Front Porch Pillows

My loft is my dream craft studio and also my dream sewing room. 

 
I can spread out my sewing machine on one end of the table, my little ironing board on the other, and still have a nice big space in the middle of the table for cutting out fabric, and I can hang my ironed fabric on the railing so it doesn't get wrinkled again while I'm working on a different piece.

I am so lucky, and I love my loft!


My most recent sewing project was to turn some old pillows

and some Jo-Ann fabric (40% off with coupon, of course)

into pillows for my front porch. 

 I made quick and easy envelope-back pillow covers so I can get them off and on easily for laundering. The colors match the neutral look I'm decorating my front porch with this year, and the pattern follows the French theme I'm using. 

 I'm actually color blind in these color shades and often see brown as red and red as orange, so I asked my family to help me out with my color choices this year. We might be seeing completely different colors in these photos, but I hope you like them anyway!

Tucker kept me company while I worked on the pillow covers. 

 
Sometimes he crawls under the table and naps behind the skirt near the open window, and sometimes he lays on his bed.

When I finished sewing and got up to take all the pillows downstairs, I didn't find him under the table and turned around to find his bed empty, too.

But the love seat was occupied!

Naughty dog! 

This is why I don't have my long dreamed-of white slipcover.  

Sigh... 

Anyway, the good news is I'm almost finished with my front porch decorating, and I'm going to go sit out there right now to enjoy the rest of this lovely Sunday morning.

I hope you're enjoying yours, too! 

More Spring Craft Room Color

 

I'm adding more spring color to my loft bit by bit. Last weekend I sewed a slipcover to cover the craft table stool. Next, I wanted to add some color to my windows without covering the light and view, so I used the leftover fabric from the slipcover to make some colorful flags. 

I love to climb the stairs to the loft, turn the corner, and see the fun whimsical shapes and colors that remind me of a country fair. They make me smile and help to put me in a creative mood. 

I made a triangle pattern out of cardboard, traced around it onto the (Jo-Ann's) fabric, and cut the shapes out with pinking shears. Then I sewed the edges onto some bias tape using my sewing machine and a zigzag stitch. Fun and easy.  

 

Tucker wanted to be in every photo, so I think he wants to say hi.

Thanks for stopping by today! I hope you have a chance to enjoy the spring colors all around you this week. 

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Ruffled Slipcover

Please join me at these great parties:
DIY Showoff     Nifty Thrifty Things   Coastal Charm  Between Naps on the Porch

Cherished Treasures    Elizabeth & Co.    Savvy Southern Style

From My Front Porch to Yours    aka Design   The Shabby Creek Cottage

French Country Cottage   At the Picket Fence    Rooted in Thyme

The Shabby Nest     My Repurposed Life   My Romantic Home  

Ruffled Slipcover

I was bitten by the Color Bug over the weekend. The symptoms were an overwhelming desire to add color to my neutral black, white, and brown loft. I'm happy to report that I'm now fully recovered!

My prescription was this kitchen stool slipcover I saw on Kelly Rae Roberts' home tour.    

Kelly Rae Roberts

For my loft craft studio version I started with this $6 thrift store stool and painted the legs white. 

With no pattern to follow, I made up my slipcover as I went along. I made a paper pattern of the round seat and cut out a circle of the first of three (Jo-Ann 40% off coupon) fabrics.

 To the circle I sewed a strip of fabric to fit around the side of the seat and used an old pillow case, deconstructed and re-sewn, as a base on which to sew the ruffles.

 I gathered and hemmed my ruffles and attached them one at a time. 

There was a lot of measuring and pinning going on, using the stool as a dress dummy. Finally, all three ruffles were sewn in place. 

The first pop of color in my loft, and my color bug symptoms began to disappear. 

Amazing what a little color will do to lift your spirits and make you feel better.  In no time at all I was back to my old self.

Fortunately, I might be feeling a slight relapse coming on today, and I'm hoping a second dose of colorful fabric will help. But first, I have to consult Pinterest on the proper way to apply it. 

Thanks for coming today, and watch out for that Color Bug. It just might be catching! 

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Paper Pinwheels

Colorful Craft Room Flags

I'm linking to these great parties!
DIY Showoff
Between Naps on the Porch
Coastal Charm 
Tip Junkie
Elizabeth & Co 
From My Front Porch to Yours
The Shabby Creek Cottage
aka Design
French Country Cottage
At the Picket Fence
Common Ground
The Shabby Nest
Funky Junk Interiors 
Rooted in Thyme

  

Open windows!

Spring has finally arrived to my loft today, and I've thrown open the windows to my new studio for the first time. Sunshine is pooling on my work table, a soft breeze is rustling my papers, and there's a bright blue sky spread out above the new grass below.

  

 

Life is good!

My Expanded Loft

The other day, my husband surprised me big-time when he offered to give up some of the loft workout space to make my studio larger.
 

   
I use the treadmill and Exercycle once in awhile, but my husband is a serious work-out enthusiast. He actually lifts all these weights. Regularly. Sometimes while lying on his back. And you should see him on the Nordic Track. It makes me sweat just to watch him! 

So it was a pretty big sacrifice for him to offer up five feet of the hallowed ground where he maintains his muscles.

 

He has a LOT of muscles. 

I jumped at the offer, of course. No tearing down of walls, no big deal, we just moved the loveseat over five feet. But, wow, what a difference five feet of floorspace can make in your life.

 It's not like I'm dancing around in it or anything. But I could.

And I'm loving it! Thanks, hon. 

Craft Table Skirt

I haven't been happy with the way my eye is drawn to the area beneath my craft table. Uggily Wuggily (to quote Jack Prelutsky in The Baby Uggs are Hatching).

So using 7 yards of $1.99/yard unbleached muslin that I bought at Jo-Ann with a 40% off coupon, I made a skirt to hang under the table. 

I didn't want to have to dig behind the fabric for the printer, waste basket and power strip or get my legs tangled up in it when working at my table, so I moved the tension rods ($6.99 each at Fred Meyer) to the backs of the drawers.

I like the way the light still comes through the fabric, and now my eye travels to the top of the table instead of the uggily wuggily area beneath it. 

Before

After

 Mission accomplished.

My Loft

Since the name of my blog is The North End Loft, I thought you might like to see some pictures of my loft studio.

It's been an incredibly satisfying experience to design and put together this space, and I'm so fortunate to have extra room in my home that can be devoted just to me. It's the first place since my single dorm room in college (a looooong time ago) that's just for me. No husband's socks to pick up off the floor, no kid's jackets to hang up, just my own stuff in my own space. I didn't know just how lovely it would be to have it, until I did.

Something you might notice right away about my loft is that I'm a cheap frugal person who designed this space on a dime. My studio is made up of odds and ends, thrift store finds, a few new things, and repurposed well-used items from other areas in my home. A lot of the ideas I use came from Pinterest and other blogs. (Thank you so much for sharing, to anyone who recognizes one of their projects in my studio.)

My studio is a work in progress. I love tweaking it as much as I love writing and working on crafts. It's definitely not finished.

Up the stairs...

That's the family room down below, and that's the dog's bed and blanket on the floor. (Not my laundry!  : )

...and here we are. 

 My studio measures about 13 feet by 11 feet. The other side of the loft is our workout (gym) area which is usually used at night when I'm not in my studio. The window overlooks our backyard. This entire back end of our home was added-on to our cottage in 1990, and built by my husband and me.

 My craft table is made from 2 solid core 36 inch wide doors, stained and then sealed with polyurethane.  Having a 13 foot long tabletop means I can have multiple work areas at once.

  

The drawers/support on each end are from an old desk cut in half, repainted, and hardware replaced. (The top of that desk was refinished and used for my loft coffee table.) The middle of the craft table is supported by an old filing cabinet spray painted to match these drawers. 

 

The nice part about having our workout room on the other side of the loft is that my husband likes to watch sports while he works out. So he mounted this ginormous television on the wall above my craft table and it swivels so I can sit at the far end of the table and watch HGTV while I work. (Sara Richardson, we're ready for a new series, please.)

 

 

It's such a treat to not have to lug my paper cutter and sewing machine out when I need them. I just leave them out on one edge of the table (along with some unfinished projects.)

The 36 inch wide tabletop is deep enough for open work space and to keep supplies within reach along the edge. (Sorry about these dark/grainy photos. The sun just comes streaming through the windows and freaks my camera out! At the top of my to-do list is learning how to become a decent blog photographer.) 

 

 

 

 

 

  This little moss garden in a mason jar is the easiest thing ever to make and grow, even by me with my brown thumb. Just layer pebbles, then soil, and then moss (mine came from the back yard) in a mason jar. When you close the lid, it "rains" inside, so no watering needed, then open the lid to let the air in for a bit. And moss doesn't need mowing. That's my kind of garden.

I got this lamp for free when I bought two little tables at a used furniture shop one day. It was already shabby white, so no painting needed, and I found the shade on sale at Target. There's also an overhead light with a fan and four skylights in the ceiling.

  

This loveseat faces my craft table and is where I do my writing on my laptop. It's one of those green loveseats with huge pink roses on it from the nineties. ( I can't believe how often I see ones just like it.) I really wanted a shabby chic white slipcover, really really badly, but I got this brown one instead because... 

 

I have a black dog! 

Can you see his nice comfy dog bed there on the floor just beyond his nose? Notice he's not on it? That's because my huge black lab's favorite spot is squashed on the loveseat next to me while I write, and I decided his fur would look much better stuck to a brown slipcover than it would to a white one. Don't you agree?

I hope you've enjoyed your visit to The North End Loft!