could be a greenhouse.

I had been pricing out yardage for large enough coverings in a material I would like then ran across these at walmart one night. $17 for 2 tab top panels and calculated I would need 3 panels per window. They look a big wonky in this pic as they weren't completely up yet.

They are a nice nutral color though with a touch of red which coordinates to the inside where I have greens and rust colors. So it's not matchy matchy, which I can't stand anyways, but flows nice. The problem was how to hang them. The porch walls are an old aggregate stucco over lath so sometimes finding a stud is impossible or being able to drill into certain spots. Also regular rods were not going to work for this. So between the hubby and I this is what we came up with.

Closet rod doweling I then stained with left over stain from refinishing all the solid wood doors in the house. Instead of large, expensive wood hangers which we knew would rip out of the walls like almost everything else had, hubby bought c hooks and anchored them into the walls. The effect got the curtains almost to the ceiling of the porch to help cover as much of the triangular windows as possible for heat and light management, kept the curtains just above the floor as well. It's low profile so we maximize room on the porch for use and don't have to worry about the curtains sticking out a few inches and they operate pretty well.



They now run the length of the porch turn the corner and run the width of one side where the 4th window is and have helped immensely with the heat, although it's still like a sauna out there it's not as bad when they were uncovered.

Best thing is for all this we only spent about $130. I mean it is a porch so it's not like I was going to do custom drapery for this area of the home, but, drapes can become costly as well as the hardware so I was pleased with the cost being so low and the over all look being as nice as I think it turned out to be. .