And it all comes together....

Sorry about the long hiatus.....Working full time and blogging is difficult!  Like I'm telling you something you don't know.  Here is the master bedroom finished....for now.  I actually just ordered some new sheets from West Elm and will update the photos when they come in.  I think they will be the "summer sheets" since they are citron and white stripes.

So to break the making of the slipcover down a bit..............

 I cut apart the old slipcover to use as a pattern to more accurately make the sides.   And many hours and much frustration later, voila!  (This is not a project for the faint at heart or those of you who think "sewing" involves an iron and stitch witchery....and you know who you are!)

This angle is so tight that it is difficult to get both the head and foot boards in the same picture!

This photo shows the sides but makes the foot board look really ill fitting.  My photography skills are going to have to improve!

What do you think?  Jeffrey says the pheasant is going to give him nightmares!  I like the pheasant, the pheasant stays.

I really love the graphic punch of the fabric of the slipcover.  I think it keeps the bedroom very modern and kind of groovy without being too retro or silly.

I invited Dorothy Draper to my house.....and she accepted!

I love Dorothy Draper.  Not only was she a pioneer of the interior design industry (at a time when very few women were pioneering anything) but she was bold, dramatic and a little "in your face" about it.  I love that about her...her bold, graphic, over the top, grandiose neo-traditionalism.

The lobby at the Greenbrier Hotel.  Notice the pops of bright color that she juxtaposed with black and white.

(Photo: Van Nes-De Vos/Courtesy of the Collection of Dorothy Draper & Co. Inc and the Carleton Varney Design Group)

The Crystal Room corridor at the Greenbrier Hotel.  How current is the Moroccan inspired lighting?

(Photo: Van Nes-De Vos/Courtesy of the Collection of Dorothy Draper & Co. Inc and the Carleton Varney Design Group)

A Draper designed console at the Greenbrier Hotel.  She used a lot of painted furniture.

(Photo: Van Nes-De Vos/Courtesy of the Collection of Dorothy Draper & Co. Inc and the Carleton Varney Design Group)

The lobby in New York's Essex Hotel.

(Photo: Van Nes-De Vos/Courtesy of the Collection of Dorothy Draper & Co. Inc and the Carleton Varney Design Group)

The Hampshire House, 1937

(Photo: Van Nes-De Vos/Courtesy of the Collection of Dorothy Draper & Co. Inc and the Carleton Varney Design Group)

Enough of the interior design history...back to Dorothy Draper coming to my house.  While my fabulous friend Nora and I were thrifting at our local flea market, I found two fabulous Draperesque mirrors.  They were probably from the 70's, so not truly Drapers but oh, so close!  Made of resin (chi-chi-fon-fon for plastic!) and suffering from way too many layers of paint and close contact with a heat source (see close up photo), they needed me to channel Dorothy to save them.

Here is a pic of what they looked like when I bought them.

This is a close up of the melted portion of the frame.

And the detail of the top of the mirror-

And with a bit of clean up, some light sanding and 3 coats of Garden Sprout by Behr....they really are fabulous!  Have a look.....

I definitely have to improve the photog skills!!  Please let me know what you think! 


Ciao,
Melissa

I am definitely making progress...

And from the discontent of man the world's best progress springs.

- Ella Wheeler Cox

The master bedroom is finished!  T'is  a long tale, this bedroom.  One that starts with a bed and some beloved fabric.  My very good friend, Theresa, gifted us our bed, the Ikea Floro.  It comes with a solid, dark taupe cotton duck canvas slipcover.  In our apartment, I made draperies from an Ikea fabric that I really, really love.  In my house, I didn't need the draperies but still wanted to use the fabric so I decided to make a new slipcover for our bed using the fabric.  Here is a photo of the fabric as draperies in our old apartment-

Very graphic, bold pattern of black, charcoal, chocolate and a gold-y chartreuse on a white background.  Now remember, we're just looking at the draperies!

This is the bed from Ikea-

Because of the nature of the print on the fabric, I had to consider how the slipcover would be constructed.  I decided that the print was too large to have it on the "bed skirt" of the slipcover....that it would get lost and wouldn't make sense.  So if I didn't put it on the bed skirt portion, then would it look disconnected from the head and foot boards?  I finally decided, after much thought and "drawing"(in my mind) of bubble diagrams, that I would run the print up the head and foot boards only and use white canvas duck on the skirt.  Since the width of the fabric was not sufficient to cover the width of the head and foot boards AND the fabric was directional so I couldn't just "turn" it on its side, I had to come up with a way to make it wide enough and still look intentional while also pleasing to the eye.  So I centered the fabric on the head and foot boards and used the white duck to extend it to cover the width and added black welting between to aid the transition.




A close up of the transition- and a tiny hint of the finished project!

More later!!  Thanks for stopping by!

Melissa