This Post is Mostly for JP. So You Know.

There have been some design updates around Chez Thing in the last few weeks.

Let's start in the living room. We have a couch that The Neighbor gave us. It's a nice couch with good lines but the upholstery doesn't really go with our decor. I used to cover it with a large white bedspread, which was very Shabby Chic of me, but also not very practical given our dog ownership.

There's a couch at Ikea that has similar lines and I thought perhaps the slipcover for it would work on my couch. Alas, the size was wrong. As I wended my dejected little way out of the store, I found myself in the bedding department. "I wonder..." thought I. I purchased 2 full-size sheets in black and what is theoretically a comforter cover (reversible, mind you) in black and white. I draped the couch first with the black sheets and then set the cover over the center. I think it looks very nice:

We also have a couch in our family room, another donation from The Neighbor. This was a sleeper sofa, which was very nice for entertaining guests and for Non Sans Jammie, but it was old and starting to break so was no longer functional as a bed. Before our day of lounging and Christmas movie watching arrived we had to do something so it was off to, where else, Ikea.

This is a very nice couch, which folds out to a double bed. It even has storage under the cushions. It made a very nice movie watching spot and more to the point, means we won't have to keep kicking The Child out of her room when blog buddies come to visit. It is brown (which you can't really tell from the photo) and that is a good color for people who often spill their red wine. It's also really long, which is why you only get to see one end of it.

My latest project concerned my desk. I have a very small desk. This is intentional, as having a larger space would mean more clutter. However, it is so small that once my 10 inch laptop is set on it, there is very little room when I'm doing things other than using the computer. Paying bills, for example, which requires making notes and piles and writing the occasional check.

I also like to do a lot of my writing in long hand and then edit on the computer. But that was impossible under the current conditions. Finally, I have a very limited amount of space to finesse as my "office" is in the kitchen. (Trust, the second The Child goes to college I am so taking over her bedroom. She can sleep on the nice new Ikea couch. Cold, you say? Selfish? I will refer you to Virginia Woolfe).

What would be ideal in this space is a desk with a return, but it would probably have to be custom built to accommodate the smallness of the space and what with that whole "taking over The Child's room" scenario being only a few years away, I don't really want to invest in such a thing. So off The Neighbor and I went, you guessed it, Ikea. We sniffed around a lot of options and then saw a small metal shelf that was about as large as my current desk top. Voila! We created a station for my laptop:

which tucks very nicely in my old office nook while allowing me free use of my desk, now positioned on the other wall (under the window...there is something poetic to me about having a desk under a window...now I can look out and watch the bees in my lavendar).See? Plenty of room to pay bills, do work related to my business and write insightful journal entries.Also, I have some very charming things hanging above the laptop station, which provide me with inspiration in the various areas of my life. The newest addition is a little glass bead sculpture which The Hat gave me for Christmas. She commissioned this work. It is called "Cocktails on Ice". How cute is it?

Miscellaneous Things:

a) Those nice people at Blogging Project Runway like my recaps. They are very kind.

2) I seem to be having trouble with my Yahoo account. Hat has been having trouble, too. Trouble in the "not getting mail" sense. I have changed the email on my blog to my Hotmail account (those of you with my home account just keep on using that). I clarify this so that anyone who may have sent me an email to the Yahoo address knows that Yahoo is a booger, I didn't get your mail and that's why I didn't reply; just in case you were thinking I didn't love you anymore. Because that would be silly. 'Course I do.