Archives for November 2011

Sewing Room Update

Warning: I like to take pictures of things at angles. So I have been spending way too much time on Facebook Pinterest lately. As a result, I have purchased the below products in an attempt to refinish our dining room/office/sewing room chairs (translation: paint them black). Evidently this can be done with ease using the below products – Liquid Sander and SPRAY PAINT! Moreover, it seems everyone on Pinterest uses spray paint for just about everything. The PIN I found took me to a blog where she used these items to re-do a couple of chairs. She also did some sanding and applied gel stain with a Q-tip for a worn look, but I haven’t decided if I’m going to attempt that part yet. The total on the items below: less than 15 bucks.

Here are the chairs (before). These are old dining room chairs that I’ve used as “work” chairs since 2007, so if I ruin them it’s no biggie. We debated on rolling office type chairs, so if this goes south that’s what we’ll do. Always have a Plan B!

I ordered a couple of yards of the below Waverly fabric (from Joann) to recover the chair cushions. I’m hoping the green matches our desks, and I’m hoping the black will tie in the bulletin board, chairs, etc. I also love the orange, yellow & blue and may do something else with those colors down the road (cover my ironing board?). We’ll see! When I get the fabric I will be able to decide if it is going to be too busy for the chairs or what. If it is, I’ll use it somewhere else and coordinate chair fabric with this. AND….. our hammer, screw driver and mini electric drill have been busy busy busy! Today I FINALLY hung my stabilizer shelf thingy from Michaels!! It only took me 3 months to do this. I am thinking there is enough room to add a tension rod for more stabilizer? I also hung my peg boards (2 out of 3). I need more hooks but am excited to now have my scissors and things close at hand. My Craftsman Tool Chest (former machine stand) houses all of my hoops, so this is my hoop surface (the top of the tool chest) where I “hoop” my items.

And (are you excited yet?)…. we hung my thread!! All of my fabric is housed in the baskets in the adjacent cubby, so I think this is a good place for my thread. I debated painting my thread stands, but for now they are au-naturelle which matches my PJAS Ikea baskets.

Clock, hung – check. Jeff has also agreed he needs a matching bulletin board for over his desk, and luckily open frames are 50% off at Hobby Lobby this week (and I have a 40% off coupon for the corkboard). I think this will balance out this wall and he can hang his golf ball collection on the left wall by his desk. The black thing in the upper right corner is our TV.

I also hung several things in Mallory’s room, closet and bathroom this weekend as well as a few things upstairs in the boys’ domain. The house is starting to feel more homey already! Still lots of work to do and stuff to hang, but this has a definite start!

Below are a few more pictures sent to me by my blog readers, and I hope I got the names right on the pics! The 2 fabric pics are of the same shelf, and I LOVED how organized and pretty it looks!

I believe these are fabric covered canvases, and the thread stands are stained and hang on them. Neat idea!

Ribbon stand – I believe she said her husband made this! It’s amazing what you can do with dowel rods.

Another shot of the fabric. Very cool! Thanks to these ladies who took the time to email me their pictures!

We have several new designs for this week and I hope to get them sampled and listed by Wednesday! Have a great week!!

P.S. On my last post about Mallory’s bedding, I totally forgot to mention that the font I used is Monogram Wizard Plus MASTER CIRCLE which is Alpha Pak 14. This is my #1 girl font for monogramming (3 letter monograms) and well worth the cost of the alpha pak! If you have MWP, you can get this font at Sewingmachine.com. Again, it is well worth the $39.99 for this font CD.

 

Thanks Blog Readers!

 Let me start by saying THANKS to all my blog readers for all of the wonderful, fun, exciting suggestions you made for my sewing room! I enjoyed the links, comments, photos, etc. and it’s got me motivated to actually do something! These first few photos were sent to me by Joy Wood, and I asked her if I could post them. She suggested other people send me pics to post so we could all get inspired! If you’d like to do so, email me at rosemarygulledge@appliquecafe.com! I also have a Sewing Room Board on Pinterest.

I LOVE the fabric displayed like this, but I am so afraid I have TOO MUCH and it would take me 3 years to do this. I also love the framed pegboard! There is a white frame similar to this at one of my favorite spots in town, Eastbrook Flea Market. Might have to go check it out! It looks like this one holds a lot of thread. Joy also mentioned that she likes having her fabric and thread close at hand (to her machine). The ribbon display is nice too!!

A closer look at the framed pegboard. You’ll notice she has her hoops and fast frames hanging from the bottom which is nice and organized! It would be nice to hang scissors too.

I also noticed that she has what looks like a black & white polka dotted covered ironing board! That is definitely on my list of things to do. I found some tabletop ironing board covers on Etsy, but then after looking at my ironing board, I realized the cream fabric that came on it is simply stapled, so that’s what I’ll do (when I decide on fabric). I think I paid less than $10 for my ironing board with a coupon at Bed Bath & Beyond. I took the wire iron rack off of mine.

The definite consensus was to a) paint our chairs and b) recover them. I’m going to ask Jeff is he’s OK with that, because we have looked at black office type chairs that ROLL. If we decide we’re OK w/ keeping these chairs, then that’ll be at the top of my list. Also debating on painting my thread racks (if I didn’t do the framed pegboard) ~ at one point I thought the natural look matched the baskets in my cubbies, but have seen them painted too on Pinterest. Also need to hang my clock, the picture of my precious children, and Jeff’s golf ball display. Hey, he needs SOMETHING that is HIS hobby since technically this is his office too….. Other suggestions were to get a matching bulletin board for his side and hoop some fabric in some embroidery frames (as seen on Pinterest – search “embroidery hoop”). Thanks for all of the great suggestions! Keep them coming!

I wanted to also share a few pics of Sissy’s bedroom. The green linen euro shams came yesterday, so all of her “bedding” is complete. As you can see by the pictures, I have the same fear-of-hanging issue as in our sewing room/office. A lady in town made her bed skirt, bolster pillow, euro shams and also the valance over her windows. The curtains came from the previous homeowner (and also matched her nursery fabric, which means all of her wall hangings will match!!)

I LOVE how it all turned out, and will probably look much better when I hang something on the wall. Her shower curtain is the same floral fabric as the bolster.

I, of course, monogrammed the shams. The only thing lacking in her room now is a dresser and a mirror for her bathroom. I feel like when I have those things on hand, I can actually F-I-N-I-S-H her room. The matelasse is from Ballard Designs (actually Ballard’s Backroom in Atlanta). For some reason I can’t commit to hanging anything until she has a dresser….

Thanks again for all the GREAT comments and suggestions! I’m making mental notes of all of them! I’ll keep you all posted on my progress…

Sewing Room Update (Help!!)

Today was our final “wrap up” day at the house. Renovations are D-O-N-E for a while until we do our master bathroom. One of the last things they have been working on is our front door and they finished today. I would say it’s quite an improvement! 

This was the cheaper reno alternative to them completely removing the front door to refinish it. Basically they cleaned it and scrubbed it, then re-stained it with a type of Gel Stain. Today they coated it with polyurethane. It looks a ton better! Now that they are done and Jeff has pressure washed the front porch and front walkway, add to our list planters for the front porch. The “list” is 3 miles long and never ends….. You all know what I mean! It. never. ends.

And when you walk in our new front door and take an immediate right, you find our lovely office/sewing room. Not much has changed and I.am.frustrated. I have not been able to commit to hanging anything yet (which also goes for the rest of the house). Love my Expedit cubby and need more baskets. I need to hang my thread, my clock, my stabilizer rack, anything and everything else… We have hung my bulletin board and the TV. That’s it.

Still have fabric in these plastic bins, which is why I need more of the PJAS baskets for the cubby. My 5000M spool thread rack is still on the floor.

Thread stands…. not where they should be! The baskets do house my fabrics and they are organized still in to categories: colors w/ white polka dots (big dots), multi colored dots, pin dots, fat ginghams, regular ginghams, microchecks, boy fabrics, girl fabrics, etc etc etc. I know which basket has which fabric in it and I can also see through the triangle handle.

It’s hard to tell time when your clock is hiding in a basket. My stabilizer rack/shelf thingy is still resting on my tool chest.

Still got the old dining room chairs with red cushions. Jeff has nothing hung over his desk. His golf ball collection sits on the floor.

HELP!!!! What do I need to do?? When I’m faced with so many little projects, I tend to freeze up and avoid doing anything! I painted this room white so it would be a clean slate. I would use thread and fabric and all that fun sewing stuff to color the room, or that’s what I told myself. I’ve had my eye on these fabrics (from Joann), but what would I do with them?

 

Help!!!! Any suggestions?? The hours spent on Pinterest have not helped me. I just keep pinning things and then realize how un-crafty I am. Do I need to call HGTV? TLC? Is Trading Spaces still a show? help…..