The Goodbye Tour: Anna's Room

I have photos from a few more rooms of the old house still sitting in my blog drafts (just for a mere 6 months since our move...) so I want to finish up the "good-bye tour" before it's ancient history!

(If you're just joining us, this blog was originally the renovation diary of our 1890s era house in Ithaca, NY that had seen some better days!  We moved this summer and are currently house-sitting for a family who is abroad and hope to buy a new house/project this spring).

Anna's room (originally the sewing/guest room) was the most significant renovation we did aside from the kitchen.  It was our first experience with taking a room down to the studs, and our first go at drywall (the final bumpy walls proved that ;) )

Here's the room when we moved in:  My sister called it the "birthplace of Abraham Lincoln" (perhaps inspired by the falling-down wood paneling?  We can't be sure.

We had some wonderful help from friends and family with demolition and insulation.

Sanding, and sanding, and sanding, and sanding.  There's a reason that no one likes to do drywall!

Primer!

Paint!

Decor, Round 1!

 

And then, we found out we were having a little girl, and it was transformed into a nursery:

 Anna still asks from time to time " 'member old house?"  It's still bittersweet for sure to see these pictures, but my trust is growing by the day that in His time God will show us our new home.  I'm just excited to find it and get started making it our own, too :)  Also, it's going to be like Christmas morning when I get to open all of our storage boxes!  I look at these pictures and keep thinking "oh yeah!  I forgot about that thing!"

 But back to the renovation.  Here's old posts chronicling this transformation:

Removed the wood paneling and old lathe, gutting the room to the studs
Added new insulation
Hung & finished drywall
Primed & painted
Had carpet installed
Furnished & decorated a guest/sewing room
Upgraded to a nursery

 And one more time:

See more "good-bye tour" posts HERE and the whole house tour HERE.

Quick Takes: Edition 11

1. I feel like I start every Friday Quick Takes post with "wow, it's Friday again!"  Our November schedule is jam-packed (primarily with good things!) so I feel like time is going to fly even quicker.  We just were watching some baby Anna videos this evening, which is such a good reminder to cherish the moments that are going by so quickly!

2. You'll (those of you interested in learning to sew, at least!) be pleased to know that I finished taking pictures for the third learn-to-sew post.  In addition to my standard procrastination techniques, this took so long because I had to get out my other sewing machine.  Remember how I told you that the first item you should have is a machine in good working order?  Weelllll, I've been using a machine for two years now that doesn't do back-tack (you'll learn in the upcoming post that it's a fairly essential stitch).

Tired old machine...it's (finally) headed into the shop, I think.

I figured it important for the tutorials to have correct-looking stitches, so I dug the other machine out from the back of my craft closet.  And then, once I got it out and realized how much fun it is to sew on a completely working machine (and a newer one that does fancy embellishing stitches at that!) I got carried away and did 3 or 4 other projects before taking the pictures for the post.  So, I'll say it one more time...it's coming...soon?

3. I would actually work on writing it now, but the camera cord is downstairs and the camera is in my bedroom.  Under normal circumstances this wouldn't create such a problem, but we've got a house-full of company - with people currently sleeping in each of those locations!  I love having a houseful of guests (right now we have 4 generations under one roof, isn't that cool?!) but the room layout of our house isn't ideal for people of varying bedtimes.  Justin and I are both typing (as quietly as possible) in Anna's dark bedroom where we're camping for the weekend :)  As sad as I will be to move from this house (probably this summer...), there are certain things that make me look forward to a new place.  Like - a guest room!

4. My sister emailed me these pictures a few days ago, and I wanted to give her a shout-out because I was so impressed by the creativity she and her roommate had in their Halloween costumes.  She tells me that they found the cute sandals first and were brainstorming what costumes they could create to justify purchasing the shoes!

Cotton candy!  So clever.  My sister is the pink one.  (The pink one who apparently got all of the good hair genes in our family.)

5. Seeing the fun they had with their costumes reminded me...(do I sound like "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie" yet?)  Here's a throw-back picture from college - my dear friend and I were "roommates with two rooms."  We were both RAs so we had single rooms, but we were practically attached at the hip.  Thus - salt and pepper!

(Also, HAPPY BIRTHDAY (yesterday), friend!!  A better gift than this shout-out will make it your way...eventually!)

6. Tomorrow morning I will wake up and remember 10 things that I meant to include in this post, but right now I'm stalling out at 5 quick takes.  I should follow suit with some of the other bloggers who (intelligently) collect snippets throughout the week instead of relying on memory to write them all Friday.

7.  Oh - this is noteworthy - we finally have a Hobby Lobby in Ithaca.  Scratch that.  WE HAVE A HOBBY LOBBY!  I'm excited enough for all caps :)  I've showed impressive restraint in not going yet in the week it's been open, but I'm not sure how long that will hold out....I've finished a decent number of projects recently (and have a post in the works - inspired by a friend - about finishing the large number of unfinished projects that seem to accumulate when you're a crafter), so maybe we'll call that justification for a little shopping trip :)

Linking up with Jen.  Talk to you all soon.

Sewing Room progress, part 2

I will start with a disclaimer: although most of you know the room in this post as the "sewing room / guest room," I must disclose that its more formal name, according to some members of the family, is "Maura's bedroom."  You can probably guess which member of the family initiated that name.

Luckily, Maura (my sister) is happy with the updates I made this week to her room.  (I gave her a preview via text message, given that it's her room and all).

In the sewing room progress part 1 post, you saw several messy corners.  Here's one of them, circa yesterday at 5 pm.  (Check out the House Tour tab at the top of the blog to see it 11 months ago compared to now!)

 It's no wonder I haven't been sewing much recently.  I could barely find the sewing machine, let alone the rest of my tools!

Here's the same space today:

I've been dreaming of shelves and a bulletin board for a long time now, but I seemed to be in a decision paralysis.  It's a strange phenomenon of freezing for small decisions.  I wrote about it before - it took me far longer to select outlet covers than it did to select paint colors.

Yesterday, I attended a conference in Elmira, NY (about 45 minutes south of us).  Besides being an interesting and educational meeting, I also got to go to Hobby Lobby.  Hobby Lobby is a really cool craft store that is ALMOST cool enough to justify driving the 45 minutes just to go there.  But that would be a very bad economic decision, first because of gas prices, and second because of how much I enjoy Hobby Lobby.

Seeing as I was in the neighborhood, though, I indulged in an aisle-by-aisle look at the amazing selection of furniture, home decor, fabric, craft supplies, etc, etc, etc.  The 50% off signs in the "wall decor" section made me bite the bullet and select some shelves.  I didn't expect to find a better deal elsewhere, and I liked the styles, I reasoned.  Plus, a 45-minute drive is too far to get home and wished you had bought something.

Of course, once I took the first step on this project, I was suddenly emblazoned with confidence on picking items.  My cart quickly filled up with a cork board, fabric to cover it, a thread rack, a picture frame, and a glass jar.  I had to make a few guesses in terms of sizes and colors, but thankfully everything looks great now that it's up!

This is a cross-stitch picture done as a wedding gift from our friend Ashley. Doesn't it fit in perfectly!  The shelves contain a mixture of pretty and functional items, that add up to a space that makes me want to hang out ~ and much easier for me to complete projects!

Tonight, I whipped up a little sunglasses case.  I like to think of it as a case in point.  Get it?  Case?  Oh....I should write blog posts earlier in the evening, before I get tired and silly!

You may be wondering how the other corners of the room are faring.

Lilly has some company now, in the form of a storage ottoman from Target, a lamp from Lowes (a birthday present from my mom & dad), and a beautiful papercutting (a birthday gift from my Aunt Clare!)

She cut this all from a sheet of paper, pretty cool, huh?

My favorite part is that she selected the color for the matte by studying Lilly on the blog :)  Definitely incentive to keep posting!!

The worst corner of the room was this side, which was a general junk pile.

You may remember my pleas for a good Craigslist find, not to mention my recent teaser about a project.  Well, it's still not done, but there has been some definite progress!

Final completion of this project hinges on me finding, well, the hinges.  (Jeesh, again with the late night puns.  Sorry!)  I could have sworn that they were in one of the drawers, but they apparently migrated to the basement with the leftover paint.

The dresser was, in fact, a $45 Craigslist find.  It came a long way with some paint and new hardware

All in all, the sewing room Maura's bedroom decor makes me more and more excited about spending time up here.  I'll be back with more progress updates.  For now, it's off to bed, lest any of my too-tired puns make their way into my 8:30 AM presentation tomorrow morning.

Sewing room progress

Tonight, I spent a fabulous evening in my cozy sewing room.  While hubby did this:

I made this:

Having a cozy chair like Lilly ended up being a great idea.  Even if it did mean I was listening to a sniper movie while I crafted, it was awfully nice just to have Justin close by (can you tell I'm still getting over two long years of a long-distance relationship?!)

Anyway, I have been wanting to make a wreath like this for a while.  I wrapped a straw wreath with yarn, and made some felt flowers

With the ideas from a few tutorials like this and this and this, the flowers were actually very easy - and lots and lots of fun.  I enjoy projects that can be completed in one sitting.  Come to think of it, given our recent renovations, I enjoy projects that can be done sitting down, period!  And these little flowers sure make me smile!

I hung the wreath on the door to the closet here in the sewing room.  It's one more little step towards having the room decorated.

Notice also my fabulous new night stand, which I found at TJ Maxx:

Yes, the book on the night stand is "Everything I Know I Learned from Home Improvement: The Do-It-Yourselfer's Guide to Life."  The drawings are super sweet, as are the sentiments.

With this week's updates, the guest room side of the guest room/sewing room is starting to take shape:

I'm going to work on making an upholstered headboard for the bed, adding a dust ruffle, figuring out a way to disguise that ugly brown lamp cord, and making some pretty pillows. 

So although that corner of the room is taking shape, obviously there's a little more work to be done here:

Right now, this is the dumping ground/storage area for everything craft-related and otherwise homeless items.  I dream of a long dresser something like this:

Image from Pottery Barn Teen

But since I do not dream of that price tag, I'm waiting for something similar to pop up on craigslist.  I found a nice brown one today, and I'm hoping to hear back from the seller that it's still available.  Although I'd probably paint it, the $50 price tag sure beats the $899 (plus shipping) price of the one above!

I am also scheming about how I can decorate the corner that my sewing machine calls home:

I'm thinking some shelves (for decorative storage of things like thread, buttons, etc), as well as a bulletin board.  Also, some obvious clutter control!

I'm debating whether to use this fabric my sister helped me choose for curtains (as intended) or for the cover to the bulletin board. 

I'm leaning towards a bulletin board cover, because I have a few other thoughts in mind for curtains...

so stay tuned for that decision and more!  And, in the meantime, please schedule some time to come stay in our guest room!  We love having company :)

Movin' on up!

The day you thought would never come is here.  We are upstairs residents of our house!  I believed that this day would come, but many others (including my husband, at times) were skeptical that it would come - at the very least, skeptical that it would be in 2011!

So, granted, we blew through my initial deadlines of wedding...Christmas...Valentine's Day...BUT we got in just under the wire to meet my "end of February" final deadline.

Check out how happy this makes us:

Yes, folks, we're laying on the upstairs floor.  Remember, the one that looked like this less than 24 hours ago:

And looked like this when we moved in:

The incredible improvements we've seen over the last six months were cause for snow angels (carpet angels??) today:

Soooooooo excited.

We're also pretty excited to corral our clothing collection from our overloaded (and less-than-sturdy) garment rack to our bonafide master bedroom closet!

Justin re-hung the doors to the closet (and we subsequently hauled our belongings upstairs) shortly after I snapped this picture.  We also wrestled our mattress up the narrow stairway, and are excited about spending our first night in our master bedroom!

Goodbye, dusty, dirty upstairs.  Goodbye, late-night crashes from the falling-over garment rack.  Goodbye, bed in the den.  Goodbye, desk in the kitchen.  Goodbye, old house.

Hello, former glory.  Hello, dream upstairs!