I must be nesting...

So, the past two days I have been holed up in my sewing/laundry room (slash utility room... ugh) working on a new canopy for Avalyn's jogging stroller... and while I was doing that I decided to organize and clean... excessively.

First, let's start with the stroller. Here's the before picture.

Notice how the canopy covers nothing? What's worse is when I walk with it the thing flips back all on its own. Very annoying!

I also added a five point harness. I did this a while ago (as in over a year ago) but I strengthened them quite a bit since my daughter is so much stronger now.

From the back. Totally adjustable. Like the lone sandle in the background, and messed up rugs. That would be Avalyn's doing.

So, I went to Joann's and bought a yard of laminated cotton ($17.99 per yard, not exactly cheap), and a quarter of a yard of clear vinyl ($2.39 per yard, much better!). I didn't need any bias tape since I'm using the leftover fabric of the old canopy to line the new canopy with.

First I marked where the old canopy was and added  about eight inches in the middle. Nice big canopy!

Next was actually cutting and sewing it all went well, no issues really. Until I tried to get the metal rod back into the original fabric. It was all kinds of sticky from whatever adhesive was used to keep that rod in there. So, I used the old canopy fabric to make a new place for the rod.

You wanted to see it. ;)

Here's the finished product. What do you think? I really like it!

View from the top - yep I added a little window!

 If you can't tell from the two pictures above, my laundry room/sewing room is a freaking mess. It doesn't help that I haven't done laundry in a week, so I have sorted piles of clothes all over the room. I'll give you a few before pictures.

             

The Staples box contains socks that don't have a match, the stuff on top of the dryer is random junk that came out of pockets... you know rocks, acorns, money, sorcerers wand, sunscreen, coke bottle (yeah, I wish those last three were jokes). Also, that's where the detergent, fabric softener, and stain remover are. There's really no good place for them. I need shelves, or better yet: cabinets!         

Here's the after. Not a lot better, but it's an improvement. I put the stain remover and fabric softener on the ledge behind the washer, the other stain remover is positioned (rather precariously) behind/on the dryer and ledge. I kept the detergent on the dryer for easy access. It's hard to reach the ledge for every load of laundry with a giant 34 week baby belly in the way! The curtain is a leftover from Avalyn's room. I actually like it down here. I was thinking of painting the room a really happy yellow and these would look nice with that.

Here's some inspiration for what I want it to be:

Happy yellow!

I like the idea of a bulliten board, or peg board on the wall the sewing machine is on. Love the open shelving, too... and the hanging lamps. Can I just love all of it? I don't have the original source of this one, but I found the image on Pinterest.

And I will certainly be making a curtain to go around the ugly that is the furnace. Check out the before and after of this laundry room on her blog. I found the image on Pinterest but the blog post has a lot more pictures!

Here's the layout right now, then what I want it to be...

In the second picture I replaced the hot water heater with a tank-less hot water heater that will mount on the wall, moved the central vac over by the furnace, and added shelves to the wall with the window. I doubt this will ever happen as seeing I want to put a bathroom downstairs eventually... guess we'll see.

                 

Okay, back to reality... Here's a picture of my messy sewing table. Totally not able to work there easily. And yes, I was "watching" Grey's Anatomy on Hulu when I was cleaning. Anyone watch the newest episode? I can't wait til Thursday!

Why hello, messy table. You are messy.

My thread cabinet - this is where thirty percent of my thread was.

This is where the other seventy percent was... nice huh?

This this the blank wall next to the furnace. I hung a poncho there... yeah, I don't have a clue as to what to put here. The switches make it sort of hard to work with.

Clean! I managed to fit all of my fabric in a tote, all the thread in the cabinet, and all of my odds and ends in the storage slots on my sewing table. The hamper and backpacks on the floor need a home, and that cord that's all rolled up needs to be put in the garage where Matt is going to put ends on it for the generator. It's too heavy for me to carry, so it's waiting patiently for him!

Here's a nice little summary of what's going on in here...

My many spools of thread. I have like a billion of each color (if a billion means three to nine spools of each).

So, am I nesting? Or is this something anyone would do if their room was this messy? I also scrubbed the floors and vacuumed... and scrubbed the washer and dryer... and the walls... It's not just me, right???

Oh, the crafts!

I have been on a craft kick lately. Matt even took me to the fabric store yesterday after we went to Sears. What a guy!

Here's what I bought:

 No I didn't buy the car seat, just the stuff inside it! I have five projects in the works. Here's number one: Make a poncho! I wanted something that I could wear and wrap Avalyn up in (because we don't put her in a jacket in her car seat). This seems to be the ticket. I can just lift her up and wrap it around her until we get into the store. It will also work for new baby when he gets here. Since Avalyn will (hopefully) be able to put her own jacket on by next fall, and I will be wearing baby into the store. Avalyn won't lose her toddler seat in the cart yet. ;) What I didn't picture is the button I found. It's two inches around and a dark brown color. I decided to use only one button because otherwise the poncho will be too complicated for what I need it. The striped fabric is for the inside of the hood, it also has teal in it, just for a pop of color.

 Here's project number two: Rip apart the old car seat cover and make a new one. This was a used car seat Matt got from his friend. We are so grateful for it, but I would like it to match Avalyn's seat a bit better. So I'm going to take the sucker apart and cowafi it. That's a word. Now....
I'll use the same batting, and the old fabric will act as my pattern template. I also intend on making it fire retardant with help of a spray I found. I figured this would be the safer alternative to the slip covers you can find online. I don't have all of my supplies for this one yet, though. I need some bias tape and another yard of fabric for the inside of the canopy. I'm thinking something black and white with some red mixed in, hopefully some fun contrasting shapes for his little eyes. If I don't find fabric with all of those colors, then I will just get some red bias tape for the canopy. That will be a fun pop!

 Project number three: Another sweatsuit size 2T. I'm going to see if these things are sell-able. They were such a hit at Christmas with all the kiddos and if I can find a way to make a little mad money, that would be great. They take me about three hours from start to finish so they aren't difficult.

Here's what the finished product should look like:

The outfit I will make won't be made with a zipper though. They're expensive and difficult, not to mention they can get stuck on the clothes underneath, or pinch sensitive skin. Ouch! I'm using snaps instead. That little model, by the way, is Alyssa. Isn't she sweet?

 Remember these beauties? Yeah, needs something more huh? On to project number four!

 It's simple. Put up a curtain rod and hang some curtains. I went with white. Can't go wrong there!

 Project number five is relatively simple, too. Gross, but simple. See that toilet seat? Yeah, it's wood... and it's cracking in places that pinch other places. It's got to go! Unfortunately, the metal screws are all kinds of broken down. Thanks to urine. See it's totally gross. So, I'm going to have to take the seat off from underneath. The trick is to find the right tool in Matt's monster tool box to get the thing off there. The old owners were kind enough to leave behind white plastic seats, but didn't take the time to remove the old seat. Who can blame them?

So, lots of projects! I won't be doing them in order. From easy to hard it's probably: Curtain rod, toilet seat, poncho, sweatsuit, and finally car seat. Which one am I most excited to tackle? The car seat of course!

After writing all of that, I just realized that there are two more projects I want to do. Figures huh? I want to dye the pink canvas of my new double jogger. Black would be the best bet. I also want to switch out the harness on the single jogger. I just need to buy some canvas to reinforce it. Yep... I'm sure there will be more to come... A slip cover for the pink baby swing perhaps. Who knows.

Anyone else going project/craft crazy? Matt thinks I'm nesting. I think it's winter and there's nothing to do. ;)

Roman Shades and Living Room Envy

Have I ever posted pictures of my living room? It's a hot mess so probably not. None of my furniture matches, and there is absolutely no design. It can barely be considered functional. One day we'll get there, but it will be a while.

When we moved here the biggest thing missing was window treatments in the living room/dining area. So, I went to (gag) Walmart and found the cheapest and nicest looking blackout curtains I could find. I actually like them a lot, but I had no way of hanging them. The window is one hundred inches wide so Walmart didn't have a rod long enough for me to put the curtains up. Sad face! So, I improvised. I bought four panels. Two for the siding door, and two for the front window and door.

Here's the living room when we bought the house.

The entryway.

 The dining room.

Here's the dining room after I put up curtains in June.

 The living room window after I put up curtains. Sorry, these are the only pictures I've got. These are the panels I turned into roman shades... they are just held up by a tension rod. Not so pretty. I folded them up for the picture, probably because I wanted to look outside. Folding them was difficult, and not the what I wanted to do every time I looked outside!

That brings me to today. There are thousands of roman shade tutorials online, but I did mine a bit different than tutorials I saw elsewhere.  Roman shade kits are $60 at Joann Fabric (yowza!) and only go up to 40 inches. I needed 43 inches. So, I went to Lowes, and look what I found!

Yep, Blindz! And only $9.96 a piece. Win!

So, back in June I cut up the curtain panels I bought and hemmed the top and bottom and sides to prevent fraying. In the end they were 43 inches wide, just what I needed! From there, I measured fifteen inches down and took an inch of fabric and pinched it together, pinned, and sewed a straight line across the curtain. This gave me a half inch, hollow pleat (I have no idea what to call it). I made three of these, each fifteen inches apart. I took the picture below when everything was said and done, but it shows you what I'm talking about.

This is where the blinds come in. I put the blinds on my messy floor (I had everything clean and Avalyn spilled cheese puffs everywhere... and when there was finally time I couldn't vacuum because she was sleeping... *sigh*), and took them apart.

 It was super easy. I popped the caps off the bottom and untied the lift cord. 

Then I cut the ladder looking cords (the ones that keep the blinds spaced apart and twists them up and down, also much thinner than the lift cord), and from there the vinyl slats slid right off the cord! Yey! That left me with this:

 Let me explain this picture further. I put what was left of the blinds on top of my already hemmed fabric and used Velcro to attach the fabric to the top of the blinds. I would have used glue, but someone *cough* Keith *cough* stole my glue and wouldn't tell me where he put it. Yeah, awesome. I love it when he takes my stuff and loses it. Seriously ticked about that... but back to the shade! See the Velcro? It worked pretty well.

After I Velcroed the sucker I took the three lift cords and ran them down the length of the fabric. I used a pencil to mark where I needed to poke holes in my hollow pleats. I took two of the vinyl slats and cut them in thirds (the middle section was discarded). The pieces were just small enough to slide into the hollow pleat. Nice huh? Then I used my nippers to poke three small holes in each pleat and I threaded the lift cord through the holes. The picture above shows I knotted the cord, but do not keep it like this! I only did this to hold the cord in place for the next step. Here's what it looks like without the knot. Make sense? I hope so, I'm awful at explaining how I did things!

 

The next step requires glue, but I couldn't go out and get it because the roads are horrible. Unfortunately, I had already started the project, thinking I had my supplies. So without glue I had to improvise, and it's not pretty. See?

 Yeah, I had to tie on the bottom of the blind. Ew. It's supposed to be glued. Can you see how that would look a million times better? I sure do... As soon as it stops snowing and the roads are clear I'll go out and buy me some glue, until then I will make do with the unfortunate bottom of the shade.

After I did that the shades were done(ish)! So, I snapped them into place, just like you would mini blinds and gave it a little test. Viola! Roman shades!

 Here's the dining room now. With the two untouched panels. Still needs work in there. Let's not look for too long...

  A view of the front door. When I cut the panels that I used to make the shades, I used the leftovers to create  curtains for the window over the door. I just used an old rod from our last house and some command hooks to hold them in place. Not the prettiest but it makes it so people can't stare into my house!

And here's the living room now. With shades! I've got to say I'm loving that I can look out the window with ease. The snow out there is blinding, but that's okay because I don't have to turn on any lights. Yes, Avalyn's pants are around her ankles. She decided to come upstairs when I took the camera out (she was watching Muzzy in the playroom)... she then decided it would be a good idea to pull her pants down and dance for the occasion. Silly girl.

Here the shades are again, this time without a pants-less toddler in the picture. Hooray nap time!

 Well, that was my weekend project. It took me about three hours. Probably would have been longer with gluing, but we all know what happened with that. :p

A side note: The gray carpet on the floor is the color I'm going to paint the wall (probably next year, we have to get new flooring first. Don't ask, it's just what Matt says, no painting until the floor is in). I'm also going to paint the ugly honey oak trim white. The burgundy chair will probably go blue, and the pillows will get new cases when I find fabric I like. I'm not sure what will happen to the futon, but I seriously hope that a sectional couch is in our future.

Look at this room from one of Young House Love's house crashing posts. Isn't it beautiful? It's got a similar layout to my living room, in the gray that I like, with wood floors, a wingback chair, and a sectional! This person is totally in my head. If you check out the link above you can see their dining room, too. It has a cow painting. Seriously, this person is awesome. You can find her blog here.

Okay, I'm done stalking other people's living rooms for now. Does anyone else have living room envy? Or put up super awesome roman shades? I might be a little too proud of them, but I can't help it!