My Little Sewing Room

Hi, Friends, How are you?

I hope you are well.

I wanted to show you my little sewing room at the new house. 

On the plans, this room was supposed to be a storage room for my seasonal and holiday decor and it was going to house the hot water heater.  

We are lacking storage at this house but we will remedy that when our house in town sells. There is not a tall enough pitch to the roof to store anything in the attic and we do not have a garage.  Right now all my pretty seasonal things are in the old shed. We got a tankless water heater and put it in the attic which created more space. Thank heavens. 

Getting light into the butler's pantry and kitchen was a priority so we added a window to the plans. 

As this addition progressed, we decided that the room would be best used as a small craft or sewing room instead of one used just for storage.  

It was difficult to gage how big the room would be from the plan. It looked bigger during the concrete slab and framing stages. It ended up being smaller than we imagined but it still has great function. 

I am using this room as a vanity and craft supply storage. I have only sewed in here once so far. 

Upon emptying the other house, I had a choice of four desks. 

I chose this one for the time being but I'm looking for a better desk. I've decided that antique desks are too low so I may order something new once the other house sells. 

The bottom half of an old hutch stores some crafting supplies. I will probably craft in the kitchen, however. 

If you have been around, you might remember my doll house build from my 65th birthday. 

All of the rooms were "wallpapered" and one of the rooms was a darling sewing room/office. 

I decided that my little office needed to have wallpaper. 

Leland's Wallpaper is right around the corner from my house. They service the entire country so check them out if you want wallpaper. Michelle has shipped wallpaper to England. 

Wallpaper is expensive now days, just FYI. 

The paper we chose is the Lydia Blue by Magnolia Home. It is a lovely blue that reads robin's egg in some lights and Wedgwood at other times. It's reading gray blue in these photos. Either way, I felt like it would coordinate with anything that we did in the laundry room and bathroom. 

It was quite beastly to hang but I muddled through. 

I adore it. 

Originally, the big cabinet was on the longer wall but in the end,

I flipped the cabinet and the desk which makes the tiny room feel a little bigger. 

This room takes the place of a vanity room, one closet and part of our old garden room.  

I had a craft closet at the other house. I used the kid's bathroom as my vanity area once they all moved out 

Waiting to purchase a desk until we were in the space was a wise move. I know now that I want it on the long wall and I have a better idea of the storage needed for make up and such. 

The glass fronted top of the cabinet is being used as display. This piece was in the garden room and it stored seeds and various garden related collectables and books. It's decorated much like it was at the other house. 

I'm sure rather than decor, I could use the top for storage but I don't love the look of supplies on display. 

All the craft supplies were pared down so that they would fit in the bottom half of the hutch. 

The crystal chandelier was a garage sale find several decades ago. It was 50¢. It hung in our daughter's room. I was thrilled to use it in this house. 

I made the little cafe curtains out of panels from our room. 

The rest of the window remains unadorned so that light pours through.

Ideally, we could have done a wall of built ins. Now that we've hung the wallpaper, it would be sad to cover it up with built ins. 

Bill and the contractor made a doorway into my closet so that we can get from the laundry room to the bathroom through this room. 

We love this on laundry day. 

It does make my closet seem smaller however but it also forces me to keep it tidy.

We used a French door so that light spills through to the other rooms. 

I love that the wallpaper creates a sweet design moment that can be seen from the laundry, butler's pantry and kitchen. 

That's all for now. 

I think I still need to give you a tour of our bathroom. We still need to finish the butler's pantry but we are still working on that. I have added a few little Valentine's Day touches that I hope to show. 

Have a great day! 

Katie 

The New Laundry Room

Hi Friends, 

How are you? I've missed you. 

I hope your new year is going well so far. Is this your coldest January in some years? 

We have had some cold days but it's nothing like February of 2021.  

We're settling into life in East Texas. 

I don't remember what I shared in my last post but I will confess that I've had some homesickness for the other house. Additionally, I'm struggling with some of the things that we gave away. Some things have just disappeared and I fear that they went to the landfill with the junk. I couldn't find a Red Land Cottage top sheet and it was driving me crazy. I did find it.  It was in a suitcase with my grandmother's and my wedding dresses. Why? I don't know. In the four years that we've had two houses, many times the thing that I was looking for was at the other house. The city house is almost empty so my brain knew it couldn't be there but I still had the urge to look. 

If you have downsized, let me know if you struggled with similar feelings. 

Now for the post. 

The old laundry room was at the South East corner of the house. 

Here is what it looked like after we owned the house for a bit. 

This was after we did some work. Paint, flooring and a screen for the hot water heater. 

There was no window so the space was dark but it was clean and serviceable. 

I can't remember what was in the soffit. I wasn't here when they tore that out. 

In order to live here full time and create more space, we enclosed a carport and screen porch to create a new dining room and den. We built an addition which has a new primary bathroom and closets, a laundry room/mudroom and little office.

It's my goal to share the rest of the addition in the next few months. 

Here is a photo of the front of the house. The addition is the small section on the right. 

Bill felt like we needed to move the laundry room into the addition and make the old laundry room a butler's pantry. 

This was complicated. The water comes into the house at the old hot water heater. We got a tankless which moved the water heater but the plumbing still needed space to come in. Bill and the framing contractor figured it out but it took some doing. It looked fine on paper but until it all came together, I wasn't sure the washer and dryer would fit with the door frame. 

Here is a photo of the laundry room at the old house. 

Here are some things that we needed in the new laundry room/ mudroom. 

I wanted our new one to be pretty like my old one. 

\We needed a new back door for the house since the old back door became the entrance to the new dining room. 

 

I needed a window. I wanted a place where I could chance out the valance with the seasons. 

We opted for shelves instead of a closed cabinet. I did them with Hobby Lobby brackets. They are just like the ones at the old house. It brought some familiarity to this new room. Bill's old beside table became a place to set keys, a flashlight or groceries when we enter the house. 

We thought we would do a mudroom bench with over head cabinets on the opposite wall. 

However, I've yet to design the built ins and Bill is still working so this has been put on hold. 

In the meantime, our old pie safe is holding overflow canned goods from the other house. 

A shelf that Bill made for his coat closet holds essential "outdoor" shoes. 

It is so sandy here that we change shoes when we come into the house. 

Theoretically, the sand stays in the mudroom. 

A French baguette holder is a great place to stuff grocery bags. 

Finally, we have a few hooks for coats. We need many more, I think. 

Keys for the farm toys are all hung at the back door. 

I love the backdoor. It looks classic cottage to me. 

Here it is from the outside. The color is Coastal Plain by Sherwin Williams. It's the color that I used on the front door at the old house. 

We had the electrician put a plug high on the wall so that when we hang cabinets or a shelf, I can plug in 

a Christmas cottage. It looks silly now but it should all make sense at some point. 

We put French doors at either end so that it lets in light from my office. 

We also wanted to be able close the cat out of this room so that she doesn't sneak outside. 

I adore the molding we chose for our windows and doors. 

That is all for now. I can't believe how far we have come in six months. I'm so glad to be on this side of things in spite of a little homesickness. 

Our old house is under contract as of yesterday. 

Hopefully, this time we will make to a closing. 

Bye for now,

Katie