Readers,
This is the story of a little project I’d been meaning to get around to for, oh, best guess, six years.
Until this past weekend, when I finally, finally did this project, all I had to represent my vision was this color photocopy of a favorite fabric, tucked behind the dishes in one of our glass-fronted kitchen cabinets.
Every time I’d reach for a bowl for breakfast or a plate for dinner my eyes would fall upon this burst of color and pattern, persistently reminding me of this idea I’d come across in House Beautiful magazine many years ago.
A minute ago I rummaged through my home decorating magazine clippings hoping I could find the very picture that sparked my imagination, but I overlooked it. I’m sure it’s somewhere in my big binder.
At any rate, the picture was of a china cabinet or curio cabinet lined with a remnant of bright, patterned wallpaper. Maybe the entire interior was covered with wallpaper, or maybe it was just the back. What made a lasting impression on me was the delightful play of color and pattern with the dishes or curios. It was such an easy, effective way to add visual interest. Thrifty, even. And reversible–you could always take the wallpaper out again if you changed your mind or decor.
After I made the kitchen valance, in 2017, I couldn’t bring myself to toss out the mockup I’d pieced together from color photocopies. I imagine it was around then that I wondered how I would like this exuberant Souleiado pattern covering the backs of our neutral white Ikea cabinets. I was hoarding the rest of the yardage for some other project and was loath to cut into it yet.
No harm in running a little experiment. I recycled a section of the paper mockup as a backdrop in the larger of the two dish cabinets.
And so the color photocopy sat there, wedged between the back wall of the cabinet and one of the glass shelves, for six years or so. Sometimes I’d position the photocopy just so, to get the most visual impact for the few square inches it covered, but inevitably the piece of paper would slip and end up at an odd angle. Repositioning that piece of paper just became another kitchen routine.
Not too long ago, when a houseguest asked whatever that piece of paper was doing behind the soup bowls, I airily replied that it represented this great little idea I had for a colorful backdrop to tie in with the rest of the colors and patterns in the kitchen.
I didn’t say how long I’d been meaning to carry out my idea or when I was going to. I don’t know whether this ever happens to you, but more often than I care to admit, an idea of mine remains in that incubation stage as if that is the final stage of the project.
What finally aroused me out of my project torpor was the relentless approach of my next blog post deadline, while I was away at a sewing conference–PR Weekend, hosted by PatternReview.com. The irony was not lost on me that, while I was celebrating sewing with about 50 other avid sewers, I was falling ever more behind on my sewing projects, which, in turn, would delay the posts I’d write about them.
But, looking at my deadline in a different way, I finally had the incentive to push this idea for the dish cabinets to the front of the project queue.
So last week saw me bringing my yardage left over from the valance project to my local library to run some color photocopies. The librarian didn’t bat an eye when I pulled this extravagant print from my tote and smoothed out part of it on the glass; she asked whether I was a quilter. After running one test copy to check that the fabric was completely flat and square, I ran maybe fifteen more copies. I wasn’t sure how much I would have to overlap copies to match or how many copies I’d need, total. But I had enough to start.
I returned to the library a couple of days later to run maybe another half dozen copies. The 11″ x 17″ copies were 75 cents apiece, and I made maybe twenty copies in all.
Making these backdrops was a pretty straightforward process. For a sturdy backing I cut pieces to size from a big roll of kraft paper we had on hand. I used Scotch Wall-Safe tape, which can be lifted and repositioned without damaging the paper.
To press the tape down I used a finger and then a paper folder/creaser. With the paper creaser I was able to achieve a good seal and minimize the visibility of the tape. However, the tape still is slightly visible.
I used a carpenter’s square to draw cutting lines at right angles, then trimmed with a rotary cutter.
The main problem I ran into was matching the patterns. It turned out that the design is not 100 percent regular from one motif to the next, as would be the case with wallpaper.
I decided that what was important was matching the prominent, teardrop-shaped motifs and then managing the least disruptive mismatch of the rest of the surrounding pattern. Since the backdrops would be a little distance from the eye and obscured by dishes, I could afford some discrepancies.
Also, I told myself I was just running an experiment, so I kept my expectations of success modest.
Another problem was that the photocopies came out a little muddy-looking compared with the fabric. The photocopies I made back in 2017 for my valance mockup, I realized later, came out clearer and brighter.
If I had this to do over again, I would make a test copy on a second photocopier and compare. Maybe one photocopier would reproduce the colors better than the other. Can color settings be changed? It might be worth asking if they can be.
Yesterday I finished making each backdrop. I removed the dishes and glass shelves, pressed the backdrops into the cabinet backs, and put everything back into place.
The blank canvas of the Ikea cabinets now sports a riot of color and pattern tying in with the valance behind me, the blue-green wall color, and the colorful bowls on the counter below. It looks good.
To say I am perfectly satisfied would be an exaggeration. The shadowy photocopies lack the freshness of the original fabric. But I did get to add more color, pattern, and personality to our kitchen for an outlay of less than $20 and a few hours of cutting and taping.
There’s a moment I experience with each project, when it crosses the line from unfinished–when I could still change something–to finished. For better or worse, when it’s finished, it is what it is. I see the object as a whole rather than all the separate parts and make up my mind whether that whole is all right. This turned out all right.
I already have an idea for doing this same sort of backdrop for our glass-fronted Ikea china cabinets in the dining room. I would use a different Souleiado print, which I salvaged from roman blinds I bought at an estate sale several years ago. My color-rich casseroles and gratin dishes deserve better than a blank white background.
And guess what I just found? Three photocopies that I’d totally forgotten I’d made of this other print. Could I resist taping them to the back of one of the china cabinets? Of course not!
So another experiment has just been added to the to-do list. This time, I don’t think it will take me six years before I give it a go.
Related post: Valancing Act