No You Didn't...

Oh yes I did!!!! 

And it's not what you think...

I decided it was time to clean our cream sectional sofa. In our old house it sat downstairs and wasn't used very often. It got the occasional vacuum and cleaning but it didn't get the wear and tear it gets now. Plus it was upstairs while we were tearing out flooring and the dust was getting ground in. 

I've cleaned it many times before with a carpet cleaner and then with my Bissell Green machine. But I'd used upholstery cleaner. I'm trying to go chemical free and found a recipe I thought would work in the machine. 

I mixed 2 parts warm water with 1 part vinegar and 1 part hydrogen peroxide and went to work cleaning. I was having some problems with the Bissell sprayer, why I'm still not sure. So I proceeded to take out my vinegar and water, spray away and then vacuum up the excess water. Didn't really think this would do anything other than clean, well was I wrong. I finished and left it to dry while we went out looking for tile for our bathroom, the buttons rusted and seeped through. 

Gross! But I was pleased with the amount of dirt that was removed but the end result, not so much.

APPARENTLY! I didn't pay much attention in chemistry class and didn't realize the vinegar reacted with the metal in the button. The area where I'd sprayed the vinegar and water was the worst. Yes, I had wrecked my nice cream couch. Darcy was calmer than I expected, thank goodness and searched Google for a way to solve the situation. I love Google. 

This one doesn't really show the extent of the damage I caused. 

When I look at these photos the couch still looks dirty :(

Luckily, we found out that lemon juice will neutralize the acid of the vinegar and the salt will work to remove the stain. 

I tried it on a couple of places and it was seeming to work. The hydrogen peroxide did not work, it removed some of the rust stains but not all. I'm sorry I didn't take a photo but I was way to worried about this to even think about doing a post. It was after the fact when I had was putting on the lemon juice and salt where I even thought to take photos. 

I let that sit for about an hour or two and then vacuumed up the salt. It had worked, well at least it was better than the brownish rust stains. The only thing the lemon juice and salt did was to bleach or clean the area around the button more than the couch had already been cleaned. You'll see a little bit of brighter fabric around the button area if you look real hard. I know it's there but others might not. Like I said, it was WAY better. 

Here you can see the little white areas around the buttons. Not at big deal. I'm sure they will eventually blend into the rest of the couch. Or maybe I'll try using lemon juice next time. Kidding...

Final product. I'm happy to see the lightened areas around the buttons rather than the dark rust stains. Next, I think I'll rearrange the room. Come back to visit to see if I change it or leave it this way. 

Pleats Are In Again

Hanging our curtains became an all weekend affair. Who would have thought a weekend would have been spent hanging 4 panels of IKEA curtains. We went to hang our new curtains on Friday night and soon realized we didn't want them to be hung with the clips like I had originally intended. Darcy won out on this and I'm glad he fought for the solution we came up with. We made our weekly pilgrimage to Home Depot on Friday night looking for rings and a solution to how to hang the curtains without the clips. 

We came up with using pleat hooks and the rings. At the time we didn't realize this was a common way to hang curtains and it would result in pleats. Da... After we got home we realized the pleat hooks we bought were not the right ones. They have a butterfly wing on each side and it wouldn't fit inside of the slots of the curtains. We searched all over GP finally finding them at Fabricland. If you are looking for anything related to curtains, drapes, rods or accessories head to Fabricland. We hit the jack pot. 

This will create a single pleat, double or triple pleat. These 2 videos helped to show me how to create the pleats and the different options for IKEA curtains. I love Google and You Tube for helping to come to decisions about how to do stuff. 

We chose to hang the curtain rod close to the ceiling because our ceilings are low. It helps to give the room a feeling of being higher than they really are. This site gives some great advice on how to far to place the curtains from the window frame. 

Fred Gonsowski Garden Home - The Right Way to Hang Curtains and Drapes

As Darcy was installing the rods, I went to work creating several different configurations and finally coming to this final product. It was 8 spaces, hook, 8 spaces and hook to create a single pleat. I tried double pleat and smaller pleats but it didn't quite look right. Pulling out and redoing 50 pleats can take it's toll on your fingers. Mine are killing me as I'm typing. 

We decided to hang the rod brackets 8 inches from the trim and the rod extended another foot past the bracket. We needed to do this because we used 4 panels and we wanted to have light coming in. 

 

Here is the final product. They just need to be hemmed and ironed. I'll tackle that this week. 

I've loved these curtains for years. I'm so happy with the way they've turned out. Darcy keeps saying I could look else where but what he doesn't realize is these were my inspiration for this room looking this way. It's calming and serene. Just what I need after a long day at work. 

We've Come A Long Way Baby

I've got so much to share but I wanted to update you on the new living room arrangement. It's not finished, mainly because we still have our double ovens sitting in the their. Oh I wish they would get installed but we've got to wait until the beginning of March when D's cousin can come up. 

The living room has been in many different states depending on what we were demolishing or repairing or painting. It's a large room but it's got this wall which extends into the space. I would have loved to have taken this wall/closet out and made the room a large rectangle but budget, wiring, heating/cooling vents and ceiling repairs prevented us from taking it out. Plus, it's my cleaning/storage/pantry closet now. 

Here's what the room looked like before we moved in. 

Yucky Hey!!!

Here's how it looked at various stages of renovations

Pre-hardwood flooring

After hardwood was installed and we could have some furniture to sit on. 

Here's the 75% finished room. 

My apologies for the terrible photos. I'm still learning how to use my camera and the light in the room isn't great. We're still trying to figure this part out as to the best places to have lamps and such. We would love pot lights, maybe when the electrician visits in March. Obviously, there needs to be some styling going on and it will come, but for now I think this is the arrangement we'll be going with. We need a different coffee table, some pictures up and the right side of the room is cluttered with double ovens, dog crates and dog beds. I'm confident it will get cleaned up, at least that's what I keep telling myself. One day!!!! I put up our curtains this weekend so my hope is to get that post done sometime this week, if you're interested please come back and visit. 

April