Good JuJu

 
I have been busy.  Way busy.

My upstairs spot at Good Juju was not quite the right fit for me.  Plus, my friends were downstairs and I wanted to be near them.  Beth offered to share, but I am not ready for a big space, so she offered me a sixth of her big area and that was just ideal! And she let me do some remodeling while she was on vacation.

She also got some solid walls added. Our friend, Sam, covered bare 2x4s with paneling so I could paint them, and I used some of the leftover colors to paint the back of this display too.

The new walls are neutral shades of blue, green and grey.  On the back wall, to cover an old garage door, we hung a 9×12 canvas and way up high, added some homemade grapevine wreaths.  I covered the table this hutch sits on with a burlap skirt and added a strip cut from a lace curtain across it so the bright light bulbs don’t bother anyone’s eyes with their glare.

Beth also offered to share this spot, it is her craft supply corner, and I added a few tidbits to the display after setting it up.

Here is Sam, hard at work, making the walls. They really add a lot to the area.

Here is a before, or I guess, a during shot.  With Sam building wall to the right, and my darling husband building a shelf/porch awning for my wall to the left.

In the back, you can see the before of the garage door wall.

This is a close up.  It looks a little sad here, but Beth is so good with displaying her great finds, that honestly, you didn’t even notice it before.  Still, I’m pretty happy with the streamlined look that the canvas drop cloth gave the room.  It was $10, and simply nailed to the wall above the garage door windows.  But, it let light shine in weirdly.  So I had to go behind it and nail cardboard over the panes of glass.

Here it is with fresh paint, back wall covered, wreaths in place, and a picket fence hung from the ceiling to cover some grids.

The wreaths are huge!  Sugarwings and Rich pulled the vines down from trees in our woods, and we wrangled them into shape together.  It was harder to do than you’d think, you really need to man handle those thick vines to convince them they want to be in a circle.

After the thickest pieces were twisted into each other, we secured them with a bit of wire.  Then, I started weaving smaller pieces in and out to fill in.  I don’t know if you can tell just how big these (very heavy) guys are, but the largest is about 4’tall.

Here is another in progress photo, before the wreaths and picket fence. My wall is gray.

And I am sooooo happy with how it turned out!  The porch columns give it a sense of structure, so I feel like I have a real spot of my own, not just a wall.  And the door on the front will give me space to hang jewelry that I have made.  

And the shelf!!!  

So much can fit onto that wonderful shelf!  If you don’t have much square footage, go UP.  Use the air space, right?

Here is a cleaned, but not finished pic of the spot.  Beth and I were going to work on it after her trip, but she got sick.  So Angie, our delightful neighbor, helped move furniture with me, and I rearranged things as much as I could.  Beth will bring in more before the sale and add to it quite a bit.

I had told myself  that I wouldn’t set up too much of her area, but hey- that’s the fun part!

So, I am guilty of doing a few displays… with the knowledge that she will probably remake them when she comes back.  But on the other hand, this way, she doesn’t have any pressure to come in if she isn’t up to it.  It’s okay as is, if she needs more time.

My wall needs more work, there are changes I want to make.  I’ve kept a black tub underneath the table for storage, and the lace on it stands out to much.  I need a plain, dark cloth over it so it disappears.  And I probably have too much hanging from the shelf.  It went from full to cluttered. 

For now, I’m headed to Florida for a rare, springtime sister trip.  My plan is to rest my poor head and recover from this concussion.  My doctor says I have been over doing it and while I hate to admit that, I agree.  I have felt awful throughout this whole escapade and look forward to a quiet week with dark glasses on to rest up.