I am currently in the throes of what I like to call “The
Creative Frenzy”. It happens every now
and then, and it turns my life upside down.
For the most part, I lead a normal life.
I go around doing normal stuff, sometimes for months at a time. Then, it happens. I get an idea. Inspiration to do something Creative, or
Crafty. And it snowballs out of control. My brain starts buzzing as more and more
ideas come to me. Sometimes it feels
more like a fizz than a buzz, but either way, I lie awake at night as my mind
gallops through the halls of possibility.
Let me tell you how it starts. Imagine, if you will......
It’s March. Autumn is
upon us and Winter is coming. I decide
to make a quilt for my daughter’s bed.
To keep her warm and cosy during Winter.
I raid my fabric stash and buy some new fabric, design a basic block
quilt and get cutting. I cut out, like,
a million squares and realise I will have to cut out a million more for the
size quilt I want to make. I decide to make
a smaller quilt. I think how nice it
will look to have appliquéd shapes on some of the squares. I painstakingly cut out fiddly little bird
and flower shapes.
This quilt is
starting to look decidedly Country Chic.
I get a brainwave – I’ll decorate her whole room in a Country Chic
theme. She’ll need storage for under her
bed though – to keep everything neat and tidy.
My mind goes to the wooden crates I have in the loft in the garage –
they’d be perfect.
We pull down the crates from the loft in the garage. It takes all five of us to manage it. Ladders and ropes are involved. I measure the crates. I measure the space under my daughter’s
bed. Thank goodness – they’ll fit. The crates are filthy. And they look pretty banged up. I clean and stain them. I’m going for a bleached wood kind of
look. They come out dark brown. Tough, they’ll do. I realise these crates are going to need
wheels to move easily from under the bed.
I’ll have to buy castors or something.
In the meantime, I’ll get started on my sons’ room. My foray into bleached wood gave me an idea
for a nautical theme in there. I’ll paint the back wall a navy blue and paint
all their furniture white. They already
have navy bedding and nautical-looking striped cushions. Bonus.
I dismantle the bunk bed and drag the top bed frame outside. I sand the life out of it. I use paint stripper to remove the ugly
yellowy-pine varnish. I want a whitewashed
effect. Very beachy. It takes days to get down to the wood. I accidentally splash paint stripper on my
arm. A few times. It burns like all hell. I whitewash the bed. It looks terrible. I fiddle around, trying to get it to look
right. I give up and decide to paint it
solid white. I am aware that a light
sanding is all that is required for straight painting and that all those days
spent sanding and stripping varnish were unnecessary. I finish painting the bed and it looks
great. But I’m annoyed now, so I leave
it propped up in the corner of the lounge.
To punish it. Actually, I need to
swap it with the bottom bed frame, which my youngest son sleeps on, so I can
paint it. But I’m sick of these
beds. I’ll do it at the weekend.
I’ll get started on painting the rest of their furniture in
the meantime. I sand and paint their toy
box. I think how awesome it would look
with a toy box at the end of each of the single beds. But my older son sleeps on a double bed. I’ll have to get rid of it. My mom calls and says she wants to come and
visit at Christmas. I’ll have to convert
my office into a guest room. I know - I’ll
move the double bed in there! Oh
crap. There’s not enough space for it at
the moment. I’d better reorganise the
room. I pull everything out in the
office and start sorting through what I need to keep and what I can get rid
of. I sort everything into little piles.
Man, this is boring. I feel like
painting something.
I decide I’ll paint
the boys’ bookshelf. It’s a bit
rickety. Maybe I could turn it sideways,
add some shelves and hang it on the wall.
Hey……… that would actually look really cool in the dining room. But I already have a dark wood sideboard against
that wall. Oh. My. God! That sideboard would totally make an awesome
TV cabinet! I’d have to customise it, to
accommodate the DVD player and the satellite decoder, but it would provide ample
space for all our CDs, DVDs and Wii Games, which our current TV-stand does
not. I plan where the sideboard-tv-cabinet will go in the TV
room. I’d have to move the couches
around to make it work. I look at the couches. They are looking worn and tired. One of them has a huge sagging bit in the
seat where I think a spring has broken.
I really should take a look and see if I can fix it. Might as well recover them all – they look
awful.
I move the couch into the lounge and remove the feet and the
dust sheet thing on the underside.
Yip. A spring HAS broken. Two springs actually. I’m totally going to have to fix it.
I spend a couple of days researching
upholstery. There’s no way we can afford
to get it done professionally – I’m going to have to do this myself. It might actually be fun to learn a new
skill. I strip off all the fabric from
the couch. The foam is toast. It’s all crumbly and gross. I start repairing the springs and decide to
add webbing for extra support. I shop
around for upholstery fabric. I have no
idea what colour to choose. I sit in the
TV room and try to divine a colour scheme.
Geez, this red feature wall really limits my options. I think we should paint it. It wasn't our choice anyway – it was like this
when we moved in. I plaster paint swatches
all over the wall. I scour Pinterest for
décor ideas. That go with dark wood. Hey, grey and white goes nicely. I create a TV-room mood board. Epic.
I hit a snag. I can’t
seem to find ANY grey upholstery fabric.
I visit every fabric shop in Durban.
Nothing. Mild panic sets in. I’ll have to just keep looking.
In the meantime……. In order for the tv-cabinet-sideboard project to happen, I will have to find space
in the kitchen cupboards for all the stuff that it currently holds. Things like antique tea sets, placemats,
votive candle holders. There’s quite a
lot of stuff in here. And my kitchen
cupboards are bursting at the seams. I’ll
have to declutter the kitchen and make some space. I pull everything out of the cupboards and
sort through what I need and what I can get rid of. I end up with three boxes of pyrex dishes,
plates, glasses and vases sitting on the kitchen floor; and a great big bag of
plastic containers. I arrange my
remaining kitchen goods neatly in the cupboards. Man, it feels good to declutter and have organised
cupboards!
You know what doesn't make me feel good? These kitchen cupboard doors. God, they’re ugly.
I've lived with them like this for FOUR YEARS. I hate them.
I’ve waited patiently for a new kitchen and I suddenly come to the
sickening realisation that I may never, ever get it. Well, damned if I’m living with the kitchen
like this for even one more day. I’ll
paint them. I google “How to paint
melamine” on the way to the hardware shop.
I buy everything I need and head home.
I unattach all of the cupboard doors and drag them outside. It takes me three whole days to finish. My back is in spasm and every part of my body
aches. But it is totally worth it. These cupboards look amazing! All white and modern-looking.
But now the countertops look a bit
shabby. We should replace them. Granite would be nice. Also, I’m not wild about the layout. I go online and look for ideas on a layout
that would work. I ponder the
feasibility of incorporating the dining room and making the whole space one big
kitchen. When I share this Brilliant
Plan with Big L his left eye twitches a bit.
He disappears into his office to “work”.
I think he’s quietly weeping.
That, or he’s researching local psychiatric hospitals. (He’ll have a job finding a doctor that can
help me – this is a special kind of crazy.)
It’s now September. Six.
Months. Later. Spring is here. The house looks like a bomb went off. There is a white bed frame propped up in the
corner of the lounge and an entirely gutted 2-seater couch sitting in the centre
of the room, with crumbs of foam lying on the floor. There are three boxes of crockery and
glassware on the floor in the kitchen, and little piles of paperwork all over
my office. In a basket in the corner are
all the fabric squares I cut out for the quilt.
Damn it! The quilt! I forgot all about it. It’s too bloody hot for a quilt now……
If you read this right to the end, thank you. Go make yourself a cup of tea – you've earned
it. Before you go, please leave a
comment – it would be utterly thrilling.
PS. Please excuse the
abundant use of the words “like” and “totally” in this post. It was, like, totally deliberate.