Category Archives: For The Home

The Sweet Smell of Success

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My first upholstery project is complete!  I finished on Tuesday and I really am busting at the seams over how good I think it looks: the fabulous fabric…the dark shiny wood…the tight pleats on the corners of the cushion.  I love it!  It fits perfectly in a little nook in my bedroom by a window. In fact, it has created the perfect window seat for me to perch and look out on to Worcester Square (although in the cold, dark land known as New England in Winter there’s not too much too watch – except for snow melting). 
I was practically giddy throughout this week’s class because I finally got to work with the beautiful fabric I had bought weeks ago: a modified ikat print in several shades of blue.  It’s from the Iman – yes as in David Bowie’s wife — collection from Calico Corners.  I was so excited to finish the bench that I nearly ruined it by not making sure the fabric was situated just right on the bench.  The center of the almost egg-like design had to be in the exact center of the bench.  I figured with an abstract print it didn’t really matter, but my teacher Paul was adamant that I would regret it if I didn’t “measure twice and cut once,” as my father would say.
As I left the small wood-framed school house that is the Eliot School of Fine and Applied Arts — nearly tripping up the stairs with my bench awkwardly balanced on my back — I was more proud of myself then I have been in a very long time.  I was really very blasé when I was nominated for an Emmy as part of the production team of “Rules of Engagement,” and it wasn’t about feigning false modesty.  I was over it at that point, “it” being news, New York, TV, everything that had been so central to my previous life.  The weekend the Emmys were handed out (not to us) I was packing up to drive to Boston and into my new life (remember I have a flare for the dramatics). 
Completing this little bench, and having it look so good left a bigger grin on my face than that Emmy nod. I realized this on my bench and mine walk to my car. I initially thought I should have my head examined.  But then it dawned on me that this was one of the surest signs yet that I made the right decision by making a big change in my life.  The sense of satisfaction I got from finishing this silly little bench was a beacon for me to see where this new life of mine — not to mention this blog — takes me!

Mental Block

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 @font-face { font-family: “Times New Roman”;}p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: “Times New Roman”; }table.MsoNormalTable { font-size: 10pt; font-family: “Times New Roman”; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; I have been hunting for my next upholstery project and the bold fabric that will become its second skin.  Conveniently, this month’s House Beautiful is devoted to the celebration of pink.  While I like to use pink as an accent color in my wardrobe, I had never thought about using it on a chair.  It just has always seemed like too much, until I saw it in action.  The layouts got my colorful creative juices flowing and I started to daydream about starting my own business like my upholstery hero (yes, I have an upholstery hero) Molly Andrews, the woman behind Chairloom.  I imagined all the old chairs I could rehab and give a second, colorful life.  I imagined a tiny brightly painted storefront tucked into a corner of a cobblestone-lined street. 

I quickly pulled myself out of the fantasy with a mental quip dripping with self-condescension, “way to waste that brain of yours.”  Upholstering is creative and physically challenging, but not a heavy mental workout.  But does it have to be?  I have spent years of my life giving my synapses reason to fire.  What’s wrong with giving them a break to do something fulfilling in an entirely different way?  I have always felt the need to push myself intellectually, but now it seems that I have boxed myself into a mindset that requires any vocational pursuit to be an intellectual one; that anything worth doing demands analytical thinking, or demonstrates analytical thinking.  Now, I am not a member of Mensa, so my occupation shouldn’t require me to prove my intellectual capacity. Am I closing myself off to exciting, new, creative possibilities just because that little type-A monster is rearing her strawberry blond head again?
This quandary won’t be solved in a single self-run therapy session, but as I continue upholstering (as well as my future adventures) I’m going to have to try to come to terms with the idea that my passion may not validate my intelligence — and that’s not a tragedy.  That’s life.

Hitting the Nail on the Head

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I have made some serious progress on my little bench!  I didn’t post after last week’s class because I had a run-in with a can of wood stain and had no pictures to share.  Let me catch you up: I sanded my bench to get rid of all the little nicks and scrapes it has suffered through over the last 60 some odd years. I learned how to use a power sander, which provides a work-out that I would imagine to be close to that of a shake weight (note: I have no experience with the latter). Then I started re-staining it…and that’s where the trouble began.  My teacher, Paul, gave me clear plastic gloves to keep my hands clean as I applied the stain to the bench with a large wad of cotton (this raw, fluffy cotton is used to cushion pieces of furniture).  I took the gloves off in between staining and wiping the excess stain off.  But when I put the gloved back on I put them on inside out…so stain was caked in every cranny and crevice of my hands.  Hence no pictures.

After a good scrubbing with paint thinner (followed by a great deal of moisturizer) I was back in action last night getting acquainted with some new (or at least new to me) tools.  I did a lot of work with a magnetic hammer (in an effort to get the cushion on my seat in place and ready for fabric) and I now feel that ALL hammers should be magnetic.  Seriously, no one would ever hit their finger again.  My teacher had quite a technique, and kids, don’t try this at home, he put at least 10 #4 tacks in his mouth and when he was ready for a new one would stick a tack half way out of his lips, bring the hammer close to it so it would magnetically stick to the hammer then he would drive it into the base of the bench that will support my cushion.  He was really like a squirrel with nuts, except his nuts were sharp and dangerous.  He said he has swallowed three in his upholstery career. I tried this technique once, but got nervous and spontaneously gagged and nearly swallowed the tack.  I decided to leave the stunts to the experts.  Paul even told me that upholstery tacks are sanitized because experienced upholsterers always use their mouth as a staging ground.  

So this week I got the seat of the bench prepped with foam, cotton and next week will be fabric time!  I am also looking for my next project…a chair that has springs, but that is not so complicated that it will take a year for me to upholster.  If you have a chair with a medium amount of upholstered surfaces that you would like to become my next masterpiece send me a picture!

Strip It Down

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The few, the proud, no, not the Marines — my blog followers!  I am sorry I have been so derelict as of late, but I am back and I have some amazing adventures in the pipeline.  I have been exploring lots of options that would allow me to dip my toes into the world of interior design. But then I decided to go big or go home: instead of just dipping my toes, I am rolling up my sleeves and getting my hands dirty – or more accurately gluey.
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I have enrolled in an upholstery class at the Eliot School of Fine and Applied Arts.  For the sake of progress — not to mention my crafty bravado — I chose a simple item as my first project: a piano bench with an upholstered top.  It had been my grandmother and my great aunt needlepointed the cushion.  I marched it into the Eliot School one a snowy night and three hours later my wee bench was in traction – literally.

 @font-face { font-family: “Times New Roman”;}p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: “Times New Roman”; }p { margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 10pt; font-family: Times; }table.MsoNormalTable { font-size: 10pt; font-family: “Times New Roman”; }div.Section1 { page: SectionWhat I have discovered about upholstering is that first you have to un-upholster an item, and for that anything goes.  A wrench, a screwdriver, a mallet…prying, ripping and wrestling – I utilized all of these trying to turn my bench cushion into well, nothing.  Even if you are working on a more complicated project (say a wing chair – more about that later) you still have to strip it down to build it back up.  When the only thing left was the bench frame we took that apart as well.  I secured the bench’s joints with screws and glue.  Glue seems to do most of the work so it is important to get it all over the joins of the furniture; hence it got all over me.
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After applying the glue to the bench (and myself) I secured the bench from every angle with large, heavy clamps, which is how I left it until next week when I will sand and stain my little bench.  

With my first class behind me, I can already say that I really enjoy this.  It’s active (you really have to use some muscle) and creative (I have picked out the most gorgeous blue ikat fabric for the top and I am toying with the idea of hot pink piping).  If not my passion, this could certainly turn out to be a new hobby! 

I will have another update after next week’s class.  Today a piano bench – tomorrow the world!

Flower Power

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If you asked me one hour into my day at Twig if I was destined to be a floral designer I would have said no…because I would kill all the flowers! All morning I was rinsing vases and putting flowers in them, but I kept forgetting to fill the vases with water. But as the day went on I saw how soothing, creative and fun being a floral designer is.

Twig gets two big orders of flowers direct from Europe each week. The flowers are picked, packed, flown to New York and arrive in Boston the next day. When I arrived at 7:30am boxes filled with hundreds of flowers covered the floor of Twig’s South End shop. My first job was to unpack and count the stems to make sure that all the flowers that were ordered were delivered. Then the “processing” began.

Processing involves cleaning the flowers and putting them in vases so that one stem can be plucked out easily. Twig’s Rob Galeski talked me through processing a variety of flowers and foliage. We started off easy…with leaves. Yes, I started by cleaning leaves. Rob is smart: don’t have a novice begin her first day as a florist butchering expensive roses. We did move on to roses…eventually…I learned how to use a de-thorner and managed not to spill any blood (mine or others)

Then we moved on to arranging. I learned some rules about creating a floral arrangement including the first commandment: thou shall not arrange symmetrically. I also learned that sometimes customers and florists don’t speak the same language. Words like “colorful,” “texture,” and themes like “Tuscan” can mean very different things to different people. We created one arrangement for a customer to bring to a man’s birthday party, which turned out beautifully despite the unusual color palate request of orange and purple. We also created a bouquet using a flower that honestly looks like human brain matter, but among hydrangeas, tulips and thistle it looks lovely.

The highlight of my day was the wedding consultation. Courtney, a sweet, very non-bridezilla bride-to-be, came into Twig armed with pictures and ideas. She is also a strawberry blond with more freckles than you can count so I knew we would get along wonderfully. We — and by we I mean Courtney and Rob (I was afraid to open my mouth out of fear that I would suggest something that she hated and therefore reflect badly on Twig) — went over the floor plan for her December wedding. We talked about colors and flowers. After seeing all the plans and hearing her ideas I am hoping I can snag an invitation to her and Randy’s big day. Hint, hint.

As I walked home after my time at Twig, I was stuck by the fact that my day of free labor didn’t seem like work. Compared to the daily grind of sitting in my office, unpacking, preparing and arranging flowers seemed like heaven – a very colorful, fragrant heaven. It was cathartic to create the perfect spiral of stems so that when placed in a vase each bloom could be easily plucked out one at a time. It was fun to take a request, like the odd orange and purple order, and try different combinations until a lovely little arrangement developed organically. Best of all, there was no wrong answer. Sure, Rob filled me in on the rules of arranging (i.e. no symmetry) but floral design is not a practice of absolutes. It is an art of expression. Sure if the customer hates what you’ve created, you have a problem…but you can’t really get something wrong. Coming from the world of journalism where one wrong fact negates (as it should) the rest of the good reporting you spent days doing, that was liberating. Now I know this is only by first adventure, but I think I could get used to this!

Many thanks to my fine friends at Twig for being so patient and kind and allowing me to spend a day with them. They are creative professionals with a lot of knowledge to share. And most importantly, they are fun!

View all the pictures from my day at Twig.

Every Rose Has Its Thorn

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I grew up with an eccentric mother.  She loves animals and the outdoors.  She prefers forests to fashion; insects to interior design.  So when she told me she wanted to give my childhood home a new look, I thought YURIKA!  My first adventure will be redesigning my parent’s house.  Maybe there is an interior designer hidden inside this former journalist.  I politely offered my services, and my mom bluntly declined my kind offer, “I don’t think your father and I can handle that much pastel.”  So I helped her find an interior designer with a more mundane color pallet, and I got to thinking: she was right.  I do love color, lots of it.  I started to explore what I could try out that included some Roy G. Biv (come on, you remember that from second grade!).  That’s when my fine friends at Twig, the fantastic South End flower shop (there is also a location on Charles Street), answered my prayers.  This weekend I will be a member of the Twig team.  On Saturdays they receive deliveries direct from Europe and those flowers have to be sorted (hopefully by hue), prepared (ie. dethorning roses), arranged and delivered (I may look good behind the wheel of a truck). I love flowers, especially hydrangeas, calla lilies and peonies so I am hoping there will be some of my favorite varieties to work with.  If I can manage not to loose too much blood on those roses, then this may be the job for me!  Check back in on Sunday to hear, and see, how my day as a floral designer goes, or stop into Twig on Saturday and see for yourself!

I borrowed this picture from apartmenttherepy.com,imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.