No More Haunted Mansion

Remember my morgue-like sewing room?

NO MORE FUNERAL PARLOR DRAPES!! WHOO HOOOOO!

Gee, it's about time, isn't it? I've only been staring at those horrible depressing drapes--courtesy of our home's previous owner--for ten years now. Yay! We now have nice white faux wood blinds, courtesy of our local Home Depot.

And did you notice the color? We painted, too! (Thanks for all your color suggestions on this post.) This was my inspiration palette:

Obviously, a color scheme selected by a perimenopausal woman living in Hawaii. Summer is so dang hot! I'd rather fantasize that I'm living atop that iceberg there.

Here were the iceberg-inspired swatches that I agonized over:

As you can see, icy, cool, ice cube colors. I had actually decided on "Tide Pools," which is on the card furthest to your left--middle swatch. But the day we purchased the paint, I forgot my paint swatches at home, and had to remember what color I had decided upon. The remembering part didn't go so well--I picked out a new group of aqua swatches and "Delicate Mist" looked and sounded more familiar, so I bought a gallon of that one. ("Delicate Mist" is the middle card, middle color.)

I remembered wrong. Oh well, it's kind of close. It looked closer under the lighting at Home Depot, anyway.

It's difficult to capture the color in this room! There is too much light to be able to see it very well.

We actually finished painting a couple weeks ago, but I didn't post pictures because I couldn't get good pictures of the paint color (I still can't). The window light burns out the camera, so the color is hard to photograph.

It's a very delicate color. I like it a lot. I think if it were any darker, I'd tire of it easily.



It feels very serene and peaceful in here atop my imaginary iceberg.



I picked up this sconce at my favorite thrift store. It's perfect for my knitting needles.



The light aqua is a little easier to see on this wall--but still, you don't see the whole large cumulative blue/green/gray space. It's a large room, so there is plenty of blue.

My sewing room will never be a "pretty" room. It's my work room. My quilt factory. I love my sewing table (ugly) and my machine-on-a-stick (12 feet of bare wood and sprinkler pipe), and all the yarn storage beneath. I suppose I could drape everything in fabric...but ugh...I'd rather be quilting. Besides, with all the bright natural light, decorator fabric fades in six months. Not worth it.

I like my room to be practical and rearrangeable. I also like to store my bulky, unattractive items so they are easy to get to. I think if I made it a really "pretty" room, I'd never want to get it messy!

I love my space. It feels very restful, without feeling very "Rest in Peace"-full, if you know what I mean.

Fresh Paint

I love new paint! I'm getting bold with colors now. This is my computer room and the paint is called "Corn Husk" by Behr. I was terrified when we first started rolling it on because I was in a "mood" when I picked it out one Saturday. I went looking for a nice turquoise, but after looking at one too many turquoises, this funky green caught my eye.

I love it! Especially with the red lamp. Don't ask me what kind of mood I was in when I bought that red lamp...

If you've noticed that my interiors are rather "spare," you're right. Kauai, although a lovely place to live, is full of red dirt, humidity, bugs, pooping geckoes, and sticky sea air when the surf is high. Our windows are open all year round because air conditioning is too expensive and we don't have heating in our homes. It is hell on furniture, draperies, and don't even talk to me about knick-knacks! Can you imagine having to wash every decorative item in your house at least once a month? So most everything is put away and kept off off the floor. Clutter attracts bugs and more mold. Nice furniture fades in the sun and the veneers bubble and crack. The pulls, mirrors, and drawer hardware rust within a year's time. Hawaii is very hard on your stuff!

Nice furniture is very expensive here. We don't have any chain furniture stores, and our department stores do not carry furniture. Shipping charges added to large items make them outrageously expensive, as you can imagine, and why pay for nice furniture that will look terrible in a year or so?

It is for this reason that most of us furnish our houses with disposable furniture a la Wal Mart. I decorate for cool air flow to minimize bug-attracting clutter. The more minimal my interiors, the less cleaning I have to do, the less bugs build homes in my stuff, and the more the air can circulate and keep us cool. It took me several years of living here to give up on lush decorating styles--but now, I know what works.

I also try to keep a minimal stash because fabric molds pretty quickly. This is a peek into the walk-in closet in my sewing room:

This is it. The sum total of my stash...and this is even too much! I'm working on reducing it.

This closet is perfect for my stash. It's in my sewing room (shown below), but it's dark and I can open up the doors and let the air flow through on dry days.

I'm having a sewing day tomorrow with my dear friends. Here is what my "work room" looks like the night before my friends arrive:

I have six fold-away tables, three of which are set up for tomorrow. We have lots of room and plenty of light. Windows open all around and overhead fans keep the air circulating on hot days.

When I don't have guests, I store all those fold-away tables and have LOTS of floor space. My homemade long-arm quilting machine acts as a cutting table for two mats with plenty of room to spare.

This is my sewing station. My Bernina is for quilting and my Pfaff is for piecing.

One of the reasons I'm showing you these pictures of my sewing room is that I'm about to give it a little face lift. These are "before" pictures. I've always considered my sewing room a "workroom" and never decorated in here. Can you believe those horrible morgue curtains (courtesy of the house's previous owners) are still up?? I've been gazing at those horrible curtains for TEN YEARS, people! Enough!! New curtains...or at least shades...are imminent.

Okay...so here's where YOU, dear reader, come in. I need your opinion. What color would you paint this room? I'm going to leave all the trim white because I would have to spend five years painting those windows and baseboards and moldings. It takes me days just to clean all that woodwork!! So they stay white.

Think of a cooler color. It's hot here most of the year, and even when it's not, I'm still having those 50-something "personal summers." So even though dark red would be fabulous, it would feel like the fiery furnace of hell in here to me. I'm just sayin'...

The curtain question is a poser. Look at all that yardage it would take! Expensive fabric...or even colored curtains are out...they would fade within a year. So it's blinds, shutters, lace, or something...ugh. See why the morgue look has persisted? It's a problem.

So there is a peek into my minimalist interior. As you can see, I am not a collector of "stuff." I get rid of everything I don't use very quickly. I am not overly fond of gifts (I know...gasp!!) because I only want a few things that I actually want and will use. Right now, my foyer is filled with my latest purge of stuff--ready to be hauled off to the thrift store (or perhaps I'll have a garage sale). I'm a hopeless non-collector--my house gets emptier of stuff every year! But it also gets easier to keep clean. More time for sewing!