LadyCave!

So I did no stitching this weekend.  I drove to Ikea, which is about a 2 hour drive (each way), and I figured that if I left at around 9, I'd be back by 2... only I didn't get back til 5, because there were a couple of pitstops (one of which was dress shopping for an upcoming wedding!)

So without a TUSAL, IHSW, or WIPocalypse update this month, let me present to you the (mostly finished) LadyCave.

I'm too lazy to gif, so here are a series of updates, I thought about making an animated thing, but lazed out.

Of COURSE I didn't clean before taking a picture, I wanted the afters to look as awesome as possible! Here it is as the spare room/craft room/guest bedroom/"OMG, look at all of that crap" Room!

First I painted with the "Thunder" paint that I've fallen in love with. It's a Greige that is very color changy, depending on the light.  Sometimes it's a blue toned grey, other times it's beigey, and sometimes it gets so light you cannot distinguish it from the white trim or ceiling!

The point of no return :)

Day 1: Ready for the floors

The end of the first day; I was so tired from running up and down the stairs I basically just sat in the closet and stayed there for probably an hour.  I had boxes of flooring upstairs and down, with the saws downstairs in the garage.  I would measure, run downstairs, cut the planks and then bring them upstairs, and continue with the full length boxes that were upstairs.  It got rather tiring after a while.

 Finished the second day.   I did not get a picture of the shoe molding I also put in (white like the trim, I very much dislike the wood colored shoe, because it looks like the floors are creeping up the walls to me!).

So next was the furniture.  I had a desk that I really liked from Ikea, because I love their expedit line, but the desk was too large, so the desktop portion is now a table that sits above Mona's crate, and the expedit unit is used in the closet for clothing storage.  I decided to go with 2 Kallaxes (the new expedit) and I would use the Kallax as one desk end support and adjustable legs on the the other.

I had extra Capita legs, so I mounted the 2x2 using that to have extra space underneath:

The curtains are mounted really high and move easily (I wanted to have plenty of curtains to darken the room for guests, and I have the desk forward enough and the cords oriented that they won't get in the way of free movement) and they're bright mulberry colored (Ikea called them "lilac"), which pops nicely with the room colors (I'll have to get a better shot).

The table/desk in the middle of the room needs to go, I just hate to let that glass go.   And of course, I'm not quite done with the room yet.  Hopefully everything will have a home (or as an anti-clutter keynote speaker I heard earlier this year says "everything will have an address").

The mattress is my placeholder for my murphy bed.   The table/TV in the corner are just living there until I figure out where they'll be permanently, all of my art and stuff is not hung yet, and all of my genealogy stuff is in bins next to the desk (on the other side of the steelcase chair that I need to refinish/reupholster).  You can see my laptop on the desk in front of the window - I can see the bird feeders from there!

Shelves will eventually go on the wall where the TV is sitting.  I don't want to install them until I figure out exactly where the Murphy bed is going.  Since it needs to be attached to wall studs, I don't want to kill myself getting the shelves up only to have to take them down again.  The shelves will hold my work binders (from classes, development training, regulations, etc.) and probably some of my genealogy books and binders, freeing up the Kallax slotsWhen the room is done, I'll start the Genealogy Do-Over and spend time on that.  But I'm so excited! A nice LadyCave and multipurpose room!  I have a friend staying over the weekend after next, so I'll have to make up the bed on the floor, but I should be getting the wood to start building the bed next week. Huzzah!

Here's a shot of the closet (so far).  Not everything is in there yet, but most of it is.  I have an old Expedit that I use in there that holds a lot of crafting stuff - magazines, fabrics, WIPs.   Next to it is my filing cabinet with most of my patterns, on top of that is a stack of organizers (usually used for nuts/bolts/etc) that I have labelled all of my DMC in.  My new specialty fibre box is on top of it, and I have one of those hanging clothes organizers for my pre-cut fabrics.  On top of the shelf is where my kits/fabric/etc are.  I'll probably re-arrange that, but for now it's keeping everyone out of the way.

I had bought the shoe organizers back when I was renting a room (when I first got to NC) because there was no closet storage, and now I use them to hold fabric or other crafting stuff (empty storage bags, knitting needles, etc - the one on the right is actually holding gloves, ear muffs, etc).   They're so useful I've never gotten rid of them.

And here's a shot of my thread organizer.   I need to get another one - once I added in more stuff, I'm out of space.  I'm thinking of separating out my silks and Rainbow Gallery cards into another bin.

I didn't do them alphabetically, but in the order of my frequency of use.

And, because I didn't do like the Twisted Stitcher did - giving each file card a letter, I left a lot of empty spaces between cards so I wouldn't have to re-do them if I buy a new thread or three now and again.

Organization and progress!  By the time Summer is done I'll have the room complete, and I'll be ready to get to work on my studies (I'm planning on going back to grad-school in the spring) and genealogy and other good stuff.

Having a room where I can quietly practice yoga is my favorite part, but having a room where I can do anything I want in peace is super nice, too.

#WIPWednesday?

So there's not much in the way of stitching this week (or probably next), because other "works in progress" are taking place about ye olde humble abode.

So this is my WIP Wednesday.

From this:

To this - all opened up to the right, framed in and ready to mud/paint/etc.

The rest of the drywall is actually up, I just need to finish the mudding (which I've discovered I'm terrible at, but closet, so I don't think it really matters).   The closet was expanded from 2 1/2 x 3' to 6 1/2' x 3'.  FOUR EXTRA FEET.  I will never understand why they didn't initially expand the closet more (it's under the stairs, there was nothing there).   I'm glad that I'll have a space to hide my craft stuff in when company is over (right now that tends to be behind the "reading chair" in the corner).  And we could have expanded the closet further (I initially only wanted to put in a little niche about 18" deep), but I have a wine rack that I'll be sticking up against that short wall, and it's the perfect height there (so bottles don't fall out of the back).   We even wired in a closet light (LED!) with a switch - so fancy!

Most of our furniture is in the garage (I have to park in the driveway!?! Oh the humanity!) in preparation for new flooring over the weekend (aka: why I wanted to expand the closet now:  So the flooring is consistent).  And I have nefarious plans for the guest bedroom (if I can get away with it, think craft room cum yoga studio... think murphy bed!!!).

I'm also toying with the idea of marking some of the home renovation posts as private (with a password), just because I do worry about privacy, though I do my best to keep everything pretty tame (not much personal showing).   But there are plenty of weirdos out there, I know, I have had to deal with a stalker in the past.  If I go that route, I'll make sure to mention it before I do, and share the password with any interested blog friends.

What I am looking forward to is writing up a post showing off some of my organization.  I've put all/most of my finished pieces in portfolio albums, inspired by a friend who was inspired by this blog post.   I have 5x7, 8x10, 11x14 and 18x24.  

I also have the awesome BONUS!  of having a groupon pop up for the local framer I would like to try out for my cross stitch.  Hopefully it means the beginning of a long and beautiful relationship ;)

And, I just read Twisted Stitcher's way of storing specialty threads which I'm going to adapt.  I don't have as many as she does;  they currently are few enough to live in a single photo box.   I downloaded an app to start cataloging threads, and I can catalog and organize at the same time.  I'm thinking of color coding the thread manufacturer and then alphabetizing them from there (the only shame there is that I have oodles of the standard green pendaflexes and could cheap out on it, which means maybe just using colored tabs?).   Currently, each manufacturer is on a jumbo binder ring and the threads are already alphabetized, so switching systems won't take too long, but I really like the idea of not having to dig through the box.

I'm so excited for all of the changes, but also pretty exhausted over all of these changes.

Storage

As the last part of cleaning/organizing, I decided to work on my storage for finished pieces.

Most of this came around because I had grabbed some stuff to frame, and thanks to the chaos that is my finished pieces bin, I had to do a bit of pressing just to get the piece unwrinkled enough to take them on the trip to the framers.    Then there's the whole "oh dear god, that is a lot of dog/ferret hair in there" and it just seemed like something I should do.

Most of the large pieces are wadded/folded up (I did an initial press and tried to keep things tidy but failed) in a small-ish bin (again, mostly a product of having moved several times and trying to consolidate space).   I know there are those really large under-the-bed rolly bins that would probably fit the pieces better, but I don't have a good space to put them (oddly, under the bed space is at a premium).

I went to Target, bought a bin, hauled the iron/ironing board upstairs, put on an audio book and went to work.

And then I discovered that one of the pieces was not color-fast and I have a right mess on my hands.  I'm currently soaking the piece in cold water/Orvus and changing out the water every few hours.  Hopefully I'll be able to rescue it, as I've always quite liked that piece (hazard of having pieces so old you can't remember if the threads are delicate and not keeping them nicely stored).  The fibre used was a Needle Necessities that was variegated with dark green/dark red and the red ran.  Everywhere.

But this is what I started out with:

Organization..... of the future!

 Once upon a time, I was super-heavily involved with cross stitch, luckily just as it was on its biggest upswing and all the way through what seems to be its height of popularity.   I spent time on several very active bulletin boards (I still float around, but mostly lurk and their activity is much diminished), I had a blogroll of probably hundreds of blogs, I followed trade show news like I was breathing air, and I went to shows, retreats, shops everywhere I could, and had quite an extensive collection.    I had tons and tons of charts.  Luckily, I was into collecting charts, and not fibres or fabrics, so while I had a sizable craft collection, it wasn't too crazy.

 And, once upon a time, I was dating an IT guy.  He made me a database (way back in the day - think mid 90s) with Access where I could keep information, including pictures, of all of my patterns.   I ended up using excel spreadsheets for a few years after that, but I've always been bad at maintaining them - who wants to have to print out a huge spreadsheet before going to a show or shop?

 I move to the Triangle area more than 5 years ago, hauling what possessions I could in a small Uhaul after substantially de-stashing.    I then de-stashed a couple of times while living here (selling/giving away everything I was no longer interested in).  I even went to a couple of small/personal GTGs where I again brought stash I had identified as expendable and donated everything left over to women's shelters.

Basically - I lost/got rid of a lot of my shit.