I think when the spring time comes I’m so eager to get outside and play in the sun that I skip spring cleaning.  Every year, when the first hint of fall comes, that’s when I become ready for a major clean out.  I get the house ready for spending more time indoors as the sun starts to go down earlier.  I like to air out the house when the weather is cool enough to leave all the windows open and clean ever nook and cranny.  Now, I’m not quite there just yet, but I am getting started on my de-cluttering!  Right now I’m organizing for a garage sale (yay long weekend)!

P.S.–The A&E TV show Hoarders has been a topic of discussion lately in the Spruce workshop and I think it’s making everyone a little self-conscious about their possessions.  Here’s what we don’t want our houses to look like:

I have my favorite places to unload items I am finished with such, as Half Price Books, Buffalo Exchange, and Craigslist and I’ve recently found some new places that take donations.  Sure, it takes a little more time to organize for this, but I think it’s worth it to help people out.

1. Dress for Success helps promote the economic independence of disadvantaged women by providing professional attire, a network of support and the career development tools to help women thrive in work and in life. Donate your suits and help a lady land a job!

2.  Freecycle works a lot like Craigslist, but everything is free!  If you have things to get rid of and don’t need to make money off your items,  you can really help people who may be in a sticky situation or need to save some money.

3. Where to Get Rid of Anything.  Oprah provides a state-by-state guide for getting rid of various kinds of items.  Thanks Oprah!

4.  Electronics need to be taken to special places for recycling.  Here are some ideas: http://www.ecomii.com

One of my favorite Spruce decorating tips has been that sometimes clearing out a space can be just as satisfying as filling it.  This usually holds true for me…until the latest Spruce fall items show up in the shop!  I may have just made a space for these (I love them):

Have a great week!

Describing furniture parts can be a mind-boggling and frustrating task if you don’t have the right descriptive terms.  Before I learned how to upholster, my descriptions sounded like, “You know, that dividing edge-thing by the front of the chair at the bottom with the cord-stuff…”  That would be a tack band with welt cord. Here are some diagrams that label the basic parts of furniture and will get you sounding like a pro in no time!  Not all pieces will have all the parts labeled in the photos and some pieces of furniture will have extras depending on the styling.

Front of furniture:

*Pink welt cord outlines the edges of the chair

Side/back of furniture:

*Attached cushions look like loose cushions but are actually sewn to the inside back upholstery.

Extras:

*Diamond tufting has extra fabric pleated in diagonal lines to create diamonds. Regular button tufting does not include pleats/extra fabric.

Another handy term to know is “deck”.  If you pull your cushion(s) off your chair or sofa, you’ll see the base they sit on, which is called the deck.

Totally pro.

Not to brag or anything, but our shop has been called a “beacon of light” in the neighborhood.  Our little shop is nestled among lots of auto shops, a day labor center, a strip club, and a couple sketchy motels where they like to film horror flix.  Don’t get me wrong, we LOVE our neighborhood.  The houses in the neighborhood are FANTASTIC, and I wish I could live there.  The neighborhood, really, is almost perfect.  However, as long as we’ve been in our space, we’ve been talking about how we really need a few good places to eat and drink within walking distance, and it looks like we’re finally about to get our wish!

First, just two doors south on Lamar, Elsi’s is putting in a smaller restaurant featuring their cuisine from El Salvador.  I’m looking forward to the day I can walk a couple doors down and pick up tacos and fresh empanadas!  Yum!

Directly across the street, in the space you may know as the Emporium from Dazed and Confused, it’s rumored (so don’t quote us on this) that Threadgill’s is opening a diner  that will be called Hiney’s Tiny Diner.  I hope that we’ll be having Sprucette morning meetings there!  I love diner food.  They’ve started building some diner-looking additions to the building.

And, once the day is done, we’ll have a place for our favorite time: beer-thirty!  Black Star Co-op is opening at the Crestview Metro Station.  I’m interested to see how this plays out.  As they say, “Why shouldn’t you own the pub you drink at?!”

The “Before and After” feature is stepping out of the studio and taking a trip to Amanda’s house to see the late summer transformation happening under the eaves.  Amanda, as long as I have known her, has always had nice plants around the house and her husband, Keith, is a master arborist, so you can imagine the view from their back porch is nice one!

Here’s the porch before:

The Austin American Statesman will be at Amanda’s house later this month to take some photos for the front page of the Life and Arts section.   While the inside of her house is regularly “spruced” and ready for photos, she thought maybe she should add some color to the back porch to liven it up in case the photographer wants to take a trip outside.  Amanda remade the cushions for their outdoor furniture set not too long ago, so the main focus now is on the throw pillows.

The pillows she made originally for the set have faded in the sun and will be replaced by new ones featuring bright blues and greens.  The geometric fabric is from Duralee and the floral is vintage, picked up on a recent outing.

I think a nice lime green margarita would fit the new scheme perfectly!

Once the porch is finished up and the Statesman photographers have snapped their shots, we’ll post pictures of the afters and link to the article.  Stay tuned!

 I was really excited to see this because it reminded me of this amazing blog on the Domino Magazine website written by the Germinatrix.  The Germinatrix, a.k.a Ivette Soler, had created my quirky dream garden called the Monster Garden.  The plants looked like they might eat you.  This particular garden is no longer online, but these are the kinds of plants you would see in it: