Silence Will Fall #16: Roses and Sunshine

Day 289 

What will you create today?

Mad Scientist Monday #22: Renovations to the Lair

Day 288
If you have seen this movie from the 80s you know how many things went wrong with this house and how much money they kept spending to repair it.  Determined NOT to go down that road (of course our house isn't that old either) we have been wanting to make some low budget renovations.

If you want to see a tour of the house used in 'The Money Pit' movie adventure over to the Between Naps on the Porch Blog~I love her movie house tours.

Our first decision was to rip up the downstairs carpet and paint the cement floors.  We live in the desert and  quite frankly having carpet where sand blows in the house almost constantly is just a waste.  We saw the evidence of this one we pulled up the pad and there was sand all underneath, ew-no wonder no matter how much we vacuumed it just still felt dirty to walk on, ew.

Click image to be taken to the IMDB site for  more movie info.

We regularly scour our local Habitat for Humanity's ReStore to get ideas on how we can incorporate inexpensive projects to change the look of our home.  If you have never been in one of these stores not everything is used, I often see new tags on large things like kitchen cabinets.  Its like a candy store to walk around and see the old hardware and fixtures.  For this renovation we were able to get some painting supplies and will be heading back to check out their trim for the edges of the walls and where the floor meets the tile.

By far the hardest part of this renovation was moving everything out.  We worked on one room at a time and since it took less than a week to harden and dry completely so 2 weeks were not really too big of a disruption.  After pulling the carpet and padding up we had to scrape up the tacking strips and glue bits along the edges.  We filled in any gouges or cracks with a cement filler~we did find some long cracks in the sewing lair but they were not that wide and we felt like they were not a function of the foundation cracking but a more natural result of cement drying~cracks happen.  And if the cracks do widen we can see that with them being painted and visible now.  Once the cement filler dried we then sanded that down.  After laying on 2 coats of a mildew, water resistant primer and letting that dry for a few hours it was time to put on the turquoise.  We did put 2 coats of this down as well.  Both of the paints went down smoothly with a roller and were really consistent and even.  Neither of these paints smelled hardly at all and they both cleaned up quickly with water.

We did not put on a top sealer yet, we are going to wait and see how this holds up, my girls and I are VERY sensitive to smells and chemicals which could trigger asthma attacks.  Right now we have found some little nicks that we will be touching up this weekend but those are from moving furniture back in and are seeing it stand up well to traffic and spot cleaning.

We chose turquoise because we love bright colors, you can see our walls are painted similar to what we see in the desert around us every day~dark green, golden yellows, an orange spice~so we decided on adding in the color of the sky at our feet to the mix, with over 300 days of regular sunshine and these bright blue skies to see in Albuquerque we wanted to bring that indoors to remind us of the beautiful things in life.

Primer: Zinsser Bullseye Primer for all Surfaces
Paint: Behr Premium Low Luster Enamel Porch and Patio for Cement
Cost < $150

Trim and some sort of ceiling tiles to be added in later.

My sewing lair sits in the front room where you walk into the house.  I was tired of this area looking jumbled and disorganized when clients come over so we moved everything out, painted and then moved things in selectively getting rid of a lot of clutter and arranging the largest furniture pieces in ways that made the space look more open.

One more future project will be to repaint these file cabinets.  I am thinking some bronze or silver spray paint.  These cabinets were originally in a corner behind my large cutting table and were not easy to open and search through. 

Here you can see the view of my desk towards the front door.  I placed a painted piece of MDF (Med. Density Fiberboard) across 2 bookshelves to consolidate space and give me easier access to patterns and books stored on the shelves.

I painted the MDF that I used for my desk an Ebony Glossy Black.  I don't normally incorporate black into my color schemes but I am in love with this desk now.

Originally I had these tables combined into a large cutting table but I decided to separate them and I am finding that I enjoy working with the multiple cutting areas more since I generally have more than a handful of projects going on at a time.  You can see I have a better view of the Frog and Lizard Terrariums now and this weekend I noticed that they were more actively coming up to the glass and watching the outside world too.

Here is a view of the overall space and how I have the light table, my serger, sewing and then planning areas all comfortably spaced out with a large walkway to the right side from the front door.  My family even likes this space better and my girls kept coming in and digging through patterns and books or just to sit in the chairs and talk.  The only other piece I think I might add is a small bench for clients but we shall see, right now I am more than happy to have the open areas for now.

I have been decorating my space with bouquets of roses from my garden every day and they look stunning against the black desk~its just such a nice clean and calm color.

Surprisingly even with all the moving around the sewing continued here and as you can see by my lack of blogging I have been busier than ever.  

What will you create today?

The Silence Will Fall #16: First Roses of the season

Day 287  Such a divine smell.  Love having vases of roses all over the house and oodles to give away!

What will you create today?

Our yard is showing signs of life again...

Day 166 First time school supply shopping for actual school supplies with kids who are in school.....did you get that?  Who am I kidding I can't resist brand new crayons and markers~sniffing a new crayon is like sniffing copies from a mimeograph machine~ssssnnniiifff  mmmmm yes I did eat paste as a kid why do you ask?

I am LOVING these Dry Erase lovlies (although no special smell)  for once the packaging don't lie these crayons are BRIGHT.  No black crayon though but I am thinking a black dry erase board might be fun wonder where I can get one?

Dry erase crayons & other colorful school supplies

I consider myself brilliant too :) oh and funny, a regular riot

Back to the UFOs: Of course I did not take a picture of this cute teacher smock I received from freecycle I just cut that baby up and made these little fabric buckets for the girls' teachers.  The glass baby food jars are just for show, I gotta find some other recyclable that will fit in the bottom to give them a base to make them less likely to flop over if  something like pens are put in them...

Fabric buckets, top view

See cute eh?  Cute and simple...nice flat bottoms, I'm pushing 40 I can say 'flat bottoms' now...waiting for the badabing, no? ah well it made me giggle anyhoo  "Oh baby behave" I may have to start inserting more Austin Powers quotes now that they are making a 4th one

Small fabric buckets

Do you remember the big fires in Arizona that covered our city with thick smoke and choked any Spring plant growth?  Those were just finishing as a big one broke out in Los Alamos about an hour North of here, it was pretty freaky because when the fire was on this ridge it looked right next door...crazy....

View of Los Alamos fires from an hour away, Credit

View of Los Alamos fires from an hour away, Credit

...all those fires are out now and well with the less than an inch of rain we have gotten total the plant and insects are beginning to come back, just in time for Fall because I smell it comin', the night time desert temps have dipped to the low 60s (NIIIIICCCCEEEE) SiGH so it looks like the garden might be a bust this year....but I am hoping it will come back like crazy next Spring and is not too traumatized.

Luna moth(?)

Green ladybug(?)

Green moth-last year we had pink ones, go figure

Jimson weed coming back~giant night blooming white flowers that attract the luna moths

Rose bushes coming back~but they don't smell and are not as big this year, too traumatized maybe?

After school activities are starting so I'm putting my chauffeur cap back on and heading out on the roads....got a few more UFOs to take care of and then clean slate baby!!  Not that I'm bragging or anything...ahem...anyway I keep hoping to show you more photos tomorrow but as you can see I lately have not been good at getting pictures....call it Summer brain or just normal for me.  What will you create today?

Relay for Life Tshirt Blanket and the Arizona fires

Day 159

We are slowly slowly getting back to what I would consider a normal schedule for us, if you consider hitting 3 swim practices a day normal??!! But hey the girls are having a blast living up Summer with team events, sleepovers and swim meets!

This blanket was delivered yesterday for a friend's mom...they are very big supporters and participate as a family in the Relay for Life Nearly two years ago they lost a family member to cancer and we were able to get a few of her tshirts to incorporate them into this blanket...even though her mom knew we were getting tshirts from her she did not know we had gotten some from her Aunt and apparently when she received this she cried and did not let go of the blanket (happy sobbing) this makes my heart sing and it means I am in the career I am supposed to be in!!

These blankets are not meant to be put up on a wall and displayed (unless of course you want to) they are meant to be used every day. The backing on this one is a double sided sherpa with a minky fleece on the outside so it is incredibly soft and snuggly!

Gosh I guess you could tell we have been spending our who waking lives at one of 3 pools around Albuquerque considering this picture was taken at A POOL lol lol.

I positioned the center squares using the Aunt's tshirts so that they form a sort of message of Hope, Remembrance and Surviving and even though her Aunt did not survive her cancer in the end she fought a good fight and has continued to (survive) live on in the loving memories of her family.

On a lighter note my garden is starting to really come back to life although I predict that everything will be stunted this season because of the amounts of smoke we have been getting from the fires in Arizona....

Every morning and night we go out and spray off the ash which is EVERYWHERE it looks like snow flurries. These are my wild pink snapdragons that bloomed for the first time this year.

My hollyhocks are really suffering the worst because their leaves are not as smooth and seem to collect the black ash and it sticks there despite daily dousing.

Sunsets thick with smoke producing some cool red suns but I am tired of smelling like we live in a BBQ pit with the windows closed all day and night and no swamp cooler to keep the house cool SIGH.....

(both of these images are from KASA.com )

See this wall of smoke overtaking the city??!?...this is what it looks like every night as the smoke rolls in and is so thick you can't see 100 feet in front of you ....I am hoping that they start to get some containment on this fire to protect the families in it's path and that the firefighters stay safe as they battle this huge blaze.

What will you create today? So happy to be back in my creative lair/sewing room again....

So...whatcha doin'???

Day 158

Me? Not a whole lot except doing some healing from various extreme stressors in my life lately.....

....petting Sokka the angel baby cat...don't judge he is my catdog momma's boy...:)

....embellishing jeans with fabric scraps....

.....my jeans, yes I finally did something for myself and I love them....

.....working on some kitchen towel hand embroideries.....don't you just love these? so old fashioned looking....

....eating comfort foods, like our fancy bread with feta cheese, vinegrette, olive oil and spices from the garden...salivating now...

....enjoying sighting our first ladybugs of the season....

...planting eggplant....

...egyptian walking onions....got some chives and catnip in this part too...my cats love to hit the nip...

....various tomatoes...

....oregano....and mints, rosemary, basil, athena muskmelon, lemon cucumbers, zucchini....can't wait to do some harvesting!....

...and the pond life is starting to come back which makes us all happy because at night we can hear the water trickling....

...writing simple poetry....

This life I am living
I travel many roads
I take many journeys
There are always crossroads to choose
There are always mistakes to be made
I smell, I taste, I love, I see, I hear, I drink deeply from this life I lead
I celebrate my person
I am most distinctly me

~Tabitha

I am a pick myself up immediately kind of person but these past things have taken a lot longer and I just needed space to feel and heal.....its getting better every day.....I knew I was gonna be ok when I started sewing and creating again!

What will you create today?