The High Road

When we first discovered our house up here on the mountain, our introduction was the road. This long hill to climb to reach the goal. We knew from the start we could not drive up it. Maybe if we owned a little car but not our Vito.

So one of the things we had to decide on before we bought our chalet was were we willing to accept that limitation. We were and we did but I know that life would have been much easier back then if only we could have driven up that hill.

When we bought the chalet it came with a jeep. It was an old ratty jeep but it did go up and down that hill. Now it did make the task easier but it was not a licensed vehicle so anything we hauled in the jeep had to be first loaded onto the van and brought to the bottom of the hill, then unloaded and loaded into the jeep. 

We used it to haul all our earthly possessions up to the house. It was a long hard move.

 I didn't help matters any when I fell down on December 30th landed on the top of my foot and ended up with an ankle that resembles a deformed balloon animal in various shades of green, blue and purple.

 The rest of the moving job rested solely on the back of Frenchie. I'm still not sure how he managed it.  That jeep was our grocery delivery jeep, our firewood hauler and everything else in between.

 It was a sad day when the jeep ran no more and we were forced once again to haul our groceries up the hill by hand. 

Finally this spring we hired a company to redo the driveway. 

They started by grating the whole driveway from top to bottom. They also had to remove some roots and rocks. Just doing that was a great improvement. There were places where the driveway sloped like the mountain and places where it humped in the middle.

Soon it was smooth all the way down.  Then they added the gravel.

Frenchie stuck by our neighbors entrance in one of the two attempts he made to go up the driveway.

Our road is shared by our neighbors and their entrance was where some of the roughest parts were,  The workers smoothed the area and rebuilt their little wall so there were no more worries about the road eroding away in that area. 

Last but not least, they laid pavers down from the garage all the way to the gate entrance. Frenchie chose these beautiful latticed pavers and had them filled with gravel. It provides great traction for the van since, though this is now much smoother, it is still quite steep. What a difference! 

While they were working on the driveway and pouring the concrete at the gate entrance, Frenchie was working away on the terrace, readying it for the work to be done on it later this year. Since the workers were already here pouring concrete, he hired them to also pour the slab for the new patio. 

I couldn't believe the difference in the surface area. Before it was so broken up with different openings that we really didn't benefit much. We hardly used it. Now it is this nice big expanse. Big enough for a table and chairs and an umbrella with room to spare.

This is not the finished product though. We still have many changes to happen out here but that's for another episode about this ever changing chalet in the mountains!

Last but not least, we had the workers remove the huge tree next to the drive.  This was a hard decision for me. Frenchie wanted it gone almost from the beginning but I was stubborn and wanted it to stay. It was such a beautiful tree but even I had to admit that it robbed the house of light all morning and into early afternoon. 

Losing the tree would provide us with the much sought after sun. It was also pointed out to me that the tree was on the edge of a small cliff area. If a storm decided to take the tree down it would take a big chunk out of our driveway also, it might even fall on our house. So even though it was a hard decision, now that it is done I realize it was for the best. We have enjoyed a long sunny summer this year and I also have a new view! 

SO this is just one of the things that happened while I was waiting for my camera. I lost my camera shortly before they finished the project so I went out and took pictures of the finished driveway today.

We have a few other big projects going on that I hope to cover soon. They are all making a HUGE difference in the comfort of this house. I am amazed at the differences here since we first came.

I'll be back soon to fill you in on more. I hope you are all having a joyous December!

A New Look for the Livingroom

The last few weeks have been a whirlwind of activity. I have so many things I am working on that had to be put to the side. I last wrote about our huge undertaking to clean out the garage. It took us four hard days of cleaning, sorting, hauling and piling in a huge pile outside to go to the dump. I didn't take before photos because it was that bad! This is what it looks like now:

 I still need to haul the shelves downstairs and all the tools to be put on them plus various other small chores but it is close to being done. The huge pile on the left is our wood we use in our wood stoves. We probably have enough to last us through this coming winter (we have another big pile downstairs for the downstairs stove). This week we plan to get the floor painted and today we are getting plugins installed hopefully.

 

Yesterday our electricians arrived. I was expecting a short visit. Several plugs to be installed in the garage and a box replaced downstairs. Last night when they left they hadn't even touched the garage. 

Downstairs: one whole wall of boards removed, one section of ceiling destroyed, furniture out in the yard, piles of rubble everywhere, no electricity in my studio and I was told to not go near the bathroom when they left because it was 'hot'. I'm afraid of what I will be facing when they leave tonight!

Well on to what I really want to talk about. 

Sorry for the quality of the pictures but being on the southern slope, even on overcast days, the light can be quite bright in this room making pictures difficult.. 

We finally decided on what to do with the windows! 

We had talked of several things and nothing seemed to be right. 

Big curtains and curtain rods just wouldn't work with our windows. 

We tried the cinema curtain that I showed you in this post, and though it did work it only worked if we never moved our furniture. 

I thought about roman shades but I didn't want to lose any of our view. 

It's just that good! 

So finally after much discussion and looking we decided on these:

I think they are perfect! 

They fold out of the way when we don't need them, take little room and they look great in this room. I was really nervous waiting for them to arrive. I was sure they would look awkward and not fit in with the decor but they seem to be the perfect fit.

Added bonus, they block the light splendidly when needed. 

Since we sit on the southern slope of the mountain it can get quite bright in the summer time so this was a much needed feature.

What do you think of our solution?

The Studio is Finished!

It's been quite a few weeks since I wrote about my studio mess here. Since then I have worked hard on it off and on. I told you what an odd room this is but what I didn't mention is the ledges going all the way across three walls of the room. The first wall has a ledge about a foot off the floor and about two feet wide, the second wall has a ledge that is two heights, one of about two feet and the other about one foot and about 18 inches deep, the third wall the ledge is only about 4 inches high and 6 inches deep. I am not sure what the purpose of these ledges were but they make it very difficult to place furniture in this room.

I really have a lot of plans for this room but right now I have to hold off on everything. Since two of the walls have to be rebuilt, the third wall has to have a door set into it and the fourth wall will hopefully have new windows put in it, I was told no painting right now. No anything really, since it will all change. 

So I cleaned the room thoroughly and did the best I could for now. I had two big pieces of lightweight wall covering and my bulletin board to work with so I simply covered the damaged part of the wall with those. It works great for a temporary fix. I have lots of my WIP's hanging on the board and they make a nice display and serve as a gentle reminder that I need to finish them. I also have my keyboard tucked into that corner so when I get a chance I can enjoy a bit of music.

Under the window I set up my dye area. I use the big black desk to mix all my dyes, the nice slide out tray is perfect for holding my soda ash mix. I can soak fabrics in the bin and have it tucked away safe while doing so. 

The sets of drawers next to the desk hold all my dye supplies, clamps, dye, masks etc. and the small chest of drawers holds all my dyeable fabrics. It is nice to have it all contained in one area and it gives me a lot of surface area to work with also. 

I set up this back corner as my work area. This is where I use the computer, sew, work on jewelry, etc. I was told long ago when I worked as a reweaver that if I continued bending over a desk I would do irreversible damage to my neck and back. I quickly trained myself to reweave in a recliner. It was hard at first but I caught on quick and since then it has done wonders on my neck and back pain. I was also told at the same time by my eye doctor that with the type of work I did that my eyes would also deteriorate rapidly. There is a reason there are few reweavers in the world! He suggested that I watch TV while I worked so I would look up occasionally, therefor exercising my eyes. Since then I have always worked with a TV or computer going in the background. Here I have my computer, and it is a large screen. I like having my screens away from me. It's better for eye strain and for any kind of EMT emissions. 

Since I have these strange ledges I tried to work with them. I made this one a nice shelf for all my drawers full of beads, threads and tools. I places another shelf above so I have a place to various other things, 

The bank of file cabinets in front of me is full of more tools, beads, wire, pencils. All the goodies I need to make jewelry, do graphics work and do embroidery. This is the perfect set up for me and I love it!

Here next to my red drawers is my little desk. This fits just right next to my computer so I can work with my graphics tablet. I can also add my portable drawing table to the top and have a great design area for graphics. 

I set up a nice long table here as a work table. It is right next to my sewing area so I can use it as a cutting table, lay out my pieces here as I work and also use it for other projects. Right now I am in the middle of sorting, wrapping and readying some of my trims for the shop. the folding table sitting in the back is the nice portable drawing surface that I use at my chair or on my drawing desk.

This is my sewing area. I have plenty of room here to sew and lots of storage within arms reach.

My little needle felted cottage rests among the baskets of wool.

The shelves above hold my wool for needle felting and yarns, threads and other goodies.

I put these shelves next to the sewing table and also an old kitchen table that we had no room for when we moved here. It works perfect to hold my projects I am working on now and has some nice storage area beneath for patterns and other odds and ends. The shelf next to it holds all my hand dyed velvets and cottons plus various other fabrics for ongoing projects. 

The large armoire next to this holds all the rest of my fabric and old clothes. I use a lot of old clothes in my work. I like to reuse and recycle as much as possible. Most of my fiber art incorporates these used clothing items. I rarely buy new fabrics unless it is to dye!

So this is the finished room. I know it is only temporary and I really can't wait to redo this room how I want it, with bright walls and lots of light but for now I think it will serve me very well. I already feel so much more comfortable and ready to go. All my things in order, easy to find and within reach. This is making my artist heart sing!

Hope you are having a wonderful week!

 

Remaking The Kitchen ~ Pantry Solutions Finished

Over the last several weeks I have been working off and on with some storage solutions in my kitchen. I started out planning on only a few types of jars and a smaller set of shelves but when I went to buy the wood for the shelves I found these great white shelves that worked perfect for my needs. The only problem being that they were twice as wide as my jars so I couldn't see wasting all that space. I mulled it over for awhile and came up with a solution. 

First off I had these bigger old Nutella jars that would work perfect to add even more storage (who doesn't love MORE storage?) I wanted them to be raised up a bit though so I could see what is in the jars in the back. 

The problem was that the shelves will only support a certain amount of weight. Whatever I did had to be very lightweight. I finally came up with an idea that I thought would work and still look ok

First I made these cores out of styrofoam packing pieces, I made them wide enough for the jars by taping pieces together and high enough that you could read the labels of the jars from behind the first row of jars.

Then I took an old white box I had and  cut out a piece to wrap the foam cores. I simply taped the ends closed for now, though later I will glue them and spray paint them Living way out on a mountain means not going to the hardware store often so that must wait, but I wanted to show you how they looked on the shelves

They turned out perfect! Nice and sturdy with the cores of foam inside but light enough that they really add no weight at all to the shelves. As it is I am right on the edge of the weight limits with these so it was just what I needed. 

 Now I went ahead and wrapped the lids of some of the bigger jars in the back with Washi Tape in red. Then I decided maybe I would like them with the red and then some of the black and white on top of the red so i did a few like that.

I can't decide which I like better! Maybe I will just mix them up a bit :)

I also put a larger shelf below the herb shelf and found some nice big jars that I printed labels for and put the sugar, flour and almond flour into, and I have a few tea canisters there.

 And while we were visiting over in Munster Valley a few weeks back I picked up this sweet picture to go on the wall between the two.

 So there you have it, my solution to no pantry. I think it turned out really well. The open shelves help to give the room a feeling a space and I love that I can see exactly what I need to pick up at the store in a glance! *note to self ~ pick up more dried cranberries!

 I hope you liked how they turned out, I sure do. 

I can't wait till June when we will be tearing out the old sink below this and adding a new counter top that will be raised up a bit so we don't break our backs every time we wash dishes. 

Frenchie and I are both quite tall so we can use a bit of help there. 

And no worries, I will be sure and show you the finished project. 

I will be so glad when this kitchen is done but every thing we do brings us a bit closer! 

Hope your week is going well,