Tag Archives: Mrs. B DIY

Best Laid Plans

May 26, 2009UncategorizedMrs. B DIYMrs. Blandings

When we bought the Dream House we had a little time between closings, so we had the opportunity to paint the bedrooms before we moved in. I had promised the eldest, who was reluctant to move, that he could have a red stripe on the wall of his new room. That was before we found the house and the picture frame moldings made fulfilling the promise tricky, so we painted the inside of the doorway to the dressing room red.

The nursery was the same green in this house as the last and all the hand-me-down bedding moved in as well. (It has since evolved to a “big-boy” room.)

In between the two, in the southwest corner of the house, is a room without a closet. Technically not a bedroom and not very big it is likely that it was originally some sort of work room. It was not a maid’s room, certainly, but was equipped with a built-in ironing board. It became the playroom. The color, chosen from a stripe on the bathroom paper, never seemed right. Too bright, too acidic, too, well, too. But I didn’t want more blue and I wasn’t sure what to put between those two rooms, one with the red accents and the other green, that would provide a bit of harmony and not ho-ho-ho.

Recently, the room had devolved to a jumbley mess and the color was grating and it is in the back of my mind that someday one of the boys will want to move in. Time for a change.

This was around the end of last year. I thought it would be grand to paint during Christmas vacation. I love to paint, the boys could help, tra-la, tra-la. Trolling for something else I flipped past Albert Hadley’s room for the Kips Bay show house in 2001 and found the answer.

The clean white wall was appealing. Trixie, the fabric pattern, was irresistible. And the combination of green and red seemed right and not at all holiday. I ordered memos of both paper and fabric. I’m in a full-on love affair with both, but they were too expensive for the playroom. Also, wallpaper in that room seemed folly. But there I was with three weeks on my hands. Three wintery weeks. Why not paint the pattern on the wall?

Dots and a starburst. Easy! Well, no. Dots were easy, but my starbursts were, let’s say, unpredictable. I decided to stamp. I looked high and low to no avail so I had one made, which may have saved me in many ways.

I ordered a custom acrylic stamp from Village Impressions. Fast, easy, inexpensive and the acrylic back allowed me to see through so placement was consistent. Three weeks? No. Not even three months, but I did finish in time for summer vacation.

(Stay-tuned for the finished product. It took five months – you didn’t think I’d give it all away in one post did you?)

Hadley images from Albert Hadley, The Story of America’s Preeminent Interior Designer by Adam Lewis.

Decoration Inspiration

December 8, 2008UncategorizedMrs. B DIYMrs. Blandings

For the last couple of years I’ve been thinking the outside of the Dream House needed a little something else during the holidays. Mr. Blandings does a great job the lights, but it needed….something.

Inspiration came through the mail as it often does. I have just started acquiring Christmas china which has a toy soldier motif. The soldiers above seemed just the thing. I hunted around on the internet a bit but I couldn’t find it.

What I really wanted was some vintage department store display pieces but it seems these are not the kind of thing that just pop up anywhere. My guess is, when they do, they are probably quite dear. I thought, just maybe, I could make them myself. If it went badly I could ditch them and no one would know.

Off to Sutherland’s to buy the wood. Mr. Blandings has a jigsaw and he assured me he could cut out the shape that I needed. Shamefully, I made him show me. I know, not nice. The thing is, once he showed me, I wanted to do it myself. Just like my love at first sight with the cordless drill I knew the jigsaw and I had a future.

He watched while I started and I finally looked up annoyed. “Are you going to stand there and watch me the whole time? Don’t you think I can do it?” “I think you can do it, but you’re getting ready to cut through the workbench.” Oh. “Thanks. Anything else I need to know?” “Don’t cut off a finger and be careful not to cut through the cord.” The finger I’d thought of; the cord thing was good information.

It was shockingly easy. The whole painting process was the most painful because I hate to prep. But I did. Then measured carefully so that my soldiers’ uniforms would look symmetrical. Then I sealed them. Twice. (By the way, now do you see why I hate the basement? It’s terrifying.)

Now they are standing guard. They were in the hall for a few days as I hesitated to put them out. “They’ll be so cold.” “They’ll be fine. It’s what they’ve trained for.”

Mr. Blandings hung the garland and the wreaths to complete the vision.

While regaling a friend with our Burns and Allen tale he said, “But why?” A vision? A bee in my Christmas bonnet? You know, the thing is, it’s just the sort of stuff I like to do. And Mr. Blandings? Let’s just say he’s used to it.

Images, top, Southern Accents, Nov./Dec. 2008 and just inside the first is the most charming use of Le Lac.

DIY Silhouette Pillows

October 17, 2008UncategorizedMrs. B DIYMrs. Blandings

I swear I’ll take a break from talking about myself after this. A reader asked about the silhouette pillow in the post earlier this week. I had these pillows made with each of the boys silhouettes a few years ago. So easy. I took their picture in profile then enlarged it to the desired size. Cut it out to use as a template on black wool felt, then sent it off with the remaining fabric and ribbon to have pillows made.

If you sew (I can’t. Can’t cook, can’t sew, who knows why Mr. Blandings married me exactly sixteen years ago today) you could do this yourself in a flash. I had their names and the dates embroidered on the back.

I’m practically Eddie Ross!

DIY Silver Lining

July 9, 2008UncategorizedMrs. B at Home, Mrs. B DIYMrs. Blandings

When Mr. Blandings and I started dating I lived in a small apartment building, on a street of small apartment buildings, that was built between the Wars on the Plaza. I’d told him I needed to hang something and he’d offered to help and asked for my hammer. Fiercely independent I was already struggling with the “help” part when I handed him a high heeled shoe.

“What’s this?” “It works fine.” “You can’t hammer nails with a shoe.” “Never mind, I’ll do it myself.” Or something like that.

He bought me a hammer and a cordless drill (a miracle of modern technology that I have treasured ever since) and graciously allowed me to do it myself happily ever after.

He did draw the line when he came home to our first house to find me standing on our deck railing holding a broom handle that I had put a nail in to string white lights into trees eight feet over my head. It was Mrs. Grizwald’s 30th birthday party. It needed to be done. On and on about broken bones and laying in a heap for hours undiscovered while I stood on my toes fifteen feet above the ground to get it right.

So he was not surprised to find me standing on his grandmother’s red and shabby chair in our sitting room silver leafing a vine on the wall. This was well over a year ago and we were having a dinner party and I had the itch to do something, even though this would never be seen by my guests. It is a little bit like my friend’s husband who washes the car before entertaining; it makes him feel like he’s doing something.

So, I did some vines as if they were coming out of the windows. It was sort of a cross inspiration of Gracie Wallpaper and the vines that actually do grow in through the windows of Rose Tarlow’s house.

I started, then stopped. I couldn’t decide if I liked it that much and eventually lost interest. But I picked up my brush again last weekend. Maybe what it needed was more.

I had read in Durwin Rice’s book that leafing is easy and it truly is. Like almost anything creative I do it only requires pre-school skills.

The beauty of this little project is that I can do it a vine at a time, as little or as much as I like. Also, unlike reading or writing, I can work on it while the boys are talking to me. Which they are. All the time.

Basically I sketch the vine, trace it with sizing, read for 30 minutes while it sets, put on the leaf then brush off the excess. Easy-peasy.

It’s coming along and my jury is still out, but it’s keeping me busy and it’s keeping me sane.

There are a few spots that could use a little going over. But I like the way the light plays off the silver leaf and how it changes as the light moves across the room throughout the day. And I like that I’m doing it myself.

12 Days of Christmas

December 4, 2007UncategorizedMrs. B at Home, Mrs. B DIYMrs. Blandings

Remember how we were talking about decoupage? When I was pulling out the Christmas decorations, I was reminded of one of my – on-going – projects.

When my oldest was born in November (1996), I thought it would be great to make frames to put his Santa pictures in each year. So I started with the Twelve Days of Christmas theme and I was off.

A partridge in a pear tree.

Year one was easy. I mean, the frames were always easy. It was Santa that got a little tricky. Year two was OK. Two turtle doves.

Year three was a no go, but he was quite happy in the living room. Three French hens.

Year four. Nope. Actually, there is a picture, but I am in it and I am hugely pregnant and in a red sweater that in some way my shrinking brain thought was attractive. Not to be trotted back out every Christmas. Four calling birds; again, happy in the living room.

I swore I would never do this as there is an identical picture of me at this age and I can remember seeing it and thinking, “What was the point of that?” But he was fine when I put him down and instructed the guy to “just take the picture.” But he kept trying to jolly him up with talk of Barney, to whom he had not yet been introduced. So, there’s this. Don’t miss his brother’s expression. It pretty much has not changed since. Five gold rings.

Back to the living room. Six geese a-laying.

A switch to the red office so maybe you won’t notice there is no Santa in the picture. Seven swans a-swimming.

Mmm-hmmm. Number three. Didn’t even try. Eight maids a-milking.

This was the lost year of developmental specialists and speech therapists. I do have Christmas pictures, I wasn’t completely unhinged, just not of all three. I think. I still have three rolls of mystery film that need to be developed. This is why digital is a good thing for me. (By the way, all is well.) Nine ladies dancing.

So now, with the possibility of Santa success, the oldest generally has basketball games when we have the opportunity to go without mayhem. So, I have the Santa pictures, but not with all three. Ten lords a-leaping.

This might be the boys’ equivalent of the red maternity sweater picture. Matching sweaters courtesy of their grandmother. Eleven pipers piping.

This year makes twelve. Mr. Blandings and I are good friends with a great couple, you know, when both of you like both of them? Anyway, the husband and I are eerily alike in many ways, except mainly gender and politics. And, I know almost nothing about music and he knows a lot. So I e:mailed him to ask him his top twelve drummers. And this is the list. Clockwise from top left, Neil Pert, Buddy Rich, Lars Ulrich, Keith Moon, Connie Kay, Nick Mason, John Bonham, Gene Krupa, Max Roach, Steward Copeland, Art Blakely and Ginger Baker. Now, don’t e:mail me telling me you have an issue with the list. When I came up with the concept, I said to Mr. Blandings, “What about contemporary drummers? Like Slash?” Diet Coke almost came out of his nose. Hey, I’m just the idea guy. Twelve drummers drumming.