Home Office update

The last few days of our summer holiday, before getting back to the madness controlled chaos that we call work, we got to work on our home office. As usuall with major DIY stuff, things became a little worse before they started to look better.
First, we had to prime the walls for plastering, and this stuff is a "lovely" egg yoke yellow. Then we plastered the walls, leaving them a patchy grey. And that layer also needed to be primed in order to get the final layer of paint on without patches. This is what it looked like half-way through the process....








Boy, were we glad to finally be able to paint everything a nice even slightly off-white (with Histor Powerdeck, best.wallpaint.EVER). Now we finally had a blank canvas to work with. So much better!!!!








We already bought a new 2 meter long Vika desk
and a heavy-duty Volmar office chairfor mr.Fleur, both from IKEA. Volmar the office chair was supposed to be black and grey, but I found a brand new one in black and blue in the discount corner, which saved us a whopping €60! Just because the original box was missing.




Source:IKEA
Since I already had a similar black&blue office chair form my days at university, we decided that for 30% off, this blue version was more than welcome.
Since this room is also our guest bedroom, we decided that we needed something more than the simple roll-up blinds that are there now. So I went out to find a warm yet not too girly fabric to make new curtains. And I did!!!




This fabric was only €3 euro and is was ceiling height, so instead of 1,40m high, it's 2,80m. The pattern is very warm, lots of leaves and flowers, but the colors are neutral. I also bought a new curtain rod, with a nice Fleur de Lys (French lily) at the ends. I looked like I was running around the DIY store with a spear, which was fun (for me, maybe not so much for other shoppers and the lady at check-out....)




The next step will be to make the actual curtains, install the rod, clean out the DIY stuff that is still cluttering up the office, set up the folding guest bed, sort out the bookcase and the built-in storage and......get to work.
The big reveal is planned for the next week, as we're still catching up with work after being on holiday for 4 weeks. But it will be worth the wait, I promiss you!
Fleur

The Vogue giraffe blouse

Yes, I've been sewing again!!! My foot has recovered enough so I could finally finish this lovely Vogue 8747 blouse pattern last week.




This is actually the first of a stash of fabric I bought a while back to make some key outfits for Fall. This Fall is all about bold grafic prints, so I'm combining the classic Vogue blouse with this slightly giraffe-like print.




The fabric is a light cotton, batist or maybe even very thin linnen. It was very nice to work with, not too slippery, not too see-through. I'm also very happy with the fit of this pattern, especially in the waist. That is often a problem for me with blouses, but this pattern curves in enough without being to narrow in bust, shoulders or hips.




So I'm also going to make a nice basic white blouse with a full collar. There are two things I will have to fix on the next version:
- the stitching on the inside of the collar (a bit messy)
- the pressing and stitching of the button facings (I have to make it sharper)
I'm most proud of the button holes. I finally figured out how to make them completely symmetrical. If my machine goes too fast (this sometimes happens on the second part of the automatic button hole) and the stitching is too far apart, I carefully slow the fabric by pulling in the opposite direction a little. And tissue paper underneath also works very well.




And that's of course, what I aim for: Perfection every time!!!

Ciao!
Fleur