Saturday 24th April, 2010

My Workroom Revamped

I have mentioned  that we are still living in our caravan after returning from our 7-month trip around Australia.  The caravan is parked in my brother's driveway (about 5 minutes from our house) since our driveway is taken up mainly by a large shipping container measuring approximately the same length as our caravan - 18 feet.  The container is chock-a-block full of all the contents of our house, packed in teachest-sized packing boxes.  Except for my minis, which are largely in the clear plastic boxes in which I have them stored in my workroom.  When we ran out of boxes I also used any other object that will hold things until we could buy some more, much to my nephew's disgust, since it was his pride to arrane and rearrange it all to achieve the most efficient use of the space - right up to the roof.  So when I say it is chockers - it really is chockers!    In fact, the last 10 boxes wouldn't fit into the container at all.  Remind me not to move in a hurry vbg - that doesn't even count the furniture!

The reasons for this big cleanout are various, but while it is happening we are repainting the interior of the house, having the place fumigated, the carpets and upholstery on the lounge and armchairs cleaned and doing an enormous sort-out and throw-out!

My nephew will no longer be living in our caravan, he will be living in what is presently my study. Just before we moved all the furniture out of the study I took these photos as a reminder of what it used to be like.  The walls are painted in a colour similar to what I call 'Ikea blue'.  It is actually a very pleasant colour to work in.  The woodwork is called Regency White - only just off-white, the cherry wood furniture looks really nice, and I had natural calico tab-topped curtains.  The shelf along the side wall had white magazine holders (also from Ikea vbg) filled with syllabus and other school things, and I had transluscent blue folders for bank statements etc.  Lots of white photo boxes for receipts, photos and scrapbooking bits and pieces on the shelving units on the right which also held albums and scrapbooking materials and photo albums.  But I didn't have enough space by a long way.  Peter had the hide to suggest that perhaps I had too much scrapbooking material - what a silly thing to say lol!  Men have such odd ideas.  On the wall that had the door from which I took the photos I just had room for shelves that held a television, my laminator and binder along with printer paper and laminating supplies.  To the right, at the end of the shelves, is a doorway to my workroom.

So I am losing one room and combining everything that was in there with everything that was in my workroom.  Since I am no longer teaching, that sounds fine, right?  Except that none of my teaching materials are in the study any more, nor are any of the things I used for my university studies.  I have two storage sheds for all of those (they are in the works for clearing out next!!!!)  And when I say that I didn't have enough room for my minis in the workroom or the patchwork and sewing and machine embroidery in the workroom, or for the scrapbooking in the study, and now I am combining all three in just one room, you will get a picture of what the situation will be.

Here are some views of the workroom which we have re-painted, before I start to put things back in it.  First, an overview of most of the room (left).  We chose 'Restful Green' for the walls, and the woodwork is again in Regency White, not quite cream and not quite white. The green is slightly deeper than it looks in these photos but not a great deal. I will hang the same calico tab-top curtains at the window and that is the same desk on the right - it is the longer of the two desks.  My Horn sewing table is under the window and the shelving units are to the left.  I have a reproduction Singer sewing table at the end of the desk, with my nearly-finished 'Coventry Cottage' sitting on it - with luck, having it more accessible will mean that I will do the final details to finish it off and do the landscaping. 

You can just make out the strips on the right wall.  They take the brackets for the shelves on which I store the plastic containers of miniatures, each one labelled with the contents: landscaping materials, Christmas items, fabrics and trims,furniture kits,china & porcelain, etc. I had the same along the entire length of the opposite wall before, so I have lost 10ft of storage shelves!  I had four levels of shelf, I think, on each side.

The second photo has a mind of its own and won't go where I want it to go, which is further down the page.  It is another view of the shelving unit and the smaller of the two desks, along that side wall.  There isn't room to have the extension part of this desk up, unfortunately.  I had hoped to have the two desks forming an L-shape in the corner where I have Coventry Cottage, with the sewing table at the end but we just couldn't get it to work - we were about 4 inches short.  So no go.  At the moment this is the most workable arrangement I can come up with.  And there is even room to open up my Horn sewing table entirely (third photo) for patchworking, which is good.  Rather cramped but as you can see in the first photo it closes up nicely when finished, and it is great to have the whole area when I am quilting especially.  I don't have to have the extension on the left open if I don't want to, but it is handy to support the weight of a big quilt for quilting or as a surface to keep a lot of threads on if I am using the embroidery machine.

Taking these photos I was standing at the door from the study.  You have to go through the study to get to this room.  Why then did I allocate the study to our nephew instead of this room?  Firstly because this room faces north, which for us being in the southern hemisphere means that it is a lovely light, sunny room.  Mark is a mole.  He likes blinds closed and darkness so he can play his computer games - this room would be totally wasted on him.  I love light for my minis as well as for the scrapbooking and patchwork or sewing.  I also enjoy looking out the window to the street.

Second, Mark is a slob and doesn't like fresh air.  This way I automatically ensure that some air at least gets into his room and so mould doesn't develop and passing through  I can discretely (or openly) make sure there are no empty food containers left lying around to attract bugs. 

And thirdly, this front room is slightly larger and has a built-in wardrobe.  I need the storage!  Here is the wardrobe, which is located on the same wall as the door.  It has a shelf right across the top, which will store all our Christmas decorations.  There are also shelves down the side which will take our stamp albums (yes, we collect them too) and coin collections (and them as well) and my cross stitch - well, some of it anyway vbg.  And the bulk of it, which is about 2 1/2 of the doors, is large enough for my big Horn cutting table.  I can wheel it out when I need to use it.  And there is still room for Peter to put in another shelf across the top of that section for me to use for more storage.

So there it is, so far.  I have a bit more to do before I can start 'moving in'.  The carpets were cleaned yesterday, and since I was 'banished' outside while they dried I did the first coat of paint on one side of the workroom shelves to freshen them up again.  I sanded them back first with my brother's orbital sander - it's an industrial one, and very powerful.  It was FUN!!!!  I looked for something else to sand but couldn't find anything else, which was a pity.  Then I scrubbed some old pots that had years of dirt and grunge on them ready to plant them up with annuals and 'pots of colour' to give some instant colour to the backyard.  They came up really well, looking almost new.  I love winter annuals and will go shopping tomorrow afternoon to see what I can find. 

We cleaned and weeded around the Jacaranda tree, and just loosened the soil.  While we were away my nephew had filled the area with bricks and rubbish for some strange reason, and I was definitely not happy about it.  Partly because I had planted it out with native violets (for the third time) and he had let them die by covering them up with rubbish!  So it is cleared out, weeded and ready to be topped up with nice compost and planted out with yet another lot of native violets and mulched with sugarcane mulch.  And I will put the bird bath back under there and if Mark or my brother dare move it again there will be a big ruckus vbg!  Neither of them seem to like the birdbath.  Given the least opportunity they empty and dismantle it.  Don't know why, it doesn't interfere with mowing the lawn when it is where it is supposed to be, which is in the raised bed around the Jacaranda.

It was great weather yesterday - about 28deg, hardly autumn weather.  Good weather for the carpet to dry.  I even got a touch of the sun although I worked in the shade the whole time.  Not enough to be sunburned, just a gentle warmth.  We didn't even use a blanket overnight, and had all the windows in the caravan wide open.

So that is the progress on the workroom.  We have also put the first coat on the bedroom walls and tomorrow might be starting on the loungeroom and dining room.  The painting won't be finished before our son's birthday party next Sunday - there's too much to do in just a week.  But we might aim to get the first coat on it all to freshen things up, then finish off later.  We certainly won't be moving everything in for several weeks yet, that will happen in stages as we finish each part.  There's lots more to come!