Turning Over a New Decorating Leaf

One of the biggest things that I struggle with in decorating is that I love when a project is complete enough that it's functional, but not necessarily finished.  For example, when we lived in Monterey, I made a valance for the window in the girls' room/guest room out of some leftover fabric from the bedskirt.  It hung on the window for 16 months, and I never hemmed it.  Yep, pretty bad.  The only consolation was that you really couldn't tell, because the fabric was black and who really inspects window treatments anyway?  Ha!  I could give you a long list of projects that weren't ever finished, but instead of that I'll just share with you that I'm trying to change!  My husband is ecstatic about this!

With an entire house to design, furnish and decorate, having the problem that I do is just not going to fly.  So, I've tried to make an effort to finish a project before moving onto something else.  (Common sense for most people, right?)  The dining room chairs were the biggest challenge for me, and all the while working on those, I had a major problem in the family room:

Somehow, my children had managed to rip the side of this wing chair and then proceeded to pull out some of the stuffing and the staple tack that was underneath.  It sat like this for over a month.  It still worked.  We could sit in the chair, it didn't affect our day-to-day life, but it definitely needed a repair.  So, one day I decided that functional wasn't enough, I wanted finished products in my home.

All it took was having the right tool:

If you do upholstery, you need one of these needles--they are like magic!

About 15 minutes of my time, and voila!

No need for a new chair, no worries about the dog or children making it into a bigger problem, and I think I've made my husband just a little bit happier.

 What decorating 'leaves' do you want to turn over?