While pregnant I eagerly bookmarked blogs and dog-eared magazines, planning the touches that would make my babies' nursery a beautiful place for them to rest, play and grow. Then I got tired, my toddler got really active and that whole nesting thing never kicked into high gear for me. That's how my temporary, stop-gap measures for the glider and window treatments became longer-term fixes.
I had glorious ambitions for the glider, a hand-me-down that I had previously reupholstered in barkcloth for our oldest. The new plan involved vintage Japanese silk obis and my trusty old sewing machine, but I never got the obis and I never found my motivation. Instead, I realized that a sham would fit the seat perfectly and I could drape a quilt over the back cushion, no needle or thread necessary. It was only supposed to stay like that until I did a proper upholstery job. Yeah, right.
Custom window treatments for the extra wide window would have been spendy, so I was going to stitch up curtains with a blackout liner, a must with the room's eastern exposure. Then I happened upon a set of pink blackouts in a clearance bin somewhere that made up in length what they were lacking in width. I turned them sideways and used curtain clips to hang them, just as a temporary light blocking fix. Now I find myself in no rush to replace them.
Have you ever run out of steam for your projects and settled for a quick-and-dirty fix?
(Image: Roni Shapira Ben-Yoseph)
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Story of my life!
I have so many ideas, and little time/motivation to execute them. Le sigh.
This still looks great. I need to remind myself to not beat myself up over the DIYs I didn't do...and enjoy the ones I get around to.
And if this year I bought a $7 fall wreath for the front door, rather than gathering beautiful fall leaves (which don't even exist in San Diego) and handcrafting my own? Well, my front door still looks great - and was decorated September 1st, rather than finishing the project sometime after Thanksgiving (and then having it up for a day, and swapping it out for Christmas decorations!).
But seriously - we're not all Martha Stewart. With her army of help, lack of small children, and infinite supplies of money. Please, let's not hate ourselves for that.
Amen, Happybirthday!
I am addicted to Apartment Therapy, Design Sponge & many other blogs & check them like I check my email. I have tons of folders, bookmarks, pictures of things that I love and would love to do someday.
But with a 2 1/2 year old, baby on the way, and all the demands of a busy life I don't take the time for myself to go through the bins of fabric or folders of ideas to get any of it done.
I should really stop collecting creative ideas to do and just start doing them, but then I'd miss out on something cool.
In my dreams of a week off I'd lock myself in my studio for a few days & have a blast. In my reality I have what I need, am blessed by my family & will someday tackle reusable sandwich bags & metal stamping.
I laughed when I saw this post, because this is so me. Nice to know I'm in good company.
I'm with peculiarchick; it's nice to know I'm not the only one who struggles with this. I bought fabric for wall art I was going to do over my daughters crib in her nursery - it never got done. I bought a shelf I was going to put over the changing table - never got done. Her dresser needs another coat of paint and new handles - still not done. Then we moved, and I haven't done any of those things in the new house yet either. My daughter will be two in November. It's so sad.
Amen & amen to all the comments! This is ME and here I've been all this time, thinking I'm the only lazy DIY-er with a neverending (and ever expanding) list of projects I'd someday like to do. What I've come to realize with myself is that the more I take the time (even if it's only an hour in the morning during naps!) to sit down and do the projects I want to do, the more the ideas and motivation comes.
I agree with happybirthday: let's not hate ourselves for not meeting Martha Stewart's ridiculous standards for craftiness and productivity. :)
Kids have a way of derailing things in unexpected ways.
My wife & I loved home renovating and decorating when it was just the two of us. So we had grand plans for our nursery, which ultimately became inhabited by an adopted toddler. And that toddler has quickly turned into a very rambuctious pre-schooler.
Our new mindset: There's an invisible horizontal line that lives 4' off the the floor in any given room of the house. Anything beneath that line, isn't ours and is subject to the whims of an energetic, imaginative 4 yr old.
Sure, we try hard to set & enforce boundaries, but we're realistic too. So, this puts something of a crimp on decorating rooms just-so. Our focus is more on functional than fluff and more on clean than charming.
So, I guess my point is that projects aren't always just indefinitely delayed, sometimes they're derailed entirely but it's not worth losing precious sleep over.
This is sooooooo like me too...
I try to have only ONE ongoing DIY project at one point, but... well, let's say I fail also in that.
I try to get organized and prepared a lot of decoration for my son's nursery in advance, but when I failed to meet some deadlines, I just bought things (beddings for instance, I had a whole homemade bedding project in mind that I never even began).
But one thing I don't do, is buy things that I'm not enthusiastic about. I learned (the hard way) that if I buy something "that'll do until I diy like I wanted", I'll never ever do it and I'll remain with thing I'm not entirely happy about. Since I'm very picky about my home decor, some things are left unfinished for months, but in the end, I find or diy what I want and love it !
I wanted to embroider my son's curtains: I won't be doing that, but I took a whole month to find plain white linen curtains that I adore. Still have to find a curtain rod I like... well, he may have curtains in his room for Christmas !
I keep a folder on my computer called "inspiration" where I save photos of things I want to do. I haven't done very many. I REALLY need to finish a project before I start a new one...I usually get one step beyond dreaming and try to find materials for a project. Then I'm even madder at myself when I don't finish the project.