We didn't have specific plans for this past weekend. We were supposed to go to the shore with our friends Justine and Liz. But the weather forecast was for rain Friday night (when we'd be driving up there) and rain and/or snow on Saturday. Justine and Liz would have to leave Sunday morning to keep an afternoon appointment, so it seemed like the weather just wouldn't be conducive to taking a walk on the beach and shopping at the tax-free outlets. So we mutually decided to postpone the trip.
Friday night it did not rain, and Saturday it was bright and sunny. Joe and I had breakfast at McDonald's (I know, shame on us) and then ran a few errands. When we returned shortly before noon, there was a message from Justine and Liz, so we called them back and decided to meet for a late lunch.
On the way to lunch we stopped at an estate sale. I bought a pink ceramic ashtray from the '50s for 50 cents. Then we went to my favorite Thai restaurant for lunch. We hadn't been there in so long because the last few times we tried to have dinner there, the wait was too long. A late lunch was the perfect answer! The food was amazing, as usual, and we had a great visit with Justine and Liz.
Then I decided to become an artist. I bought 3 18x24 canvases from a craft store for $4.99 each and then got out some wall paint left-over from when I'd painted some of the rooms in the house. I came up with a simple, geometric design and began applying the paint with foam brushes. In about 20 minutes I had 3 fabulous canvases. An Artist was born! I took them to my office and hung them in a straight line. They looked great!
My art must have inspired Joe's creative juices to begin flowing because as I was putting away my supplies he reminded me that it really wouldn't take that much to get our downstairs 'Retro Lounge' looking good. The basement of our house has a large L-shaped family room, with a stone corner fireplace and nice large windows. We have a large sectional sofa from the '50s that is orange with gold threads woven in it, a smaller sectional sofa from the '60s that is tan, and two upholstered chairs, one turquoise and one purple. There are a number of original '50s and '60s accessories, ranging from pink and turquoise ceramic ashtrays to fabulous lamps with fiberglass shades. A friend once said that being in that room is like taking a step backwards in time. However, we don't use the room very often because the asbestos tile floor is not so attractive and the room has a 'cold' feeling.
So Saturday night we decided to buy a new TV for the room and to look for a new rug. Actually, we had been discussing buying a new TV for that room for several months, but had not decided when to do it. We'd been shopping around but on Saturday night we decided to bring one home. A 32 inch flat screen. Man, was it heavy! We also found a large rug we thought would work, but needed to measure the room first. After heaving that huge TV into the house, we measured the room and decided to go back the next day for the rug.
But first we needed to move all the furniture to one side and vacuum and mop the floor. We decided that would have to wait til the next day.
Our friends Michael and Jamie had invited us to join them for brunch at Bob & Edith's diner, in the event that we did not go to the shore. So Sunday morning we met them at 10:30 for pancakes, eggs and sausage or scrapple. We enjoyed hearing about their recent moving in together as well as their search for an affordable condo/townhouse/house to buy. They're great guys.
After brunch, we decided to look for some fabric with which we could make curtains for the large windows and to section off the L-part of the room. After careful measurements, we calculated we would need 24 yards of fabric. I thought to myself "this is going to cost a fortune" but I didn't say it outloud, so as not to burst Joe's bubble. He was quite gung-ho on the curtain wall to divide the L-space. To my amazement, we found some retro-looking rayon with all the colors in our room... priced at $4.50 per yard... sitting in the 50% off area. It seemed too good to be true, so when the sales girl was unrolling the fabric to measure it I said outloud "it will be totalling amazing if there's 24 yards of fabric there". There wasn't, but there was 23 3/4 yards so we bought it. Just over $50. and we had enough to make a gathered wall of curtains for the 12 foot wide opening and 4 curtains for the windows.
Next we went back to get the rug. "This is all working out so well" I said to Joe. "That black and tan rug will look perfect, will fit the space, and is so reasonably priced". I'd spoken too soon. When we saw the rug again in the light of day we realized it wasn't black, it was midnight blue. But, the size and price were great so we decided we could live with the midnight blue.
So, we rolled out the rug across half the room, moved all the furniture onto the rug, rolled it out the rest of the way, and began returning the furniture to its original location. Then came the chore of hoisting that beast of a TV onto the stand. Yikes - we almost dropped it twice! Then the room came together quickly. We vacuumed and arranged all the accessories and it looked great. We saved the curtain-making for another day.
Kerry, Hugh, and George came over at 5:30 to view my art and the updates to the Retro Lounge before we headed over to CiCi's Pizza and Pasta buffet. We enjoyed a lot of pizza and a lot of laughs.
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