Covid Project I

My husband and I have gotten more projects accomplished during the last 3 months than we do in a year...by far. The biggest one yet has been a major re-do of our bedroom.....new window treatments, new bed linens and painting every last inch of it. We'd been considering this major project for over a year. I was dreading it since I would be the "decorator" and seamstress to make it all. But with quarantine and plenty of time on our hands we jumped in, or rather I jumped into fabric selection. It's scary when you can't touch, feel and look fabric in the eye. I knew I wanted a Toile fabric...creams, blues would pull the same colors out of the rug. Great thing about the internet is you can browse everywhere....bad thing about the internet is you have to "trust" what you see on your computer screen! I finally located a fabric at www.fabric.com: a lovely toile in the colors I wanted plus some golds, browns. It looked great on the computer. I added the total # of yards up for 3 window treatments, a bedskirt, pillow shams and re-covering the bench....about 22 yards. Ouch! Not cheap but then I was the labor so we were saving a great deal of $$ in that department. Fabric.com shipped it quickly since it was a big order (combined with the cream cotton sateen lining).

I moved Sewing Central into the dining room. The bedskirt (Butterick 3116 by Waverly, out of print) is pictured in progress and partially sewn to an old sheet to fit between mattress and box springs.

Hemming the bedskirt bottom and sides was done by machine: fast and easy!

After hemming was completed the sides were pinned and sewn to the 'deck': sheet plus some added fabric strips. 

The window treatment pattern, McCall's 5796 (also out of print), was one I used before, a swag and jabot style. All measurements and pattern pieces were ready to go. Saved lots of time. Cutting out those big swaths of fabric on my narrow table was interesting. Sewing was a breeze since I had plenty of pre-fill bobbins on hand: they last a long time before a new one is needed. The big ironing board and iron next to the table made things fast. All told it was about 7 days of sewing between other responsibilities.

Here's the bedroom mess. Painting was...well...painting. We started with the ceiling and worked our way down. The walls changed from a gold color to "Take Five" from Sherwin Williams, a soft blue.  

Then the fun began with the trim....I painting all 6 doors and 3 windows in a pure white semi-gloss.  My husband did the base boards. Whew!! And we cleaned the windows, inside and out, before installing the window treatments. But that's the next blog with the big reveal!