Monday, May 17, 2010

Steampunk my house

Well we have been in this house for several months now. This is the first house I've moved into that I have tried to decorate as soon as I moved in. Instead I waited a while until I decided how I wanted to proceed. I'm still lost with the majority but I've decided in the abstract to steampunk my house inside and out. I won't be able to do much with the front of the house, but the backyard is fair game. I'm fascinated with steampunk, neovictorian, gothic victorian, type decorating. I'm planning on Steampunking most of the rooms in my house. I'll try to post my progress, crafts and finds. I plan to even steampunk my kids rooms. My oldest will have more of a spaceship theme and my youngest will have more of a pirateship theme. I'll try to get some pictures posted of the rooms I intend to redo. Atleast so I can have some before and after shots.

For My backyard:
* I'm planning on putting oil/alcohol lamps around the fence. I found some really neat wine bottle oil lamp holders that I've been able to replicate for pretty cheap. I'm hoping to get some blue wine bottles and etch designs into them.
* I've already started repainting some of my cheap plastic pots. They were faded and nasty looking anyway, so it was either repaint them or throw them out. I bought some plastic paints and got to work. I made stencils out of contact paper and painted tentacles on one of them.
* We are also planning (hopefully) to put in an aquaponics system. I think that this will lend itself to an industrial look that I can add some victorian touches to.
* We may build a greenhouse or atleast a covered area to house the aquaponics system.
* I'm 'thinking' about painting some scenes on the wooden fence around the yard to give it some interest.
* We've been buying pots in blues/teals/turquoises to add color to the backyard and give a more nautical color without being cheesy or typical (with navy blue, red and white that you see most nautical themed items in).
* We will be refurbishing a wooden kitchen table to go outside. I may do some woodburning on the top to add a bit of interest.
* Maybe a copper pipe pergola over the deck area that we can attach shade to for the dead of summer.

I'm still working on ideas for the backyard. I may do some of these, or all of these ideas. I haven't worked out anything else for the rest of the house. So as I come up with something, I'll try to post it. I do know I need paint, paint, paint. I'm tired of looking at white and off white walls. We only have one room in the whole house that isn't white or off white and that's a tiny half bath off the laundry room.