My "Working Vacation" in Texas

When my four children were growing up we either lived on a dairy or on a ranch. We had lots of acreage and there was always maintenance to be done. Throughout the years we kept the kids busy with manual labor on various projects---constructing a three-horse barn from the ground up with a tack room and full bath, welding miles of corrals around the property, and laying acres of irrigation systems. We pitched in as a family and, as funny as this sounds, it was a way we shared time and made memories together.

Well, it's all come back at me. When I visit my kids now they put me to work.

Mom at work!

This is not the most flattering photo of me, but in my defense, this was a late night. On my recent "vacation" to Texas, my daughter and I spent a day cutting and trimming the shelves for her sewing room. Remember those beautiful bookcases that Mr. Pea made for her? (If you missed that post, look here!)

Construction zone

My daughter had leftover fabric from her toile headboard that she made so she planned on using it in her sewing room too for a window treatment and cushion for the window seat. She picked up the earthy brown in the fabric to paint the inside of the bookcases with---doesn't it look fabulous? I just love that dark color in there! Then on the right side of the photo, you can see a sample of the beige that will be the wall color.

We caulked and sanded the bookcases some more. My daughter and I had an assembly line going this night; she sanded the edges of the shelves down so the trim would fit. I glued and nailed the trim to the front of the shelves.

Here I am trying to hide my flannel pajama pants from her!!

Since I have returned home, my daughter has painted and sent me some photos. In the picture below, she got her walls done in the beige. She and I made that pegboard to go behind her sewing table so she could hang her notions. She cut trim to go around the board to make it more aesthetically pleasing.


In this picture, she got the pegboard painted a couple of shades darker than the walls.



My daughter has some antiques around her home too. One of my favorites is this old British filing cabinet she picked up. She cleaned it and painted a clear varnish on the insides of the shelves to protect and store her fabrics in. Isn't this clever? The scooped drawer fronts allow her to see what's inside each drawer! This is what she used to organize her sewing until she started to run out of room and needed the additional bookshelves.


This is the room as it is right now:



And here's all fourteen shelves painted and drying in her garage. In another week, she will be able to actually put them to use!