Thursday, April 23, 2009

A patterned solution



We live in an old kit home which has been renovated, Frankenstein-style, for many years now. The original structure has been altered quite a bit, sometimes in a good way, and sometimes not. One of the not-so-good ways is a weird structure that was built onto one side of the house to create an entry way and an extra little room. The concept is great, but it was built very strangely. The floors slope, the walls are slanted, and the little extra room has an incredibly stupid and not square window (I'll have to show you pix some other time).

Anyhow, this little spare room also has a weird pass-through type window that leads to the kitchen. I'm not sure what the original function of this was, since it's too small to pass much more than a plate or bowl through, and it's in a weird spot (the rear part of the kitchen counter). The goofy window in the extra room is very, very drafty, so all that cold and wind comes through the little pass through and into the nice warm kitchen.



My solution was to get a cheap place mat (this one is from Crate & Barrel outlet) and duct tape it to the other side of the wall, in the extra room. We use the extra room for storage, so no one will ever see the duct tape, and the other side is nice and pretty and lets light in. And I can switch place mats whenever the current one gets dirty or I want to change things up. And the little nook that was created is a perfect place to store my iPod player.



I know, it's strange, but it's all about making things pretty, no matter how run down or weird your house is.

6 comments:

Char said...

I think it's a very clever solution and not as expensive as somehting like stained glass or whatever. It makes me thing though as an art project of maybe doing something like a drawing and oiling the paper for translucency.

georgia b. said...

awesome! this is a great idea, Chris.

you go girl—there's an interior designer in you for sure!

i can't tell you how many times i have used place mats for other things beside what they were meant for.

i used to have two covering up the ugly air conditioner in my dining room. it worked for the time being. now i have a curtain over it.

Chris said...

Yeah, I really like how your curtain looks too! It's a good idea I might steal :)

I'm trying to figure out a curtain system for an asymmetrical opening, so I'm sure I'll come up with some strange place mat/napkin/tablecloth combo!

avant garde design said...

super cool idea! anything to make it work right? and on the cheap :) even better!

Leslie said...

Chris, I am so going to try this. It's beautiful and inexpensive to make happen

Unknown said...

this is ingenius. like the creativity...