Nohwear: February 2008

The biggest thing this blog is going to do for me is to make me better document what I've done. I am absolutely horrible at getting good photos of my work. With that I'd love to say I have this stupendous reason for why I've chosen to start where I have, but I don't. The reality is, I didn't want to end up sitting around not doing anything while I attempt to scrounge up some photos of things. These were at hand and I don't have to put my husband out while he's still recovering from last weeks sickness.

So without further ado, my living room!

One of the too-many-to-name jobs I've held over the years was to solder circuits onto boards for a nanotech company in Chicago. Scary, yes, and I hope none of the boards I worked on were actually used in NASA equipment, but that's what I was told they were for. I have long since had an affinity for circuit boards which I'm sure is apparent when looking at my living room wall.

In order to achieve this I started by painting the entire room a soft light gray. Next I taped off the squares that I wanted, noting which ones should be which color and then taped off the circuit lines to them from the radiator. The blue is this fantastic latex paint I got at Home Depot and the silver is meant to be a wash paint that I used as a solid. Surprisingly the blue turned out to be the exact same color as the painters tape. I had a junky old table that had been painted an awful "woodish" brown that didn't match anything in my home so I painted it the same blue to match the walls.

Following around the room, you'll see above the fireplace. This is also painted with the silver. The blue piece of art against the silver was made using a peacock blue dupioni silk attached to a thin piece of wood. I painted this with some silver and ripped gray dupioni silk into strips allowing them to remain ragged then glued them down into place to get a cresting wave affect. The window seat has a cushion made of the same blue dupioni silk.

The silver pillows on the red couch and chair I made using a silk brocade my parents brought back from China. The bowl on the end table is a silver hammered shallow bowl from Ikea. I filled it by placing glass rocks of blues and whites both clear and frosted into a swirl pattern, again to create a watery movement as a feature in the room. The drapes are white cotton from Ikea which I have future plans to attempt a dye project on. For lighting, yes, we really do use black lights as uplights behind the curtains. From outside it's a bizarre spooky look, but inside it's actually rather peaceful and isn't that harsh at all because of the way the curtains soften it and when regular lights are on they just create a simple soft hue.

The pillow on the brown leather couch I made using a blue green and gold upholstery fabric and another gold-brown upholstery fabric. I hand beaded the center and the accent cross beads throughout the pillow.

And there you have it. Our beautiful living room which has already changed significantly but I'll show you updated photos once I finish getting all the new furniture sorted out, books put in their proper place and other such things.