Focus or Obsession?

I love it when I can focus on something for several hours at a time. I'm not one of those people who thinks multi-tasking is a good thing. I'm not saying I don't do it, I'm just saying that I don't think it's very productive. 


Sometimes my focus can be a little obsessive but it certainly gets the job done. One of my spring projects has been to work on decorating our sunroom. We spend an inordinate amount of time in this room and we'd love to someday make it a four season room with new windows and hardwood floor and heat. We certainly don't know when that someday will be. So in the meantime I've been sprucing it up a bit. I bought curtains and new chairs which helped brighten things up and then I wanted to focus on our "dining corner." I hate the table we have in there, it's a plastic IKEA table that worked well when we were homeschooling but isn't so wonderful as a dining table. One of the chairs fell apart and so we just added in an old dining room table chair. Someday (are you sensing a theme here?) I'd love to find a wooden table and chair set. I keep looking but haven't found anything that is perfect. I'm in no rush.


In the mean time I worked yesterday all day to make the quilt you see hanging on the wall and the table cloth, runner and coasters. I do ADORE the fabrics. They came from a local quilting shop. Our JoAnn Fabrics is expanding and I am not too pleased with the result. It is starting to feel like WalMart to me. Some of it may be that I'm not good with change. All the fabrics are in a different spot, EEEK! I guess I'll adjust. In the mean time perhaps it'll keep me from buying more fabric.


Oh my, I sort of got off track there, didn't I? Well, my focus isn't too great this morning, I guess. Anyway, I was so grateful to have a day that I could spend in the sewing room and I'm really pleased with the outcome. I have a few other projects for the sun room that I hope to complete before June. I'll have to show some photos of the whole room when I get a little more accomplished. Of course I'm also working on a major quilt (it's bigger than my design board right now) and I've agreed to whip up an Easter dress for a friend's daughter. I guess sewing is really an obsession!

Need versus Want

Do you remember that Mike and I were redoing the kitchen? Seems like a long time ago, doesn't it? Well, after a little reminder and pretty pleasing, Mike got back on the kitchen band wagon. I love that man. He's been painting up a storm. We got to the ceiling (finally). I was faced with the ceiling fan dilemma. 

 You can see the fan (upside down) above. It was perfectly functional. Not a think wrong with it. I just don't like it. In fact, I find it down right ugly. So here's the dilemma: Do I buy something new and throw out something old just because I want to? I do think in our society we worry too much about our wants. We have so few real needs as compared to some others in the world.


So what to do? Mike and I finally decided that we'd only replace the fan if we found something that we adored. Ok, and something that wasn't too pricey. Just FYI, our plan in the next 5-10 years is to gut the kitchen, rip out a wall and make a larger kitchen. That makes me not want to spend a lot of scratch right now fixing things up. Especially when they aren't broken.


Enter one trip to Lowes and Home Depot. Nothing was speaking to me at Lowes. You have to remember that we redid the kitchen in a 1950's-ish manner. Of course, ceiling fans weren't around then. So....trip to Home Depot. 

We found the above fan. Now you have to remember that our kitchen is teeny tiny. This fan has the smallest blades I've ever seen. I didn't even know they made fan blades that small. It's perfect for our small kitchen space. It was $50. We donated the old fan to our local Habitat Re-Store. So I don't feel totally horrible about getting rid of something that worked fine. 


Someone else may love it........right?

Re-covering

I don't have many words today but I have lots of pictures. Just read the captions, ok?

Footstool that was given to me about 5 years ago. I took off the first bottom layer (it's laying on the top)

I thought this was the last layer. Pretty black pattern. Check out the funky green poly stip. Do you remember this fabric?

large shot of what I thought was the original fabric.

Wow. Here's what I found as the original fabric. Wow.

Close up of the peeps.

I adore this man. Love the lute, the flowers and the hanging lantern.

Close up of the lovely maiden. Wonder what she's singing?

Reupholstered. Just a tad different than the original.

It's a lamp thing

On Wednesdays Nolan goes to his old school for PE and stays for lunch with his pals. I have about an hour and fifteen minutes from drop off to pick up. Usually I just go home and see how Nathan is getting along with his work. Some days I head to Target which is about 3 minutes from the school. Today I needed some magazine holders to help in my homeschooling organization (hopefully a post tomorrow or Friday about that) and some acne medicine since we are now entering the hormone laden years (help me Lord). Next to the Target is a Goodwill. So, having some extra time, I stopped by the Goodwill. I bought my dad a never opened 2000 piece puzzle for $1.97 (too much money my mother will say) and an old lamp for $7.97. I thought it would go well with the one I recently fixed. It didn't have a shade and I wasn't sure it would work. With my new lamp fixing skills I figured this wouldn't be a problem. As it turned out, the lamp worked fine and Nolan and I stopped at Home Depot after our volunteer session with PAWS tonight to pick up a shade. I'm pretty happy with the purchase.

In other quilty news, I just finished the quilt for Nolan's piano teacher and his wife. Their baby is due in March. You can see part of it in my new header. It just came out of the dryer all crinkled and warm. There's just about nothing I love better. Pictures soon.

Mrs. Fixit

Once upon a time, about 15 years or so ago, a good friend gave us a beautiful, antique lamp that he rewired. This lamp was probably one of the finest gifts we'd ever received. It was perfect. We loved it. We used it. Alot.

Once upon a lesser time ago, about 3 years, this beautiful, well loved, one-of-a-kind lamp stopped working. We tried to fix it (sort of), but it was beyond our meager expertise. This little lamp was moved to the basement when we moved to our new house.

Always in the back of my mind was the reality that this lamp could be fixed, by me. I looked it over several times but was stymied by the metal construction. How does all that wire get from the bottom to the top and attach to the light bulb? How does one get ones fingers in those tiny spaces?

Well, yesterday I decided that I NEEDED to fix this lamp. I longed for the lamp. I craved the beauty of the old metal, the curve of the decoration, the gentle light. I set to work.

I discovered that said lamp could be unscrewed in various places. I found out how to take it all apart. Actually, I've always been good at taking things apart. It's putting them back together again that is sometimes difficult.So, after a few trials and a trip to Home Depot, I was able to fix the lamp. Need I say that I'm proud of myself and not ashamed to toot my own horn. I spent the night reading (homeschool curricula) by my lamp with a fire in the fireplace. Ahhhhh, peace.

Sewing Room Redo

Well, this little project isn't quite finished, but it is almost there. My adoring husband painted my sewing room a few weeks ago. I just love it that he likes to paint walls. I am not so fond of it myself but will do it if I have to. The problem with doing something I don't like so much is that I also don't always do the best job. So, needless to say, I'm really glad he will paint for me. Above is the room mid-fix. There was some not so beautiful stenciling all around the room which really bothered me. You can see that was the first to go. Take note of the light in the room. I'll talk about that at the end of the post.I picked a color that would coordinate with the pillows and cushion on my blanket chest. It is Martha Stewart's Anjou Pear. I like the color and I love the name. Martha comes up with the best names for things, doesn't she? The teacher that I work with told me her mother picks paint colors by their names, not their colors! For instance, she painted her bedroom a color called Pony Tail because she said it reminded her of her girls. Don't you just love that?Here you can see I got a few of my mini quilts on the wall. I hung my candy table runner above the blanket chest as it just didn't really fit on any table. I love the way it looks and also how the black, red, white and yellow minis look together. It really makes me happy. I was planning to hang my pinwheel quilt on the short wall but it just wasn't looking right to me. It occurred to me that I could make a design wall. I emailed Jacquie to ask how she made hers but ended up doing something a little different. I may eventually regret not doing it her way!I used white flannel and cotton batting to make a "wall quilt" of sorts. I actually just nailed it to the wall and then made a border out of red and white polka dot fabric. At the moment the fabric is pinned to the quilt. I need to decide how to make it more permanent. My original idea was to actually make this as a quilt and then hang it on the wall so that I could wash it if needed but still hang my blocks on it. I began to realize that I probably needed something a bit more stable on the wall and got a little crazy with the nails. I'll let you know how this works for me. Right now I just have scraps hanging up there.
Here is my lighting fix. The old light, which you can see in the first picture, really was very dim (and really not my style). I also hit it all the time when I was folding my fabric. I wanted task lighting but knew I'd never spend the money to get the room rewired. Low and behold, I found this lovely light at Lowe's. It works perfectly for my small room. Each light swivels to where I need it. I'm very pleased with this find. There is one and a half problems with it though....the first is that the bulbs are very expensive ($8 each) and the half problem is that they give off quite a bit of heat. Obviously this is a half problem because in the winter I'm happy they give off heat but in the summer I might not feel so happy about it!

Well, I'm happy about my room right now. I'm hoping to get my sewing supplies a bit more organized tonight and do a bit of sewing this weekend. I have a few small projects in mind.

Comfort

I finally got around to making some pillows to go with the cushion on my blanket chest. I wanted a spot for Mike and the kids to sit when I was sewing, to read, do homework or just chat with me. When we decided to move, I wanted to be closer to everyone by not having a separate sewing room. That didn't quite work out with the way our house was arranged. So I thought I'd make the room more inviting.I'm fairly pleased with the way these turned out. I'd like to make a few smaller pillows with contrasting fabrics to offset the bold prints. I don't quite know if I'll ever get around to it. Mostly, I have found the cats sleeping on the cushion so it is of course covered in cat hair, which means whoever sits on it is also covered in cat hair. Darn cats. Why do we love you so much?

Now, looking at this picture, I want to paint the room. It really doesn't take much to paint the rooms in this house since they are so small. I must paint the bathroom first since I am going to use the same paint as the dining room. I'm hoping to work on that project tomorrow. I'll let you know if I have the gumption.

House Work

It has been a busy week. This was really the first full week of summer that I didn't have any other obligations. It may be the last week of the summer that way as well. Next week I begin working four hours a day, three days a week as an aide in a classroom of high school aged autistic students. I am looking forward to the opportunity but not so much the having to be at work by 8am part. It is difficult to get back into the working world after being at home but it is necessary. At least I am able to get back into the groove slowly.Since I had a week off, I promised the boys that I would de-rose their room. They had one full wall of rose wallpaper and three walls of rose border. I think whoever applied the wallpaper did so with super glue. The wall of paper came off in one day. Yes, one wall, one day. I thought the border couldn't be too much worse. I was wrong. That paper didn't want to come off for anything. I used orange remover, I used DIF, I used a Paper Tiger, I used a scrubby sponge, I used all the muscles I had and it just wouldn't come off. Finally I used the sander. It still took quite a while and a ton of muscle but I got it off! Tomorrow Mike will paint the room. I'm so glad we have complementary talents. I destroy, he restores. It is a match made in heaven.
The above picture is what I see every time I go upstairs. The downside to having a small house is that when we do these "little" projects, there isn't a whole lot of space to put all the extra stuff you have to move around. It motivates me to finish quickly.

The bulletin boards and mirror and others extras from the boys walls are in my sewing room. I have been motivated to finish my quilt along so I piled everything on the blanket chest and worked around it. Here's what I see in my sewing room:I plan to border the white with one row of squares and then maybe another narrower white border. Time will tell. It is hot today and so I promised the boys we'd go to the pool. They are amusing themselves in the back yard with ten boxes of popping fire crackers. Tomorrow is a swim meet for Nolan so he and I will be gone most of the day. The good side of being gone all day is that when we get home, the boys room should look amazingly different. I love when that happens, when I return to an amazing transformation. It is sort of like reading blogs, I get to see all the results without having to endure all the time it takes to get there!

Happy Friday, folks.

Home and Busy

It has been a whirlwind here the past few weeks. We are all moved in our new home and we love it! Most of the boxes are unpacked but not exactly in their proper places. We don't want to repaint the whole house in a month but we did want to rip out the carpeting that is in the house. Of course it makes sense to paint before ripping the carpet just to preserve the floors underneath. So I spent time last week ripping down wallpaper and scrubbing off wallpaper paste. Did I mention scrubbing? This word is an understatement. That wallpaper paste is nasty stuff! Wow, what a job. I think it took longer to get the walls prepped than it did to paint them. Of course, my fantastic hubby did most of the painting. He is a much neater painter than I am. Then again, I spent the hours yesterday in the yard fighting with the ivy. I have quite a pile of yard waste to get rid of. It is a lovely yard and I'll try to get some pictures for you soon. We have many birds, a bunny and about 6 cats that wander through.

This first shot is of the dinning room. The color inspiration comes from this post. I ordered Amy Butler's Lotus Flower Cherry fabric for the curtains. We pulled up the carpet yesterday (ok, I pulled up the carpet and padding and took out the carpet tack, swept and washed the floor....Mike was painting the living room). The floors are in decent shape but not super. They are beautiful though. I don't know that we'll refinish them right away. We're tired.
Mike spent the afternoon painting the living room. I love a yellow living room. This is our third house and the third time we've painted the LR yellow. I am so thankful that Mike is such a non-complaining work horse. He lets me pick the colors, too. He should be done with the second coat of paint today and we'll peel back the rest of the carpet this week. We have our piano in storage during this process. I think the kids are enjoying their hiatus from piano practice just a little too much!