And Sew Forth: My Sewing Room

When we first moved here at the tail end of 2004, the walls of the east side of the two-room basement were green. That's my brother Mike helping Bill put together a satellite dish.

Bill used the sewing room as a sort of staging area for cutting boards when he covered the bottom part of the ping pong room wall with barn wood. What a mess!

We painted the walls of-white and I moved my sewing supplies into that room.

This shot, above, was taken looking north. The washer and dryer are now to the right in this picture. I want to get the orientation right, and have chosen the washer and dryer as a sort of fulcrum for orientation. 

The doorway to the right in this shot leads to the other room in the basement, what shall from henceforth be known as the ping pong room. This area, seen in this shot, would eventually become an office area. The washer and dryer - though not seen in this shot - are to the left of this view.

Looking north again, you can see the window. I changed my sewing stuff around willy nilly for months, trying to get happy and satisfied with my new sewing area, but that washer and dryer were still visible to me as I sewed. I finally decided to ask Bill to build a half-wall to cover my view of the appliances. An artist has to have a nice place to work, right? I use the word 'artist' advisedly: I've been called an artist before but I'll let you decide that for your own self!

After Bill put barn wood in the ping pong room, he had some wood left over, so we build a wall to hide the appliances from the ping pong room. That half-wall is visible in the far reaches of this shot, above.

There's that barn wood half-all....

and below you'll see that half-wall from the ping pong room:

Beautiful barn wood....

The half-wall is peeking out on the right side of this shot, above. Notice that the washer and dryer were still in sight as I sat to sew. (The stove eventtually went into the other, ping pong room, where we have a full kitchen.)

When someone gave my husband a bunch of plywood, he quickly added it to the walls, covering the cement block in my sewing room. The ceiling would be our next project. But in the meantime, I continued to lobby for a half-wall that would hide the washer and dryer...

Ahhh. That's better! Half wall in place . . . .to hide the appliances from view as I work in my sewing room

Paint! Those walls needed some paint! And my thoughts were never far from my latest obsession to-date: lighting. I had to have better lighting in my sewing room......

But first, paint on the plywood would be nice, eh?!

I called these my 'watermelon walls,' and you can see why! I hated that painted trim, and soon came up with a better look for that part of the wall. But back to the watermelon effect: That was accomplished by putting two colors of green in the same roller pan, and rolling them both at the same time. The top part of the wall was painted in an up and down fashion, while the lower part of the wall was scrumbled - I moved the roller in all directions to get the mottled look.

We eventually added two bookcases at the northern end of the room, with room behind them for storage. I eventually, attached fabric-covered wood to the fronts of those bookcases, effectively turning them backwards, so as to hide my fabric stash.

This shot, above, shows the second bookcase. Also seen in these last two shots is the flower border, one I fashioned from copies of a real flower from our garden.

The fabric room divider hides the area behind the bookcases, an area used for storage. 

Somewhere along the line, we added ceiling tiles to cover the joists. During this time, too, I put the word out that I was looking for fluorescent lights. Our son Bob came through: He called one day to let me know he'd seen an ad in his work newsletter; someone had light for sale. Our sons Bob and Allen helped their dad install 28 feet of fluorescent lights along one wall of my sewing room. The tables, seen in the shot above, were covered with floor tiles, to match the black-white-and-color color scheme that was slowly gaining ascendancy in my sewing room.

I think I'll stop here, for this post. I plan to post a second installment of my sewing room metamorphosis. I think I'll call the second portion: And Sew On: More Shots from My Sewing Room.  

For Part II of the sewing room remodel, click on the link below.

http://redoredux-faywray.blogspot.com/2013/03/and-sew-forth-continuing-saga-of-making.html

Pass-Through

One day, oh, about 6 years ago, I was walking around in our kitchen trying to figure out something new I could do to that room. I first thought about moving the fridge against a different wall, but that wouldn't work, I decided, because there that would have put the fridge up against a baseboard heater. Then I thought about tearing down the wall between the kitchen and the living room, but I quickly discounted that idea because it would entail messing with electrical wires and such - plus that wall could be a load-bearing wall, I further opined. Then it hit me: We could put a pass-through on that one wall, the wall  between the kitchen and the living room. 

It's a good thing this pass-through idea was a good one because shortly after I suggested the idea to Bill I heard his reciprocating saw buzzing and went in to investigate and found a gaping hole in the wall!

He soon had that hole trimmed with beautiful barn wood, though, and I heaved a sigh of relief: That heretofore dark corner of the kitchen was transformed by the pass-through of light from the living room. 

Oh, and a bonus: People in the kitchen could now see into the living room. Cool! 

My Dad - one of our biggest cheerleaders in re to any remodeling we did - came to see us one day shortly after the pass-through went in, and he suggested we take pictures and use the pass-through as a sort of frame. So that's what we did. 

But this project was not over yet: I had the idea to add some gingerbread at the top of the new opening. After I came up with a pattern, Bill insisted that there was NO WAY he could cut such an intricate pattern in hard wood.

The next day when I got home from work, Bill presented me with a gift: He'd rough-cut the design in wood, and it was lovely.

Now it was my turn to do some work: I got busy with my rotary tool, shaping and smoothing tho rough-cut edges of the trim. 

Why, there's Dear Bill, coating the pass-through with polyurethane.....

Eventually this wall would be covered with barn wood - our intention for that wall all along - but that's another story for another day. 

Bye for now.

Susan

Bingo Ball Plant Holder

So I'm at this rummage sale one day . . . . . when I spot something brass sitting on one of the tables. It was round. It was brass. I investigated....

It was a brass bingo thingie - the thing used to jumble the bingo tiles pieces for the person calling the numbers in a bingo game! The price was right - they only wanted a dollar for it - but I have a policy: I don't buy anything at a yard sale for which I don't have a specific plan. 

So I circled this thing, then I decided I would check out the rest of the rummage sale and if the bingo ball was still sitting there when I got back, I would buy it. And, oh, by then I did have a plan: Use it as a planter....

I bought the thing - of course I did - and then I found an old rubber ball at another yard sale; I turned the ball inside out so the black inside color showed. I scrunched the rubber ball into the bingo ball and added dirt and a plant.

Voila! 

I eventually hung the bingo ball from the trim of a bookcase.

Copper Soffit

When I found a copper-clad blind at a second-hand store one day, several years ago, I was stunned by its beauty. I was standing in the aisle, checking out this blind, asking total strangers as they walked by, 'Is this COPPER?' I'd never seen anything like it before. I thought I would buy it ($3.99), take it home, cut off the slats and apply them to the soffit in the kitchen - apply it to the area between the top of our cupboards and the ceiling.

But my plans changed when I got home and found out that the blind just fit our dining room window, width-wise. So our son Allen helped me install it. It was a bit long, but I just left the extra slats puddled at the bottom. Then, some time after we installed this blind, I was walking through the dining room when it suddenly occurred to me that there might be enough extra slats to re-implement the original plan for that blind: Maybe I could have a copper soffit after all....

Long story short: I removed those extra slats, cut the slats to fit above the cupboards, and hot-glued them in place. I almost ran out of slats, so I had to start using the parts of the slats that had holes in them. I remedied that situation by strategically placing the holes so that, when I covered them with pieces of slatting, it looked like a weave of sorts!! I'm am sooooo funny!!!

The whole project pleased me no end. If you were to walk into our kitchen, you might not consciously notice the copper soffit; but it adds a certain . . . . ambience, if you will. Plus, you know, it's unique: Not many people have a copper soffit!!!!