Tuesday, August 27, 2024

Sewing Room Turnover

Before

I've never really enjoyed being in the sewing room here at this house.  Probably because I had the "office/paperwork stuff" in here as well - unlike Bundalong where I had a little cabin dedicated to the sewing and Maryborough which had a lovely large room ..... here its a smaller bedroom.  Some stuff has not been sorted since our move and just dumped into the "sewing room" and more stuff gets dumped when you don't enjoy the room......... I guess it's when my sewing mojo started leaving.  It got soooo bad that I was ready to throw out sewing stuff but then I got a visit from Christine and we talked about another girls trip to Scrub Stichin next year and just like that my mojo returned BUT a I had to come up with some idea that could turn the current disaster spot into something I actually enjoyed spending time in!  

Before Photos from various angles

As per usual ….all good ideas come as you are drifting off to sleep and it coincided with Pete heading off Friday for a 2 day fishing trip!  Bingo!!! We have a winning situation!!  Off to Wangaratta to visit Bunnings with my list ……. 2 cubed 2 x 2 modular unit flat packs with 8 fabric drawer inserts and some paints ( chalk pink, green and cream) ……

 Friday night was putting together the flat packs while watching some TV renovation shows to keep the momentum going


Saturday- up early and after taking Lucy for her walk it was time to clear out the piles ( to the guest room to deal with afterwards) - the plan today was to clear half the room to allow for furniture to be moved and painted …..first up the little white washed desk was changed to a pink wash 




The cupboard used to keep my yarn needed to be unloaded, painted and then moved to its new position beside the window.  How I hate the curtains in this room (see top photos - they were here when we moved in ) - so the one where the cupboard was going was taken to the bin and with that a whole flood of light came into this dark dingy room 🤩 WOW! Light just makes such a difference to a room!  The other curtain is yet to come off - at the time it was unreachable during the process lol 
While the paint dried I started a bit of the sorting process.  I’d already moved the big desk into its new position and I began the touch up painting on the white bookshelf.  

Once the cupboard, pink table and white bookshelf were in position the modular cupboards were moved into the room to create my vision of making them into a “table top” with 8 large drawers underneath to hold materials and such! 


I think it worked well!  What do you think?? Still a bit to complete the room but getting there .....

The black filing cabinet was moved into that position - initially to get it out the way as I had planned for it to go into the wardrobe in the guest room ...... 

 And by Sunday morning I was able to briefly have room to sit and zoom with a few of the girls before I had to start my prep for a colonoscopy today.  Yesterday.  I had to move a couple of things to get to the desk and set up the laptop lol


One of the main reasons for the 2 modular units being placed back to back was to make a small cutting table for myself in the room whilst also providing lots of storage!
During Zoom, I mentioned the material pile stuffed in the guest room wardrobe ……. Karen suggested I should make note of it as others might be in the same way lol  As it turns out, it wasn't quite as bad once I got started on it.......

So while I waited for the prep to begin its effects I decided I’d start pulling out the little scrap bits of fabric …….which ended up in me sorting all of it ……… and stacking it in the drawers of the cubed modular units .......   I decided to sort the larger pieces into colours - Pinks, Purples and Reds

Cream, White, Yellow, Apricot and Beige
Blues and Greens in the green drawer and jelly rolls/ Fat Quarters ect not yet unwrapped into the pink drawer

On the other side in the bottom green I have non Cotton fabrics and in pink bottom are the christmas fabrics and a pile of new tea towels and face washers (which get crocheted into hand towels).  The top drawers are relatively empty at this point ........ and now that I'm placing things around I've decided to keep the black filing cabinet and a smaller 2 drawer filing cabinet in this room.  I plan to paint them both to tie in with the room and 4 of the drawers will be used for patterns/magazines ect and  WIP's for both knitting and sewing projects  During the sorting into drawers process I was finally able to unpack the bag of goodies from Scrub Stitchin and put them into the drawers!

So over the next while I will continue to work on the finishing touches and remaining piles ...... I've even managed to use the small TV and DVD player that Dad had and have it sitting on top of the currently black filing cabinet while I checked out if it would work....... it does!!!  And I already L O V E being in this room!!!!   So until next time ........... Hugs Sharm xo


Sunday, August 25, 2024

The Winter Holiday - the last bit (Lots of Photos)

I had attempted to get the other posts to publish on various dates but obviously I didn't do it properly and so they had to be published the last couple of days when I realised what had happened.  I also thought I had already completed this post ...... apparently not lol so here is the quick run down.  We spent 5 days at Copeton Dam with friends who live just down the road from us.  While the men went out fishing during the day - Deb and I took Lucy and Bella on various walking adventures..........


Lucy & Bella


Wild Goats - We also got to see wild deer and a wild pig


After our long morning walks and rambles through the bush - rest time (play time) was the agenda


Using the tennis court as a lead free zone!
Pete and Dave after another hard day fishing on the dam with no fish!   Evening camp fire was a must and a few evening meals shared before bedtime
Morning!!!
Soooooo many Kangaroos everywhere - Dogs had to be on the leads all the time unless in the little yard at the cabin (or the tennis court we found and used a lead free zone)
And this was how many of our walks went ...... getting huge prickles out of paws/ tails/ fur!! From the below Prickly Pear and below further a most awful looking prickle bush


A great 5 days and then it was time to pack up and go our separate ways ..... we headed to Nundle where I was looking to do the Woollen Mill tour.......
Lots of Solar Farms around the area with solar panels stretching as far as the eye could see in some places


Nundle Working Woollen Mill - the machines are over a hundred years old



Above is the dying area with a close up below
Then onto the cones and into balls ready for selling

13 people died in an aircrash in the area and a memorial is in the park
We stayed in Nundle overnight and then headed to Mudgee the next morning.  A big Cotton Growing Area on the way

I love the look of cotton all fluffy white rolled up into coloured bales lol
Its a little hard to read - but we kept passing signs for Coonabarabran turn offs and I couldn't help but message Chooky to let her know we were passing signs that go within a relatively close area to her lol
 We were meant to be staying in Mudgee for a couple of nights but heavy non stop rain ended up changing our plans and after Mudgee we headed straight for home to try avoiding getting caught in flooded areas.  It was only a couple of hours drive from Nundle to Mudgee and rather a nice drive.

I managed to have a quick catchup with a friend - Lynne - from the 50+ group who lives in Mudgee. It was great to finally meet in person after all these years!  The coffee shop we went to was an old chemist building ....


The cabin at the Mudgee Caravan Park catered well for dogs - even providing a bed inside for them.

This place states it is the home of the "Black Stump" - Coolah 
The trip home was just a tad longer (about 7-8 hours) but we did it in the one day and were pleased to get back home again.  Hopefully you've enjoyed seeing some of the photos.  I had originally planned to do blog posts as we trekked from town to town - clearly that didn't work lol - till next time xo