My Studio (Finally!)

It's been a looooong time coming, but I finally have the cottage/studio all to myself!

Shortly after Teen1 moved out we began moving furniture out of the cottage and into her old room to make it into a proper guest room. Then I rearranged what was left to make more room for painting.

Now the table and chairs are over on the other side and my easel is by the large front window.

I got a frame for this painting, but I think the red needs to be muted so I'm going to sort of antique it a bit, but I like the way the frame repeats the balls on the door.

Now after all the moving of furniture, I think we need a cup of tea, don't you?

Drop Cloth Curtains

Here is my finished drop cloth curtain. See the refrigerator there behind it? That's what I wanted to hide. And when I pull the curtain a little further it is hidden.


Problem solved.

I like the way the curtain puddles on the floor a bit. And I really like that free fringe along the top. This curtain was the easiest thing in the world to make because the drop cloth is already hemmed all the way around. All I had to do was sew the fringe along the top edge, fold the curtain over about 8" and sew that down, and then hand sew it to the rings. You can buy rings with little clips on them, but I had all these vintage iron rings, so I sewed the curtain on.

Next I'm going to make curtains for this window, but I've got a vintage iron curtain rod that will work here. It's all rusty (like the rings were) so I have to paint it, but I'll show you that too when it's done.

Cottage Decorating

Little Acorn Cottage (my studio) is really coming along. It's all painted inside except for the bathroom so I'm moving stuff in and trying to organize it. I'm trying to decorate on the cheap, so estate sale and free furniture is imperative, and DIY projects abound.



I wanted a curtain to hide the refrigerator, so I went to my favorite decorating resource: Home Depot....

and bought this wonderful almost finished curtain....

which I'll be hanging on a black shower curtain rod....

and embellishing with some of this hand-me-down fringe from Travel Bug.

I've got other little projects planned for the cottage Amongst The Oaks, which I'll show you as I finish them.

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Now for the Mystery Photo from yesterday: Yes, PG, you are right! It's a velvety green seed pod from the wisteria plant. They are such a lovely shade of green, aren't they? And such random fuzz. Good guesses from all of you.

Painting Too

Remember our cottage/studio/guest house? Well, that's what else we have been working on here Amongst The Oaks. The Lord of the Manor has been painting, painting, painting. And it is now all Cottagey White inside.

Here is the dining area with the old table and the new green chairs.

And here is the china cupboard painted green.

And here is the other side of the room with the second hand sofa covered with an old quilt. And now the fun can begin: decorating, fluffing, and finally crafting! I can hardly wait.

Chair Project

Some of you may have wondered where I've been. Aside from just being lazy and irresponsible, I've been doing some projects here Amongst The Oaks. Like painting and reupholstering these chairs.

I bought these chairs about 20 years ago and have recovered them many times as you can see. It was like an archeological dig taking the layers of fabric off. Each one was greeted with an exclamation, "Oh, I loved that fabric!"

But I took them ALL off and started from scratch this time. I also...

sanded and sanded on the chairs and repainted them green. I'm putting them in the cottage out back and the theme there is green and cottagey.

So here they are. It is Behr's Boston Fern and it looks very old fashioned to me. I also painted the china cabinet green. I'll show you that later.

For the new fabric I "shopped the house" and found this stuff that I've had even longer than the chairs! It was the upholstery fabric for the settee cushions on a boat we had back in the early 1980s. I'd saved it all these years because I really like it. It may not be "IN" but I like it.

So here are the finished chairs with their new fabric. I rather like the combination and I think it's going to look just right in Acorn Cottage.

Acorn Cottage

The Lord of the Manor has decided that his shoulder is healed well enough to begin working on Acorn Cottage. Maybe I should explain Acorn Cottage a bit...


When we moved to this house 12 years ago, there was a decrepit old shed on the property. It had a cracked concrete floor, lots of rotten boards, and spiders everywhere. All the windows were painted shut, one door was falling apart, and the roof leaked. We used it to house the gardening tools, camping gear, bicycles, and other assorted clobber. Eventually we remodeled the house and the shed looked really tatty. Suddenly it was way worse than before, so early in 2007, we decided to renovate it into a studio/guest house.

First we cut the shed roof off and suspended a wood floor over the cracked concrete. Then we cut new openings for windows and a door, built a new roof, and made two bump-outs to gain extra space without increasing the footprint. The photo above shows the kitchen bump-out. We put in all new vinyl windows, painted the outside, roofed it ourselves, and tiled the floor. Then the Lord of the Manor's shoulder started giving him trouble. Hmmm, I wonder why?


So over the three day weekend, we started working on the interior finish work. We got a fair amount of wallboard up in the kitchen area. And the Lord of the Manor made these window casings. Most finish carpenters take the little pieces and cut them to fit the window, but my finish carpenter just makes the whole unit and slips it into place.

And here it is in place. Isn't he brilliant? And now I've got to get busy with the paint. I'll keep you posted on the progress here Amongst The Oaks.

Lazy Blogger

Greetings gentle readers,


Sorry I've been such a lazy blogger lately. Can we blame it on too much turkey? We had a nice Thanksgiving; everything went well. We had three capable men doing the cooking and all the food came to the buffet hot and delicious. And we had plenty of pie for dessert - the apple one made by Teen1.

Having three more days off meant time to devote to the latest remodeling project - Acorn Cottage, also known as the guest house. So I finally finished laying the floor tiles. I only have one little area left to grout and then it's ALL done. The Lord of the Manor got the water heater and copper water pipes installed. So we are making progress slowly.

I guess now we can start thinking about Christmas, but we won't put any decorations up until at least December 1st. And I didn't go anywhere near the Mall last weekend either. I simply refuse to be sucked in by all that crass commercialism.

So that's what we've been doing here Amongst The Oaks.

Acorn Cottage

I haven't shown you my studio yet, have I? It started life as a shed in the backyard and boy was it ugly! We're still renovating it, but it should be done soon. The goal is to have a combination studio/guest house. I really need a place to spread out the current project and not worry about messing up the house. The sewing machine has always been a problem. Where in the world does one put that ugly but essential piece of machinery? And what about scrap booking? It seems to expand all over the house if I'm not careful. Where can I store of all the papers, photos, tools, bits and pieces? All this is presently in my bedroom, and hubby is starting to roll his eyes about it. My dream is to move it all to Acorn Cottage, cleverly stored but easily accessible. I want it to look like a tiny cottage, but be dedicated to craft projects. And if we have guests, it should be easy to store everything away in decorative boxes and built-in shelves. Then just pull out the bed, and Voila, a guest house. Won't it be great? I'll let you know how it's progressing here amongst the oaks.