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!

Update: my daughter's guest bedroom

While I am here in Texas visiting my daughter, I wanted to show you an update to her guest bedroom. I posted here about her padded headboard project that she was working on. Remember this picture? Boy, a lot has been done since then!!

The guest bedroom last fall

When we last saw her room, she had already padded the headboard and she was having me help her tuft it. Remember this?

Helping my daughter tuft the headboard

Perfectly placed buttons!

So here's what it looks like today! What a revolution!

The room today

My daughter made a matching linen pleated bedskirt out of the same fabric as the headboard. Then she sewed a duvet cover in the same colorway as the toile background, and trimmed it with gray velvet. The bolster pillow is also made from that same gray velvet, and she embroidered an "O" for their family initial. She is using gold accents. The pillow is bordered with gold silk, picking up on the gilded watercolor frames.

Doesn't this look comfy?

Mr. Pea hung the headboard for her on the wall when he came to visit her a few weeks ago. He also hung the swinging arm lamps on the wall on either side of the bed. My daughter made drapes for the windows out of the plain linen and edged the leading edge with the gray velvet. She is in the process of upholstering the cornice board that Mr. Pea made for her to go over the double windows. (I'll have to show pictures of that later!)

Room still in progress

Right now she's on the prowl for a second bedside table and artwork. This first table we see in this picture was a nice find. I actually spotted it in a store that was getting rid of its display props. It's a capital column made out of a heavy resin and she bought it for $10. She took it home and spray-painted it a glossy black. It's hard to photograph; the pictures just don't do it justice.

Mr. Pea did a lot in this guest room! Last fall he made her this headboard out of wood. Then he made her the soon-to-be revealed cornice board. He installed the headboard on the wall and installed the lamps. So my daughter has dedicated this room to him and, to his delight, made sure he was the first one to get to sleep in it when he visited last month.

And remember that rescue puppy that my daughter had just brought home the last time I visited her?

Judge at 6 months

He's almost a year old now and he just recently graduated from intermediate obedience classes! He started his advanced class this week.

Judge the graduate!

Project: tufting a padded headboard

As some of you may already know, I am in the Dallas-Fort Worth area visiting my daughter. Our goals for this short week were to spend a day shopping at the WTC for The Green Pea, catch up on some home projects at my daughter's home, attend BSF in Grapevine, pick out some fabric at a discount warehouse in Dallas, and hit the market in Canton on Friday. We were able to check everything off of our list except (regrettably) our day in Canton. I have to apologize to my new blogger friends as I was looking forward to meeting some of you! We had to forgo our day in Canton so that I could shop in the WTC one more day. Hang tight, though, as I promise that I will be back soon! I always plan my trips around Canton's First Trade Mondays!

I want to show you one of the neat projects that we worked on in my daughter Brandy's home. She wanted to create a tall, padded headboard for her guest bedroom upstairs. My husband built her the wooden frame. She applied foam to the front side of it---here is a picture of it leaning against the wall:

She picked out a lovely linen Chinoiserie fabric to apply to the headboard and to make a bedskirt out of. You can see the fabric on the bed. After applying the foam, she wrapped the headboard with the batting and brought it around the sides to the back.

And next went on the fabric! Voile!

And look what a beautiful job she did matching and seaming the fabric together:

Gorgeous! I thought the headboard was simply elegant the way that it was, but my daughter was insistent on tufting it to give it "a more posh look." And so this was the task that I was called in to help handle.

We penciled out a grid on the back of the headboard and drilled small holes into the back of the wood. My daughter placed a small screw beside each hole but did not tighten it down completely. She had her buttons already covered and prepped; she looped multiple strands of upholstery thread through each button, then pulled all the thread ends through a long upholstery needle through all the layers and out the designated holes. I stood at the front side of the headboard and pushed the button in as deep as I could into the foam while she tied it off in the back on the screw. What a job! My arms were tired from muscling in those buttons!

I tried to be as meticulous as I could about choosing and matching the perfect covered button for the toile. Look how fantastic this looks!

We got some good mother-daughter time in together. It took us a couple of hours to get it complete. My daughter is an animal lover (with 4 pets) and she brought her parrot upstairs with us while we worked. Titus kept us entertained with his non-stop chatter and added to our fun.

Here you can see the partially-completed headboard, Titus on his perch, and me on my cell calling in to The Green Pea.

My daughter Brandy loves to decorate and design and sew. She promised she would send me pictures of her room once she made the matching bedskirt and has the room put together.

Here is a photo of her with her latest acquisition, a rescue puppy from Hurricane Ike:

One of the other sewing projects that we started at my daughter's home was making cafe curtains for some of my display hutches back at the boutique. We picked up some pretty black-and-white striped fabric from Dallas---a la French style! I designed one with my daughter and am taking it back home with me to try out before she finishes the rest of them off for me.

Tonight, I am back in California---my Texas trip went by too fast! Texas is an incredibly hospitable state, but it always so nice to be back home again too.

Shopping in Texas

I am currently in Texas this week visiting family. I plan on doing lots of shopping for The Green Pea, meeting some of my blogging friends, and of course, attending the market at Canton. Stay tuned.... in the next week to follow I will have pictures to share.