I didn’t have much time to get anything done yesterday because Matt has decided that he wants to start seeing a functional medicine doctor, and I kid you not, it took us four hours yesterday to fill out all of the intake forms, health questionnaires, family health history forms, etc., and to read and sign all of the disclosures and release forms.
We haven’t even seen the doctor yet, and to say that this has already been a completely different experience from seeing a traditional M.D. would be a huge understatement. Some of the questions and forms were like nothing we’ve ever been asked by any former doctor or hospital. It was incredibly detailed and thorough. So basically, the time I would generally spend working on actual projects was spent yesterday making sure that we had everything complete before Matt’s appointment this afternoon.
Neither of us has any experience with a functional medicine doctor, but this one came highly recommended by my friend who knows all about this kind of stuff. Functional medicine doctors try to get to the source of the problem and treat the source rather than treating and managing symptoms, and that’s what we’re hoping for.
The drawback is that functional medicine doctors very often don’t take insurance, so it can be quite expensive. But we’re really hoping to find answers to why Matt went into the hospital two years ago with the use of his left arm and came away from that three-day hospital visit not being able to move or use his left arm at all. Everyone to this point has told us that it’s just the progression of his M.S., but in the 20 years that we’ve been dealing with Matt’s M.S., we’ve never seen such a drastic and fast decline like that.
So we think there’s something else going on there, and I have a sneaking suspicion that it has something to do with an allergic reaction he had to a specific medication they gave him during that hospital stay. We’re just looking for answers, so the out-of-pocket expense for a functional medicine doctor seems worth it to us at this point. I’ll keep y’all posted on how it goes.
Anyway, after spending four hours on those forms and questionnaires, I sat down at my desk, took another look at the striped fabric that I shared with y’all yesterday, and read all of your comments. Two things stood out to me. First, the colors of the stripes were fine, for the most part. After all, they came directly from the floral fabric I designed, so I knew the stripes would coordinate. But the second thing that stood out to me was that they looked too heavy, and the heavy look made them look too dark.
I decided to remove the dark purple color because, while that one came from the floral fabric, it just seemed too bold for the overall look. So I swapped out the dark purple for a yellow. I also decided to add some variation to the stripes so that they weren’t perfectly solid stripes. And I added just a little more white between the stripes. Here’s what I came up with…
Here’s a comparison of the original striped fabric with the updated striped fabric. While both are very colorful, the new one looks much lighter and brighter to me.
Here is the new striped fabric with the floral fabric. I think this looks much better.
Also, the more I looked at the plan for the chairs, the more I wondered if I really want the bird/floral fabric on the backs of the chairs. I think it looks too matchy-matchy with the curtains. There’s a fine line between using fabrics in a room so that the room looks custom and making it look too matchy-matchy. So I’m leaning towards using the stripes on the seats and the backs of the chair backs, and then using the bird/floral fabric on the curtains and a pillow for each of the benches.
That way, I can use the bird/floral fabric in a way that the bird shows well, but the two uses of bird fabric won’t be in the same line of sight. Instead, they’ll be on opposite walls in the room. I do realize that this leaves me with Juicy Fruit dining chairs, but I actually love that. 😀
To be honest, I actually like it both ways. The chairs with the three fabrics remind me of chairs that I’ve seen from Chair Whimsy, and I’ve been inspired by Chair Whimsy for many years now. *Sigh* I just need to figure this out so that I can get the fabrics ordered and get this room wrapped up. I really want to get this room done by the end of this month so that I can move on to the storage room and hopefully get it done by the end of the year. But I also don’t want to rush through this and make decisions that I’m going to regret and want to change next year. 😀
I’ll leave you with one more side-by-side view of the striped fabric that ChatGPT created and the new striped fabric that I made myself. I think this new fabric design that I made is more in keeping with the look on the ChatGPT inspiration picture. It’s not exact, and I did use more colors, but I think the new fabric design still has that same lightness of the ChatGPT design. I like mine better. 🙂
So I’ll let y’all mull over these possible changes and give me your input while I log off my computer and head in to get Matt ready for his functional medicine doctor appointment. If you’re a praying person, please pray that this new direction with a new doctor will help us find some answers for Matt!
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Addicted 2 Decorating is where I share my DIY and decorating journey as I remodel and decorate the 1948 fixer upper that my husband, Matt, and I bought in 2013. Matt has M.S. and is unable to do physical work, so I do the majority of the work on the house by myself. You can learn more about me here.
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