painting Archives - my so-called [knitting] life

Our house is basically set up in two parts. The main house has three bedrooms, two full bathrooms, dinning room, family room, living room, and kitchen. The other side of the house originally was a two car garage. At some point to was incorporated into part of the house with two bedrooms, a half bath, laundry room and what I use as a mudroom. Giving us a 5 bedroom and two and a half baths house. I use one of the five bedrooms as my craft room and it is one of the two bedrooms at the far end of the house. The other bedroom is Hanna’s/guest room. All of these spaces have builtins that make them feel like they have alway been a part of the house. That is something I love about this area of there house. Following are a few pictures of how the room looked when we bought the house.

This room will have many different functions, but the main one is storing and will allow space for my knitting and other many craft desires to have a proper home. This is greatly reflected with how this room is decorated. I like to decorate with functional pieces as well as some of the fluff added in a room that makes it feel finished. I used Chuck’s warping board (for weaving) and the sock blockers my brother made me for Christmas one year and paired it with a natural dye grouping that had been framed, this was a Mother’s Day gift from my younger kids. Decor that is useful.

With the builtins and a closet that is all shelves I have pretty great storage. I put all of my yarn into plastic bags to protect it from moths, there seem to be a abundance of those tiny white moths that want all my yarn. I put one of our sofa tables in here, it works great for winding yarn and using it as a counter height work space. The table previously had a life as a coffee bar in the Casita in our New Mexico home. I’ve purposely left the center of the room free of furniture. This gives me the perfect place to lay out my blocking boards for blocking large knitted items such as shawls. The blocked item can then stay pinned out for plenty of time, undisturbed by people or dogs while it dries. I’ve very quickly realized the quick drying time afforded me by the desert air in New Mexico has been replaced by lllllllloooooonnnnnnngggggg drying times in the humid air of Virginia.

Got to love the floor to ceiling storage and my grandma’s sewing chair works perfectly here

I repurposed Hanna’s bulletin board and hung my antique sock blockers

Another really great use of this open space is for me to do yoga. Not to mention it has a life as an extra guest room. This floor space allows us to set up a blow up bed in the event we have extra guests beyond our guest room capacity. This came in very handy with when my mom and her friend, Judy, came to visit and again when we had the Hretz reunion here.

You might think this is where I do my knitting. In reality most of my knitting is done in the evening when we have time to watch tv or in waiting rooms at dr appointments. Lately it’s been more of the latter rather than the former.

I found a cute vintage dresser that is a sweet, little, green painted thing. It fits perfectly under the window which, gives me another place for a lamp and I used it display a shawl Chuck wove. This house doesn’t have many overhead lights, so lamps it is. When I found the llama lamp at World Market I knew it had to live in this space.

The little dresser fits perfectly under the window

A polka dot Lamp shade- it just doesn’t get cuter

Paint is one of the cheapest ways to change the feeling of the place. I’ve always loved turquoise and it is perfect for a craft space, don’t you agree? This is a Sherwin Williams 6765 Spa. I don’t know if it is spa but it for sure is Crafty. I love this space and need to spend more time here. Knitting or not.

The knitting. If your here for the knitting, and many are, there isn’t much. But here is what there is.

I’m on the second sock, still of Hermione’s Socks. I’m about the start the pattern on the leg. This means I’m barley into the second sock (hangs head in shame) and so far my spiral striping in not spiraling. I’m not sure why. I’m not sure I really care. I’m not sure I don’t really care. But I am going to keep moving ever so slowly along. I’m sure if I hadn’t started the other pair of socks, The NO Purl Monkey socks by Cookie A I would’ve finished the other ones. In all fairness I did start the new pair as a gift that is on a time crunch.

the stripes are vertical! I wonder if this will continue

check out my new Baggu zipper bag, it has chickens on it!

I’ve also made a little progress on my Magic Stripes scarf. I’m not quite halfway done. It’s really a fun project and I wouldn’t mind just knitting away on this until it’s done. I do have an itch to start a shawl. I’m thinking about Chevron Shenanigans by Stephen West. Chevrons are some of my favorite knit stitch combinations.

There you go. Now let’s go knit!

Happy Knitting or what ever craftiness your feeling today.

One of my favorite things about this new house is the feelings it gives me. All warm and cozy, lots of natural light and good bones. It feels historic, and in fact, some of the neighbors call it the colonial house. I didn’t think of it in terms of colonial, being surrounded by Colonial Williamsburg there are so many authentic colonial homes and this one was built in 1962 not 1762. I do like the idea of it being colonial though. It is half a century plus in age so why not. I decided to go with colors for the exterior that would be reminiscent of Colonial Williamsburg colors. In a Patriotic way. Red, White and Blue!

The house is a yellowish color with a red front door and white trim. The paint is very weathered and has definitely seen better days. Also, there are beautiful exterior trim around the windows and door that currently are the same yellow color, they blend in. In my opinion these are intended as a statement of class or elegance. I will have them painted in the same Pure White [all colors are Sherwin Williams] that all the trim will be. The siding is going to be Colonial White, which is more cream than white so it will have a nice contrast. I’m going with Real Red for the front door.

This is before the door surround and door are repainted.

This after everything is painted. I took the picture further away so you can see the. blue ceiling.

We have Bill Jowers, the Virgina Painting company, doing the work. They also painted the entire interior. They have done a great job on all of it! They are very good at their job, time efficient and they clean up when they are all done. Can you believe they painted every inch of our 2700 square feet house in under a week and the exterior in two days!?! I’m searching for the perfect carriage lights and larger brass house numbers. I also have wreaths to hang on the windows and am hunting for the perfect front door swag.

Note in the picture below; The siding has already been repainted the Colonial White, you can see the difference of the yellow still around the window on the right, Bill put a bit of white on the window to the left to check the coverage. See the demarcation line on the soffit where it has been repainted vs old paint?

We have shutters on some of the windows, some not. When we moved in we saw there were extra shutters behind the shed, enough to go with all the windows on the back of the house and as a surprise for the shed. Four of the front windows have shutters brackets but the shutters are unfortunately long gone. I couldn’t take them from the back to put on the front windows as the front windows are much larger. It’s not in the budget right now to have real woods ones made to match, so for now we will just paint the ones we do have. And they will be painted Honorable Blue.

Isn’t it cute. I will give more info on the history if the shed at a later date.

We have some damaged wood siding on the shed. This needs to be repaired. We will also be adding windows to the chicken coop and a new front and side door. The shed painting will happen later in the month. But it is significantly cuter already with the new arbor and rehung shutters. My mom planted a climbing rose on the left side of the arbor which will be so lovely once out grows up on that arbor.

The other thing I’m excited about the paint is the BLUE ceiling! This is the same color of all my interior ceilings, Moonmist. I’ve read that blue ceiling on the porch will help keep bugs at bay, but it will also make the crown moldings really pop, and yes there are crown moldings outside too!