The Sunroom Revealed

I am ready to reveal the results of our whirlwind sunroom renovation! Last post I gave you a couple of pathetic pictures and called them clues, but now I am ready to show you the room in its almost-finished state.

First off, remember what it looked like at first? Covered in knotty pine paneling, topped by a dusty drop ceiling, and making me crazy with its general lackluster appearance?

Well. In my opinion, no one could call this room "lackluster" now, after my husband's hard painting work and my very determined attempts to infuse more color and vitality into the space, I think we have a keeper. Here is the sunroom now, as viewed from the living room:

A few things about this picture:

• The walls were first primed with Olympic's low-odor/zero VOC primer, then painted Olympic's Lotus Flower in low-odor/zero VOC satin. The ceiling is the same paint in South Pacific. I cannot imagine not painting in low odor, since I nearly fainted from the vapors. This may just be pregnancy drama.
• I found that "quilt" at a garage sale last week and fell in love with it. I say "quilt" because it's like someone put in all the work but then never finished it, backed it, etc. But hey! They did the piecing and that's all that matters to me. This scrappy piece of fabric has been a great inspiration for color for this room.
• I've had that chair for about a year now. I picked it up at a garage sale for $3, thinking it would be a great way to try reupholstering, and it's been languishing in the basement until now. By removing the kids' toys we had space for seating (which is glorious), and this chair ended up being the perfect addition. It does still need to be reupholstered, as the fabric isn't in the greatest shape, but the chair itself is solid and happy. And it makes us think of The Professor's grandparents' old chairs, which Janie now has in her house.
• Oh, that pillow:

You guys were right, it was a tree! I loosely followed this tutorial, and it ended up being a great way to use up fun fabric scraps and add some punchy color to my home. I am still learning that green and blue can be friends. Yes, you are allowed to marvel at my stupidity. That's fine.

Anyway! More room. Here is where I have my sewing table and dresser-o-fabric-and-notions against the windows on the north side of the house:

Now I get TONS of natural light, and that coupled with the new paint scheme might just help me from getting so severely depressed in the long winter months, as I usually do. (I mean, really, winter is so long.) I found that lamp for $3 at another sale last week. It is wonky and the switch might be going out, but that is okay, as it works well for good light for now.

Behind the sewing table is my childhood desk, now housing The Professor's large childhood shelf:

(A note: A couple of people have asked about the shade in the window behind the piano (which weighs a million pounds and will never move from this spot. Ever.) I keep that window shaded at all times because that is a west-facing wall; thus, if left open, the window would let in tons and tons of bright, hot afternoon sunlight, making the room approximately ninety-zillion degrees in the summer and also fading the piano and carpet and everything. The end.)

I wish the desk and shelf didn't have to be right behind the sewing table, but this is a small room, and this wall is the only one without a window, thus forcing the bookshelf here. We're at peace with this. My father-in-law built this shelf years ago, and it has always been black. I fell in love with this shelf before I ever fell in love with my future husband, and I coveted it when I first saw it in his college dorm room. I was thrilled to inherit it in our senior (or was it junior?) year, when he realized that my love for this shelf was greater than his love for this shelf, and I happily integrated it into my apartment decor. We used it faithfully until we moved into this home, when there didn't seem to be any need for it, and it (along with the yellow chair) sat sadly in the basement, waiting for the day last week when I would wander down, see it, and say, "Oh my heck, how did I forget about this, it will be perfect!"

So The Professor slapped some blue paint and some varnish on it (varnish since there will be so much moving-about on it, thus creating scuffs on a non-varnished shelf), attached some felt to the bottom, positioned it on the desk, and anchored it to the wall. Hurrah! More fabulous storage!

Don't worry, I'll fill that sucker up. Hopefully with more Shakespeare/Paris paraphernalia, because that makes sense.

Here's a closer shot of the ceiling, since maybe you didn't get that it's now BLUE:

The blue was my mom's idea, and I will forever be in her debt for such a fabulous suggestion. We are searching high and low for a new light fixture but having little luck in our town. Ideally I want to find a low-profile, teeny-bladed ceiling fan in a dark wood tone to complete the bungalow-ish look, but no luck so far.

We also need to find a few more wall hangings, and I'd like to whip up some feminine valances out of the many different types of vintage linens I like to find and hoard. For now, we are enjoying our room, reveling in its beauty, and marveling at how a few coats of paint can completely transform a space.

(That weird circular thing next to the window an interior clothesline pull.

Ugly, but very necessary.)

Thanks for embarking on this tour of our room with me! If you have any suggestions/ideas, please feel free to leave them in the comments. I will feel free to ignore/make fun of you as I choose. This is what the blogger/reader relationship is all about, right?

And here's to more room renovations! Here's to more punches of color! Here's to finding beautiful wooden beadboard hidden behind ridiculously ugly drop ceiling tiles!

Blue Clues

I know it's been a week since I dropped the bomb of ZOMG BEADBOARD, but seriously, we've been working our bottoms off getting this room looking goooood. Well, actually, my husband worked his teeny bottom off all last week getting this room looking goooood while I dragged my slightly-larger-than-his bottom (seriously, people, I have borne so many children, and it's true what they say, everything changes) around corralling children who so desperately wanted to interact with their paint-covered Daddy. Mainly because he was covered in paint.

My exhausted bottom and I are not ready to reveal the sunroom quite yet, as we (now I'm talking about my husband and me, not my bottom and me) are still moving around furniture, doing last-minute touch-up paint, varnishing an awesome bookshelf, and just generally getting the larger details taken care of. But! I know you might be on the edge of your collective seat (no really, I imagine that no one has gotten any work done this week, just waiting for an update from the Cases), panting for pictures, so I will offer you this one, measly clue:




It's a good clue, I think.

You'll get pictures of the whole thing by the end of this week, as we have houseguests arriving this weekend and want as much as possible finished before they get in. Suffice to say, this sunroom is already a zillion times better than it was before, and I checked with my husband who has advanced degrees in Everything Science and Math and he says that this is a measurable fact.

Also, since B has been crying from a broken heart every dadgum 10 minutes (about nothing in particular--he's just having a very sensitive day), I have been unable to squeeze in a shower yet, so I'm wallowing in my own filth and getting lots of niggling little jobs done. Sewing in the sunroom is even more a delight and a joy than before (I'd say about a zillion times more), and I've used several spare minutes to whip up a fun project, which is seen here, in progress:





Can you guess what it is? It shouldn't be that hard. My 2-year-old identified it in like 3 seconds and it was inside out and all splootchy still.

Things are often rather splootchy around here, after all. It's our natural state.

Happy Tuesday!

How We Do Home Improvement Projects

Today The Professor and I decided that the kids' toys could be permanently moved into the various closets in their rooms upstairs, thus freeing up a tremendous amount of space in our, like, quadrupally-functioning sunroom. Until said toys were moved, the (smallish) sunroom had housed two large bookshelves of their toys, our piano, and several pieces of furniture devoted to sewing, including my childhood desk which serves to not only host my (non-functioning) serger, but also houses our office supplies.

We ask a lot out of the rooms in our bittyish house.

Culling, organizing, and moving their toys freed up a TREMENDOUS amount of space, and I am happy to announce that the sunroom is now mine ALLMINE and you must now refer to it as Christine's Supremely Happy Room of Creativity. Or just The Sewing Room. Or really the sunroom is fine, too. Whatever, as long as you visit.

This reorganization turned into a Give-a-Mouse-a-Cookie scenario, because as I was vacuuming up the space where the toy shelves used to be, in order to move my sewing-related furniture around, I sighed loudly and said, "I just wish we could paint this room this week, while you [The Professor, who was only half-listening] are taking time off." I turned off the vacuum, faced my husband, and then said, "Um. Could we do that?"

"What?"

"Paint the sunroom. This week."

He looked thoughtful for a moment. "Sure."

And just like that, we have a project on our hands. A project that entails changing the appearance of an entire room.

You might be thinking, Oh, it's just a little paint, no big deal. But no. It became more than that. Remember the mouse and his cookie?

First, here's how the room has looked for the last fifty years or so (um, minus our furnishings, obviously), with a little demo dust in the way and the light fixture swinging crazily from the ceiling:

Where I'm standing is another window, below which

the kids' toy shelves used to sit.

It's a small, narrow room, a late addition to our 1948 home, and we can only assume, from the knotty pine and the drop ceiling, that it was a 1960s addition. See that window in the left of the picture? That looks into our bedroom. So. That's awesome. And it makes us pretty certain that this was never an outdoor porch or anything, but simply a late add-on to the side of the home. The door that leads from our living room to the sunroom is a standard indoor door, and it's a fairly elaborate, glass-paneled door that is just like the other doors in our home (all original), so we're thinking it was never an outside door.

I'm sure that was all fascinating for you.

Anyway. We've lived in this house for over 3 years, and I've agonized over this dang knotty pine paneling. This is what it looks like up close:

It's paneling. So minus like a million points. BUT. It's actual wood. It's in great shape. It's not a completely pukey color, namely dark brown veneer. And I'm a BIG believer in preserving the integrity of your home, as long as those parts are nice and timeless. I just couldn't decide if this pine was timeless. I mean, no, it's not, obviously. But it's wood, and I recoil at painting wood. I just can't do it. You'll understand if you live in an old house with beautiful original wood trim and doors and such. It's a travesty.

So I've been debating this issue for three years, and finally decided, after several consecutive days of sewing and staring at these walls for hours at a time, that they needed to be painted. The room needed updating, and I just couldn't handle paneling any more. (My mom, who is a sage person, said, "Christine, it's not like it's oak or anything. It's knotty pine. Sure, it's wood. But it's knotty pine." And I think she has a very good point.)

Okay. Paint the walls. Good, we're there. We'll go with a nice off-white, leave the trim around the windows alone, and call it a day, right?

Wrong.

Look up. Above you.

That, my friends, is a drop ceiling. The love of all office spaces everywhere. Someone along the line (we are the third owners) decided that this, this was the answer to all their problems (I don't know what their problems were, but by golly, a drop ceiling would fix it), and now we are left with their legacy.

I hate drop ceilings with the burning passion of a thousand fiery suns.

The Professor and I have long wanted to replace/cover this ceiling with beadboard, but, never having torn apart ceilings before, we weren't really sure how to go about this. Should we tackle the ceiling now, when we paint? Or is it going to be a huge job? Is it a true drop ceiling, with just the guts of the house above us, or is it covering up a nasty original ceiling? We called in my dad, who has lots of experience with remodeling. And you know what my dad did? He said, "Well. Let's see what's underneath here."

So he pulled away the light fixture. And lo and behold.

There was beadboard. Solid wood beadboard.

I think my reaction was somewhere along the lines of "Holy [profanity, Batman!]" because honestly. This is insane. Reasons this is insane: A) I want beadboard, and there it is; B) it will require hardly any work on our part to expose said beadboard and make it look nice again; and C) SERIOUSLY PEOPLE WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU, COVERING UP SOLID WOOD BEADBOARD WITH SOME CRAPPY FAKE CORK VERSION OF A DROP CEILING. YOU SHOULD BE SHOT. WHY ARE YOU ALLOWED TO OWN HOMES AND RENOVATE THEM AND ALSO PROCREATE?

After our initial shock, there was much rejoicing. It was like when we were looking at this home when it was on the market and we tentatively pulled up a piece of carpeting and NO WAY there was solid wood underneath. I'm still dealing with that and will occasionally look down at my awesome [much dented, scratched, and badly in need of staining] hardwood floor and shout, to no one in particular, "WHO COVERS UP WOOD FLOORS WITH CARPET, I ASK YOU."

So! We completely bypassed the ceiling issue and just have to buy more paint. It became a simple project once more. And even though we aren't getting supplies until tomorrow evening, I was so worried that this beadboard would turn out to be, I don't know, water damaged or plastered in dead squirrels that I asked The Professor if he would please just pull the ceiling tiles down tonight so we can know exactly what we have on our hands.

And he very sweetly obliged.

And we have a completely intact, very wonderful, very solid wood beadboard ceiling.

Feel free to squee a little. All together now:

SQUEE!!

Scion

So. We had our ultrasound yesterday, and it went great, and baby looks healthy, Praise the Lord. We are blessed beyond measure. Truly, we are.

And I'd like to share a picture of this miracle with y'all, but the CD of pictures we were given is absolutely USELESS (or USFLESS, as I originally typed, there is not very much usf going on here, you guys) as it is not just photo files but an actual installation of the program used by the hospital ultrasound technicians to take and store and manipulate and label said ultrasounds.

And there is no way to, say, I don't know, COPY AND PASTE the dang pictures from this program. Which installs itself on your computer. When you insert the CD. Instead, I can store and manipulate and label my ultrasound pictures just like the professionals within the context of a very specific and user unfriendly computer program. Since I like to do that with my free time.

Where was I?

Oh, yes, also, I am too lazy to figure out (again) how to scan the few actual photographs we received, so you'll just have to believe me when I say, "You guys, it's a baby. Hurrah! You know, it's just like any ultrasound picture. You should google that, because seriously, it's just like a skeleton."

Also: it's a boy.

Yay! We like them.

You Guys, It's Suddenly Pretty Hot

Yesterday the temperature hovered around 90. So we played outside until around 8 o'clock at night, enjoying our dinner on the patio, the sandbox, our weedy lawn, and the joy of getting as dirty as humanly possible.

Today we are exhausted by the heat (which has again returned), so we are holed up in our cool, dark house (no air conditioning yet!), playing with matchbox cars, and wearing only our underwear. Well, at least the kids are only wearing their underwear. I have to be dressed, since one of you jokers might decide to ring the doorbell at any moment.

And just so you're not too impressed, I am still officially The Worst Mother of Redheads Ever, only belatedly remembering to slather them in sunscreen, after the sun has already turned their delicate skin a bright shade of pink.

I am so thankful King Peter the Boy is a Tanbaby.

Happy Mother's Day!

J, King Peter the Boy, Mama, Unnamed Baby #4, and B

A story worth repeating: This morning I snagged J as he raced downstairs, fresh out of bed, and forced him to cuddle. (He isn't a cuddler these days.) He kicked, protested, and laughed, but mainly protested, before finally shouting, "I don't want to cuddle with you, Mama--I just want to look at you!"

I feel so loved.

Eventually I Get to a Sewing Project

I'll start this post by showing you my azaleas as they looked this past week:

Let that lovely sight serve to inform you how happy, how beautifully happy, I have been this week, despite a seriously bad cold, the charge of five sick children, and an entire week without any other adult aid. I love plants, I love spring, and I swear these azaleas are getting more and more beautiful every year. (Although photographic evidence really just says that they're great every year.) Thank you, Mrs. Dorothy, for doing something right.

On that tra-la-la-springtime! note, let me show you something I've made. Well, first, let me direct you somewhere good and helpful: Raechel's most recent blog post, which features a great tutorial for a baby bib. This is essentially the same way I make my shop's baby bibs, and it's how she makes hers, and really, it's a simple pattern you can't screw up. Well, maybe you can. I don't know.

Anyway, make a bib and enjoy its usefulness!

Her post, which includes a few pictures of her new sewing machine, made me realize that I hadn't ever shown you guys my new sewing machine, a Brother PC-420 PRW. I've had it (and have been using it consistently) for a couple months now, and I can say nothing but fabulous and praiseworthy things about it. It is a truly computerized machine, and it is often much, much smarter than I.

Here it is:

I can now sew easily and without the use of swears, which proves that it was definitely worth the money.

For full disclosure (and a little tangent), here is the drawer of my sewing table:

My mom will see this and say, "Christine. Have you never heard of a $5 desk drawer organizer?" And she will have a point.

For further full disclosure, here is what my sewing room looks like at this moment:

I might be slightly embarrassed by that one.

But! (and now we arrive, albeit rather ramblingly, to the point of this post) But! Have no fear, because the powers of my mess and my new sewing machine and a leetle bit of my brain have combined to make a darling skirt for King Peter the Boy, who refused to pose in it and therefore forced me to hang it on the wall and pretend there was a girl wearing it:

The pattern can be found here, and I'll tell you now, it's a good pattern. You can choose from any number of sizes (6 months through size 8) and any number of ruffles, and let me just say, please go with as many ruffles as possible. I would have done two more had I had the fabric. Although it took me, The Slowest Seamstress in the World, a million years to make it, it's the kind of project that definitely gets easier with familiarity. It fits great on King Peter (in a size 3T), and I'm planning on buying a ruffler foot for my machine to make the whole thing that much easier for me.

I will admit that I bought this pattern with the thought of, Hey, maybe it's something I could sell in my shop in then near future, and that's still a possibility. But without a ruffler foot and with my serger out of commission for the time being, I would have to charge a million dollars per skirt and also each one would take 3 months to make. So. There's that.

I am sewing more than that. I have several Etsy orders in the process of being made or sitting in the queue, plus a dress for King Peter half-way finished, plus a few alterations, plus...I don't know, there's always too much. And let me just say this: with my new sewing machine, I actually find it all a joy.

A joy free from swears. I would just like an Amen for that.

MORE Big News, Featuring My Sister the Goddess

I have something very exciting to tell you, and you're going to have to do without pictures, okay? Sorry, but I have none relevant to the subject. Just use your imagination.

Here goes:

My Sister the Goddess is pregnant, too.

I haven't told anyone that, and so that's exciting enough, right?

BUT. Here's the really funny and wonderful part of it:

We are due exactly one day apart from one another.

She is due to have her baby on October 12th; my due date is the 13th. Seriously, this is not a joke, and I still can't believe it, even though we've both known since sometime in early February.

This is how we found out: one Friday morning in February I took a pregnancy test that came out, as expected, positive. The Professor and I thought, oh, let's keep it quiet for a couple weeks this time, let's just enjoy this news ourselves. That evening, my sister called me and said, "Well, The Baby Goddess is going to have a little brother or sister!" And I said, "Congratulations! Um, me too."

We both shrieked for a couple minutes, then got down to business figuring out the timeline, at which point we discovered a few things: a) we had both found out on the same day; b) we had both likely conceived around the exact same time; and c) that meant that we were due at the same time. Whoa.

Seriously, it's like something out of a movie. And this week she saw her new doctor in her new town (because of course she moved very far away...sniff) and got an ultrasound and then called me and told me that I'm finally getting a NEPHEW. YAY. I mean, I love The Baby Goddess and I love my Junie B, but really, it is about time for some more boys around here.

So! That's our fabulously amazing news. Like I said, we've known for awhile, but I still have trouble believing it. My mother is over the moon, and I'm sure she's already working out how on earth she is going to lend aid to a daughter in town as well as to a daughter in Texas. I just wish my sister and I could be pregnant together, you know? It's hard to have her so far.

Oh, and I get my 18 week ultrasound in just under 2 weeks, and now that we know that she's having a boy, I am all the more excited to find out what new Case baby we have in store.

In conclusion, big hurrah!