Work Progresses

While I continue to paint kitchen and bathroom cabinetry, smaller projects fill the paint drying time. Today I accomplished two such tasks: recovering our bathroom seating and decorating the kitchen niche.

Our bathroom, like many in the neighborhood, contains a large garden tub which looks luxurious, but isn't very practical. Generally, it takes far too much hot water to fill and we have a spa in the backyard that affords a view of the early night sky. Thus, we don't use our tub and long ago Jeff upholstered a piece of MDF to create a seating (and storage) area where the tub sits. This is an ideal place to spread out accessories or put on shoes in the morning. However, the recent paint job in icy blue, left the red and gold fabric looking out of place. So, today's task was to recover it in a brown and blue paisley that contributes to the feeling of luxury. Take a look.

Here's the old upholstery with a fruit motif in reds and golds.

Here's how the tub looks sans cover. As you can see, we use it to store "wet" items like the steamers I need during bronchitis season.

Here it is with the new fabric and some pillows. While this photo makes the fabric look red, I assure  you  that it is blue and brown.

Here's a close up of the fabric. The flash still doesn't do the color justice. :(

Finally, the afternoon sun shows the colors better! Here you can see that it is kitty tested and approved by Bandit and Licorice.

Once this project was complete, I put another coat of paint on the cabinet doors and moved on to the niche in the kitchen. Following a friend's advice, I decided to cover the niche with fabric. Some research online pointed towards using starch to adhere the fabric to the wall without nails, etc. Unfortunately, I didn't have any starch and (I couldn't believe it) I was out of corn starch in the pantry! So, after a quick jaunt to Walmart, I was underway. Unfortunately, the liquid starch did not hold the fabric to the wall very well. After about 40 minutes of frustration over moving pieces, falling pieces, dry pieces, and not sticking pieces, I decided to resort to teacher mode and use a stapler. After all, I'm going to cover the edges with trim! I stapled the fabric as close to the edge as possible, and smoothed as I went. Another hitch in my giddy up occurred, though, when I reapplied the screws to hang the teacups. This seemed to pull the fabric loose on one side and I managed to send a cup and saucer tumbling to the floor when I tried to straighten it. (Note to self: always remove the teacups before fiddling with the fabric.) Luckily, I have others to replace the broken one (which I glued together and plan to use as a soap dish or candle holder). Suffice it to say, I was not happy with this project even though the end result looks pretty good. Tomorrow I plan to pick up some flat edged trip to hot glue around the fabric to give it a finished look. Here's what I have for now, though. The photos show the niche before fabric, with fabric only (when it looked its best), and with teacups (after I moved the fabric around screwing in the holders (which I painted black).