d'oh!mestic

My job is cyclical.

It goes from being busy to being dead to being JAMPACKEDINSANITY before coasting into another lull. Right now, we’re in a JPI period, and I can tell my stress levels have been jacked by the way my jaw aches from being clenched, by the basketball-sized stress hump that’s popped up between my shoulder blades and by the increase in off-the-clock craftiness.

I admit that I’ve been doing the rounds at lunch — in the last week, I’ve hit the yarn shop, the woefully undercapitalized but wonderful fabric shop and the Fascist Fabric Boutique, all. I bought engineering paper and colored pencils and started sketching, and in the evenings, I’ve been up in the sewing room/photo room, not doing a whole lot outside of pressing fabric.

Oh my god, there is something enormously therapeutic in pressing fabric.

Anyway.

Last night I decided that the kitchen cafe curtain had to go. It was a Pottery Barn 75% refuge from five years ago. It was yellow and brown and kind of ugly.

See?

OOog-lay.

I wanted to replace it with something cheerful, but not perky — or lord forbid, cutesy.

Let’s face it. I straight up wanted skulls.

Oh, look. Skulls!

The Fascist Fabric Boutique came through with this Alexander Henry pattern. It took a half a yard and a half an hour to whip a new curtain, which I like a bit more than the last curtain, though Adam’s still not sold. It’s cheerful. It’s slightly morbid. It . . . still doesn’t go with our ugly tract housing cabinets.

But it’ll do for now.

My personal flavor of insomnia comes when I’m lying in bed, on the brink of sleep, and a shiny new idea pops up; it’s very “Mmmmmburgawhuga KNITTING NEEDLE POT!”, followed by two hours of scheming on acquiring the perfect knitting needle pot, with tangents reserved for
• Color
• Height
• Shape
• Possible purchase locations, and
• Speculation on the volume of traffic that could be encountered on the way to purchasing said pot, and planning of alternative routes, especially if the Capt’n's on this particular expedition and cranky.

Usually — if I am very, very lucky — the insomnia show is only booked for one night only, followed by one day of caffeine-fueled grumbling, followed by a blissful tumble into bed and the return of a normal-ish routine, and the plan is relegated to a dusty corner of the brain, to be revisited at a later, less obsessive time.

(Really, why do I only become Scary Obsessive Details Chick when Home Depot’s closed?)

This week, I wasn’t so lucky. The past three nights, I have been blessed or cursed with three ideas for projects around the house, to “comfort up the place,” as the Capt’n might say. They’re three fairly simple projects, but still, I’ve lost a total of six hours of precious shut-eye over them, and I’m dying to talk about them, so I might as well talk about them here.

Project 1: The Headboard
We don’t have a headboard for our bed. We’ve never had a headboard for our bed. And now we’re heading into another long, cold winter, and the Capt’n was grumbling about his delicate head being so close to the cold wall, because our crappy tract house has crappy insulation, and we even sprung for the upgraded insulation, even though we couldn’t be bothered to spring for other things like a backyard or a downstairs bathroom.

Anyway, headboard. I decided to swipe a bit from Changing Rooms/Trading spaces and fabricate a headboard from some plywood, some quilt batting and some fabric.

And that’s two hours gone.

Project 2: Kitchen chairs.
We have two tall kitchen chairs for the island, and two table-height chairs for the table, and then two folding chairs, which are an embarrassment to my pride, considering that they’ve been there since 2004. The plan is now to acquire at least two more chairs (if not four) for the table, and then cover all of the cushions with a kicky new upholstery, because our current cushions are sort of ivory-eggshell, and if there’s one rule to fabric in my house, it is simply “no white.” I am a girl with a love of meals featuring gloppy red sauces and red wine, I’m rather drippy.

Red seems like an obvious choice, but I might go blue instead. And then, if I’m so inclined, I might use any extra to fashion a new cafe curtain for the kitchen window. Ooooooh. Curtains.

And that’s another two hours gone.

Project 3: The guest room
I can’t even begin to talk about this project, because I’m already in my pajamas, and if I start talking about the idea seedlings (guest-bed-slash-sofa, the Capt’n's photography on the walls, PAINTING PROJECT! More curtains!) I might not fall asleep tonight, and really, my co-workers are already beginning to notice the large Samsonites parked under my eyes. I cannot even begin to think about starting the guest room, not for awhile. Not even after I stumbled across
This delightful website and home of the most beautiful fabric ever . . . and there’s another two hours gone.

Damn it.

I finished the last of the Capt’n's nerdtastic nerd knitting (knerd?) nerdy birthday present. And I think I’m going to wait and let him post a picture of his Megatron Socks and then swipe it, because I am just that petty, and his photos are better anyway.

But in order to finish the Megatron Socks (to partner with the Optimus Prime socks I finished a month ago), I had to swing by the yarn store, and while I was there, I picked up a skein for a hat for a friend’s child, and then I paused to consider some other yarn, because I thought it might be most excellent to knit socks for everyone for Christmas.

Except for the Capt’n. And dear Mum. Those two got socks for their birthdays, the Capt’n doubly so. They’ve been socked enough.

But.

That still leaves two daddies and a mama-in-law. That’s six socks. At a week a sock, that gives me just enough time to finish a hat for a little girl before I launch into panic mode.

And then? I may never knit again.

Last winter, the Capt’n's parents converted their guest room into a home office and gave us some of their furniture. Specifically, we became the owners of a twin bed with trundle and a small bedside table. The beds were shoved into what has been affectionately dubbed “the junk room,” but I didn’t have a clue what to do with the table, so it also went into the junk room.

It wasn’t a bad table: small, round, real wood, and it had three support feet carved into claws — and boy howdy, I am a sucker for clawed furniture. However, it had been finished in a dull walnut, which I can only describe as “Middle America Republican,” and since the house doesn’t sport a single brass eagle or framed picture of Cheney anywhere, it really didn’t fit.

Within minutes of possession, I knew I would slap some white paint on it and love it for ever, it was just a matter of when I’d get around to that little project.

Flash-forward to Labor Day Weekend, 2007. The Capt’n had plans to continue the engine swap and I decided I would avoid finishing revisions by refinishing the table.

We got up early this morning and made the requisite early morning run to Lowes for sandpaper and primer (and Locktight for the Capt’n) and then came home to start work. And this is where I should mention that two families within two doors of us had decided to hold garage sales this morning. I hadn’t so much as raised the garage door and carried the table out into the driveway when a woman in a van shouted “How much?”

“It’s not for sale.”

“But ain’t you havin’ a yard sale?”

Lesson learned: raised garage and random furniture hauled onto the driveway on a Saturday morning? Insta-sale.

Three more people asked if we were having a sale through the course of the morning, which was mildly surprising when I was sanding, annoying when I was painting and downright obnoxious when I was carrying the table inside. And every so often, the little boys next door (who are moving next weekend, praise Zeus!) would come over and ask what I was doing (painting) what the Capt’n was doing (fixing an engine) and what was I doing again?

And then they’d skip down to the end of our property line and use their fake samurai swords to beat on Qwest’s switchbox for the neighborhood, or throw rocks at the dog across the way.

(I swear, those boys are the number one reason we keep putting off parenthood, but that’s a post for another time.)

It took two coats of primer to get that shabby, secondhand antique junk find look I was going for, and it took all of my patience to properly sand it and not just slop paint here and there and call it good. And for once, it turned out right.

Please note, that is not the table’s actual placement, nor are those the table’s actual accessories. HA! The table is currently sitting next to the bed in the junk room, completely bare, and really not much has changed, except for a flutter of satisfaction I get when I see it there.

It was a first step into a larger world.