I'm back! I'm decorating again! I figured it out - when I started smoking again, I stopped decorating. As soon as I quit, I started buying paint.

I'm going to paint my bedroom this weekend - lime green and turquoise. And all the furniture (bookcase, 2 nightstands, headboard) is going to be white. I even asked my boss for Monday and Tuesday off so I can get it done right.

got any pics??

Yes, please. I am curious to see how things turned out. It sounds so vibrant! All of my walls are white except the kitchen & I hate the colour scheme in there.

I was thinking of this thread yesterday.

I finally got round to painting my apartment. I had almost finished painting the walls (they were soft yellow) white, but then i had an accident and i broke my coccyx.
The thing is, i hated the burgundy/dark green colour scheme on the doors and window frames. After painting it all white it feels like i have more square feet. And i finally found the net curtains i wanted for so long. They match my 60's curtains perfectly.
And i had time (and concentration; with decorating i'm finally getting there, usually i'm all over the place and i never finish anything) to put up my Tomado rack. They're something of a collector's item, but my friend found one for 6 euro when we were out thrifting.
I put all the nice little things i have (an orange plastic egg, retro soap from the GDR, a yellow mustard bottle, a retro looking packet of detergent) on it and it looks like pop-art.

I'll post pics.

Foryoursplendor, that's a cozy apartment you got there. Very wordly, bohemian style. I like it.

futura, that is a cute little shelf, for sure!

I've got no pics, alas. I used to have tons of pics of the rest of my place, but they got eaten in a laptop crash. Anyway, things have changed a bit 'round the doodlepalace. I will try to get some soon. I've been avoiding technology for awhile, but now I have this nifty new netbook, so I can test the waters with my camera again.

The lime green turned out to be very bright. Originally I was going to do 2 walls, but I painted over one of them the very next morning. So It's like I have 1 lime green "focal" wall, but I also did the inside of the closet lime green. The lime green wall is the home to this enormous bright painting with lots of loud pinks, reds, purples, blues, and greens. The wall that is the outside of the closet is charcoal grey - I did that one a few years ago - and the other 2 walls are the most gorgeous shade of turquoise. It's a lot, but I'm planning to paint all the furniture white. (Headboard is tonight's project - I'm just cooling my heels waiting to re-coat.)

It is a very small room, and at first the colours felt overwhelming. But now I think I am adjusting. I'm only worried the green will feel hot in the summer. My bedroom faces south and it gets very hot in this part of Canada (105 F is generally expected by July). I think I'm going to get one of those dopey ceiling fans.

There have been lots of changes at the doodlepalace! I've taken on a roommate/boarder, because I am often away from home and pets, and also her rent means I'm less dependent on having to work full time (I can fulfill my musical destiny!). She occupies the other bedroom, and our collective paraphernalia means I am re-thinking how (small) space is organized - yet again. It's been a LONG time since I've lived with anybody - it's hard for me to learn to share space! I've been getting rid of lots of extraneous crap. Lately I've been hunting down vintage suitcases for storage. These totally rock in an apartment! But I'm still working on a few things.....anyone got hot organizing tips for crafty items and ongoing projects both large and small?

yes, doodle please post pix! i love browing the pix of your place - you got it going on. i am a safe beige palette with a 10K villages addiction.

i love those cardboard "photo" boxes for organizing crafties. they are super cheap, stackable, label-able, and come in many colors (including beige).

Storage boxes are good, yeah. We've got some baskets too. I'm trying to think of a way to organize the dining nook without putting up shelves. It's never been used for dining, so its been designated the project room. But it's also the room with doodlemama's mural, and I desperately don't want to cover up the one available wall. I wish I could think of something....one of those plastic drawer carts would work, but I don't want plastic furniture anywhere near mama's art!

Apparently I can't decorate at the pace I used to. I was hoping to get all my bedroom furniture painted at once, but it's pretty much going to happen one piece at a time, at this rate. Last night I started the headboard. Just got the last coat on tonight. It's this quasi-hideous thing I found at a thrift store for five bucks. It's pretty much country style, with spindles, leaves carved across the top, etc. - the hideous part is that it's sort of "partitioned" in the middle - it almost looks like two narrow single headboards pushed together. But it's good hardwood, and the leaf pattern convinced me (leaf themes often do!). Plus, as I suspected, the white helps!

Painting ugly furniture white or black always helps at least a little bit.

A little bit like....if you had a narrow version of this headboard, and attached two of them side-by-side, but with only one post in the middle.

what about something like this for your crafty storage?

GRRR! My work network won't let me open the darned link! I'll check it out when I get home.

I have to confess that having a lime green wall in my bedroom actually makes me more cheerful in the morning. And I am usually a very grumpy bitch in the morning. Ask my mother and my boyfriend.

nick, I am thinking of something like that - maybe something similar for a recycling station, too.

Things have been busy 'round the Doodlepalace! What started as a bedroom makeover has resulted in a living room one and a decluttering of the apartment! Only the 2 hall closets left, and some baskets in the living room, still to de-clutter. I've gotten rid of a mountain of things! I managed to get the Apartment Therapy book (the 1st one) from the library - I highly recommend it!

I did get my camera working, but the cable is at Soulman's, so I'll try to get pics up Sunday or Monday.

The bedroom is almost totally done. I don't think rooms are ever really "done," and it's really just some tweaks I want to get happening, but the bulk of it is done. My mom found a fab duvet cover for me in Vancouver, perfect colours and pattern. Almost everything is painted that needed to be painted.

The living room morphed when I decided to follow the Apartment Therapy advice and get rid of some furniture - 2 boxy artmchairs in my living room. Once they were gone, I could immediately see that my round dining table belonged in front of the window in my living room, and so the whole thing came together around that, and also around some pale aqua blue fabric that a bustie (amilita) sent me years ago, and I've I finally put to use. Dang, I wish I had before pics. Oh well. You'll have to trust me that it works better.

I am seeking something, if anyone can help me out. I've got a rectangular mirror, about 3 X 5 feet, hung the tall way on my bedroom wall. It's plain, just a bevelled mirror with no frame, hung with mirror clips. I'd like to do a design above and below it, in white paint on the lime green wall. I want it to be a sillouette-style graphic, in an arch-like shape, maybe of leaves or vines, or branches, with or without a bird or two. Anyone seen anything like this?

So going to look for that book today! Thanks Doodlebug!

doodlebug,

I feel like I have seen something similar, it may have been a paint treatment done above a bed to simulate a headboard though.

What I thought of when you posted that, was a curved wrought iron gate- specifically some of the beautiful wrought iron motifs in New Orleans-maybe use some pictures of that as inspiration? I found this and thought it was pretty.

You're welcome, sage, hope you enjoy it!

That's cool tree, and something like what I'm thinking of....

I forgot to get the camera cable from Soulman's. Sorry! No pics yet. *smacks forehead* I'm a dope.

I am in the middle of painting my round dining table - it's one of those 2-tone ones with the pine top. I'm leaving the top pine, as it's already scratched up and dented and full of ink and paint and things, and it'll just get wrecked again if it's painted....it's more a working table than anything. But the base part of it was dark green, and I'm painting it white. Does it ever make a difference! The dark colour weighed it down, made it take up space, but the white just reflects light, and as Soulman said, it almost disappears! Very cool in a small space.

I'm all about painting furniture white these days. Anyone else got a similar burning urge? When I did my bedroom in such bright colours, painting the furniture (headboard, bookshelf, 2 nightstands) white seemed to make it all cohesive and not too overpowering.* I never thought to do it in the living room, where my colours are much more subtle, but yeah, white furniture does reflect the light and makes the room seem bigger. It's also like a negative space effect, if you've ever studied the principles of art/design. I'm going to do my big end table white next.

(*Well, okay. Overpowering depends on who's looking at it. Probably most people would be overpowered by a 10 X 10 room with walls painted turquoise, charcoal grey, and lime green. But it's LESS overpowering with white furniture. Heh.)

Figuring out how to organize the recycling in a small space - without having to have big ugly plastic bins sitting around - seems like a conundrum in a small space. Anyone got this figured out yet? I'm looking for (cheap!!) ideas.

I am looking for ideas on how to hang plants indoors without using macrame. Also, I can't really use those chain ones that hook onto the pots, as I don't have holes in my ceramic pots for hooks. (And I won't use plastic ones except as liners inside nicer ceramic pots, 'cause I hate the look of plastic pots.) Anyone got thoughts? Ideas?

I NEED more plants in my house!! I NEED them! So I NEED your ideas.

Well, it'd be sort of an industrial look, which you may love or hate, or....

One of these as a sort of tray, use S-hooks into the bolt holes around the edge, run chains up to your hanger. Set the pot on top of the tray. You'd put it flat side up, obviously.

Spoken by a pipefitter, obviously. Heh.

Um...what? I need you to 'splain it to me nice 'n' slow.

I went out and helped an acquaintance shop for a bed today. Thrift store budget. My specialty. We found a nice, thick wooded pine four-poster bed frame for $20; it will need re-finishing, or paint, more likely. And I talked her into a gorgeous, good quality wicker chair for $50; it's probably worth about $300 - 350 to buy a new one like it. Maybe I shouldn't have - she did only go out for a bed, but it didn't take much talking, once I planted the vision in her head! It sounds like I'm about to be her decorator.

I think maybe I should figure out a way to do this for a living! REAL budget decorating!

Imagine taking the flange in the picture and rotate it so the flat part is facing up, it is sitting in front of you horizontally. Now it becomes a tray. There are four holes going around the outside edge, you would use hooks and chains on each of these four holes, and the tray would be hanging horizontally from the chains. The plant pot would sit on the tray.

OH! Well, that's possibly a really good fucking idea! I thought they were just small, like closet rail holders, and I was having a hard time picturing it.

Oh, no. They come in all different sizes. They're used for joining two pieces of pipe together-and pipe comes in all different sizes!

In all honesty doodle, your acquaintance should check that bed thoroughly for bed bugs. I got bed bugs when I was given an old beautiful solid wood headboard. I was given the headboard in the summer of 2007 and I didn't find the massive infestation in my bed until November 2008. I didn't realize the headboard was where they came from and I kept it for another 9 months and had a second infestation in the summer of 2009. It was sick. Once you have those things you pretty much have to throw out the boxspring and anything wooden near the bed. We had our house sprayed and I bought an entirely new bed. Luckily when paperboy and I moved in together I didn't take them with me.

Old wooden hand me downs or thrift finds terrify me now.

Tree, I like the idea of that plant holder. We have a few ceiling hooks in some of our rooms that I've been trying to figure out what to do with. We don't get much light in our place though.