Waterproof Wednesday

 It's been snowy and cold for most of the month and everyone is sick & tired of it. Me included. The thaw has finally started, with a nice slow melt. I've had to chop thru some thick ice to divert the water away from the house & the garage and it made me think of a project I did last fall.

Waterproofing the Michigan House deck. So needing to see a little green, instead of all this white, I'm sharing some project pics.

First a before picture from May.

Then during pictures from October.

Really glad I got the deck waterproofed before this winter, since snowfall totals are a but higher than normal. We have some boards that need to be replaced but all in all, the heavy power washing and waterproofing makes the deck look much newer than it actually is. 

Quilt Painting Progress

 This past weekend was cold and snowy. Frigid cold. More stupid snow. Too cold to even work down in the Studio so I worked on the Quilt Painting in the living room, between reading, eating and napping. Yeah - that kind of a Winter weekend!

Started with the center star.

The triangle corners underway.

Notice the difference between the first coat of green and the final coat with the blue shading blended to the second coat of green. I like it so much better than just a solid color like the original painting.

Decided I hated the center star as too dark, with the colors muddy, so I repainted a white coat and began again with straight ultramarine blue base on 5 of the stars. All 36 corner triangles are done!

This is where the painting is at now. Need to decide how the blue stars will end up being shaded. And then figure out colors for the 4 other stars, and then the other shapes & sashing & borders. I'm going slow, in the hope of avoiding repainting too many shapes based on color choices. 

Sitting Pretty...Kind of!

 Last year, I was having issues with my work chairs. or in the case of working in Michigan, my non-existent proper work chair. So, I purchased two of these gaming chairs. 

While they are a vast improvement over the previous chairs, little did I know that the problems I was experiencing ran deeper. Much deeper - into my hips muscles, primarily the piriformis, and sciatic nerves. Yikes!

My job entails a lot of sitting. Making matters worse is the fact I tend to sit crooked, and stay in one position for too long.  All of which is really under my control. It got to the point that I can't sleep on my side without the lower back, hips and leg nerves going crazy. I've been going to physical therapy twice a week for about a month now, stretching and strengthening my hip muscles, and using medication to deal with the nerve pain and inflammation. 

Last fall, I also discovered quilter recommendations about saddle stools for sitting while sewing. Saddle stools are commonly used by dental techs, nail salons, etc. Of course, I didn't think much about it as I had just bought the two big chairs.  My worsening hip pain made me think twice about the saddle stool. I had researched possible options and saved them in my Amazon wish list. Last week, I pulled the trigger.

And here is the new addition to my Studio/ work from home office. I wanted the sapphire blue one but it wasn't available, so aqua it is! Helping my posture and my body is more important than color. Supposedly, it takes a few days for you to adjust to sitting on the saddle stool for several hours as hip and thigh muscles stretch out. Just what I want! When you sit on it, you are actually sitting on your seat bones, very similar to sitting in a saddle while riding a horse. 

And speaking of riding a horse, I haven't in almost a month. The last time I rode, there was some very scary snow sliding off the indoor arena roof which resulted in Stormy & I parting company. I landed mostly on my butt. Thankfully, I always wear a helmet and Stormy didn't step on me. Unfortunately, my tailbone took some of the impact. It's still sore. It will heal but it takes a ridiculously long time. This injury added to the hip/sciatic nerve issue. Oh Joy! I'm really thankful this happened now while the weather is too cold to ride.

 With any luck, I'll be in better shape all the way around when I get back to riding. I'm making a point of getting out of my chair at least once an hour & moving! I'll let you know how the saddle stool chair works after a few weeks use.

Slow Painting Progress

 The new painting project went from this

through a light sanding, courtesy of W, which I thought I took a picture of but didn't, to this.

It pretty much matches the same state as the coloring cartoons. 

A clean blank slate. Hope to get some real painting progress on this over the coming weekend.

Lighting the Way!

 In the course of hunting the bedroom furniture, I stumbled upon a few things that I didn't know I needed until I found them.

The lighting in my bedroom is hideous. The room does not have an overhead light nor a ceiling fan with a light. For years, I made do with two small mismatched lamps. 

I never loved them. And the light was totally inadequate for the room. While looking for bedroom dressers, I found this pair of metal lamps with glass shades.

They came home with me! Each lamp has two bulbs which equals a ton of light! The metal bases complement the color of the metal bedstead. Sometimes you find the coolest things when you aren't even looking. Thrift store for the win again at $25.00 for the pair!

Stove Makeover

 I told you all that the walls of the Studio weren't the only thing that got a coat of paint.

And YES - anything I own it fair game for modification. I like things changed to suit my style. Stoves included.

When I needed a new space heater for the Studio, I wanted something with style, not just an industrial metal box. So we found this. 

It was available in colors by special order at the time, for an extra charge. We weren't exactly flush with cash at the time so I figured basic black would be fine, as I could always jazz it up myself.

Fast forward to the Studio getting blue on the walls and the time had finally arrived to tackle the Stove Makeover. At first, I thought I'd paint it all solid blue but half way thru, I changed my mind and let it be two-toned. 

It's several shades darker than the walls but the same blue family. I couldn't wait to share it with you all. It will have a new place once I move a few more things around. You'll see more picture of the stove soon.

Furniture Find!

 Seriously?!!! Another Furniture Finds? How much more does she need? What on earth have they been using all this time  - orange boxes & milk crates?

The Shopping Maven struck again. I was minding my own business, chatting with the manager of the Thrift Shop about the best time to bring in some of our large pieces to release into the Universe when I saw something.   I swear I was simply standing there. Okay - looking, but not really shopping. 

The TV stand at the Michigan House is a hold over from the 70's. 

It had really seen better days considering it was glass & particle board. W had already modified it once to safely hold the 43 inch tv, by adding the longer plywood top.

But then I saw this and knew it was just the ticket. 

It would definitely fit the style & space. W was convince there would be no way on earth I would be able to manage it on my own, getting it out of the van & into the house. But where there's a will, there's a way. I admit I had to get creative using what I had but I got it in place.

And I'm glad I did! Price for this piece? $35.00. Definitely a furniture find!

Snowy Sunday, Project Day!

The snow started on Saturday around 5:00 pm and finished right before I sat down to type this post on Sunday evening. A 24 hour snow event. It was a heavy, wet snow requiring a few shoveling sessions throughout the day. We had about 9-10 inches come down.

In between, I worked on painting the last wall of the Studio. YAY!! In order to get this stretch of wall done, I had to move the tall cherry bookcase, the old tool chest, the TV stand, and the litterbox tote. 

Now that the painting is done, I have to figure out where I'm putting the furniture back in place, trying to optimize the space.  The Studio would greatly benefit this room being 3 feet wider and 3 feet longer, at a minimum. Not happening, but a girl can dream, can't she?! The paint is not yet dry here.

Still loving the color. Maybe even a bit more since the painting is done. Oh sure, the baseboards have a few spots needing touch up yet but I'm calling this project done! Once I get the final furniture placement, I will be able to (at last!) lay down the new rug. What's really cool is how the cherry wood and the drapes and the Michigan map all pop against the wall color. Picture of that later.

Next project is refinishing a new wall art piece. I'm glad I held off on this until I had the wall color decided. A few months ago, I found this at the thrift shop in town. It cost all of $12.00. 

As you can see the colors are clearly dated and not my palette.  Signed and dated 1989! 

I took some time today to draw a cartoon of it, and make copies so I can carefully plan out my paint scheme. 

I want it to pop with blues & greens, maybe coral for an accent,  with color gradations and contrast. Color pencil versions will help me hopefully achieve my vision.   My evening TV watching this week will be well spent. I'm thinking I'll be ready to paint it in the next week or two. Maybe some of this snow will have melted by then....HAHAHAHAHA!

Which Color Won?

 I'm sure you are wondering which color out of all the swatch cards won the right to end up on the Studio walls.

There were more swatch cards than what's shown here

You're not the only one! 

I drove W near crazy with the gathering of the swatch cards, the looking at them in different light, buying sample pots of paint, looking at the test paint patches at different times of day, muttering to myself, thinking and rethinking my edited choices.

I'm always the one who says 'it's only a coat of paint. it can always be painted over'. Except I really didn't want to have to do that if I could avoid it. 

From the over 24 swatch cards, I narrowed it down to 3 paint test colors.

After looking at them for a couple of days, I added 2 more paint test colors in the opposite direction of where I was headed.

I veered completely away from anything greenish-blue right over to a blue that leans to the cool, purple side.  Look how yellow the pale green is against the new blue.

And the Studio and hallway are 90% complete. I'll share full pictures when I get everything put back together. Oh, and the walls weren't the only thing that got a coat of paint. 

 

Small Celebration!

A celebration happened last night over a piece of triple berry pie with whipped cream - YUM!! It was nice to finally kick back and have time to type this post. 

On Monday, Cherrywood Fabrics announced the Finalists for the Diana Challenge. I was THRILLED to have the only quilt that I finished in 2020 on the list! The deadline for entries was 11:59 pm CST on December 31, 2020. I put the last stitch in the binding at 4:00 pm CST! 

We all know I tend to work best (?) under a deadline and this was no different. I almost didn't even do this project but as I looked back at a year of projects, with no quilt finishes. On Sunday, December 27th, this is what I had.

Yep - that's it. A cartoon drawing. And a traced copy of it, which I promptly cut into a pile a weirdly shaped paper bits with a piece code on each one. The paper bits were subdivisions of each petal. What I failed to do was transfer the subdivision lines to the master drawing. Or the piece code to the cut fabric pieces.  ARGH! It became more of a puzzle to put together than it needed to be. Oh, and I also didn't do a full color drawing to check color placement. NOT one of my finest design moments! LOL!

Like any good quilter, you Just. Keep. Going. 

It helped that I was off work so I could work thru the project. The colors for the challenge were 3 shades of pink, with white as the neutral. White? White. As in, you need to use it & keep it pristine. That, in and of itself, was a challenge. 

I'm happy with how it turned out. The center jewel has a layer of thick-ish, firm sew in interfacing and no batting. The rest of the rose has two layers of batting to add extra dimension, while the corners only have one layer of batting. 

There is minimal quilting on this piece. I'm good with that. It's a finish and by the time this post posts, the quilt will be on it's way to Minnesota for judging. Being a Finalist is prize enough for me.

Studio Style!

 Back on my post from January 2nd, one of the pictures showed a braided rug in front of my new-to-me bookcase. I alluded that this rug would figure into some future posts. 

This is one of those posts. That little rug was a Christmas gift from W several years ago. I LOVE the greens & blues all woven together in it. I found it on Overstock at a good price. Since I loved it so much, I shopped around for a larger size of the same kind.

Rude awakening - Larger size braided rugs cost a LOT more than the small sizes. Like weirdly, exponentially more. I could not justify that kind of cash back then, but I never really forgot about it. 

Recently, a friend J, who moved to northern Minnesota, shared her plan to tackle her sewing studio space asking for input on wall paint color. That got me to thinking. Me thinking is a very dangerous thing!

Back in 2015, I whitewashed the wood beams and shiplap walls in the studio. Then I painted the walls a light green. I always felt the green was a bit too light and a bit too yellow. 

You see where this is going right?  Yeah, me too!

Spending time in this space working remotely is making my Home Improvement Gene kick in. The wrong green walls are making me twitch. The new furniture has already improved the layout and storage situation, so tackling the next project on the Studio list is imminent. The question becomes which green? 

That little rug is the inspiration. Not only for the wall color but also for another element to tie the space together. YEP! Another braided rug. It's very own big brother oval rug. Some diligent searching on the Interwebs turned up a sale, which when combined with a gift card, resulted in a package being delivered to the front porch.  

Measures 5 foot by 8 foot

It originally wasn't suppose to arrive until January 23rd but it showed up back on January 8th. So not ready to lay it down, considering the walls need to be tackled first but it's here! And I'm thrilled! 

I can't wait to get it in place. Patience is not my long suit and I can be very determined when it comes to painting. Just need to pick a color...

Btw, my friend J chose a very pale lilac.