I had an idea…..

Last year I bought an old dresser at my fave vintage shop & had planned to paint it & put it on the back verandah but then I thought it would be nice in my sewing room. I also decided to repurpose a chest of drawers that was in my sewing room & the dresser would fit there. But then of course they both needed painting first & while I was at it I might as well paint the other 2 chests of drawers in there………

So fast forward a couple of weeks & all the sanding & painting is done, rather a slow progress at this time of year with cold wet days ganging up on us, but we got there. So then I started thinking about the fact that the sewing room is not really working for me & I’ve done the usual thing of dragging projects off to other rooms in the house to work on them. Of course the result is lots of messy rooms & I can’t find anything when I need it. So when I couldn’t sleep what else to do than start moving furniture in my head.

Next day the fun??? begins as I have to unpack all my shelving, which was across the back wall, so it can be moved. By turning the shelves into the room this freed up some badly needed wall space. I decided to put the dresser there.

The extra space also meant I was able to bring in a counter I’ve had for donkeys years & set it up for cutting & ironing.

I was able to move a lot of the stuff out of the middle of the room & bring in our old dining room table which gives me lots of work space.

The pieces of timber leaning up in the background are going to be shelves in my bedroom. Another project on the go. I realise looking at this I may have to paint the table white.

As luck would have it I got an email from IKEA with some shelves on sale that would work brilliantly above the counter. We headed off to IKEA but then found they were stained & I’d have to strip off the varnish to paint them, ugh. Then I found some great unpainted brackets which would do the trick. So I bought some timber, painted it & the shelves look great.

Meanwhile we finally put up an old leadlight window I bought a few months back. I decided to hang it at a height I could enjoy but it  left a gap at the top so I made these patchwork curtains  to fill the gap. It was great having the counter & the table to work at where I was able to spread the squares out & arrange them.

I was so pleased with the patchwork curtains I made another one for the window/door on the adjacent wall. Then as I had some squares left over I made them into a bag.

Then I made another bag, as you do. I picked up this cool fabric at a vintage shop.

I found this fantastic trolley at a vintage shop, it’s ideal for storing all my fave fabrics.

Zaphod thinks it’s a great spot for a nap. He hangs out like this & grabs my legs while I’m at the bench.

I bought this fabric ages ago to make curtains for the shelves & hadn’t got around to it. It was so quick & easy to make, I made them for all the shelves.

I made the noticeboard smaller & recovered it to fit on the end of the shelves. I need to make a curtain to go under the pegboard to neaten this area.

I bought these printers trays over 20 years ago, they are fabulous to display my thimble collection & house my threads.

So it’s all working really well & I just love being in my ‘new’ sewing room.  We bought a digital radio last month so I’m enjoying the SBS Eurovision channel. 24 hours of Eurovision, no ads, no talking, just music.

May Books

3 this month, & yes one you’ve seen before, Homespun Style by Selina Lake, but now I’ve actually read it. You see I didn’t realise there were words, lol. I just couldn’t get past the pictures, then I read on someone’s blog about what great info there was in the book, & I’m like, ‘There’s words?????’ & yes besides the gorgeous pics, & the blurbs for the pics, which I had read, there is actually text & very interesting text. I’ve taken a few ideas from the book & applied them to my sewing room which I will blog about tomorrow. I absolutely LOVE this book.

Book 2, ‘A Rural Affair.’ Well you know when our main character's dh gets wiped out by a block of blue ice dropped from the toilet of an EasyJet that this book is going to be a little different. I enjoyed it, I’ve read a few Catherine Alliott books now, & though this isn’t my fave, it’s good. A few little twists & turns & some good laughs.

Book 3, Jack Duckworth, now if like me you ‘re a HUGE Corrie fan, that’s Coronation Street for the uninitiated, then you’ll know Jack. This was a really interesting read, an autobiography of Bill Tarmey, the actor who played our Jack for many years. It’s a nice balance of his personal life with little snippets of the Street thrown in. I really enjoyed it. I was actually born the same year Corrie started & I grew up watching it with my mum.