It all started with a quilt…

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.