Saturday, October 03, 2009

A Homemade Life

As I mentioned in my previous post, we've been able to do a lot of work on the house over the past few weeks. We got a wonderful deal on some v-groove pine for our living room and kitchen ceilings, and after getting it all urethaned, we spent about 3-4 days installing it. It makes such an amazing difference in our house! No more energy shield ceilings!!! Here you can see what it looked like when we first got started in the living room (and you can see those lovely ceilings that we've been living with for the past 4 years :)).
Here is the kitchen ceiling, all finished:
This shows how Jim enclosed the main supporting beams that run the length of the house:
And he even built a door for our storage area above the kids' room. YAY!!! No more black hole!
And this is how we enclosed the part above the windows in the living room:
There is still a lot of trim to do, but it is SO nice to have the ceiling almost totally done now!!

Another homemade thing I did recently was to make a pillowcase for Jim's body pillow. We both have them and they are so comfy to snuggle up with at night, but his pillowcase was falling apart (due to the kids using it for a "sleeping bag"--and they've been strictly instructed not to use the new case for that purpose!!). I had this great cowboy fabric that I bought on sale years ago, not knowing what to do with it . . . well, it was perfect for this project! I recycled the zipper out of the old case and it turned out great. It was a pretty fast and easy project, and Jim is so happy with his "new" pillow!


The last thing I want to share is some more exciting house progress. Jim got the front of the house all sided!!! We've been living with Tyvek for a long time, and it's thrilling to see such a big chunk of the siding done now. He still needs to finish the sides of the dormer, then we need to tackle the garage door end (which is on the right in this picture), then the far end. We already have most of the back side of the house done.

So that gives you an idea of what we've been up to over the past month! Have you tackled any home projects or anything else homemade? I'd love to hear!!

6 comments:

Beth P. said...

Wow! That new ceiling looks amazing! Nice job on the siding, too! I'm sorry, but I couldn't help but laugh at the fact that your kids use the body pillow case as a sleeping bag. Thats cute!

Unknown said...

That ceiling is incredible!!!! Do you find yourself gazing it up at it in admiration during the day? :)

Haven't done much sewing these days. :( I have a few repurposing projects lined up though whenever I make the time . . .

The Two of Us said...

Hey - sorry it has been so long. Somehow I lost your blog as a link on mine and I just finally got around to finding it again. The ceiling looks amazing. Great job!

Samara said...

Your house looks beautiful, Carrie!

I've been making a lot of felt play food lately, some for a swap and some just for my son or to use as gifts later this year. I've also been recycling some of my husband's old clothing into clothes for our son and old tshirts into quilted rags for cleaning. With luck, this week I will finish some of the felt food and have a go at making one of the following: a heap of cloth baby wipes from old cotton tshirt sleeves, or wool longies & diaper covers from old sweaters that I've felted/fulled in the wash. Can you tell that my whole craft dynamic is based on spending as little as possible?

Mary Ann said...

Love, love, love the ceiling! Don't you get excited about getting something done! Progress is a wonderful thing, for sure. I actually did some work this week on a quilt I cut out several years ago. Who knows when I'll get to it again, but it was fun to do some sewing :-)

Jenny said...

It's so nice to watch the house gradually come together, isn't it? Very exciting!! Too bad for all those people who move into perfectly finished houses - they don't know what excitement they are missing out on. At least that's what I tell myself, ha ha.