A House is a Home is a Garden - in several posts - 1

People who know me, know I love growing "things." Yes, growing older comes to mind, but not today. Fortunately, I have a large back garden. Unfortunately it is heavily treed - growing anything in the way of food and/or flowers is a challenge. Hence (love that word), I rely on my front garden to grow plants that require full sun - tomatoes, roses, aubergines, lilies, black-eyed susans....and the like.

Covid has made me concentrate a lot on the house and the garden. We haven't gone away for weekends so, I fill the time with planting, weeding, re-decorating and cleaning.

Redecorating:

I have, as I have said in an earlier post, redecorated my daughter's room, now that she has moved out. I re-purposed much of what was in her room except the bed - it was ancient and thoroughly destroyed. Teenage years are difficult.

We replaced her double bed with our queen bed and mended or refurbished the bedding. 

Applique´ and embroidery to cover the worn fabric

I will try to revitalized a very discoloured white fitted sheet. I am thinking that some tea and a little tumeric in a dye bath might work. Also after buying on Amazon, what looked like a pretty white chair cover, only to discover, when it arrived, that it was cream, not white and made of some very thin stretchy synthetic, I decided I would have to make the chair cover myself.

Fortunately, Ikea had opened for in person shopping, so I was able to buy 3 yards of pure white, 100% cotton fabric, in a sturdy weave. I decided not to buy the McCall's pattern for a chair cover on Amazon, because it was listed at $54.00 - whatever were they thinking. With much keying in of as many variations of "chair cover" I could think of, I found a site, "sustain-my-craft-habit" that showed the viewer how to measure a straight-back chair to make a slip cover. Voila! Now, I just have to finish embroidering those appliquéd flowers.

Old wooden chair refreshed

Yes, I had to spend some money to "pull" the room together - 2 Ikea bookcases, a new closet door - mirrored, another dresser, yet to be assembled, but I painted the room myself to help cover these costs and the price of new windows!! Plus, I did repurpose a set of open shelves from the old room to both the dining room, living room and garden, ta-da!!

These were 4 very long white shelves that fit perfectly over the radiators in both the dining room and the living room. Two shelves stacked one on top of each other provided enough insulation from the heat of the radiators to allow for a mini greenhouse in the dining room and a keyboard (piano) stand in the living room. I euphemistically refer to this small alcove as the conservatory. I've clearly been reading too many Victorian novels.

The radiator, unfortunately raised the piano a little higher than "normal" so I bought an adjustable  stool from Ikea (They should pay me for all this advertising!) and can play quite comfortably, though not well - which has nothing to do with the height of the instrument. I jokingly say that I am practising to play in a piano bar.

The frame that held the shelves has gone into the garden as a support for my pole beans, one of the few plants that still grow in the back of the garden.

More on the house and the garden later.

Have a purposeful day!