[treehugger]

Hi GiGi!!!

So I got the bamboo up today. And the boy was helpful. I got rid of the bed's headboard to make it look more "platform-ey" and he promptly went to the hardware store to get some drawer pulls to mount to the walls...

(he's got a bit of a bondage-dungeon fetish)...

But I was glad he seems to be helping and not totally grumpy about my new room!

It still looks a bit "undone" but that should change when I get the palms and other things in there.

[GiGi21]

treehugger- I'm in WI too and it must be too boring because I've never seen it either!

[treehugger]

Ohh, okay. Sorry, Doodlebug. I had just, when you posted the link to your bedroom, noticed (remembered, really) that you had the vertical bamboo headboard thingy. I then went back and re-read my post and realized that it could be read either way.

I wonder if Wisconsin is just boooring because I've never seen pre-fab bamboo fencing? I've actually never seen bamboo fencing at all, with the possible exception of cheesy tiki-flicks on old television.

Anyway, yeah. Sore fingers. Partially because I assembled the whole thing like three times before I realized that the end spacing ultimately depended on the curtain, not the bed size or the window size! D'Oh! I had a hundred cable ties and used EVERY one of them. The hardest part is cutting them all off using a scissors when you realize you've got the spacing wrong....

What IS it about men and decorating adventure? I'm sooo glad I'm the homeowner here! Another reason to not live with anybody...at least I think Mojo likes a bit of flair. The boy DID perk up at the suggestion that mirrors could be laid horizontally over the top of the bamboo...

I better make sure the supports are nicely into joists.

Well, I'm not sure you'll read this before your flight...but just in case you DO, have a good, safe flight.

[doodlebug]

Hey all, here's a website I just discovered: The Fix Chicks! For women DIYers, BY women DIYers!!! YAY!

treehugger, I think I got the bit about the bamboo lattice hanging horizontally....I was just thinking a piece of pre-fab bamboo fencing might work. Anyway, glad to hear it's coming together, although sorry to hear that blisters are involved. I know the feeling!

Yer boy is no fun at all. Where's his sense of adventure?

amy, how long will the addition take to complete? Hopefully before bad weather comes! Or do you get bad winter weather where you are? (If I were talking to any Canadian, it would be a given!! Heh.)

[treehugger]

Amy, how exciting!! I'd love to see pictures, before and after!!!

You know, doodlebug, I was reading back, and I realized, I didn't explain my room very well. The bamboo lattice is actually going to hang horizontally over my bed, like a canopy. Like the top of a pergola. And then, where the sticks, stick out toward the wall at the head of the bed, I'm suspending a tab-top curtain.

Ahem.

This is not as easy as it sounds.

I found bamboo today and have spent the last three hours laying them out in a criss-cross pattern, using cable ties for now to anchor them, and getting the spacing right and everything before I actually take rope and lash the whole works together.

I have blisters forming on my fingers from pulling the zip-ties. Hee. The boy was over this afternoon and was just sort of shaking his head. He'd pick up my picture of my room and sort of get that whole "here she goes again" look on his face....complete with eye-rolling.

Anyway, right now I have the bamboo lattice thingy laying on the floor of my loft with the tab top curtain hanging off it... (was important to make sure it will hang right with the spacing of the rows)...

I'm done for the evening. Time for a beer.

[amywoman]

We are having a partial second floor built onto our very small one story house. There will be a good sized master bedroom, another bathroom, and two small bedrooms. Also we're knocking out the wall on the first floor between the small kitchen and tiny bedroom to make a bigger kitchen.

Is it expensive and nervewracking? Hell yes. Exciting despite that? OH HELL YES.

[doodlebug]

That's a great idea, too, treehugger!

I think the whole "polynesian look" as a decor theme* is kind of late-'40s and '50s-based anyway - I think it originated after WWII, when service people coming home from the South Pacific brought the "Tiki" style into suburban rec rooms around North America. (How the fuck do I know this stuff? Damn.) Which makes me think, just about anything you can suspend would be a really funky room divider! Tie Asian fans together, or palm fans, or pieces of bamboo, or anything of that nature. Or kitschy coasters!

*Leaving aside the British colonial interpretation of North Asian and South Asian style

I didn't get to my projects this weekend, as I have a 9 am flight tomorrow, and tons of laundry to do, plus I wanted to finish this mosaic-painted tray for my friend, who's picking me up at the airport. It's looking cool, though. I'll try and get a pic before I go!

The only other "decor"-related thing I'm doing this weekend is finally switching over to the dark purple sheets from the lilac ones, because I've been saving them for cooler weather.

I want my bloody life back!! Dammit. Stupid work.

[treehugger]

Lunia, I've used those rollup matchstick bamboo blinds as room dividers too...sort of a funky polynesian theme. I suspended them from the ceiling. Although I don't know if it'd go with fifties kitsch.

A pretty cool room divider I also saw, was like a bead curtain but instead of beads, the curtains had shells. I'm not sure how they were attached, though.

[doodlebug]

Hey lunia! If you scroll down on this page of mine, you can see a room divider I made for my living room out of floating picture frames and hardware hooks/eyes. If you're interested, I can tell you how to do it - it isn't hard, and the only tools you need are something to make pilot holes, either a drill or a hammer and a nail!

I've also seen folks suspend old windows from the ceiling for a similar effect - it looks great, and I see old windows in 2nd hand stores all the time. That was actually my original plan until I decided to DIY it with floating frames for a "mod" effect.

You could use empty picture frames too, in a similar way.

Bead curtains are also cool - if you want a really big one, I've seen cheaper bead curtains at dollar stores, although the beads are plastic, so it might not look as nice as a more expensive one.

Similarly, you could hang lengths of ribbon, rope, or plumbing chain (the stuff that's like tiny attached metal beads) from a pole, just to be a little different!

Or you could cut discs (any size, big, small - bigger would be easier) out of plastic or heavy cardboard, paint them, punch holes in the top and bottom, and string them together with nylon filament, with however much space/filament in between the discs as suits you. Do a few strings of discs, hang them from a pole, and you've got a funky, mod divider and mobile. If you've got a bit more to spend, you could do balsa wood or old 45s (vinyl single records). Or, again, if you've can afford it, buy a bunch of inexpensive wooden embroidery hoops, throw away the outside part (or reuse them in another project) and hang the wooden inner hoops instead of discs (no hole-punching required!), for a slightly more "sophisticated" mod effect. If you attach the hoops or discs to each other across the width, as well as up and down, then it will be less a "mobile" and will hang flat.

I've also seen a room divided with a bit of an alternate to curtains, where the person hung fabric banners from the ceiling - you'd sew a pocket across the width in the top and bottom of the fabric, and insert a pole or a 1X1 in each pocket. You can use skinny strips of fabric or wider ones, and hang them straight across, or layer them one in front of the other. You can hang them together or overlapping, or you can leave a space in between.

Bifold doors (the kind for closets) can be bought at hardware stores, and if you hinge two bifold doors together, you have a nifty folding divider.

Plants also make good room dividers...I used to have a ficus where the green square chair is now. If you want it bigger, you could do a couple hanging, and a couple in troughs of stands underneath. I seem to remember once seeing a long trough filled with a climbing vine, and there was a tall trellis in the middle, which the plant climbed up...that was used to divide a dining room from a living room, if I recall.

You can also use a row of matching bookcases as a room divider - if you're trying to create a separate "room," you can use tall ones, but low ones look better in a smaller space, because they don't interrupt the visual flow of the space.

You can also use a sofa to divide a room like this - even better, a sofa backed by low bookcases! I've actually got my room divided by the sofa on one side, and the divider plus a chair, a cat treehouse, and my desk on the other!

Ok, that's my thoughts....anyone else got some ideas?

[lunia666]

Hi
Anybody get any ideas for room dividers? I was thinking about useing a bead curtain and hanging it from the celling. I was looking at all my stuff and I have a lot of retro and Kitsch looking stuff ( I love anything from the 50's are early). Anyway anybody got any ideas?

thanks again

[doodlebug]

Hee...funny you mention pennies, treehugger....all I keep thinking about copper counters right this minute is...when I used to work in retail, counting the copper pennies made my teeth feel all weird, I dunno, I think it was reacting with the fillings. I can't imagine what would happen with a big copper counter underneath my hands all the time!! I wonder...would that affect fillings in the same way?

Those are great colours!

How are balloon curtains normal? They're usually ugly, fussy, dust-collectors, favoured by "ladies" who like chintz and pink florals and collect Royal Doulton figurines and plates painted with scenes from Gone With the Wind.

Ok, I'm projecting here. That's my stepgrandmother.

I am working on painting a metallic mosaic on a wooden tray, for a friend I'm going to see on my sudden trip. I've got the mosaic done, just have to varnish it. Hopefully it won't still smell by the time I get on the plane Sunday morning!

[treehugger]

Doodlebug, this is actually a picture of my living room but my bedroom wall color is the same:

My bedding is a pretty dramatic shiny-ish striped duvet with reds, purples, and tannish-yellows.




I actually would have copper countertops, myself. I'd get myself one of those big marble boards for kneading stuff and I do think that the patina it'd develop indoors would sort of seal it. It doesn't get that green patina inside, and I wouldn't want it to, because THAT definitely sloughs off and would stain things. But indoors, think of the difference between a new penny and an old one.

And I can see copper countertops, for sure, in your house, Crassy. I'm not sure about stainless steel..

Barring that, I think tile would look great and stay in keeping with the age and style of your house.

My old shack had LINOLEUM countertops.

In this house, that I'm in now, for countertops, I'd love a concrete one or engineered stone.

Wow, Amy! It must sort of look unsettling, from the outside! I feel your pain about the inside mess...I was renovating my old shack and I lived in a construction zone for FIVE years, almost. It nearly drove me insane. Hopefully yours goes quicker. (I was doing mine completely by myself and only worked on it during the weekends. Too big of a project to take on, for me)

I am going to force the boy to go on a bamboo-finding mission with me this weekend. He is totally against the idea of the bamboo, by the way. To quote him, "Why can't you just do something normal? Like, a box over the top of the window and balloon curtains underneath? You are so over the top, sometimes..."

Oh, well, it's MY room and MY mortgage and HE doesn't live here. And I know he'll help me, shaking his head the whole time. Such a sweetheart.

[doodlebug]

treehugger, I never thought about that re: the discolouration and smell...though it seems to me you can have copper sealed when you are using it for things like this...I think I once saw Debbie Travis use it for a table top or something....

treehugger, that sounds almost like my room! I think you can get bamboo fencing at a garden centre or hardware store, which would resemble a trellis-type thingie. Otherwise, hit up a garden centre for the individual pieces of bamboo. I've seen it at places like Home Depot...or was it Home Hardware...? Anyway, in the garden part. Sometimes they only have the skinny pieces left, but they do try to stock the nice big pieces as well.

Hey, speaking of my room, I moved that little green cabinet in there last night, and it actually fits perfectly! Who knew? So it will have the "Eve and Friends" painting over top of it after I paint. (This is in the spot where I hung that tropical fabric temporarily.)

treehugger, what colours are you doing your room?

amy, WOW! What a big thing to deal with it! I have a Taurus moon, and I think it would drive me batshit to have my home torn apart. I had a flood once from a burst heating pipe, which left me encamped in the entire front half of the apartment for three weeks while they dried it out and did the repairs and clean up - it just about made me crazy!!

crassy, that's too bad about the cost. I was thinking of tiles, though. The only caveat I can think of is that the grout can get stained from some of the dyes used in foods, so you have to be a little careful with that. But if you used a dark grout, it would be ok. (I grew up in an apartment with yellow-tiled kitchen counters.) That's a great colour! My mom did her cabinets almost the same colour, but with white borders and a slim line of blue in between the white and yellow...it looks cool!

Please thank your friend for the compliments! Yeah, I almost think I should write a book on REALLY budget decorating! I mean, I'm just as decorating obsessed as anyone, and probably moreso, but it astounds me how much some folks spend. It's so unrealistic, and when people spend so much, they so often end up with something that looks like what everybody else has. I can't figure out if they're just afraid to be different, or if they really and truly can't think outside that narrow framework towards adaptability. I wish I could have a TV show, too! But then the advertisers wouldn't be able to sell products, 'cause I'd be sending everyone "curbside shopping." I'd actually like to turn my web space into something of that sort, but I don't have the money for it right now. I might have to take down my pics, soon, actually, unless I figure out a way to get free, accessible storage space for them...space that has no strings attached (i.e., ads or remote image bans). But I'd like to do something bigger, eventually, where I could highlight all the projects and give details on how they were done, so other people could try.

Well, it looks like I might have to travel out of town on Sunday, for an overnight trip, so that puts the ki-bosh on my painting plans. Maybe I'll focus on those small projects, like hanging the lamps and painting the nightstand. I still need to do laundry, too...desperately. Maybe I can at least get a start on scraping the bubbly bits on the walls, and filling some of the holes. *sigh*

[crassy_mcnasty]

polly, i have a sears in my neighborhood and the guy at the paint counter was happy to shake up a can of home depot brand paint no questions asked.

doodle, my friend's exact quote about your website was: "this is a brillaint job and it gives me faith that i can do something on a budget" you really should have a show on hgtv. i wish they had 'design star' in canada. oh, and purple metallic over a black base sounds really cool with dark green and so do the new paper lanterns. your mom rocks!

yeah, i've got to get a picture of the mr's gift. it's beautiful (of course i'm biased) he even etched the date and a love note on the bottom.

i love the look of copper (and would love it to look beat up and tarnished), but i cannot afford it anyway. in fact, i got a couple of rough quotes on the job i want to do and can't even afford stainless steel right now. so i'm thinking of tiling the counter and backsplash. i'd love it to look like this or this my counter right now is so ooogly that i don't really do much directly on it, to knead dough i put wax paper over it, etc. this pic is blurry but here's the color of the cabinets which i thought would look better but copper. i used to hate the color but now i'm liking it more. see that little yellow patch behind the fridge and microwave? that's the color yellow i want to paint (i have a bunch of little chips taped together there). the actual color (if you're so inclined to look it up in the behr website- i tried to use a link but you can't do that from the 'color smart' site.) is bicycle yellow and i want to use firecraker (red) as the trim and do the floor in black & white checker board tiles.

treehugger, i can't picture the room but from what you describe it sounds really cool, like and island escape. i don't think there's anything wrong w/copying a book, they even have a whole show on hgtv about how to 'get the look' of an expensive designer room.

wow amy, that sounds like a serious project! what are you having done?

[amywoman]

Hi all. Sorry I have not been around to cheer everyone else on in their home improvement and decorating endeavors. An out of town funeral, a garage sale, being in a wedding, overtime at work, and getting ready for the second floor addition have not left me with much time... but it's the second floor addition that has brought me here. It's OMG HAPPENING. Very freaky to have my house torn apart - and in two days the attic and roof are pretty much gone except in the front. I'm finding it's very weird on a territorial, primal kind of level, but that might just be the Taurus in me.

[treehugger]

Well, I don't think you'd want to use copper as a cutting board...and I know sometimes when I'm in a hurry it's tempting to cut things right on a counter (I don't, by the way), but with a metal-ish counter it'd be even more tempting. Also a thing to think about...copper gets a patina over time and I'm not sure you'd want to do things like knead dough on it because I think it could maybe discolor dough. But maybe not.

I work with copper piping a lot and I notice that it discolors my hands and copper also deposits sort of a funky smell on my hands too. But that's after a whole day of working closely with it.

Doodlebug, I have always loved purple and green together. They seem to compliment each other nicely. Go for it!!

re: fall decorating projects. I SO wish I had a scanner because I'm shamelessly trying to copy a room in a decorating book I have. It might be worth getting one just so I could post this picture!!!! Would that be legal, even?

Anyway, if you happen to have the book or are dying of curiosity, it's the room on pages 58 and 59 of this book: Christopher Lowell's "you can do it!" small spaces.

It's a bedroom that's really tropical in feel. Over the bed, they've hung bamboo in a criss-cross sort of lattice pattern, tied with rope and suspended from the ceiling. At the head of the bed, where a window is (and this is exactly the layout of my bedroom), they've hung a sheer-ish tabtop curtain from the bamboo pieces where they stick out toward the wall. There's a miniblind behind it so it sort of makes a varigated light through it. (I also have a miniblind in this window). On each side of the bed, an Ikea lattice storage box, 18 inches square, to act as night-tables. And in each corner, Kentia palms with, I believe, uplights. There's a paper lantern sort of like what Doodlebug described, but this is more of a cylinder than a globe, hanging from the bamboo over the bed for lighting.

The only thing that might screw me up is I have a ceiling fan in there too. But I think if I put the palm-type blades on it and maybe lower it a smidge it will work. It'd end up being underneath the bamboo lattice.

I've ordered the Ikea boxes and they should be here in a week. I'm still sort of casually, at this point, trying to find the bamboo! The pieces need to be five and six feet long so I obviously don't want to order them online and have them shipped.

Anyway, that's my dream room. I've just described a small portion of it.

I know I'm being terribly unoriginal by blatantly copying this room...but when I saw it in the book, my heart skipped a beat and I even stopped breathing momentarily. The room's even got the same basic layout as mine! It's definitely intended to be my room! Decorating porn, indeed!

(even though it sounds like I had a neardeath experience, doesn't it?)

[doodlebug]

Oh, that's too bad, polly. I guess the shaker machine is the only option!

Yeah, that's what I wondered about the copper, treehugger...I wonder...I'd think that maybe a kitchen counter takes a whole different kind of abuse than a bar counter....I wonder how well it would stand up at all?

So...yep, I think I'm gonna start scraping and patching the bedroom walls this weekend. I think I could probably get one wall done - we'll see, though; I'm pretty burned out from the last couple of weeks of work, and I have so much laundry to do that I've actually just run out of clean underwear! OOPS! Hmm....I should probably go wash some out....

TMI, I know.

Is anybody else working on any fall decorating projects?

ETA: forgot to add....doodlemama bought me a couple of those globe-shaped paper shades at IKEA and sent them up so I could use them in my bedroom. (I had bought the hanging cord sets when I was in Vancouver, but the shades weren't in stock.) They just arrived on Monday. The weirdest thing? On Sunday night, I broke my bedside lamp....isn't that serendipitious timing? (I'm not very sad about the lamp. It was way too big for the night stand, plus I've had it for 17 years so it's done its service. I'm a little pissed about paying for a new lampshade that's now totally useless, though!) There's 2 shades/cord sets, so I think I might end up hanging one on each side of the bed, and moving the macrame thing in amongst the plants.

Hmmm....also....I'm thinking I might do something to the top of the nightstand and the drawer knobs similar to what I did to the mirror, only in purple metallics over a black base. It's smooth wood, not carved-looking like the mirror, but I think it still might look cool. The nightstand is a little three-drawer thing, with reddish-stained top and knobs, and forest green-stained sides and drawer fronts. I don't like the red anymore, but I'd keep the green. What do y'all think? Too weird?

[pollystyrene]

I think I tried that Doodle...this stuff won't budge. It's like this solid goopy mass.

[treehugger]

My favorite bar (blush) has copper counters. They dent easily. Which adds to the charm, if you have the right decor. If you want something that will tend to stay pristine, go with the stainless. If you want something that will glow and get dented and just sort of a distressed look, I love the copper.

Copper does happen to be at like an all time high as far as price goes right now, though.

It is way cool that Doodle and Amilita's kitties have a bond now. Well, at least, Doodle's has a bond. Oh, well.

Home-made anniversary gifts ROCK. Wish I could get my guy to hand-make something. He's not bad at gift giving though. Better than one of my ex-partners...who'd just toss a $20.00 bill at me and tell me, "go buy something"...

I want to see a picture of that sculpture! I love stuff like that!

[doodlebug]

crassy, thanks for letting me know your friend was impressed! It's always cool to think how the internet lets us share our lives with complete strangers, isn't it?

I wonder about using copper for a counter...isn't it softer than steel? I'm not sure, so don't quote me at all on that. But steel would be a wonderful work surface.

I'm totally tickled by the idea of making your anniversary gifts!

polly, if you turned the can upside down for a few days, and then tried to stir it up, would that help? I do this with some of my paints and varnishes.

I sure wish I could afford some new padding for this chair at the moment, so I could get to work with amilita's gorgeous fabric! Sadly, my income is reduced this month due to some changes in the way the contract part of my income is paid. I'll get the money, but not till mid-October, and I'm brokity-broke. Bah. I wish I hadn't gone ahead and bought that paint, actually, 'cause it's eaten into my grocery budget, but I wasn't expecting the delay in income. Oh well. Since I have the paint, maybe I'll start on the bedroom this weekend. In my usual, meandering, one-wall-at-a-time sort of way.