Thwarted but I'm Good With It

April turned out to be a busy and out of the ordinary month (the skin stuff alone threw my calendar off kilter), and I was looking forward to my recent birthday as a day just to knock around in. A fun lunch in Gruene followed by naps and reading and movie watching. Kat was off, and she’s always game to do whatever.

That morning I rolled out of bed, and the first thing I did was charge my Kindle. This was going to be the kind of day that required a fully charged e-reader!

Things got off to a great start with a breakfast of kolaches and coffee. Then Kat surprised me with a light box for my sewing room. Hooray! The timing couldn’t have been more perfect as the quilt I’m working on requires applique. 

After lunch and a walk around the shops at Gruene, we drove back to San Antonio, into the neighborhood, turned the corner, and I saw this:

Hastily decorated by a neighbor

I gasped! No!! 

Yes, surprise party. The last guest left at 11:00 pm. My fully charged Kindle sat untouched.

So, my birthday went not at all as I had envisioned. Had I been asked, I would have said emphatically that I did not want a party. But, as with life when chaos intrudes on the hopeful vision of orderly days, I accepted it (after a bit of struggle) and it was good. It was good to visit with friends I haven’t seen in a while, and of course I was touched (after I got past wanting to kill her) by Kat’s eagerness to make the day special. 

I haven’t yet peeked at the credit card to see what this set us back. I have a budget session planned for tomorrow to review March and April. I’m hoping all the big birthday surprises are behind me :-P

House Project "Reveal"

Since my latest house transformation project is done, I thought I'd tinker with the look of this blog. My tinkering is not over, but I feel I'm getting closer to what I want.

But now, on to the sewing / guest room transformation and the reveal!

My "before" pictures are of the room in sewing mode:

Drab and cluttered, right?  Normally I have my sewing machine out on the sewing table (where the gray kitty sits in the first picture), and to my right (I'm standing in a small closet) along the wall is my cutting table. I took this after we moved the piano, which used to sit where the small chest is. No wonder I felt claustrophobic when I tried to quilt.

And here are the "after" pictures, two of the sewing room and one in guest room mode:

Thanks to Molly for all her help. I couldn't have done this without her.

Thanks to Neville for adding the perfect touch to the bed.

In guest room mode, the sewing table folds up into a nice-looking cabinet and rolls to the right of the closet in place of the cutting table, which rolls back to our bedroom for the duration of the visit. The pretty green chair sits against the wall to the left, so that the sewing cabinet and chair provide places for guests to set their luggage.

I can't express how pleased I am with our results! I've never considered myself especially creative in  interior design, and neither does Kat. Believe me, our projects don't always turn out this nice.

One of the unexpected bonuses is that the shelves on either side of the Murphy bed provide enough space that we were able to get rid of one of the book cases in our office, opening up that space a little more. And I love, love, love having my beloved books in my creative work space.

There are some additional finishes we could do. It would be nice to have a smaller, more decorative lamp, and maybe an accent rug, a different ceiling fan, but we splurged on the chair ($80 at Kirkland's for the perfect green chair), and on good quality wood and paint. The others are things we can pick up as it fits in the budget.

So, we broke our pledge again of no house projects in January and February, and we used tax return money we were going to put toward the kitchen re-do scheduled for later this year, but I have no regrets. I feel that ultimately we bought light and space. Money well spent.

Making a Small Space Function

See that innocent looking tape measure? I left it on the dresser the other day.

"Why'd you have the tape measure out?" Kat asked when she got home from work.

Doh! I didn't want her to know I was scheming to get the piano out of my sewing room (and primary guest room). I've been feeling way too claustrophobic in there since I'd installed a cutting table. The room is only 9 1/2 feet by 10 feet, and in it fits my sewing table, ironing board, piano, murphy bed, cutting table, and a small chest of drawers. The cutting table folds up nicely, but when I'm using it, I have about a 4 by 4 space to move around in.

My idea was to get rid of the large dresser in our master, downsize my clothes to the small chest currently located in the sewing room, thus freeing space to put the piano in our bedroom. I didn't have everything thought through when Kat found the tape measure, and I didn't want to present my plan prematurely, but too late! She got it out of me -- and flipped upon hearing I wanted to jettison the not-very-old dresser.

Much arguing ensued, during which I dramatically proclaimed that now she could understand why I hadn't wanted to tell her anything until I had it all worked out.

After we both settled down, she thought things over and figured out a way to rearrange the room to make it work without losing the dresser. At first I wasn't too happy, "Why can't we just let go of things?" I said, but Kat is a natural organizer, so in the end I decided to trust her.

I can't believe it, but I love our new bedroom. We did remove a few things -- some book shelves and two pieces of kitty furniture -- but what really opened up the space was rearranging a few pieces of the bedroom furniture. Our piano fits, and the room seems somehow more spacious to me. More comfortable.

And what is more exciting is the sewing room. We pulled everything out and painted, then we centered the murphy bed on the wall; it had been off-center to accommodate the piano. Kat is building cabinets for the top of the murphy bed and shelves along either side so that the whole thing will look built-in (we hope). Our inspiration picture is here at  Houzz.com.

What is so cool is that we're making good use of vertical space. We'll be able to store pillows and bed linens in the cabinets over the murphy bed instead of in our small linen closet. The shelves will house the books that were in the master bedroom with plenty of room for baskets to hold my stash (as in quilting fabrics :-))

I've taken "before" pictures, but it may be a week or so before I have the "after" shots, so I'll wait to post them.

Wish us luck!