Friday Favourites: Acapulco Bags

Storage! Funky retro storage!

Or...

Horribly tacky, tourist storage.

I picked these up off the floor of my Mom's garage. She'd had a garage sale a few weeks before and shockingly, shockingly, no one bought them. I do remember them hiding in the closet of my parents' room and I have a vague recollection of the trip to Acapulco where these originated. Obviously they were well loved because my Mom found a bottle of rum from the same trip in the bags.

And now they hold in progress quilt projects. Hubby even kind of likes them. Then again, anything is probably preferable to a plastic bin in the corner. The small one holds my Maple Leaf blocks (more to share on those next week).

Still Life With Chair

Behold the cuteness. And I don't mean the little guy's chubby legs or the Monsterz quilt from Rashida or the handknits. Behold my chair. In my sewing room. And in a week I will be able to park my behind in that gorgeous new chair and sew.

Until then I am packing and cleaning and researching permanent design walls and buying outlet covers and and and...

Cabinet of Natural Curiosities (Weekend Reads)

For years now I've been treated to pictures of butterflies by The Monster. She's happy, she draws a butterfly. She's sad, she draws a butterfly. She's apologizing, she draws a butterfly. We often find pictures hidden under pillows, stuffed in bags, and not so furtively placed on the table while working.

Lately, the butterflies are getting more detailed and they are evolving into fantastical bugs and birds that she invents, then names. It is quite awesome to see.

I pulled out this book this week, in hopes of feeding her imagination. It was purchased just before the baby was born, but it didn't take. Now it is a different story. We had a discussion about inspiration and catalogues, then I let her loose. I see a lot of apology snakes in my future.

So Close Now

The other night Hubby and I stayed up very late cleaning the floors in our basement. We had to clear out rooms, give them a good vacuum, then wash them in anticipation of carpet going on. I couldn't help but think of the many late nights we spent with mops and a Shop Vac over seven years ago when we flooded.

We are FINALLY in the home stretch of a reno that started, unintentionally, with a flood in the summer of 2005. A month of rain + a house built on clay soil - any sort of waterproofing on a 50 year old house + a cracked foundation = lots of water in the basement. Lots.

It felt wrong to be celebrating colourful floors, finished baseboards and awesome wallpaper in the wake of Sandy and so much destruction for so many, but I had to remember that this was born of our own disaster. And we've worked very hard in the years since to get to this point.

It's kind of been like the Old Lady Who Swallowed A Fly.

  To finish the basement we had to waterproof.
  To waterproof we had to dig a trench around our house.
  To dig the trench we had to rip out the driveway and tear down the fence.
  To tear down the fence we had to build a new one.
  To build a new fence we had to grade and landscape our front and back yards.

And all that before we could think about walls, toilets, and colourful floors.

So soon, very soon, the Dining Room Empire will change slightly. I will get my own sewing room (that room on the right there) and the baby gets his own room. I can't wait.