hobbit hole

This weekend I finally pulled the stops out and worked hard on my house.

I moved all of the stuff that I had been storing in the study through the adjoining door into the garage.

I rearranged furniture in the study to accommodate my antique rocking chair, so that I didn't have to, as I thought I would, store it in the garage as well.

I looked at and seriously hated the hideous door connecting the study to the garage, which takes up a lot of the end wall of the narrow room and makes the whole thing look incredibly tacky. That door is made of the cheapest possible material which has obviously splintered, and looks like it was unceremoniously forced into the jamb. Altogether so ugly it's depressing. So I dug out a set of garnet sheets that Boss Lady had given me, ripped out the stitches on the top ends, ran a spare curtain rod through it (one that I had saved from when I made my living room curtains in the spring, but it was too wide for the windows and I never throw anything away that I can help), trimmed the bottom, grabbed my portable sewing machine, sewed a quick seam, mounted the curtain rod's hardware, and hung the curtain over the door. I then placed an antique captain's chair in front of it -- light enough for quick and easy moving when I want to use the door, but heavy enough to lend a sense of permanence to that end of the room. The dark red curtain gives the room a little splash of elegance, covers the ugly door, and traps the cold draft running in around the badly fitted edges.

I retrieved a very long, wrought iron curtain rod I've had lying around for a year or so and a designer shower curtain bestowed upon me by Boss Lady, forced the curtain onto the rod, and mounted it over my wide, doorless bedroom closet. It's a good closet, but a closet is a closet and viewing its innards from the rest of the room gave the bedroom a sort of unwanted ghetto chic. The curtain goes with the colors in the room and gives the room a sort of finished touch. It's stiff enough not to float around on the breeze of the heating vent and to act almost as a door itself when one ducks around it.

I solved the dual dilemma of what to do with this lovely antique suitcase I had bought as a bed for Simon which he never uses, and what to do with all the little stuffed animals people keep giving me (I refused to buy one of those horrible stuffed animal nets that hang from the ceiling, and at the same time, at the age of twenty-six, I also refused to pile them all over the bed). I opened the suitcase, which has a lovely red sateen lining, set a potted plant in one corner, and arranged the stuffed animals around the plant. It's sitting on one of my dressers in the bedroom and looks a lot more adult and nicely whimsical.

I cleaned the entire bedroom. I put away all the clothes, picked up all the clutter, and vacuumed. The result: beautiful. Finally, a finished room. Simon spent the entirety of yesterday in it.

That was only Saturday. Yesterday I went shopping for a few necessaries, which included a seam ripper. I took the fitted sheet from the garnet set and ripped out all the stitches (which took forever), then trimmed it into a square and cut out panels for curtains in the study windows to match the curtain over the door. I hemmed all the panels and cut out strips to sew into loops which I will attach to the top of the panels and through which I will run the curtain rods. These will give the study its final touch, and grant me some much-needed privacy, as I am uncomfortable sitting in lighted rooms at night into which anyone outside can see.

So I made a lot of progress yesterday which two months in a depressive funk had, till this weekend, prevented. Somehow it was much easier with Christmas music playing in the background.

Tonight: finish the curtains, wash a few more dishes, and hang a miniblind over the last bare living room window. Also cook dinner (creamed chicken and biscuits. Heavenly).