ta-da!!!

well, i'm not saying it's completely done, but it's close enough! here is my (practically) finished sunroom/craft room/place of relaxation!

one of the things i'm proudest of is the fact that as far as decorating goes (aside from paint) i spent a grand total of $16, and that's on the little rug by the door. the wardrobe cabinet you see here i got in ct at an estate sale years ago. i painted it white and i'm going to put shelves in it to house my piles of supplies (fabric, paper, scrapping stuff). the rocking chair i stole from parents and painted a pale lavender, and the idea board in the back i made when i worked at longwharf. it's a gorgeous antique looking fabric with pretty blue ribbon....now i've just got to put some ideas on it!

here's a view (complete with directions to flat hill farm...keep going, you're almost there!) of another freebie...this little dresser now houses my yarn stash. absurd, i know, but it's not completely full. yet.

and my awesome desk!! cost=$0. that's right. reclaimed slate countertop and 2 old antique sewing machine bases. how sweet is that? i'm super excited to start using it.

here's molly's station...i got this table at the church yard sale in the spring for $3, and the old map (which yes, does pull down and role up)is on indefinate loan from my mom...she saved it from the trash at school. it has terms like "isthmus" and "strait" clearly identified, along with ridiculously outdated country identifications.

and you may or may not remember how hideously ugly the base of the old chimney was, but i was super clever and used old shutters not only to block it in (the tall ones are hinged and operate as a door) but i can clothespin all of molly's works of art and other pieces of inspiration to them too! it will actually house all our recycling bins once we finish the shelving, which is perfect. out of sight yet incredibly convienient. super score!

anyway, i'm super excited. i've been hanging out there a lot and reading while molly plays. the dog and cats have been having turf wars a bit to see who can lay claim to the sunny spots first, but you know who the winner is? ME, baby, ME!

the on-going sunroom project

well, as promised, here are some more photos of the progress. this is the old door before:


and this is after:
door? what door?

here's the awesome slate and countertop i snagged, too. we know the medium piece of slate will go under the gas stove when that gets moved, but i'm not sure where the larger piece will go. and i'm busily imagining what sort of awesome workbench i can create out of the old labratory countertop. whatever it is, it's going to have to be butch, because that thing is heavy! (it's the long, black piece behind the 2 pieces of slate).

this saturday we're having a work party and a couple of guys are coming over (as well as my mother in law to watch baby girl so i can work too). we're hoping to get the sections of the cieling replaced and put in the new sink cabinet in. (hopefully) we'll also patch the floor and then we'll be ready to paint!!

the slate actually decided my paint color for me...i was wavering between a sagey green and martha stewart "batterbowl green" which is actually a pretty almost robin's egg blue (vintage robin's egg, anyway), but it turns out the blue looks MUCH better than the green, so that made things easier. it will flow better with the kitchen, which is a cobalt blue, too.

aaaand...voila! we have a door!

well, it's offical...we have a door. tuesday was my day off, so my dad (who is feeling better, by the way) came over and we spent the morning finishing the hole for said door and installing it.

the hole for the door actually took more effort to cut than i thought it would...we cut throught the original shingles and then a couple oak beams (which were lovely, i can assure you) with ye olde circ saw and sawzall (i have no idea if that's how you spell it). but we got through, and what a view!

then came the installation...it was a bit of a battle to get it to sit squarely, but we got it and it even opens and closes. i put in the door hardware because when i got home from lunch two little birdies had flown in and trapped themselves...the only way they could have done it was by flying in through the holes for the knob and lock! silly birdies, holes are for hardware!

needless to say, i'm very excited by the new addition. it looks like it's original to the house and is in the perfect spot to be a new entry. now just replace the siding, work on the interior, fix the ceiling, patch the floor, paint....

yet another card

adrian's birthday was last week, and since he loves comic books like a true geek, we got him a girft certificate to his favorite comic book store. and since his card HAD to go with the theme, this is what i came up with:

i downloaded the collage of images from a random site on line and then got a comic book font and personalized it. it was a hit.

stalled, but still working

after some computer issues (and a new computer, incidentally) i'm finally getting around to posting the photos of the work in progress that is our sunroom. unfortunately after all my excitement of getting things moving, my father seriously messed up his back and things have screeched to a halt. very disappointing. but this is the progress we have made thus far:

behold, the hole in the wall!!!

and here's the outside, where we've stripped off the siding in anticipation of our new door.

this was a very cool find...the bottom half of the wall was apparently part of an old barn door (you can even see where the hinges used to be). it was obviously once upon a time red, but it's faded to a very cool pink. i think i'm going to try to use it as a project board or something over my desk.

we changed our plans and decided to use an existing beam for part of the framing of the door, so we had to cut a teensy bit more, and look what we found then!

it's part of the old door hardware! i'm not sure exactly how this hardware was supposed to function on the door (the little dot in the middle is the old keyhole which someone put a blob of plaster in...i will be digging that out) but we couldn't have cut it more perfectly if we tried! we just barely missed cutting the metal bits, and i was very excited when that popped out of the wall. i think i'm going to put it in a black shadowbox frame and just hang it as is...talk about found art!

so that's where we stand at the moment. i haven't had to much time to work on too many crafts lately...i sold my gypsy necklace on etsy, which is very exciting, and i worked some more on baby girl's blanket and then realized i had messed up the pattern so ripped everything out again. boo. but i've gotten a couple more rows done the right way and am back on track.

ttfn!

what the hell, blogger?

i don't know why, but lately when i've been viewing my blog a large portion of my entries (especially at the end of paragraphs) have been disappearing. if i highlight where i know the text is it shows up (at least for a little while) but then as soon as i scroll down is disappears again!!!

i'm very frustrated by blogger right now. and i was going to post a lovely update on the sunroom and other projects, but i decided not to to spite my face.