I'm back--I think!

So, it's been a busy spring around the Wren House. Nothing new there, but this time, I have pictures of one of the projects. The rest of the stuff wasn't picture worthy!

For the 5 1/2 years that we've lived in this house, the biggest room was Johnnie's pool room. He had a pool table, a stereo, and a big bar table. The walls were decorated with a cow skull, a framed front page from when UT won the national championship, a display box of his pocket knife collection, and a gun rack that held bows, arrows, and bb guns.
No one ever went in there. Ok, that's not really true. When the grandkids were here, they would shoot a game of pool now and then. At Christmas, the kids hung out in here and shot pool. When it was just us here, the door was never opened.
The floor had burgundy carpet that came with the house. It was really pretty, and we meant to keep it. But, when we pulled up the carpet in other rooms and saw how filthy it was underneath, we couldn't stand to keep it.And, the dog didn't like it much either--or maybe she liked it too much. I think I may have someone lined up to refinish the floors, but until then, I have some ugly, cheapo carpet on it.

Now, let's roam into the back of the house, to the smallest room of the house. That's my office/craft/sewing/library. In there, I run my business, keep the piles of paperwork related to that business, store the overflow from the workroom (previously know as The Dining Room), have 5 bookcases of book, 3 of them for my BookCrossing hobby, and craft and sew. It's a disaster. I had almost given up sewing or crafting because it took so long to find, haul out, and put away anything I wanted to work on--it wasn't worth it unless I had the rare entire day to craft.

But, he's wanted a pool table his entire life, and I wasn't going to ask him to give that up. Just knowing it was there made him happy, and that made me happy.

A few weeks ago, a dear friend said that she was coming to visit. I was so excited--it had been 5 years since I'd seen her, so excited is probably not a big enough word. But, I have no guest room. While I was trying to figure out where we could put an air bed or something, Johnnie offered a shocking suggestion. He offered to sell his pool table and give me that room for my hobbies. After refusing for several days, I accepted, with guilt. And then excitement!

This is the result.



I kept the pool table and had a piece of plywood cut to fit. I then put 3 coats of raspberry chalkboard paint on it. So, I can cut fabric, craft, write shopping lists, and the kids can draw on it too. Lots of wins there. And if someone wants to shoot pool, it's no big deal to take off the plywood and lean it against the wall.

This is the fun part. I padded one end of the table for an ironing board. I can sew, and press seams without even getting out of my chair. Big happy grin!! And, I've already discovered how handy the large surface is for pressing yardage and tablecloths.


The storage part needs some work, but it's getting there! Of course, moving these two bookcases into the craft room left a lot of books with no place to live. Must start registering and releasing at BookCrossing more often!


Johnnie's bar table is pretty handy for the sewing machine, but the stools are really uncomfortable. I still have to work out the extension cord issue, so for now, I'm sewing without my foot pedal, using the stop/start button. This is my first modern machine, and the button thing is really hard to get use to, at least for me!

I don't know if you can tell, but the table and stools are really massive. The table has ball and claw feet that are bigger than both of my fists put together!



This is my handwork/reading corner. Nice and cozy, isn't it? You can see that Johnnie's knife collection is still there. I'm in no hurry to change the walls until I find exactly what I want. For now, things are fine.



And last, but not least, the guest room part of the deal-the humble futon. I was actually amazed at how comfortable it was--not fancy hotel standard, but better than a cot!

So, that's how I spent my winter weekends. And I will spend my spring and summer basking in the joy of my own sewing space!!