Been Away

Hello Everyone,  I have been away from my blog for a long while due to the fact I have been working on lots and lots of new projects in my inside studio and my painting studio.  We have also been working on the outside of the house all spring and into the summer and we are finally done, at least for this year anyway! (Giggles!) I thought I better check in with you and let you know I have not fallen out of the blogger world for good I just got really busy. I have so much to share with you and I plan to be back doing that this week if at all possible.  Here is a small preview of my French Inspired Guest Bedroom.

These are a few photos from the French inspired guest bedroom makeover I completed after the guest bathroom refresh I did in the Spring. I made pillows, covered canvas with fabrics and created several crafty projects to give it the look I wanted. I just realized I have not downloaded a single project we did after we got this one finished. Yikes!I guess I have several hours of downloading work to do, oh well such is the life of a creative person.

These are a few of the accessories I originally added on the opposite side of the room; to be honest most of that has evolved over the last couple of months and I need to add new photos since I think the room might be done, NOT! Nothing is ever done around here as you all know.

Thanks for letting me share my news and one of my many projects.  I plan to be back as soon as I get everything loaded into my laptop. See you very soon.

Laurette

Bedroom Inspiration

I am at it again working on the styling of another room, this time our guest room is getting a makeover to coordinate with the guest bath.  If you follow me you know our guest bath was recently given a little facelift, going from bright colors to black and white with pops of blue on a tan/sand background. The guest bedroom color scheme is going from blues and greens to black, white and tan with an icy blue background to make everything pop; a very sharp, clean look.  Here are some of the photos which originally inspired both the guest bath and bedroom. Can you guess which elements in each room I was drawn to?

As you can see in the photos each room is crisp, sharp and coordinates very well together with some of the elements in each photo already in my design closet. But after evaluating the room and some of the furniture and other accessories in my stash I was not happy with the somewhat stark feeling of the room. True it did mirror the guest bath and my studio but I was not sure our guests would appreciate the lack of warmth and comfort.

Lately I have been very drawn to Shabby Chic, French and European design, which is not my usual style but never the less very appealing in its old world warmth and architectural design.  I was itching to give it a try, why not in a room which pretty much sits alone at one end of the house on the top floor? The funny thing is I made several Paris inspired pillows, from some fabric a reader sent to me last year, which were just sitting in my design stash waiting for a home. Even with all the photos, research and design boards done the pillow became my jumping off point instead.  It just goes to show, you never know which way a project is going to go, sometimes you just have to let it evolve naturally and see where it winds up.

Thanks for letting me share the beginning stages of my newest styling project with you.  I have a long way to go to get the room where I want it; follow along with me as I progress with lots of money saving DIY projects designed to enhance that Shabby/French/Paris feeling. This project is not going to be a quick one because I believe it will be evolving for quite a while so check in often to see what I am up to.

See you soon.

Laurette

French "Rustic Toile" Valance

As you know I have been working on a little “facelift” for our guest bath; creating all kinds of projects to give it some elegant glamour and I finally just finished the last of my projects.  Woohoo!!!  My final project was to make a new valance to go over the bathroom window, something to tie everything all together.  I searched through all of my resources and did not find any inspirational ideas for valance style; however, they did help me to decide on the fabric type, color and pattern I wanted to use.  I chose (from my fabric stash) a nice home decor heavy weight fabric in a black and white toile print. Take a look.

This is the plain window with 2” wooden blinds already up and a basic white shower curtain, nothing special to look at here.

This is the fabric I had several pieces of in my stash, wonderful remnants I got at the fabric store for a steal, super pricey otherwise. The fabric is “Rustic Toile” by Waverly Fabrics from the home décor line, about 1 yard long. When I am working with an expensive piece of fabric which is going into a room where it may not stay for a long time I try to sew it up in a way which allows me to re-use it later.  Instead of cutting the fabric I used the whole piece by pressing the selvages under on the sides then folding it in half to create a self lining and turning down the top edges to make the rod casing and using the largest stitch allowance my machine would sew.  The long stitches are easy to take out if I ever want to turn the valance into whole fabric again.

Once I had the casing finished I hug the valance giving it a bit of pouf but I felt it was missing something.  I went to my notions stash and looked for something to give it a pop of black because the light print faded into the very white shower curtain right next to it creating a lack of contrast.  I found some really pretty French jet black pom-pom trim which seemed to pull out the black and give it more definition.  I simply used the same stitch length to sew it just below the casing stitching, easy to remove later down the line if I wanted to re-use either of the items.

Here we are all done and already hanging up right over the window.  I just love me some toile, I would put it everywhere if I could get away with it! I cannot show you how well it adds contrast with the shower curtain right now… you have to wait to see the whole thing in the reveal in my next post. Hehe!!!

Thanks for letting me share my final bling project for the guest bath facelift; I am very pleased with the results so far, I cannot wait to see what you all think.

See you soon.

Laurette