::The Joy of Life::

Billy...finally!!!

2009-09-10T14:42:00.000-07:00

Have you seen my living room before?

We have been living in this house for almost 3 years now. And god, every year it looks different and I keep changing things all the time.

Wanna see how it looked from the start?

I used to paint our living room wall brown!! :D

And remember here that I told how I customized the old dining chairs I bought from the online shop? I also repainted the old wooden table that once we used in a study.

Put them all together in the living room, now we have a new dining set!!

And see, no more coffee-brown color here... :-)
The room looks much brighter and more spacious with this fresh-light-green wall, right?

However, the look doesn't stop there because just 2 weeks ago we decided to purchase "Billy bookcases" from Ikea, which I so so so longed to have.

Billy...Finally!!
ta da...

This is not a final version yet because I want to change the pendant lamp over the table too.

Right now the shelves still look a bit empty. But soon they should be filled up by more and more books. PHEW!! How much I love spending my time in this room. :-)

PS. I just realised that we use a lot of colours in our house. Oh, and I made 2 posts in one night! :D

My 'sweet retro' study

2009-09-10T12:07:00.000-07:00

I just redecorated our study!

My original plan was actually having a study room with a bit of retro style, so I spent months to look for the old retro furnitures in the online shop (www.marktplaats.nl).

And I found this lovely desk (below) for just 15 euros. :-)

It needed some spruce-up so I sandpapered it and then painted it white. I am quite happy with the result.

The picture above is how my study looked before (really dull looking) and see how it looks now (below).

I actually thought about having a real retro style of wallpaper and found one with really bright orange and brown colors in our local shop. But after looking thoughtfully at it, I changed my mind. That retro wallpaper would make our room darker. So I picked the other one instead, the white wallpaper with these cute pink flowers on.

Look at the chair. Don't you think it looks so lovely? :-)
I don't have to do anything at all with it because I already love it as it is, the white color with that cute orange cushion. It's so comfortable to sit on and also in a good condition (looks almost new). Actually I have two. I bid 14 euros for two of them and that was the highest bid. So the owner decided to sell them to me. Unbelievably cheap, right?

The room is not completely done yet and there are a lot more to do. But I just couldn't help myself to blog about it already here. :-)

Oh, there are a few more pieces of furniture that also need some changes, like this one (below). And of course, I still stick to the retro style. Looking forward to getting all done!!!

My treasure, someone else's trash...

2009-04-10T01:50:00.000-07:00

I just bought 4 old chairs from someone via this website http://www.marktplaats.nl and paid only 15 euros for all four of them. So cheap!! I loved them from the picture I saw and I loved them when I first saw them in real. Although they were red but that was not a problem because I intended to paint them white myself anyway. Transporting them was a disaster because we almost couldn't fit all in our car. But we did it anyway and arrived home safely at the end :-).

Let's see how they look before and after...

Before pictures: when they are sitting in our working room waiting to be painted. :-)

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After picture: when I painted one in white.

So far I have finished only three and with excitement, I already tried fitting one next to our livingroom wall (recently repainted) to see if it looked nice with the new wall color. And it looked just perfect!

When I finish all of them then I will use them as our new dining chairs together with our new dining table. Ahhh I really like how they turned out.

The first sewing project : a sofa slipcover

2009-03-27T15:07:00.001-07:00

Last week I was busy with making slipcover for my couch and believe it or not, I quite enjoyed it. I didn't even touch my computer for the whole week. Didn't know before that sewing could be this fun :-D

I got inspired to make such slipcover from this book "At Home With White" by Atlanta Bartlette, which I bought about a month ago. You can see from the picture above that a slipcover like this doesn't look too difficult to make. And that's why I decided to buy a new sewing machine so that I could make this pretty-simple-slipcover and god, it is a good investment!!

OK, Let's come and see how I made it...

First, I will show you my couch. This is how my old couch looks. It's not that old actually. We bought it only 2 years ago since we moved in this house. Anyway, I got bored with its dark color and wanted something white and bright. But buying a new couch isn't what I want. I think making things by yourself is more fun and of course money stays in your wallet, hehe...

I first started with cutting fabric in pieces. This process consumes quite a lot of time and you need to measure every piece really good. After that put them together with pins and hand-seam them roughly so the pieces stay together when you start sewing by the machine.

Before sewing the whole thing, you should turn it inside out and try covering it onto the couch again to see if it fits on every angle and curve of the couch. If it does, then let's start sewing!! :-)

And here we go (after so many hours of sewing and a little bit pain on the neck and shoulders)... The new look of my couch... Ta-dahhh!!!

I am not a sewing expert but I am so happy and satisfied with my first sewing project. I also want to have some cute cushions to go with it but right now I don't have any fabric for that yet. That will be my next project then, making new cushions. So for the time being I borrow the old ones from the other couch for this photo shoot :-D.

How incredible that something so simple can make the whole room look completely transformed, right? My livingroom looks so much brighter and better now and that it's just by having this simple white slipcover.

Now I am looking forward to continuing with my next project. See you next time!!

My new toy and a little update of my life...

2009-03-10T08:02:00.000-07:00

Been absent from here for a while due to the down feeling of my life. A lot of (bad) things seem to keep coming. It's like one day I felt all right and strong and cheerful but then the next day, unexpectedly and unpreparedly, I was hit and crushed into pieces. I knew that life could sometimes be so unfortunate but really I never thought it could be this bad. But that's why it's called 'life', isn't it? Always full of the unexpected. However, I am ok now I think. Not 'completely' ok but at least it's better than the last few months. I am trying to pick myself up from the ground again and hopefully some good things will come along soon.

Well, I didn't mean to come here to moan about my unfortunate life. So let's talk about some fun thing.

I had been thinking about having my own sewing machine for about a year already and always ending up not to because I wasn't really into sewing. I thought it wasn't necessary or every time I wanted to sew I could just go to my mom-in-law and asked her to help me. Anyway last week I changed my mind and decided to buy one!!!

It was also on sale so that wasn't a difficult dicision to make, was it? :-D I am now thinking about making a nice slip cover for our sofa. I already have some white fabric at home but first I have to see how I can get it done. This could be a nice project to put my life back on track and finally enjoy living again, right?

Inspirations...

2008-10-14T10:13:00.000-07:00

Lately I have been keeping myself busy all the time. I don't know why I do that. Maybe because it makes me feel good to think that I have a lot of things to do. I know that might sound weird but if you have been a housewife and stayed home all the time for a (long)while you would know what I mean. To avoid ending up to be a desperate housewife, you got to find something fun to do. Well, I don't mean cleaning and tidying your home of course!!

Anyway I had a nice weekend though. Something funny and incredible happened on Saturday when we went shopping in the supermarket called Jumbo. We bought an apple tart and some other groceries. After paying, we checked the receipt and found out that a cashier girl probably keyed in a wrong price and we were overcharged 10 cents for the tart (it was supposed to be 4.99 euros but we paid 5.10). My husband told me to forget about it ("it was only 10 cents!", he said) but I didn't want to forget. LOL! So we went back to the service counter and informed them about it. But instead of giving us back our 10 cents they gave us 5 euros and said "That's the rule. You get the item for free if we make mistake with the price." Wow, that's a good policy, right? I really like Jumbo!!!!

OK, now let me tell you what I did in the weekend.

First, I just finished my painting!!
"The broken heart flowers"

Two years for not having painted anything and my hand and fingers became a little stiff. So it took me a bit to get my mind(and my hand) into painting again. But once I did then everything went smoothly. The result could have been better but I am quite satisfied anyway. I plan to do another painting and after that I will hang both on the wall in our livingroom.

And I bought a few magazines to read on the bed. I am the kind of person who cannot sleep that easy. My husband for example, he lays himself down and two seconds later he already falls asleep. I can't just do that unless I am really really tired. I have to read something before I can sleep. This condition was worse when I was younger and struggled with being sleepless. I remember I used to keep television on every night so I could sleep and that helped! But now instead of TV, I use a reading.

And These are the magazines that I talked about. Three of them cost me 7 euros and I think they are worth the money.

I like Libelle magazine and have followed it since I moved to Holland 3 years ago. There's everything in this magazine -- fashion, home decor, holiday tips, food, etc. I used to borrow it from my mom in-law but now I buy every issue myself. And not being able to understand Dutch well isn't a problem because I can already enjoy just by looking at the nice pictures.

By the way, although there are a lot of interesting and inspiring home decoration ideas in these magazines but somehow I wonder how practical it would be when you have to use some of those really-worn-out furnitures in real life (I saw one sofa that looks completely ruined and its seat burst out). It of course gives you an artistic impression but to sit on it or use it daily I don't think it would be comfortable. Or when you leave all the kitchen wares on those open shelves, wouldn't they collect a lot of dust? I have my stuff in the closed cupboards and I do clean my house regularly but still the dust finds the way to get in anyway. Maybe if I want to have open shelves someday I should clean the house more often. :-D

Nonetheless, I admit that the room certainly looks kind of charming and unique with those lovely open shelves instead of the expensive shiny cupboard or the old-and-worn-out-wooden table instead of a new polished one (but no matter what I wouldn't pick that wrecked sofa). Maybe it's just like 'art' that to appreciate its beauty you have to look beyond its reality (and practicality).

What more to say here... Hmm (thinking). Oh, I left this indoor plant outside the house since a few months ago because I thought it was dead.

Today I noticed that it came back alive and started to grow again, so I put it back inside. Unfortunately I don't have a proper pot for it so hang on there tiny little plantje. The pot is on its way!!

Oh yes, I almost forgot that I wanted to show some lovely things I found today. After spending some time on internet going through a lot of nice decor websites, I found this lovely and nice and inspiring home. The owner of the house is Nancy Fishelson and she is a designer in California I think (didn't read it well because I couldn't stop looking at the pictures of her lovely rooms!). Hope I don't break the copyright if I put the pictures here.

I love this kitchen!!

Using the wood panel on the wall instead of conventional tiles makes the kitchen look more beautiful, don't you think? I think I will keep this idea for my future kitchen too. No more tiles!!

Lovely old furnitures.

I love the white furnitures

(all these lovely pictures are from http://www.countryliving.com/)

And say goodbye for today with the picture of Tobey lying nicely at the sun spot in our livingroom.

Lovely (old) lamp

2008-10-01T10:24:00.000-07:00

I just got an old stand lamp (or floor lamp?) with two lamp shades from Tante Sinie, the sister of my mom in-law (they know who they can go to when they want to get rid of their old stuff, lol). Though it's a bit old but it's still working and I like it. But the lamp shades are a bit dated and damaged also. So the moment I saw them I thought right away that I needed to do something to make them look better.

Here are the pictures of how they looked before...

The lamp stand and two dated lamp shades

Anyway I decided to work on the hideous black leather one first. And for the white one, I will do it later when I can find another stand to put it on.

This is how the black one looked when I put it on the stand.

Guess what I did with the lamp shade?
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I put the leftover wallpaper from my bedroom on it. :-D

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And this is after I have dressed it up.

Really easy job but it does make the lamp look much better, doesn't it?

It stands just nicely on the corner of our livingroom.

Lovely!!!!

OK, that's it for today. Really short because I don't know what to talk about. Though it has been another rainy grey day but I hope everyone had a nice day anyway. :-)

New bedroom

2008-09-23T07:52:00.000-07:00

The good thing about being able to do stuff by yourself is that you can do it anytime you want and don't bother to ask for the help from anyone. It's like you feel you want to change something and you just do it! LOL!

Simply, last two week my original plan was just about cleaning our messy and dirty bedroom (although I love descorating but regularily cleaning is not something I look forward to, lol.). But when the moment came, instead of cleaning, I just stood there looking at my dark blue bedroom wall, which I painted last year after we had just moved in this house, I thought then that I didn't want it blue anymore.

The idea of doing something with it suddenly turned up. Remembering that I had 3 unopened rolls of the wallpaper that I bought long time ago for putting on the wall next to staircase (never got myself to do it yet), so I went in the other room searching for the rolls and after that I started wallpapering my bedroom. Just like that! And now we have a newly-done bedroom... again :-D

So the blue is gone. I also moved the bed to the other side and put the chest there instead. I am really happy that I picked the white furnitures for our bedroom. Either the wall is blue or the wallpaper we have now, the white furnitures seem to go with all.

I am not a wallpaper master and never did something like this before. Plus, I always believed that painting is much easier. But honestly the result turned out quite really good -- better than I expected considering that I had no one else to help me. I struggled a bit trying to adjust it on the wall and it was especially harder around that big lumpy area of the wall (I think it used to be a part of a chimney or an open fire. And when doing this difficult part I wished I had more hands to hold each corner of the paper!). But to be honest with you, I now think doing wallpaper is much much much more fun than painting.

I think this wallpaper makes the room look much nicer, brighter, and bigger than it used to be with that blue wall.

I didn't even tell my husband that I was putting wallpaper in our bedroom. It was meant to be a surprise (and hopefully a good surprise as well, lol). Well, he was really impressed when he came back from work and saw what I did with the bedroom (phew!). I guess he is now used to seeing me moving stuff around without telling him first --- after having been living together for 5 years, he has to be, hasn't he? Hehehe... Lucky me that he never minded what I did. Oh, he even asked if I can also do something like this with our living-room. :-D

Ah, I really love my new bedroom!!!

First time here

2008-09-17T11:29:00.000-07:00

It's my first time to write something here. Actually I have another account which I created 3 years ago and never used it. I didn't even know I had that one until I tried to create the name for this new one and it said "the name has been taken". Wondering who could be using that same name, so I checked and bingo! That was myself, haha. Unfortunately I can't remember from which email account I used to sign up that one (a new lesson; never have too many email accounts!). But never mind. I can start it all over again, here, with this new one.

That's it for my first blog. Hopefully more to come later on (although I have no idea what kind of stuff I will put here). Anyway, first I have to figure out how to make it look nicer here.

Bye bye for now!!

PS. That is my dog in the picture. His name is Tobey and he is about 1 year old. Isn't he so adorable? :-)