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

Sleep Tight: The Bedrooms

While our style is a bit subdued in the rest of the house, we cut loose color-wise in the bedrooms. My husband picked the color for our bedroom walls . . . .

. . . .  and Will picked the color for his bedroom. And people think that I use color liberally! Ha! 

A funny story: When Bill suggested, one hot summer morning, that we should paint Will's bedroom, I went along with the idea; I was eager to check that task off our to-do list. The problem was, it was very hot that day. So While Bill went in to start painting, I had a brilliant idea: I would paint naked! It was that hot! So I took off all my clothes and sauntered into Will's room, where Bill was busily rolling paint onto the walls. And, guess what? Bill was naked! He had the same idea I had. Well, you know, people do say that Bill and I work well together!! They don't know the  half of it.....

Paper Bag Wall

Shortly after we moved into this house - at the tail end of 2004 - my husband painted all the walls off-white. In the process, he painted over wallpaper that was on an L-shaped section of the kitchen wall. You guessed it: The wallpaper bubbled. Bubbles everywhere! HUGE bubbles!! (Not really; they just looked huge to me.) I was in a panic. I'd read somewhere that one can paint over wall paper, but only with oil-based paint. I guess we found out the hard way not to paint over wall paper with latex paint. What was I going to do with that wall? I suggested to my husband that we start looking for a barn that someone might give us, so we could cover that wall with barn wood. 

In the meantime - till we could get our hands on some barn wood - I covered the wall with brown wrapping paper. I got a couple rolls of paper at the local office supply store, tore the paper into chunks, and applied it to the wall with wall paper paste. After each chunk was in place, I scrunched it around a bit so that it had a texture. After the paper was on the wall, my family loved the look. But I told them, 'I'm not done yet!' 

Next, I put two colors of paint in one roller pan and rolled those two colors onto the wall in one operation. The result was wonderful, and my family loved the look . . . .

But I wasn't done yet: Next, I covered the wall with oil-based stain. The stain snugged itself into the cracks and crevices of the paper. 

After I tired of the orange paint, I painted that 'paper bag wall' with two colors of green paint - same technique: two colors of green paint in one roller pan. I liked the green, and so did my family. I experimented a bit when I applied the green paints; I ran the roller across the wall in such a way as to create a plaid effect. 

We eventually added a pass-through in that wall, and we eventually put barn wood over my paper bag wall, but in the meantime, I really had fun with this part of our kitchen wall. 

I'm so glad for those initial bubbles - glad for our error in decorating judgment - for, in the end, I had a lot of fun with that wall. In future entries, I plan to share photos of the pass-through and such.