Home projects for winter

Lol....'straight lines that cannot be examined closely'...sounds like you put forth quite the effort, I'm sure it looks great :)

Donner, I can just see you now. Sheer fabrics are very hard to sew and long curtains are hard to work with. You get a BIG THUMBS UP.

Sequoia, The boards are loose so I move them to go up the stairs, just push them out of the way.

Donner, sounds like my sewing. Kudos for taking on a sheer fabric. No tips from me, though.

All I can say is ironing, pinning, you can use fabric weights to help hold the material and keep it from slipping. Work on the largest surface you can. If you are comfortable working on the floor you can lay it our there. I can't do that anymore. LOL

I used masking tapes along the hems for support, and found it rather helpful. Desperation is definitely the mother of invention in my case :o).

I will cut the curtains, and manually hem them when hubby is out of town next time, teehee!

My suggestion, before you go to that much trouble: see if you can stretch the short ends. Wet the short end of the curtains as far up as you can reach (after put something underneath to catch the excess water, of course). Use your hands to stretch it as much as you can while it's wet.

If you have to use a sewing machine, why not pull up a table and just drape the curtains over it?

I've been there, and have concluded that there are 2 problems (human error not being one of them, of course!): the walls in some houses, including mine, aren't the same height from one end of the room to the other; and, stretchy fabric is hard to get even because it stretches as you pin it.

Sally--

Could you hang the curtains in a swag fashion?
Then the different lengths would not be so apparent.

When sewing stretchy or sheer fabrics--it is a good idea to put a strip of
paper underneath the seem as you sew to keep it from stretching.
Sounds like you already did that.

Pictures please! Gita

Also if it isn't a big difference just live with it for awhile you might realize that it isn't as much of an issue as you first think. When first doing a project you notice every little imperfection but over time you don't usually notice them. If you are talking about 1/4=1/2 inch that isn't a big deal and inch or more you might want to fix.

ditto to Holly. I've found we can live quite happily with flawed projects!

I need a little more of all of you in me.


I would stick a big ole wad of chewing gum between the rod and it's bracket to give it a wee lift on one side. 😉

Seriously, Holly you are right. We tend to notice our boo boos more than others. If I miss a spot painting....I see only that spot and not the rest of the job.

These curtains are beyong "flawed" :-). The lengths are so off that no amount of stretching (Muddy) or chewing gum (missingrosie) will fix it :-). Well, I will measure and cut them carefully this time. The curtains will be cut to floor length. Even if the wall heights are uneven from one end to the other, and the curtains will have to be cut to compensate that, it will be ok. I will not use the curtains for anything else. I will not even go through the trouble of taking them down. They can stay with the house when I move out, haha!

Gita, I have no photos of the curtains with me. Will see if I can take a few this weekend.

This message was edited Jan 14, 2015 2:07 PM

Donner, have you ever heard of 'fusible webbing'! I have used it a number of times to make hems and seams. It is done with and iron. I do the top rod pocket, hang up each panel, and then form and pin the bottom edge and then fiddle with the hem till all panels are some what uniform in size appearance. Pinning a stretchy fabric to a large piece of cardboard along two straight sides can also be helpful to get the other sides straight. I think cornises etc were ways to disguise curtain rod 'adjustments!

Coleup, what a great idea! I remember seeing it on TV. I will try it on the fabric to see if it works. I may very well use it :o).

There are so many good ideas and suggestions. You are a talented lot :-).

I was up on the scaffolding for a little while and got about half the vacuuming done. Pretty warm up there and the dust sure didn't do my asthma any good. I was expecting to get it all done but I am happy with getting something done.

donner--

That iron-on hemming material is called "Stitch Witchery".
It comes on a round "spool". It is a white, meshy material
imbedded with glue that melts when you iron it.
You can ask if they now sell this geared to soft fabrics--like your curtains.

Of course they have one for sheer fabrics.

http://www.walmart.com/ip/Stitch-Witchery-Ultra-Light/19757833

All other kinds....

http://www.dritz.com/quilting-sewing-supplies/sewing/glues-bonding-stabilizers/stitch-witchery-fusible-bonding-web/#sthash.BLBoKUD0.dpbs

Holly, dust filter masks are 'in' this year. I also have been known to don welding goggles or swim goggles to minimize eye irritation. Have found that a 'swiffer sweeper' or just the microfiber cloth does as good a job on fine dust as a vac and it can be used slightly damp. too. It's also quieter!

Donner, some fusible webbing becomes almost invisible when fused. Do practice and use parchment paper between fabric and iron just in case! A good fabric store should be able to do cuts for you and give you some hints and guidance . Hey, we are all rank beginners on something! even Martha Stewart!

Thanks Coleup, I do have dust masks, in fact I have a full face unit if needed. The rainbow vac that I use doesn't kick up any dust at all. It captures it in the water reservoir. In fact Ric use to do all the vacuuming until we bought this. I couldn't do any of it without having an asthma attack. Is just that the area is so dusty just getting up there moving around stirred up a lot of dust, won't be up there without a mask next time. Just didn't think of it earlier.

My co-workers unanimously voted that I get rid of my oh so lovely oh so 1980s style wallpaper border in the bath I'm re doing... Sigh. It's bird nests! With lovely blue eggs.

Keep a little piece (if it comes down other than in shreds) and frame it, Sally. :-)

Holly, that board scaffold is very clever! I'd love to be able to hang things on the unreachable walls in our keyhole stairway, better yet if I could reach them for dusting, changing out to something else, etc. A board to rest scaffolding on would work perfectly! Of course, I still have to get that board up there...

LOL Sally, When I refreshed our bedroom I only touched up the paint a little here and there. Even though the sponge painted walls and hydrangea border are very out of date I just love them so I kept them.

Sally, they do make beadboard wallpaper, though, so maybe you could paper the bottom portion and have that part of the look you were going for without the extra work of real wood. Maybe you could find a stencil for the top that you like, or even add a narrow shelf about a foot down that would hold pictures of bird nests.

Sally, can't you just leave the walls the way they are for now? It seems a shame to get rid of a border you really like. You could always take it down later, but you won't be able to put it back again later : - )

Yep, Pat, I saw that beadboard paper.
I probably could have left the walls as is (was). But decided it is a good time for new paint, given making other changes. And the border is half gone now....I don't mind dated if I love it, a la Holly's, but I also know that change can make me happy later. I was sad to give up the fruit kitchen stencil that I did while my firstborn was little and napping, but if I kept it I wouldn't have the kitchen now that I love.

Sally, when you get rid of the wallpaper and repaint, you can get stencils and hand paint a vine and birds or whatever over the doorway. That's what my Mom did in our living room after they painted it. It looked really cool.

Holly, you can make stencils of images from the Internet. I made butterfly stencils that way and painted the borders in the kitchen in my previous house. That was when I was an enthusiastic newbie, only painting a house for the first time :o).

Gita and Coleup, I will definitely get some iron-on webbing this weekend and try it out.

Yes Donner, I have done some stenciling. It is a lot of fun.

I agree it's fun to stencil, until you realize you just spent 6-8 hours and are only 1/3 done. The fun sort of gets lost or it becomes one of those thing I'll finish when I have time. Can you say PROCRASTINATE. LOL

I have a few undone projects, but I can't say I don't have time to finish them; I just don't want to!

I have started tackling my disgusting basement storage area, though. A local organization is having a book sale, so I'm giving some books away and throwing out or recycling others. That will free up space so I can organize the rest of the stuff down there.

Ric got up in the stairwell today and finished vacuuming the area for me, then did the whole down stairs and cleaned up the mud room and got his wet saw set up and is going to start the tile backsplash. He is just a ball of energy today. I have been a lump on the couch.

procrastinating is the most fun project of all...
Applause for you productive people. I seem to just want to veg after work. My flooring is ready to be picked up. And the border will be all off with another hour there, some touch up of walls then can paint.

Sally, It is a whole different thing when you are working full time, or even working part-time and throw in children or other family responsibilities. One of the reasons Ric and I are doing all this now is because we never had the time or $$ to do it when we were working and raising children.

Ditto!

I always want to veg after work. I come home, shower, then sweats, and dinner :)

I'll be working on our lower level tomorrow. The cable guy came today and put connections on the ends so now I can close up all the holes in the walls. We are hoping to paint some next weekend but it's always tough for Darcy to pick out a paint color.

Paint can be tricky.
I picked paint for the bathroom to coordinate with the big wallpaper border around the top- bought it- then decided to get rid of the border lol A neutral.tan color. The rec room it opens to has sponge painted big vertical stripes of cream and light tan.
Green is my go to color, and in style lately too.
Tried to get terra cotta for my bedroom but- its too pink.
I really like the color displays that go across the spectrum and also show bright/saturated color down to dull or grayed tones. Kind of like this
http://www.materials-world.com/paint-colors/pratt_and_lambert/calibrated/pratt-and-lambert-calibrated-18.htm
but Ace (used to have) has a big array, all colors. --You can look at the greens and decide where on the yellow-green-blue spectrum you want for example. 100 beiges look the same but when you compare them to each other, you can see the green, yellow, etc tones.

I had a little trouble finding the right grey for my front door. I brought home several swatches that looked good in the store but as soon as I put them up against the wall they showed their blue tones and didn't look grey.

Moral- gets LOTS of swatches- and expect more than one trip!

I replaced a faucet washer/stem today in another bathroom. And unscrewed/ taped, and re attached the showerhead to cure a minor geyser there. Wa Hoo. DS questioned my ability to do the showerhead, and said Don't you think you should just get a plumber? OMG kid- we put you through college by doing our own work- pay a plumber to put teflon tape on and screw the thing? GEEZE. insane
he's miffed because he tried to do the tape last week, failed, I bet he didn't clean off the old junk first.

Yeah, she was thinking blue but not it might be olive or sage green. Sounds like we'll have to go back to Home Depot tomorrow.

That kinda reminds me with youngest son Jamie, but the opposite. He took HVAC and he would do jobs around the house and it took me the longest time before I stopped asking Ric "Can he really do that. Are you sure he knows how. Don't you need to help/watch him"

Way to go, Sally!

I'm going to paint a room tomorrow because we're having hard wood floor put in there next week. I don't have a color picked out yet and so I am really enjoying that paint swatch link, Sally.

Edited to add it's even better than I thought...all of the major paint companies have their strips on there.

This message was edited Jan 17, 2015 11:53 PM

Way to go Sally, There's a 4th unspoken rule of plumbing; If it's used clean all surfaces well. Remember, he didn't major in plumbing and family economics. Wait till he does his grad work in life, he'll learn the meaning of $$$$.