January is for Projects

I don't know about anyone else, but I was excited for the holidays to be over and for it to be January. I love January. The promise of snow seems more real (and yay! we got some yesterday), the hustle and bustle leading up to Christmas and New Year's is past, and I can dive into projects while the kids head back to school.

I love cold, wintry weather. Hot tea, hot chocolate, baking sticky buns and bread...all these things bring me joy. I love taking a break from outside work and focusing on indoor projects instead. So here are a few of the most recent ones.

1. The basement...see the previous post for those details
2. Rugs!! It's been a long time since I've made any rugs, but I wanted to make some for in front of the washer and dryer once that area was painted. I wasn't feeling up to braiding rugs for that space, so I decided to try and crochet with thin strips of wool. I cut the strips about an inch wide, and just knotted them together when I got to the end of one and needed to add the next strip. I used a very large crochet hook, and it worked really well. They aren't fancy rugs, but they are colorful, very soft to walk on, quick to make and a great way to use up scrap fabric. I made a second one, but gave that to a friend as a gift. I finished both of these before the holidays.

While sorting through wool to use in the crocheted rugs, I came across the very beginning of a braided rug. You can see it hanging from a rug clamp in the picture above. I also organized and took stock of my wool fabric, and decided I did feel like braiding a rug after all! This one is now almost done. I'll finish the current round, taper it off and then complete the rug with one butted round.

3. Table runner. This last project was not made by me, but by my mother in law. She is an expert seamstress and quilter. I was given some vintage fabric the other year and thought this might be a good use for it. I'm quite happy with it.

Basement Update

For those of you on the edge of your seat, wondering how my basement painting progress is going...


This is definitely an all-year project. I have about half of the basement painted by now.

Today's portion, Before:

After:

Before I paint, I scrape the walls to get any loose paint off, I vacuum it up with the shopvac and vacuum with a HEPA filter and then I wash the walls with a scrub brush and soapy water. It is a lot of prep work, but seems necessary on these old walls. This has one coat of white. I'll give it one more tomorrow and then paint the green pipe dark gray. (I follow the same routine for the floor, except I wash first, then scrape.) 

The laundry area, before

After:

Toilet stall:

(Yes, I do want to hang artwork in our basement toilet stall...)

Remaining corner of the basement to be painted. So much 

cleaning out needs to happen before I can paint, and then I plan to really organize the basement.