Catching up with pictures
Every time I tell people about the work we're doing on the house, they say, "Take 'before' pictures! Document your work!" So we have.
One of the first things I did in preparation to move in, after giving the place a good scrub down, was to paint the living room. Mr. Unreserved did the spackling. In this picture, you may be able to tell that I was painting the ceiling:
This picture gives a general idea of how the living room fireplace side turned out.
That was taken after the floors were screened and polyurethaned and the new ceiling fan was installed. I'm still figuring out what to put on the mantle.
I didn't bother taking pictures of the kitchen. It merely went from yellow to beige, mostly to clean it up a little. I haven't yet taken the "after" pictures of our room yet, but that's on the list for a sunny day.
Since just after Christmas, I've been working in the girls' room.
Before:
And during:
In that picture I've painted the ceiling and touched up the plaster on the walls. It's far from perfect, but it'll do for now.
People ask me, "Where do you find the time to do all this?"
My secret:
Since I employ preschoolers as slave labor, it gives me more time to do crafty things.
I dyed a merino/soy silk blend of fiber with a dye kit from ProChem and Dye:
It sort of looked like a rainbow colon lying there on the rug like that. I spun it, Navajo plied it, and knit it using the "Palette" pattern from Knitty.
I like the way it came out, but I can't say I'd do it over again. I didn't really like the way the soy silk spun. I hope the recipient liked it!
Since I finished that project ahead of schedule, I was able to bail out my brother by knitting his assigned giftee a hat/scarf/fingerless gloves set:
I found the hat pattern free online here, and made the gloves and scarf to match.
I blocked that off, and moved on to my final hand-made Christmas gift - Dad's bar mirror. I purchased the mirror from Michael's, and the etching stencils and cream from Etch World. Gosh I love the internet. I used Word to help me with the layout and font for the center lettering, which was cut out of contact vinyl with an exacto knife. This was great fun! If you look closely in the reflection you can see the faux marbelized slabs of drywall we've employed to close off the fireplace until we can have the gas burning insert installed.
Don't worry, it's not all work and no play for the girls. I let them take a break from painting now and then:
And then there's nights like tonight, where I vow to put down the stencil brush for an evening and snuggle the kids until they fall asleep in my lap. Those are the best.
One of the first things I did in preparation to move in, after giving the place a good scrub down, was to paint the living room. Mr. Unreserved did the spackling. In this picture, you may be able to tell that I was painting the ceiling:
This picture gives a general idea of how the living room fireplace side turned out.
That was taken after the floors were screened and polyurethaned and the new ceiling fan was installed. I'm still figuring out what to put on the mantle.
I didn't bother taking pictures of the kitchen. It merely went from yellow to beige, mostly to clean it up a little. I haven't yet taken the "after" pictures of our room yet, but that's on the list for a sunny day.
Since just after Christmas, I've been working in the girls' room.
Before:
And during:
In that picture I've painted the ceiling and touched up the plaster on the walls. It's far from perfect, but it'll do for now.
People ask me, "Where do you find the time to do all this?"
My secret:
Since I employ preschoolers as slave labor, it gives me more time to do crafty things.
I dyed a merino/soy silk blend of fiber with a dye kit from ProChem and Dye:
It sort of looked like a rainbow colon lying there on the rug like that. I spun it, Navajo plied it, and knit it using the "Palette" pattern from Knitty.
I like the way it came out, but I can't say I'd do it over again. I didn't really like the way the soy silk spun. I hope the recipient liked it!
Since I finished that project ahead of schedule, I was able to bail out my brother by knitting his assigned giftee a hat/scarf/fingerless gloves set:
I found the hat pattern free online here, and made the gloves and scarf to match.
I blocked that off, and moved on to my final hand-made Christmas gift - Dad's bar mirror. I purchased the mirror from Michael's, and the etching stencils and cream from Etch World. Gosh I love the internet. I used Word to help me with the layout and font for the center lettering, which was cut out of contact vinyl with an exacto knife. This was great fun! If you look closely in the reflection you can see the faux marbelized slabs of drywall we've employed to close off the fireplace until we can have the gas burning insert installed.
Don't worry, it's not all work and no play for the girls. I let them take a break from painting now and then:
And then there's nights like tonight, where I vow to put down the stencil brush for an evening and snuggle the kids until they fall asleep in my lap. Those are the best.
