Re SEEING and a little SEWING

Years ago, before Oma went to live in Heaven with Jesus

she taught Princess 

How to SEW

when Oma passed away

Princess.. stopped sewing.

Last Year, as a part of her American Heritage Girls troop,

she went to a local sewing shop 

and took a class

and sewed the COOLEST overnight bag EVER..

I am so jealous of it,

I (throat clear) borrow it ..

quite often..

BUT!!!!

enough confession time..

Princess and I dreamed up a dream 

to DEAL with 

one of my nightmares

I have this laundry HALLWAY

but I have 6 people living here.

FOUR are of the MALE persuasion…

that = a LOT of laundry!

perhaps because of the kind of males they are..

messy, hiking,

gear head

hunting

diy

kind of guys

which means I am dreaming

that my SOME day dream home will have a laundry ROOM…

not a laundry closet.

I have done EVERYTHING to organize it..

EVERYTHING to clean it.

DE CLUTTER IT

but

I am old enough to know NOW

what I didn't know in my 20's and 30's..

IT IS

WHAT IT IS

you can change YOU,

but you can't change other people.

They are, who THEY are.

Part of loving them, is studying them, getting to know them,

and preparing a home around them,

that works for them, and you.

NOT forcing them into a box of what YOU think a home should be.

SO

Welcome sewing class

we took some long drapes with a lovely pattern

found matching concept patterned floor mat

and 

a spring rod that extend and fits in showers or spots like this..

it WAS a closet..

but with my new washer dryer set

the doors don't fit..

Princess Measured

and cut

to make THIS!

Tadah!

It's still semi-organized behind there..

but it still looks awful BEHIND there in my opinion..

but now it ALWAYS looks good when I walk by..

I don't feel stressed..

I just have to keep CLOSING the curtains

because messy men

boys

keep OPENING It…

oi vey

try to save them..

and still

they just don't reach for that life preserver do they?

LOVE My guys !

and 

LOVE

LOVE 

LOVE 

my 

Princess

and her beautiful work!

a fun project for that "other" house

So. 

things haven't gone as planned

and our big MOVE didn't happen

as the buyers of our 

home lost their financing…

So after MUCH prayer

we felt led to reconfigure

repurpose

re LOOK

re SEE 

re DO our house

and make it a home that can work

for a little bit longer

what WAS our family room

is going to become our library

and our dining room

so out came the Armoire and the couch

and construction began

Machine Man prefers to work with METAL

so working with wood

can cause stress...

Suck it up Buttercup…

to which my beloved smiles

he's building me a base

A lovely base for my Library!

yah.. we can tend to over do things

it's not a REAL built in

it's just gonna LOOK built in..

up went in the Ikea Bookshelves

and then..

as you can see we framed in the top with nice trim

and the bottoms!

and added connecting strips that I painted also!

time to start adding books..

The table I had previously painted..

but the chairs needed work..

They are Machine Man's grandma's old dining set.

We inherited this when she passed away..

The seats had some sort of mold on them

and so we discarded those entirely.

each chair got glued and repaired..

pained with Annie Sloan's Chateau Gray

and then

Annie Sloan's Charcoal

the OLD bottoms

got some nice new felt pads

pop!

the cool new cushions fabric was found at our local

Joanne's fabric..

it seemed whimsical

magical

very

Once Upon a Time..

so Princess Jigsawed new boards..

these were thicker than the old ones

and then she sanded.

Bravo!

We chose 2 inch foam pads…

some simple batting

We needed our heavy duty bread knife to cut through that foam.

Spraying the board with

and then attaching the board to the foam to prevent slipping..

a little goes a LONG way with this stuff…

We chose to do it OUTSIDE

then batting,

then the material..

BIG deal to make certain the pattern is facing the way you WANT it to 

so flip it and check

before you start stapling ..

we learned it was important to make 

CERTAIN to have enough 

staples

because waiting around for someone to buy more

is BORING

everyone here got a turn..

ok.

that is a lie.

Buddy didn't get a turn..

neither did Little Man

Cutting the foam was fun

but tricky to get right

biting the lip 

was something we all ended up doing...

careful and steady...

trimming was important

because our bottoms will be seated there for long hours

doing school work.

Princess took the work VERY seriously..

She loved the work

and did a great job!

we couldn't be more thrilled with the lovely new/old

dining room / library chairs

Summer Gardening… Part 3 Solutions and Discoveries

so did you figure out what was the mistake in our fancy

2014 garden ?

our visitors could ALL too easily GET in..

and did

Enter Triple L

Lovely Literary Lady

Triple L for short

she came this summer a couple times..

and one of the projects the teens worked on

was the saving of the garden

from 

the fowl

and Zeus

trying to get the fowl

but yet resist the temptation to "GET" the fowl..

for beams the young adults all just got beams from the forest

they chopped down

or collected previously chopped down

holes were dug

and meshing hung

Princess built that lovely gate..

but there are FOUR entrances to this large garden…

and 

we still needed proper fitted gates..

will proper gates be gotten too?

the plants are growing GREAT in this no dig garden..

and the only weed issues we seem to really have is in the walkways

we need to find time to do more mulching..

At the farm,

as you remember we have that great wood chipper…

so we make our OWN mulch..

it takes time

and we have to gather our scrap wood ..

making sure its safe for plants…

but it's sure a blessing..

I don't have great expectations for the first couple years of 

gardening here at the farm.. 

I expect to FAIL

F -First

A- Attempt

I - in

L- Learning..

we NEED to fail..

it's how we will best learn this soil.. this hill…

this light

this planting zone..

and it's SO freeing to be ok with that..

these teens LOVED the freedom given to them!

they couldn't believe how little were my expectations..

and in the end they BLEW me away!

In digging to put in another post

excitement was struck!

what looked like a METAL box

could it be buried treasure

would we be millionaires??

oh MY!

eagerness and excitement ensued...

when the rational voice of the 

NOT so young Adult

asked the very bold question..

"Everyone up to date on their Tetnus Shots?

we are looking at RUSTY metal kids

in farm country…so get gloves on"

in response

"ok"

"ummmm.. Tante Nika… I ummmmm"

and off to the ER we went

leaving the buried treasure to be looked at later

gardening turned archeological adventure 

on pause

one tetnus shot later

and a good wound care cleaning kit 

we were able to discover that beneath this metal lid

was dirt..

yep..

someone just tossed it there..

and dumped dirt

and then grass..there was NOTHING to this…

but it sure was 

EXCITING

the walkway to the garden finished, plants growing

gate IN..

things are looking 

GREAT!

rustic

but practical!

and my birds are VER intimidated by it all

see the morning glory is growing!

look ...staring toward the garden..

plotting

as summer went..

things just kept growing and blooming!

and Zeus

got better at just POINTING out the birds..

it's so hard to be bird dog…

with all these blasted birds everywhere!