Studio Update

 I just realized It's been a while since I updated about the studio! 

Goodness me

The last time I spoke the studio looked like                                                                                                     the construction disaster it was

We got all the windows in

But one of the pains broke so we had to wait a couple weeks for a replacement

Meanwhile The wiring for electricity and LIGHTS

went in, January Ahhhhhhh!

the drywall went up, February, yay!

we got the flooring delivered, Whoop!

And I got to play Muddy Mudskipper on the walls

Finally!

many buckets of mud and a few more trips to hodo

As you do

I got all the walls nice and sanded smooth 

then painted primer, 2 coats

Annnnd the color is,

 a nice soft mossy green

IKR? bad enough we have moss outside?

But see how nice it looks!

With a little bit of pink for accent on the doors

It will be lovely to work in

Now for the floors

I took 2 days to get this far

And my back hurts

These Are easy to install bUt

There is a bit of a learning curve 

and the first 2 or 3 rows are a pain in the ass to get started

This is after the 3rd day

of scooting around on my butt, hammering

not bad for an old lady ya?

Adam finished putting in all the outlets and covers

And once the electrician comes back to finish 

the floor outlets and wire in the outside light, 

heat pump And the exhaust fan

I will get working on all the quarter round to finish up the floors

But wait!

We still need to frame in the windows and fit up the windowsills, It's always something......

I just want to move in........now!

A Studio update

You might like to see how the studio is coming along I am still packing and the garage is starting to run out of room to, put the boxes.                                                                                                                                     I have decided to stop until the studio is done,           as there is nowhere to fit the furniture and still fit the car.

All the windows are in and we found basic shop lights at Costco for general lighting and a track lighting fixture for specific spots over the work areas                                                                                              Those will be installed later after the drywall is up.                                                                                            The closet has been framed out, and we are just waiting on the wiring and boxes for electricity.                                                                                             Just need our electrician to come back to run and hook up the wires for lights, switches and heat pump.

We are working on the insulation in the walls and ceiling now.                                                            once the drywall is up, we will install the flooring   It's starting to look like an inviting place to go!                                                                                                I am awaiting, with baited breath, the day I can start painting and move in!                                                   I even have visions of a small porch with an overhang and stairs!  

What I am getting for Yule Tide

Back of the garage

We are renovating the big space at the back of our garage for a dedicated studio for meeeee!

Needless to say I'm am a bit excited.

Right now the only way to get back there is through the garage it's self

So let's go on safari!

Passed the car 

and through the jungle of everything of mine that was formerly stored in that area!

Plus the thirty odd years of Adams satellite stuff

 and computer tinkerings

old Bicycles, etc.

and all the stuff in the garage part

At least it's all sorted now.

This is the corner where it flooded 

and the critters took advantage

there was also a leak in the ceiling here 

where the roof flashing was missing, when we had the roof redone 10 years ago.

And here is that corner now! Much better.

There will be a door to the left of that window

Which will be a bigger window eventually,

There will be lots more windows eventually!

So this is the north west corner that faces the house.

This is the south east corner that faces the driveway/Back neighbor's right of way 

and the yard behind the garage, yes there is more yard.

Since I will be able to see it now I should plan to do something with it, as well.

We are raising the floor so its even with the garage floor, 

which is 10" higher than this space 

it's a biig step down  

I want it level so it's easier to get things in and out of this room from the garage

This room, including the ceiling, was originally fully sheet rocked and very claustrophobic

We had our contractor take it all down and it opened up everything!

I no longer feel like I need to duck every time I walk in here

I'm thinking 3 rows of track lighting along the V points on the joists     

                                                                          which will be insulated and covered  

And more windows, OMG I need some light in here!

The contractor is taking the rest of the year off but this is where he has left it

2/3rds of a sub floor and the plans for where the door windows and all the outlets and light switches go

Lots more to do but it's a good start.

I can't wait! Happy Yule tide to mee, happy Yule tide to mee .....

Happy Holidays Everyone!

New Stove

So this is what I have been staring at since June 14th

Lovely right?

Yes, I did cover it with a stray piece of  wood, but still.

4 months without a stove is.................Difficult

Isn't she pretty!!

There are so many little things you do on a stove that you just can't duplicate anywhere else.

I now have a new appreciation for the humble stove

I did not have before and in fact took it for granted 

to such a degree, it took a month to not be surprised it was no longer there and another month to readjust my cooking to reflect its loss

I ended up, after a week of boiling water in a microwave, buying an electric kettle.

Eggs become vEry difficult

Don't get me started on sauteing, melting butter, searing and browning meat.

All things I do so regularly that not having a stove was crimping my style, not to mention my menu!

Thank goodness we went on a 3 week vacation, in the middle of this or I would have been driven spare!

Though the story is still fraught with OMG. This is nOt the stove we ordered from Lowes.

ThAt stove has yet to arrive, is still vaoprware, as far as I can tell

 because its delivery got pushed out yet another 2 weeks.     O0!!!

So! Needles to say We got fed up. When needs must Amazon to the rescue!

Lowes called remanded our deliver two more weeks on Sunday, so we sat in front of the computer for a couple of hours contrasting and comparing what amazon had and got our stove 3 FREAKING DAYS later on Wednesday promptly at 1pm.

A trip to the hardware store, not lowes or home desperate because they are useless, we are all set up and cooking! Yay!

This is why Amazon is eating peoples lunch. When the local's you try to use, give you no recourse and no feed back, both customer service departments on line, on phone and in store, suck hairy balls, I will truck with the evil empire.

 

Some day my stove will come

** Rant Alert *** Rant Alert **

 So my hypothetical stove,

That we bought July 14th

Has a new delivery date 

Which has been moved back,

 Again

From the original of August 14th, 

Which is why we bought the stupid thing in the first place!   It's availability.  In august.

 to August 28th,

 September 11

(I know, great date huh, what could go wrong?)

 and to now September 28th.

Now, I was willing, to buy a stove I knew they didn't have until late august, that seemed understandable, given the supply line issues the country is experiencing.

But this is getting ridiculous

It begs the question; Why are stores selling vaporware?

Why are they allowed to sell and promise items, in their stores, that they clearly don't have on hand?

Why are we, as consumers, letting the big corporations get away with this shit, with nary a whimper?

 frankly folks, I am desperate for some over easy eggs,

That I don't have to go outside and make on a camp stove, is that really too much to ask?

Kitchen katastrophy a saga in several parts

 So around july 1st-ish My 30 year old gas stove top decided it was time to unalive itself. 

 After a couple months lighting it with matches, because it's first symptom, was the automatic spark stopped working. Needless to say, we needed a new one for a while. We were just avoiding the inevitable.

Yes, it had symptoms, multiple. Over several months.

We thought, as you do, If this is the worst that happens we can live with it....

It wasn't 

Every once in a while you would get a whiff of gas and go make sure all the burners were off and the furnace and water heater were ok, 'cause they're gas too. It would go away and everything would be fine for a while.

Until it wasn't 

We were smelling more gas, more often and then the gas bill came. It was twice as high as it usually was. sooooo, this needed better investigating shoes. 

So I did what you do, I took everything apart washed it all good, because it may be last time I did this, I didn't connect something right, put it back together again, making sure everything was connected right, turned it on and it worked just fine, for a few days, starter and all........OK, then....

A few days later, the starters stopped and a few days after that, we smelled the wafting, again. *sigh*

So that wasn't it.

We took it apart more, switching the burners around and, again a few days of works just fine, followed by the same deterioration. Ungh!

FINE! 

During this time I had not been idyll, I had been researching new stoves , wow are they expensive! And on what planet, do they need to be connected to the internet?

One more attempt to take it apart fiddle with the electrical connectors. This is in the DDH's wheelhouse, My electrical expertise is limited to rewiring lamps and dusting the insides of the sewing machines,  so I sat and watched. This where we discovered there was a limit to the amount of apart we could take the stove. the top and bottom are riveted closed, how annoying!

Anyhow, we put it all back together again, AGAIN, aaaannd you guessed it, same glide path of worksjustfine followed by badness. Well Poo! 

With one BIG exception, One fine morning, I went to boil water for coffee and flames started shooting out of, not just the burner, but the knobs too. EEP! O.O!!

Quick as a bunny, I turned the gas off at the main connector under the stove........... HONEY!!!!

After testing this experience for himself, we finally decided it was dead. I had decided this at chapter FINE! but, well, you know. Anyway, a complete disconnecting and dismantle later we discovered the body of the stove, you know that riveted closed part we couldn't get to?, was full of water !!!!! (insert Flora looses her shit here) WTAF!. Which then proceeded to bleed all over the kitchen floor, Lovely.  -.-

*Grumble Grumble* 

One has now to assume the trouble with the stove started here, with the rusted out bits in the part of the stove that was inaccessible, and nOt where we were trying to fix it. 

*Fuss fuss fuss*

So we have this hole in the counter,where the stove is, now, not. and are waiting for it's replacement. With baited breath.

August 15th. This was the soonest we could get ANYTHING close to what we wanted,as  everything else was October.....November..... when hell freezes over..... this all happened around july 1st, so -.-

14 more days. 

I bought an electric kettle to boil water for coffee......

Tiny House backyard

Time to work on the outside of the first floor

I am really proud of that bay window, 

yeah its a little chunky

and yeah, it's not even or straght 

but I made it from scratch 

myself.

Therefore it is awesome.

Here is the whole backside mostly done

Doesn't that little bit of brick foundation look real?

So cool when that happens!

So now I have all these bricks left over

I think I'll make a patio

Needed to place the greenhouse 

so I could judge where to stop

If you do this, brick by brick, start in the corner

Duh.

Here you can kind of make out the stair step pattern

This is almost as therapeutic as sewing together 2" blocks, almost.

Now it needs some grass 

I'm just a girl with a glue bottle today

all this miniature work is oddly satisfying.

 

I have a tendency to go overboard on new things and then 

 

never finish them when I loose interest or life pushes it aside

So getting this far is something

I have plans for a second floor 

 

and furnishings for the rest of the house

Lets see how far I get

For now I'm pleased with the backyard so far.

Everything needs some weathering 

It looks too newly painted

and It needs more plants

but so far so good

 

A nesting pair

The fuchsias in question out the window

There is a nesting pair of dark-eyed junco the GNW's  all around sparrow type. They are currently nesting in a fuchsia basket I bought recently, I placed it on our back porch close to the doors so I can watch the hummingbirds feed when it blooms. Looks like there will be more on view than I originally thought! I wonder how they will behave when the hummers come to feed?  Hummers don't generally care how big you are if your close to a food source, when they want to feed, 2oz of pointy death are not scared of you! they will fight you if in the way!
The first I knew of them, mamma junco was yelling at me from all over the pergola, when I went on the back porch to water. At that point I had no idea what she was yelling at me for, other than I was too close to her nest. It took a few more days to realize where that nest was.
I don't know if I scared them or not, they could be building or moving their nest, now that I have disturbed them as there is a lot of activity to and from with, bundles each way.
It's been raining off and on for the last few days so there is no need to water but I go out on the porch to "inspect"things passing by their spot so they get used to my presents on the porch.
Though It would be nice to use the porch if and when it ever decides to be sunny again, keeping an eye out for this nesting pair will be interesting.

I hope I haven't scared them away!


 Almost finished this panel from one of my Hawaii shop-hop crawls a few years ago. It just needs on more beak and some eyes on all my birds.

Now that the Lilacs have departed, there are Columbines  to put in my little bud vase.

And look what the fairies gifted me!

I found this on top of a bed in desperate need of weeding "en plein air" right on top as if placed there so I would find it right away.

Poor deer has been dead for some time. I wonder if it was a part of "the wild hunt"?

What is going on when I'm not busy sewing

Sun room cabinets

We just bought my MIL a trailer, in the 55+ park,

down the hill from us. As she has expressed a desire to nEver live through another Chicago winter!
Its a basic trailer nicely laid out with a sun room in the front, moving into the kitchen to the living room down a hall with, 2 bedrooms and a bath. A nice little cozy nest, for an 87+ year old lady, to putter in.
Close to shops/doctors and transit to get around or us to drive her and it puts her a mere mile away instead of the 2010, in case she needs us.

The trailer park is snuggled into a nice wooded space, with manicured walks between trailers and a waterfall! Very pretty and very clean. I've even met a few of the neighbors, in the process of cleaning up.  I think Mom will like it here.

*WARNING!* 

*RANT IN PROGRESS!*

Kitchen cleaning in progress

My youngest DD and I have spent the better part of 5 days cleaning the sucker out.

Bless her fuzzy little soul, for helping out with her step-grannies new place.

The husband/wife we bought the trailer from, seem to have never heard of the concept of cleaning under/around/behind things, or in fact to have ever moved anything TO clean.

DD#2 washing walls and a wood stove!

Not that they left much behind except a few things scattered in random drawers, which you would expect, the dirt on the walls, shelves and that old "cooked chicken" smell, in the fridge, which I didn't.
Owing to the assiduousness with which the wife sprayed fabreez EVERYWHERE.

I now understand why. *deep sigh*

How does one get rid of thAt smell?
That smelly, smell. That smells,.........smelly.

ugh. 

View from the hall

Though It took most of the day the Fridge is now clean and free of the crusted on dry "stuff" that was under/between the holders for the glass shelves. Yeccchhh!

Then there was the christmas wrapping paper and in one case, part of an old pick-nick cloth, with the fuzzy side elmers glued to the shelves!

The stovehood has been HOT GLUED o0! in places,
there is that expanding foamy stuff under both the kitchen and bathroom sinks

Oh! your taking the picture now? Really?

and the "new" shower surround has been repaired with caulk. o.0!

I expected a degree of deep cleaning was gong to be in order and a bit of things that need to be fixed, It is a 45 year old trailer after all.

But not having to scrub down the walls/ceiling of the cruft of years!

You know your in trouble, when the walls change color as you clean.
When the pine-sol your using makes runnels that are a different shade of grey from the one you are currently working on,  Eeeeew!

Did I mention they had 2 yappy dogs and a parakeet? No? Well they left us Something too in the way of a few feathers and enough dog hair,  dug so deep into the carpet and the rugs they left behind, to make another dog.

ThAnk goodness for the rug cleaner we got, years ago, to tackle the 20 year old carpeting in our own house!

Bedroom #1 small

I used 2 bottles of carpet cleaner on what amounts to 4 rooms of carpeting.
And I still have to vacuum one more time, to get rid of the dog balls left behind by the carpet cleaner.


This all amounts to what my Ex-hubbs used to call "Turkey-bird" engineering and has me muttering dire things under my breath.

All that being said, It's still a very nice trailer.

I would live in it.

Having had to clean a myriad of apartments in Chicago before moving into them this one was a 3. On a scale of, 1 being very clean to 5 being, OMG! fuck you people!

So all in al not too bad.

Sorry for the rant but I needed to vent,

Bedroom #2

or I'd explode all over someone who, probably won't deserve it.

This is when you start sizing up all the things you don't "get around to"at home and just how much does it bother you that you've never cleaned behind/around/under that?
I have come to the conclusion that other peoples dirt bothers me way more than mine

and Id rather sew.

what i did on my summer vacation and beyond

This is going to be a long post so fair warning.

i havent been sewing much but I have been busy.

 I now have pictures to go with the synopsis of last month.

I "fixed" the march block, I wasn't pleased with the big blank spot in the green on the bottom. I thought (at the time) it looked too bright so I added, what turned out to be a very fat hedgehog.                          Now, I'm not terribly pleased with the result but have it on good authority (Helen Thorkleson, I'm throwing you under the bus here) that he's adorable.                 Note to self #542.67 sew critters on a separate piece of felt then sew down.          I also added some greenish lace to extend the color upwards as it needed to travel a little. it doesn't look like it's stuck in that spot anymore and lets your eye travel into the block more.

 Here Is my lovely Dear daughter #2 with my mother both look rather pleased with themselves.
and no wonder Mara graduated with honors (one of them Presidential!)
and mom behaved herself even though  she had to endure an entire roman catholic church ceremony for the graduation sans commentary.

we are not religious and neither is my x husband but for whatever reason he felt it necessary to send DD#2 to a catholic all girls HS. I have pointed out a better use of that money would have been college but what are you going to do?
here we are at mom's house out front
before making the trip back to Seattle

my new "helpers" this is Violet. we decided to name her this, after the theory of black body radiation only being seen in the ultra-violet. As she is completely black this seemed appropriate

And here is Molly, her momma. Nothing special with he name its the one she came home with and she seems to like it just fine

old window

new window

 have I mentioned just how much I love my new windows?




 It's so lovely to be able to see clearly what is outside and not just a smeary blur




  also had to get busy with the garden as I missed most of my usual planting window in may.





 then there was buying a rental property  and getting that ready  for inhabitants




I also had another Witchy-Poo hat up my sleeve





 I still need to put it together but the hard part is done



the brim





 and the top



and since I was doing another hat





I could make a few more casket tops too




I still have to put those together too


 but I'm on it!

 sort of




christmas is right around the corner................