Upstairs porch reveal: sleeping porch to guest room, fall 2013 to fall 2014

Back in the day, we had this porch:

It's always been a funny room at the back of the house on the upper storey, way at the end of a long hall we never went down.

Plaster walls crumbling, uninsulated and unheated, lead paint flaking from (single pane) windows and walls - it was a combination storage and get-away room, but very rarely used over the 15 years we've been in the house.

We'd finally reached the end of a lot of other projects, and decided it was time to (literally?) tackle this one...  fall of 2013:

Jeff got the walls down and new ceiling rafters put in before our long hard winter started.

Then there was a long winter wait:

Finally, spring.  We decided to take out the window in the wall, that went to a small storage room off the hallway.  We didn't want to take it out, but neither of us could figure out a reason why we shouldn't.  There were lots of reasons why we should, starting with not having to refinish a whole window.

After Jeff rebuilds the walls and adds insulation, the window guys come:

and the drywall guy comes (if you need a drywall guy in the Mpls area, we can tell you who not to call - but he did get the job done):

Painting is always exciting:

And the last bits always seem to take the longest (especially when we can't find the trim we want off the rack, so Jeff makes his own and I prime and paint it).  Summer is moving along, I'm buying things here and there that we'll need to finish the space.

We get bogged down in the details...  I have an idea what I'd like for new sheets, but have trouble matching the ones I choose (lovely nice ones on clearance, so no returns) to anything else, like duvet covers or curtains or flannel sheets.  The things you work out in your head are sometimes so hard to convert to a real space!

Being an area people need to comfortably sleep, and facing directly east, the porch needed good curtains.  This turned out to be a huge hassle of time and energy and money, but we did eventually figure out a cozy and dark plan that should keep out the 5 am summer sun, and maybe even help keep out the 4:30 pm winter sun-set cold, all the while making the space feel private and secure.

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Finally, end of the summer, "finished":

The girls give their own high praise:  "it's like a hotel!" they exclaim.  To me, that means finishing touches are still needed, like pictures and little things that make it a home.  These will come along the way, I'm in no hurry to fill the space with things just to fill it.  There will be adjustments that need to be made, too;  so far the new windows and insulation has kept the fall cold out, but we'll see how the heater can compete with the -20's winter. 

Now we walk down the hall just to stand in the room and enjoy the space.  We hope our houseguests will enjoy it, too!

glimpses of growing and learning.

Our tubing evening didn't happen, partially due to bad head colds but mostly due to the hill closing a week before Jeff thought it was going to close.  We're not sure why it's taken us this long to utilize the little ski/snowboard/tubing hill near us, but when Kaatje started asking for snowboarding lessons around Christmas time, we knew where to look.  Lessons one and two went great... lesson three's backside turn practice led to a painful wrist sprain.  Ah well, she's already asking for lessons next year, and we've already marked it on the calendar.

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A huge horray for homeschooling in our lives:  we made the trek to our local homeschooling store (how many people can say that?!  we're very blessed.) and Kaatje and I chatted with the invaluably helpful owners about the "math issues" we were having.  Now we're happily using new curriculum where I'm remembering statistics and proof theory from college, and Kaatje's learning mice can't read.  (Partially kidding, she's learning more than that, too.)  My math major heart loves that she's happily learning set unions, and her math-is-stupid (not hard, just stupid) heart loves that she's not doing repetitive long division problems.  If you're a homeschooler with a voracious reader who finds typical math hair-tearing-out-boring, check out Life of Fred.  The pure greatness of homeschooling is that this might not even be the end-all... I might come back later saying how Fred's not working anymore and we've made another change, but where I was at the end of my rope before (and so was Kaatje), we're once again contentedly remembering why we do this.  Must always keep in mind that the best way to move forward sometimes is to talk to those wonderful homeschool pioneers around us, from the friends at church with highschoolers to the now-grandparents of another generation of to-be-homeschooled kids.  Our girls' learning won't look anything like anyone else's, and the ones who know that best and can help us grow are the ones who've already been there!

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Lots on the needles lately;  since our LYS closed (*sniff*) I picked out some yarn on their closing day to make the girls whatever they wanted.  Greta picked a short-sleeve cardigan in bright pink wool (Ravelry here), Kaatje a hat in greens and browns (same pattern as this one).  In a fit of cold late winter knitting, both are finished except for the fox ears Kaatje wants on her hat... need to research those a bit.  I'm forever working on a shawl out of some gorgeous soft and so very splitty rowan cotton/silk, from the market in Ireland.  Splitty means despite an easy pattern, I have to watch what I'm doing:  sad for movie watching, fine for piano lessons and car rides. 

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Despite snow in the forecast, the paper flakes have been peeled from the windows.  I don't seem to be able to come out of the little chain speciality grocery store without another plant, somehow a shamrock has been added in the window.  (I'm a sucker for anything that says "full sun;"  until the leaves appear, our huge south widows will kill lesser plants.)  Snow covers most of the ground still, grimy and gritty, but I've been watching the garden plants slowly be revealed.  No garden plans yet, just some spindly tall basil whose seeds Gret and I threw in a pot a while ago, pampered in our funny little greenhouse.  Nothing like the smell of basil as the first day of spring approaches.

bedroom circa 1920 - computer room circa 1999 - movie room circa 2014

Before (December 2013) ~

Although we liked this room, it was awkward for both movie watching and guest hosting, feeling crowded and busy.  (But the dog's comfortable!)

(Note to our overnight guests:  sheets were always washed and the dog banned from the room before your stay.  Just saying.)


During (January 2014) ~

We removed all the books and shelving so Jeff could build risers to raise the bookshelves above the arms of the new couch.  We never could get at the books in the lowest shelves, as they were under the sides of futon, so this would fix that problem.

Now, not only can we get at the books, we can access the outlets that were always behind the shelves!

February ~

This is how far I could help Jeff move the 250 lb television we purged.   His brother kindly came over to move it as far as the back porch, where it sat a few weeks, until Jeff discovered the responses to his sales ad had been going to his e-mail's spam.  After that, it was gone the next day!

This is what one's living room looks like the evening of a giant-swedish-furniture-store run.  The futon frame was sold to church friends, the futon is clogging the upstairs hall, awaiting its place in the yet to-be-completed upstairs porch guest room (currently frozen).

Building a 111" couch in a 112" space required creative reading of the instructions.  (Please note the small clock above Jeff's head, it does read 11:05 pm.  We were proud to finish before midnight!)

After (March 2014) ~

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Our 19-teen home (exact build date undetermined) originally had two bedrooms downstairs like most bungalows.  Within a decade after building, the owners raised the roof and added bedrooms upstairs, opening the front bedroom into the living room for the staircase.  When we purchased the home, the elderly former resident (who with her husband had purchased the home in the 1950's) lived in this remaining first floor bedroom and shut off the upstairs.

When we moved in, we used this room as a computer room, with a couple desks.  I had a hard time finding any photos of that era (it wasn't pretty).  Between Kaatje and Greta's births, we remodeled the bathroom adjacent to this room, taking the bedroom closet to enlarge the bathroom with room for a shower.  Around this time we moved the television to this room, noting how well "out of sight, out of mind" works with small children, and purchasing a futon so the room could also be used for guests as children were expanding into our former guest rooms upstairs.  The room stayed in this form for many years, probably near a decade.

The current update was prompted by the long winter, some Christmas money, a minor knee injury that made it hard for me to sit on the futon (we always kept it as a bed, as the quite comfortable bed made a very uncomfortable couch), and perhaps the Olympics.  We wanted to update to a flat panel TV and have a place where all four of us could sit comfortably to watch movies (or the Olympics) together, and we're very happy with the result!

(Final note:  the dog is getting over the loss of his favorite yard-viewing spot.)

here be fairies. (and sewing.)

Greta received a wonderful book for Christmas this year:  Forest Fairy Crafts.

Right away, over the Christmas week, she made an owl pocket animal, but we had to gather a few more supplies at home before we could try some of the other crafts.  We enjoy this book so much because of the quality of the finished projects;  these are dolls like we used to buy from the expensive Waldorf-style stores or catalogues, and the girls make them just like they want them.  Plus, there's such an array of neat projects:  from stuffed animals to many kinds and sizes of fairies.  The girls piece hats from one kind of fairy to wings from another, since it's so easily customizable.  I'm not being bothered by requests to purchase little fairies like I'd buy them years ago!

Even for my especially crafty girls (gifted, not taught!) I do need to help Greta with these projects... sometimes she can't get string tight enough, or needs a third hand to help glue hair, or the like.  Kaatje can complete the crafts on her own, but I find I can still help with gently guiding her away from frustration if she starts to flounder (anger not being conducive to fine motor skills, among many other things).

I'm kind of getting into my head that a fairy-making-party would be a lovely long-winter's-end event, but we'll see where that goes.  (Shhhh!! to my friends reading with little girls....later if not sooner, but don't tell them!)

(Notes:  The small animals are from Kaatje's loved Christmas presents: The Cute Book and the Cuter Book.  The bead fairies are kits from our local bead store: The Garden of Beads, where they know Kaatje on sight.  Now that the bookstore and the yarn store are gone, there's worse places here to be known on sight... the tattoo parlor maybe?  ahem.)