Settled in a Week and Sewing Again

All the boxes are unpacked. Our curbside recycling was picked up this morning.

As much as possible, everything is put away. Until we get the furniture we ordered several weeks ago, we're living very simply. How glad we are to have those bag chairs given to us by our sales agent! The little TV was purchased for my sewing room and will be replaced with a 46" HGTV when we get a new TV console. The console beneath the TV is the one we ordered, but it arrived damaged.

In the "dining room" which we're opting to utilize as a "conversation corner," a box of books awaits a bookcase. Still need to shop for a couple chairs, a lamp and rug. It seems the shopping never ends! The table (and four chairs) will go to our son on our next trip to Tampa.

I'm learning that it's going to take quite a while to turn the front bedroom into a sewing room. When you're starting with nothing it's quite a process.

I spent hours last week taking each piece of fabric out of white garbage bags and folding the larger pieces to fit temporary wire racks standing against the wall. It would have been nice to have had friends to help me with the task - not for getting the job done sooner, but for the companionship. Instead, I listened to the audiobook "The Choice" by Nicholas Sparks.

I finished the folding job Friday. These are all the fabrics I own except for batiks, repros, French (Provence) and Swiss fabrics, and Christmas prints which are in another storage container. I culled as I folded and came up with four plastic bags of unloveable prints/colors that I'll donate to the local quilt guild for charity quilts.

Though I'm not proud of how this room looks, at least I was finally able to get my brand new Bernina Aurora 440 out of the box! (Here's how I won my Bernina.)

I've been shopping for cabinets and behind-doors shelving that will fill the entire wall where the wire fabric shelves are now. You can see the blue painter's tape on the wall where I marked the height and depth of one of the cabinet options. I've narrowed the possibilities to three. 

1. The least expensive: "SystemBuild" available through Wal-Mart (online only). There's a room-designing feature so you can see exactly how your cabinetry is going to fit into your space. The nice part is that shipping is free to a Wal-Mart store.
2. Moderately expensive: Ikea "Liatorp" bookcases with glass and glass/panel doors.
3. Most expensive: custom cabinetry. Custom cabinetry sure doesn't fit into my $2,000 self-imposed sewing room budget, but it's worth considering for the house's added value. Not that we plan to sell any time soon! Extra storage space is a feature our kids will no doubt appreciate when they inherit this house someday.

Here's the Wal-Mart SystemBuild layout I created. As much as I'd like to fill the wall with tall cabinets, I need a shorter cabinet for my small TV. 

The closet isn't pretty either, but for the time being I won't do anything with it. This space might not be needed for quilting supplies once wall cabinetry is in place. 

Happily, I've found a local store that sells Gidget II sewing machine tables. Until mine comes in I'll be sewing like this. I've begun catch-up on making Bloggers' BOM. The room certainly isn't organized, but it's bright, and I can watch the action - golf carts going by - on the quiet street in front of our house.

Speaking of golf carts... ours came in last Friday. We're really pleased with the colors we chose. Check out the cooler attached to the side, and that's a mesh grocery shopping bag in the back.

A golf cart ride can be somewhat jouncy, but it hasn't prevented Dan and Hogan from taking it to pick up mail each day. Dan is almost recovered from hurting his back during our move.

Tuesday morning I'm toodling off in the golf cart to visit another quilting chapter in The Villages; Tuesday evening I'll attend the monthly Quilting Guild of The Villages. All this is aimed toward making new friends and settling into a routine - one that must include lots of sewing! Linda