Southwest Regional Barista Competition, Part 2

Now for the outdoor seating part.

That “coffee table” is technically a day bed frame. Technically schmechnically.

We stacked two side tables on top of each other to make it a bit more interesting. And clearly someone took the right side pillow up on its offer, cause it’s all smushed in this picture.

We used a shower curtain from West Elm to recover these bar stools and seat cushions on a couple of other chairs. That’s a tip a la Nate Berkus, because the fabric is made to be super durable, and they are usually inexpensive.

Then inside, along with the cardboard wall and dip dyed fabric wall, we did a big ol’ ceiling installation with paint sticks, burlap and brown paper chinese lantern things, and amazing cardboard pendant lights. We mixed lots of paint colors in slightly varying shades to achieve that ombre effect.

We clothes pinned all the paint sticks in my ever-so-organized-and-not-clutterd-at-all garage to an extension cord for drying. Which I really like using because extension cords don’t slip like rope or twine, so they are easy to keep pulled tight.

This thing sort of looks like a hot mess in pictures, but in person it was the bomb if I don’t say so myself.  In person you didn’t see or notice so much of the cords and the lady-parts so to speak of the piece. Part of what I loved was the size and scale. It was just really big.  And that is 200 paint sticks no joke.

The paint sticks were inspired by Anthropologie’s window display (don’t you love how “inspired by” is just a p.c. way to say stolen?)

Would you believe that this took about four hours to tie it all up and hang it from the ceiling?? What the heck!! Ten thousand years will give you such a crick in the neck! We had so much fun working on this and spending the two days with our new-found friends putting it all together. Our hipster circle of friends has been broadened. It’s always fun to find people who can stop in the middle of some serious decision-making to break-it-down-with-a-dance-jam to the tune at hand, then get back to business. And that was the Southwest Regional Barista Competition.