{Post 1,362} What's Been Going On Here

The winds of change are a-blowin'.  My son, Ben, moved in with his older brother a week ago yesterday (Father's Day).  A couple days later he came back to finish cleaning out his bedroom.  

I was wondering what we should do with his former room.  My husband suggested (I think...maybe I planted the idea) that I use it for an office space/craft room/supply space/guest room.  Since we moved my sewing stuff into our bedroom, it has been very cramped and does not multi-function with my other "roles" very well.

So, I repaired the nail/screw/hanger holes with spackling and primed the whole room white.  Here it is before any work to change it:

After spackling, sanding, and priming:

I couldn't decide which color to use, but I wanted it to be cheery.  Here is what I decided to use.  I put up a couple decorations today.  More furniture will be in here, but only a bookshelf to hold bins of craft supplies and a cedar chest.  The extra space is something I'm not used to.  It's actually making me kind of nervous.

I like the desk facing the window.  It give me a view of the back yard which I have rarely seen since moving in here.  The quilt to the left is a charm quilt my sister pieced for me in 2001.  I hand-quilted it.  I actually removed the original beige binding last week and replaced it with dark brown fabric.  Here was the before:

I ended up putting it on a different wall, so it could be seen while I'm at my desk and from the hallway as well.  I put a quilt puzzle that has been permanently sealed in the doorway above the light switch.  Some friends gave it to me for Christmas years ago.  I think 2006.  This does not show the true color the paint.  It is not THIS yellow:

I like being able to see that from the hall as well.  

Looking back at the 3 pictures, they all look so different as far as the room color.  It is called "palomino", and it looks just like the color of one if that helps.

In other news, I have been asked to be the baby and wedding shower coordinator for my church.  It is not a big job.  We are divided up into six serving groups to have responsibility for showers, funeral meals, etc.  In my new role, I will coordinate and work with a serving group to host a shower.  I've been gathering items for future showers.  Tablecloths, table decorations, cupcake tree, cupcake liners, sprinkles, confetti, banners, napkins, etc., etc.  These items were added to the mayhem on my pressing area and cutting table along with the home paperwork, school work, etc.  Now they all fit into my "office" closet quite nicely.  

My husband and I teach the 2- and 3-year-olds at our church.  There is a plethora of craft sheets, stickers, story cards, and take-home papers for each week.  I get them a quarter of a year at a time.  Yoy!  The stuff just explodes.  So that is in my office desk now instead of all over the aforementioned space.  

So yes, things are becoming more organized.

I am also expecting a grandson any day.  My daughter's due date is today, but nothing has happened yet (she lives with us).  'Twill be soon though.

  

{Post 1,338} Moving This and That

Amazingly enough, the gi are all hemmed and ready to be returned.  I hope to get a lot more as the days go on.  Easy money for me.

I did some rearranging since I was on a roll with the sewing stuff.  I figured since my youngest and I were the only ones home, it would be easiest to do it now.  He was a huge help and accepts payment in milkshakes.

Below is a space where I hope to put one of my fabric bookshelves.  When I cleared out my sewing room to make way for my daughter's new bedroom (the renovation you are probably tired of reading about), I sent a fabric bookshelf and many boxes of books to my daughter in Florida, thinking I would have built-in bookshelves in my new sewing room (that I know now isn't going to happen).  So I have to find space for all those bolts that were on the 2nd bookshelf.  Not to worry...I have a plan.

Here's my ironing station.  I put it where my cutting table used to be.  It is narrower, allowing more walk-through space between it and my bed.  I added the two black plastic crates in the middle.  Not only do they support my ironing station better, but I can put all my quilt books, magazines, and single patterns in there, freeing up another shelf elsewhere.  If I find my leftover green curtain fabric and have enough (it is over 10 years old), I have a plan for making curtains to hide the multitude of drawers and whatnot in here.

When I was originally picturing my new set-up, I thought I'd have to sacrifice my L-shaped sewing table.  Years ago, my husband cut a hole the exact shape of my sewing machine base in the left side, and it now rests on what was supposed to be the keyboard drawer.  It is the perfect height for a large flat-bed area for machine quilting.  With being able to keep the whole table (instead of taking off one leg of the "L"), I can keep my laptop set up in here for blogging, grading school work, and watching the occasional movie or listening to live-streamed music. 

My cutting table.  My husband made me a riser for it, and that has saved me so much backache, I'm sure.  Next to it is an empty *gasp* 3-drawer unit.

Here is the ugliness under that table.  Thank God for curtains!!  The pizza boxes have watercolor squares in them by fabric.  The center two boxes on top have mailing supplies and special fabric collections.  The drawers have a multitude of precut triangles and squares, binding pieces, templates, and the like.  I hope to clean out this whole area as I go through and purge and straighten.  If I need the space, I plan to raise that shelf 4" and put bolts of fabric sideways up there.  We will see.

{Post 1,335} Red Door Looks Pink

Hmmm...something fishy happened between the paint chip and the roller.  The paint I picked out at the store was a dark red, like my kitchen.  This looks more pink.  But it is finished, which is more important than a particular shade, right?  Just like a quilt that took a long time but didn't turn out just like we had hoped.  Finished is good!!

Very little left to do on the room.  We've had a heavy week with illness, emotional crises, and work.  But the end is in sight, even though we didn't get as much finished today as we would have liked.  A tad more touch-up painting for me and one more coat of poly on the mantle and hearth.  

Wes has to put the closet system in the hall closet and install the ceiling fan in the room.  The window will be replaced, but it is not in yet...special order.

So glad we could afford to make this special place for my very special daughter and grandson-to-be.

{Post 1,329} Landing For Steps

One other small but amazing transformation in our basement.  This is the before and after of the landing at the base of the steps.  The tan carpet (like that on the steps) was removed and some extra laminate flooring from Elisabeth's room was put there.  Wow--what a difference.  The transition strip was put between that and the tile floor in the hallway downstairs.  Little by little, we are making it happen!

This week (starting this afternoon), we are painting more trim for the fireplace, staining more wood for it, spray painting the fireplace screen and vent covers (black and white respectively).  The men we hired hope to hang the closet doors in the room and hall as well as put in the baseboard trim in the room.  We.  are.  nearly.  finished.

{Post 1,328} Floor Going In

Here is my husband on the right and Bob on the left laying the laminate flooring.  It is beautiful.  It is a little after 3, and they are finished and moving on to the baseboard and so on.  So close to being finished.

{Post 1,327} Painting Fireplace

You probably can't tell much from the pictures, but I painted the inside of the fireplace in the new room black.  I had done the left wall in the "before" picture before I thought to take it. I want to try to clean the bricks better.  Any suggestions that have worked for you?

{Post 1,316} Fireplace and Door

Some more work was done Tuesday night, the night of our big winter storm.  The fireplace is ready for drywall and wood trim, and the sliding glass doors are out and the single exterior door is framed in.  It is coming along quickly.

Isn't it funny that when you see a picture, things strike you that you don't notice in person?  I find this true when I look at a quilt layout picture, room decor, and now in this project.  

The bricks of the fireplace will be exposed for about 10" around the opening.  Do you see how dirty they are?  The inside is horrible, too.  I see a lot of cleanup in my future, as well as some painting inside the opening.  Good thing I got some experience doing that here.  Click on the "fireplace" label to see all the posts surrounding that makeover.  We are going to do some more to it after the bedroom downstairs is finished.  something similar to what is being done to our downstairs fireplace.  Stay tuned!

I am not going to Ohio now to see my sister.  Our plans changed.  So I am finishing up a quilt top for my grandson.  It only lacked one row.  Picture to come later.  I also am doing some clearing up of miscellaneous things in my bedroom/sewing room that just got dumped earlier.

{Post 1,311} Room Renovations

Mr. C and Mr. T came over to work on the room downstairs today.  My wonderful husband had prepared the room so they could get right to work.  Wes took out the ceiling and all the paneling so they could start from scratch, sort of.  All the materials were delivered yesterday.  They got so much done.

Here are some pictures of the progress:

The fireplace and sliding glass doors.  The fireplace will be partially drywalled in so there will just be a rim of brick around the opening (about 10" all around).  The doors are going to be replaced with a single, solid exterior door.

This shows where a closet has been framed in inside the room, next to the window.

This shows a view from Rachel's room back towards the steps.  This is a closet for Elisabeth to store not-being-used stuff.  Her doorway into the room is right across from the middle of the closet.

{Post 1,307} Good News

See the lovely PINK insulation?  That means...

1.  We don't have to buy it.

2.  It is not moldy.

Aaaaaaaahhhhh...

{Post 1,306} Ready to Renovate

Here are a couple views of the room we are renovating.  I have packed up all my sewing supplies and moved them to other locations for the time being.  The room is empty except for two trash cans.  My husband is starting to take down the dropped ceiling and its metal supports.  The fireplace is going to undergo a big change.  Stay tuned for that.

I sewed a quilt block together today!  My sister is mailing me the fabric for my new nephew-to-be's quilt.  I am having trouble getting good lighting in my bedroom for sewing.  I was spoiled in my former space (above) with those lovely fluorescent lights.  

We are replacing the sliding glass doors with a regular exterior door and adding a wall just to the left of the fireplace.  It will be hard to get pics once the wall is in place.  I hope my girl likes the new room!  It will be 15 feet square when finished.

{Post 1,305} Making MORE Progress

This moving things around is such a big project.  I'm afraid I'm very close to losing momentum.  But there's always much to do here.

The sewing corner is set up in my bedroom.  Wes actually walked in after the sewing machine was set up and my cutting table was in here and said (and I quote):  "It's not that bad."  Of course, there are no projects under way yet.

The view at the other end of the room.  Again--not bad.

Downstairs is nearly cleared out.  After this picture, both of those bookshelves (the "fabric one" and the "green curtained one") were moved to the garage.

The design walls are heading out to the garage too.

We will definitely be finished with all this moving stuff around this weekend.

I just found out tonight that my parents will be here tomorrow, and we were already having two other couples over for supper.  My husband will be gone all day (which is quite rare), so we'll see what happens tomorrow.  

My daughter and I kind of mapped out where everything in the new bedroom will be placed, so things are under way!

{Post 1,304} More Progress

You don't have a quilt frame in YOUR living room?

Sewing room progress (I will have to point it out for you!).  The sewing machine table is gone.  The books are MOSTLY gone from the bookshelf on the farthest left along the wall (hence the 5 boxes of books in front of it), and the cutting table (with the green curtains around the bottom) will be moved to my bedroom shortly.

A big thank you to my husband for taking his break time from work today to unassemble and move my sewing table up to my sewing room.  He is behind me right now putting it back together.  What a guy!!

I am going to focus on getting the rest of my bedroom ready for this big change, and then back to the sewing room (if Ben has brought me packing boxes from work).

BTW, I am mentally planning my new sewing space (several months down the road)...if you have any organizational or whatever ideas from your room that you LOVE, drop me a comment or an email!

{Post 1,303} Making Progress

Slowly but slowly (as in not starting until 8 PM), I am making headway in the basement room.  Our contractor came today and told us he would start as soon as it was empty!  Talk about initiative.

You know it looks worse before it looks better, right?  The only main difference between the first picture and the second is that 3 thirteen-gallon bags of discarded clothes are gone as well as everything on my sewing table.

{Post 1,302} Flinging, Packing, Moving

I have too much stuff.  I know this, but it's so hard to let things go!  It's the result of years and years of having 8 children, home schooling, sewing, quilting, READING, etc., etc.

We are moving furniture around and making places for things that aren't in their usual location so we can begin the renovations downstairs in what is presently my sewing room.  The whole sewing room needs to be packed up before we can start that.  It will be months before it will be unpacked.  The most logical solution was to move my L-shaped sewing desk into my bedroom and my quilt frame into the living room.

Naturally, there are already things where these things needed to be moved to.  My living room desk came into the bedroom (it only sports one very shallow drawer, so I gave up 3 large drawers), my bedside table held 3 fabric baskets (the large ones about 10" x 11" x 11"), and my son's desk was also moved out of the living room.

So I spent much time this afternoon sorting through each and every item in my bedroom in the areas that needed to be cleared out.

Here are the after pictures, as tragic as they look:

A close-up view...spare me!!

I guess my picture could have been better.  The box on my bed is laundry that is now folded and put away.  The vacuum is broken.  I am selling some of the removable parts.  I have a couple boxes of things that I've tried to sell, but now am looking to give away.  The clutter is going to be the end of me.

Here is the newly cleaned-out corner where my sewing desk will live.  Oh, the mess that will add to the bedroom.  But a girls' got to have her mental health therapy, no??  The file cabinet came to my room in place of my desk which is now in my daughter's room.

A frightful thought just gripped me.  I am leaving 1/29 to visit my sister for nearly 2 weeks.  I need to have this done before I leave.  My sewing room has zillions of things in it!  I better go get started.