A Rag Rug For Nell

I recently completed a project that I began about a year ago: a rag rug for Nell's bedroom.  

In my own defense, I was not working day and night on this project during that time; in fact, it lay neglected for the better part of the year in question.  Still, it's a strange thing to complete a project you started for your two-year-old's first "big girl room," and then have your daughter who is fast approaching age four curl up on it.  

I won't pretend to contain my pleasure at how the rug turned out.  Is it perfect?  No.  But I love it.  I love how the colors came together, and I love most of all the fact that it actually lies flat (a feat the difficulty of which ought not to be diminished)!

It's made up of old sheets from my favorite nearby thrift store, along with fabric pieces I had also found there in the thrift shop on the same day.  And one floral sheet that had come with the secondhand mattress we were given for Nell's bed was a wonderful way to work in a wide variety of colors - yellows and oranges and greens to go with the overall pink and turquoise scheme, if you look closely enough.

 We love it, Nell and I.  Just tonight, at bedtime, she sat down on it and said, "I just love my wag wug so much.  I want to snuggle on it forever."

{The cuteness of that sentence reminds me of the time when I was still working on the rug, and Ree got into the braided strands of the project, tangling them up.  Nell exclaimed, "Mawee, you're wuining my wag wug!  You're wecking it and wuining it!")

It is "complete" now, but at times I find myself thinking that I could use up the last of those sheet strips to give it a few additional inches in diameter.  Maybe one of these days.  For now, I'm glad to have it finally taking up its proper place in Nell's room.

And speaking of Nell's room, it seems like a fitting moment to show you how far that space has come since we bought this house.

That was the bedroom when we first viewed the house as prospective buyers.  The stickers haphazardly stuck all over the walls covered spots of crumbling plaster and other problem areas.  You really can't tell from the photos, but this room (as with the rest of the house) was in desperate need of some careful attention.

And it got it, although not for a couple of years!  Here is Nell's space now.

Nell's antique wrought iron bed, which I've written about before, was a yard sale find I paid just $15 for.  Of course, it was a considerably larger investment to have it sandblasted and painted, but I love it so much I consider it well worth every penny.

With a vintage bed frame and a vintage quilt (also a yard sale find), I set about finding other vintage-themed things for her room.  I printed vintage paper dolls from online and made a little clothesline-type display over framed dolls I laid over lace scraps.

The little silver vanity tray on Nell's dresser was $5 at the thrift store.  The dried hydrangeas are from our front yard.  Her nightlight is a small hand-painted lamp that was given to us as a wedding present nine years ago.

The curtains are from IKEA because you just can't beat the prices.  I looked into so many other options and they were all cost-prohibitive at the time -- even just sewing curtains from lace fabric would have been far more expensive than buying the curtain panels and rods and hardware all together from IKEA!

The shadowbox over Nell's bed has her ultrasound pictures, her little newborn hospital hat, her ankle bracelet from the hospital, and a picture of me holding her the morning after she was born.  Sweet memories, and she so enjoys looking at everything and hearing stories about herself as a newborn baby.  The photographs to the left were taken by the lovely and talented Esther Mathieu when Nell was a newborn.  

 Her closet door displays a vintage pink baby dress, and the wall beside it currently holds one of her baby onesies that had been embroidered with her {nick}name.

My maternal grandmother passed away during the time that I was putting together this bedroom for Nell.  When I came across these little vintage magazine clippings Grandmommy had given me long ago, it seemed quite fitting to incorporate them into Nell's vintage decor.  Just simple pictures of little girls at play -- food for the imagination!

Her tiny wooden bookcase was a roadside find just a few houses down the street from us one Sunday after church.  It's a curious design; the books are held diagonally and the shelves have no bottoms.  It wouldn't have been my first choice for a child's room, because she still has a bit of trouble shelves the books herself, but free is free!

The wooden cart at the foot of Nell's bed was a hand-me-down gift from a violin student who had outgrown its use.  It holds stuffed animals and other such childhood delights, including the quilt I sewed for her.

Tucked into the corner beside the radiator is a vintage little metal baby doll crib, which I'm guessing is from the 50's.  It was a secondhand find I paid $10 for, as I recall, and I later found a coverlet and tiny matching lace pillowcase at my thrift store, so Nell's babies are well cared for at all times.

{The doll on the right, who admittedly looks a little worse for the wear, is of more or less the same vintage as the crib; her name is Betsy and she was my mother's doll, then mine, and is now tenderly cared for by her third little mama, Nell.}

Beside Nell's bed sits a small white table I found at a yard sale, which is home to the old broken iPhone that plays her lullabies each night, and equally importantly, the silver cup her godparents gave her on her baptism day.  Nathan was quite effective in convincing Nell some time ago that holding this "shiny cup" was a great privilege, and she could hold it in bed as she fell asleep if she wasn't fussing at bedtime.



She is quite enamored with it.

So that is Nell's bedroom -- more than anyone ever wanted to know about it, I'm sure.

When I look at it, I still see how badly the floor needs to be repainted, and how the paint is peeling off the radiator, and the windows need a good washing, and the ceiling tiles are ugly and the light fixture should be replaced.  And, as any of our babysitters could tell you, it is usually much messier than in these pictures!  But every once in a while, it's nice to tidy up, step back, and see how much progress we have made on this little space.

Isaiah 9:2

"The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness -- on them light has shined."

Advent hasn't even begun, but this verse has taken on a new and quite literal meaning in our household today.  After six months - give or take - with extremely limited electricity upstairs, we now have a working overhead light in Nell's room!

Remember this post demonstrating how decidedly un-pinterest-y our house is?

My poor husband, after having a good laugh with me over the stark reality of it, declared that I ought to blog about the projects we actually get finished and the good work he does on our house and the spaces that actually look presentable.  A reasonable request!

Working electricity in my kids' rooms where clothes are kept, toys are stored, naps and nighttime (for Nell) occur -- this is no small thing, my friends.  I've spent the past six months looking for the right size socks, an outfit, a pair of pajamas, etc. using the flashlight feature on my phone.  To be able to flick on a light switch!  A modern luxury!

With light by which to see, there's no stopping us now: as soon as the lights are working in the second bedroom upstairs, I fully intend to get it fixed up by Christmas as Nell's new "big girl room."  Shh, don't tell her.  It'll be a surprise!

Oh, Sarah, look at you with your perfect life and your perfect house filled with modern amenities like electricity.  It's all too perfect; we can hardly stand it!

I know, I know.  I thought you might say that.  So just to rub our perfection into your face a little bit more, I'll show you this close-up of our really, really nice ceiling tiles.  And that -- shall we call it 'vintage'? -- light fixture.

Nice, am I right?

pin THIS!

I don't know how some people do it, really I don't.  How is the world full of people who manage to make their homes look perfect, like something out of a Pottery Barn catalogue, and keep their children always looking ready for a Crew Cuts photo shoot, and then still have time to blog about it all?

My life isn't perfect.  My home is quasi-disastrous at times.  My two-year-old's hair is often unkempt and my four-month-old has a bald spot in back.  And I don't even have time to blog about how imperfect it all is.

Anyway, here's my little homage to Pinterest-worthy perfection.

** Full disclosure: These images are not photoshopped.  I'm stating this for the record, because they are so amazing, you'll be tempted to think they were edited to achieve this level of perfection. **

Are you ready?

This is a pile of Nathan's work gloves, knee pads, and masks that has been sitting on our staircase for about a month.  I keep moving them to the basement or somewhere else less objectionable, and they keep winding up here again after another evening's hard work on the attic project.

This is our kitchen floor, right next to our kitchen table.  The kitchen table that is usually covered with tools, or at the very least, bills and other mail needing to be sorted and dealt with.  You might think this is a garage or basement due to the extremely sharp and dangerous electric saw sitting there, but no, it's my kitchen floor.  I should have gotten a picture of the time Nathan stored it in the nursery for a couple of days.

This is our little screened in porch.  We have plans to fix it up someday and try to make it somewhat pleasant.  In the meantime, we have a lovely wooden swing my Dad made us, and we like to swing on it.  Nell has a sweet little adirondack chair, as you can see, and she likes to sit out on the porch, too.  And for some reason, Nathan sometimes puts his blow torch out here.  Because that's normal.  And safe.  {Don't worry; I hastily removed said dangerous object.}

This is the area at the top of the stairs, looking into Nathan's home office space.  During the course of the attic renovation project, Nathan's office became increasingly filled with tools, light fixtures, empty boxes, wood scraps, and other sundry items to the point where it is now hazardous to even attempt to walk through the door.  I needed to access the printer the other day to print some things for my violin studio, and I almost died.

Don't believe me?  How about a close-up?



Yep.

I'm pretty sure someone could break into our house and ransack that room, and we wouldn't even notice.  Ever.

Poor over-worked Nathan.  One of these evenings, now that the attic project is essentially complete (!!), we're going to tackle that office.  I'm going to help him, because if he gets buried alive, I want to be there to dig him out.

This is standing at the top of the stairs and looking to the left, where the spiral staircase is that goes up to the attic.  You might be horrified by the green shag carpet on those stair treads... or you might not even notice that particular feature due to the mountains of, um, stuff.  Stuff that used to be stored in the attic prior to the renovation project commencing.  Stuff accumulating from the project as it unfolds.  Plus bonus stuff the origins of which elude me.

This is the bedroom next to Nell's room, the room I'm planning on turning into her "big girl room."  All it really needs is a new light fixture and it should be move-in-ready, right?  Well, if the brother-in-law can get his stuff out of there.  Which, in his defense, is probably impossible because there's so much of it where would it all go?  I'm beginning to think this may be his permanent storage unit.  That's okay; Nell and Ree can share a 120 square foot room.

This is a little section of our back yard.  Back when I was about 41 weeks pregnant with Ree, I cleared all those branches from an area next to our garage to try to make that space a little nicer, and carried them as far as I could muster the energy to carry them.  Then Ree was born, and the branches lingered in that lovely spot.  The grass and weeds grew up around them since we couldn't mow that area.

And on the left hand side there, yes, that is a weed that grew too tall and too large to bear its own weight.

I'm kind of picturing that little emoji emoticon of laughing until you cry.  It seems somehow fitting.

So go on, friends, pin away to your Pinterest boards!  If this life of ours isn't Pinterest-worthy, I don't know what is.

the attic renovation project

It's been the spring and summer of the great construction project.  The third floor attic renovation that has curiously managed to take over my entire house, and left me wondering how it can be that we are paying a sizable mortgage payment every month for a five bedroom house, and yet somehow I don't have a quiet place to lay my baby down for naps anymore.

The air compressor, the nail gun, and the drill blast through Nell's nap time every afternoon.  She wakes too soon and decidedly too grumpy, day after day.  A large shopvac blocks the hallway, preventing me from coming and going to Nell's room except by turning sideways and squeezing past, inevitably squishing a foot or an arm of whichever child is in my arms and eliciting squawks of protest.  My kitchen pantry cabinet, instead of holding steel cut oats and almonds and canned goods, was home to a saw and other sundry tools for a week or longer recently.  My living room wall boasts four small drilled holes, a means of searching out some electrical question or other, and small piles of plaster dust in nearly every other room of the house belie similar explorations having occurred elsewhere, too.

I've given up trying to sweep the stairs or the upstairs hallway.  I've given up trying to vacuum anything, either, but only because the vacuum is literally inaccessible.  It is put away neatly in its corner in the guest room... and now covered with the things of our new tenants, my poor long-suffering brother- and sister-in-law who will be living in our newly renovated attic space as soon as it is finished.

A queen sized mattress leans against a wall in our TV room.  The second bedroom upstairs, intended to be Nell's "big girl room" soon, would be an ideal place to put a dresser for her clothes so that I wasn't cramming everything for both girls into the one smallest bedroom in the house, into the four little baskets of a changing table.  Yes, it would be ideal -- if it weren't currently filled with stacks upon stacks of things belonging to these new housemates of ours.

Even the garage is filled with things not mine, filled to capacity and beyond, so that entering it is nearly impossible and certainly walking from one side to the other would be inviting personal injury, and I can't store Nell's outdoor toys there this summer.

Our master bedroom, probably the only room not directly affected by the renovation and the new housemates, is messy.  "Messy," really, seems inadequate to describe it, in fact.  But with no other room available to lay the baby for her naps, she naps there, on our bed, and thus every time that my arms are free and I could tidy the bedroom, instead I must vacate the bedroom to let sleeping babies lie.

It's possible that a person might find these events upsetting, even aggravating.  Another woman might have reached her limit weeks ago, or even months ago.  And I can't say there hasn't been frustration over the course of this project.  But it wasn't the enormous saw stored on the nursery floor for several days that challenged my sanity -- no, that just made me laugh.  It wasn't the constant noise of the power tools leading Nell to wander the house saying, "Daddy, BANG BANG BANG!  BANG BANG BANG!" to describe the process unfolding upstairs.

It was the smell of cigarette smoke on the plasterers' clothing today as they came and went from my house all day long today, slamming the door repeatedly with no understanding of the importance of quiet for children napping.  That smell, that wretched smell.  It was today that I felt, for a brief moment, as though I might have reached my limit.

And then I poured myself an iced coffee and reminded myself that I have a house, a roof over my head and the heads of my children.

We have a future, this little family of mine, and one where we won't fear for our lives daily.  We plan for this future with extravagant ideas like buying furniture someday for those extra bedrooms because we have incomes and we can do things like buy things occasionally.  We dwell within these walls, we have food on our table each night, we bow our heads in gratitude.  We practice our faith with freedom and without fear.

We have family, these in-laws who are our new tenants, a dearly loved aunt and uncle to our kids, here sharing our home with us for the time being.  There are families twice this size not so very far across the globe from us who live together in just one room, and us?  We have ten rooms.  We have shared pizza nights and glasses of wine and laughter together.  We have in-house babysitters who love our kids because they are family.  We have a finally-almost-finished (!) attic that will improve the value of our home should we decide to sell it someday, or give us a lovely play space someday if we stay here for the long term.

Perspective.  Family.  And grace to endure a few more days of chaos.  That's what I chose to breathe deeply of today when for a moment I thought all I could smell was the cigarette smoke.

the new arrival

We have a new arrival!

No, it's not the {overdue} baby yet.

It's still pretty exciting, though.

Remember this post, which featured photographic evidence of our decrepit, rusted dishwasher?  Well, as you can see, the old thing was in pretty bad shape.  She came with the house when we bought it, already rusted and broken, and things only got progressively worse over the years we've lived here.  It barely felt worth it to run a load of dishes, since we could only fit four or five plates in there on the bottom and a few glasses safely on the top rack.

Well, a week or two ago Nell and I were doing yard work in the front yard when our new neighbor from down the street came by and mentioned they were replacing all their appliances and would sell them at a good price if we were looking for anything.

Naturally, I asked, "Is there by any chance a dishwasher?"

Yes, there was!  A white one, being replaced by a stainless one.  White sounded good to me, as long as there wasn't rust involved.

Nathan went to check it out, and bought it with cash on the spot, at half of what it would have cost us to order racks to replace the ones in the dishwasher we had.  It's not the newest dishwasher, but it's in great condition and we're irrationally excited about it.

I mean, look how many dishes you can fit in there!  And you don't even have to lift and finagle and tug and yank at the racks to get them to slide out nicely!

A kitchen miracle, I say.

{phfr}

Linking up with Like Mother, Like Daughter for another {phfr} post today!  Auntie Leila's {phfr} post today was somewhat themed around the importance of recording the little things one accomplishes in a dreary month like January, and I love that idea.  As a fellow New Englander, I can attest that these below-freezing temps that have been dragging on and on are getting me down, and the bone-weariness of late January has certainly set in.  Each morning seems harder than the one before to get myself out of bed, and some days I'm just counting the hours until the next time I can go to sleep.

It doesn't help, no doubt, that to save on the absurdly expensive costs of our oil heat, Nathan wants to keep the heat no higher than 60 degrees, SIXTY DEGREES!  We negotiate on this matter, the sort of negotiation that involves me turning it up to 62 and him turning it back down, and so on and so forth.  And there may be some complaining involved, but only in my weaker moments.  For the most part, we press on.  Eagerly awaiting the coming of warmer days.

Have I been getting anything done lately?  Oh, but I have!  A few little things here and there.  See...?

{pretty}

Food can be pretty, right?  And is there anything prettier than fresh, juicy cranberries oozing out of baked goods?  I baked up a batch of these fresh cranberry chocolate chunk brown butter cookies over the weekend, and even though Christmas is past us now and you might be thinking that the time for using cranberries is over, you should make these; you won't regret it.  They were just slightly too sweet for my taste, but the soft texture is just wonderful, and the fresh cranberries are the perfect bursts of flavor in each bite.

{happy}

A local consignment store has had not one but two 25 cent sales in the past two weeks, with bins and racks full of children's clothing marked down to just a quarter apiece.  I went twice, and in total got 36 pieces of clothing for a mere $9.00 altogether!  A few things that fit Nell now (including a lovely navy blue baby Gap coat and some fleece-lined pants!), a few things she'll grow into, and a few things for the new little lady when she arrives.  I had just finished sorting our bins of baby clothes in the basement, too, so I could actually remember what we could use more of in each baby size and what we really didn't need.  I got a few items for friends' babies, too!

The picture is just a few of the items fresh out of the wash.  Most of them are already stored away in their respective size bins for future use.

{funny}

I just finished my biggest knitting project yet.  Don't be too impressed: it's only a scarf.  But considerably larger than the washcloths I've heretofore knitted, and unlike the baby blanket I started but haven't yet finished, this project has now actually been completed!  Small accomplishment perhaps, but an accomplishment nonetheless.

I was feeling rather pleased as I donned it this morning, expecting heaven to burst open and a messenger of God to deliver knitting accolades -- or at least that my husband, who had sat beside me sometimes as I knitted in the evenings, might say something nice -- but instead what I got was a snarky comment about how he really, truly, things the term 'infinity scarf' is the most ridiculous thing in the world.  Humph.

{real}

I may as well poke some fun at myself and admit that I only just got around to putting the final hem on the curtains in Nell's room.  The curtains I made with fabric I bought while she was still snugly inside of me, almost two years ago.  The curtains I began sewing before she was born.  The curtains I almost finished and then hung when she was a newborn, stitching away at my machine while she slept in the moby wrap.  Yes, those curtains.  Those curtains that pooled on the floor for the past year and then some.  I measured, marked, took them down, and hemmed them to be floor length at last!  Much better now, I think.  And as always happens with these sorts of projects, once I got started it took me all of one day's nap time to finish them, so of course, I should have done it ages ago.

Now I'd really like to get going on fixing up the second bedroom upstairs, even though it's unlikely that we'll need two separate kid bedrooms anytime soon.  We'll work on transitioning Nell to sleep upstairs by herself soon, but then I think the new baby will sleep in our room for a good while, unless she's a magical sleeping baby quite unlike her sister.  Still, there's no motivator like a baby coming, is there?  If a room is to be fixed up, perhaps now is the time to do it, necessary or not!