Mucking out, the final voyage

Well done Polly, I am still trying to sort my room out after 2 years. I just keep on stuffing more and more into it. If I ever wanted to put new carpet down or maybe even have the floors polished, it would take me forever to get organised.

I'm so grateful you included the time you have taken (so far!). I just

*have* to take everything out of the large cupboard in my study/sewing room before very much longer. Just got to finish one current project first. It is a real help to me that taking things out in the morning, sorting, and re-distributing in the afternoon is *not* going to be possible. I often imagine ridiculous time frames for tasks, and then get thoroughly disappointed and frustrated when they are not accomplished in that time. So, I will set myself two weeks, and feel good about it. The rest of the room is pretty well OK. Thanks Polly! . In message , Polly Esther writes

Why ever would you want to do THAT? Pet hairs are decorative fibers and *nothing* is ever complete without them! Not clothing, not furnishing, not dust bunnies, sometimes not even food! Heavens woman, you give me palpitations just thinking about the concept! So, OF COURSE, a few pet hairs are infinitely better than some tacky, ubiquitous, "Inspected by...." sticker. CiaoMeow >^;;^<

PAX, Tia Mary >^;;^< (RCTQ Queen of Kitties) Angels can't show their wings on earth but nothing was ever said about their whiskers! Visit my Photo albums at

I forgot to tell you about the floor. Usually, I could just call ahead and say, 'Send whatever costs the most and won't be available for 6 months'. That's how the situation always winds up. Not this time. We found a flooring that only a quilter could go goofy about - it's a very new vinyl-resilient something. I'd read all the warnings on other choices and did not want the trauma. (One even said not to allow high heeled shoes on it or move the furniture.) The flooring looks like stone but is quiet and soft - and ! - the pattern is a 4-patch, a brick and a larger square; somehow, very quietly. Not sure why I agonized so about making the best choice; won't be long before we won't be able to find it anyway. Polly

"Tia Mary" > Why ever would you want to do THAT? Pet hairs are decorative fibers

I've heard that sometimes there is!! . In message , judyanna writes

LOL! i cant find mine either.....i know it used to be blue berber....=3D)

amy in CNY

Your flooring might be like the one we used in our bathroom up north. It is a really heavy, thick flooring, and feels soft on your feet, but looks like stone. We are going to check on the brand when we return north in the spring, as I would like to find the same flooring for my kitchen in Florida. I have a white floor now, that shows every speck! I'd rather be quilting than washing kitchen floors!

My sewing room in Kingston is small, so I have to put things away after every 3 or 4 projects! I also clean it up before heading south for the winter. DH and DS2 use one end of it for modeling, painting game figures, and part of the room is shared with DH's N scale railroad! In Florida, I sew in a small room built under the carport. It is a walk-through to the shed/laundry room, and DH is in and out all the time. I have very little stash here, so I keep batting and backing fabrics under our bed, and my fabrics are in the dresser in the guest room. When guest arrive, we get out our travel tubs, and I load them up to empty the drawers. As you can imagine, we try to discourage guests! :-)

Amount of actual cash discovered in the upheaval: 36¢ Value of beautiful scrappy blocks forgotten and discovered: priceless Polly

I don't know.....I haven't seen my sewing room (or a shower) for two months. I hope there is still a floor down there!

Discovered that if you ahve a VERY PRETTY floor you WANT to see it, thus you keep the floor much cleaner than if it was a run-of-te-mill one. Mine is kept as claen as *I* can handle. had a few extra boxes over dec as it became Santa Claus's room--wrapping paper,etc. it did mean i had to keep teh cutting table clean ; ) So it all worked out. Right now, the floor is as clean as it was jsut before i started my first project and that is with 2 of us sewing in ehre!

Hand in there, Polly, it can be done

Butterfly (Hope you get a Very Pretty Floor)

We redid our breezeway for a dedicated sewing room about 3 years ago, and I love it. When we built the house in 1972, we had the builders install an indoor/outdoor carpet, they glued it down. At that time I was doing daycare and it was easy to keep clean. Over the years, when we redid the room, they just installed the new carpet over the old glued down indoor/outdoor carpet.

When I decided to use this room for sewing, we really didn't want a carpet in there anymore, I wanted something easier to keep dust free and clean, so I decided on a wood plank composite floor, but what to do with the glued down carpet? No one wanted to rip it up, neither did we, so we installed the new wood-look floor right over the old carpet. It came out great. It looks like wood, cleans like vinyl, feels comfy on the feet, etc.

This room is between the house and the garage and is the very first thing people see when they come into the house, no one uses the livingroom front door (except salesmen). It forces me to put away my sewing messes often to keep it presentable. I don't mean messes like works in progress, but when I'm done with a project, everything gets put back in its spot, nothing just hangs around looking messy. When my sewing room was upstairs in a bedroom, I tended to just throw things up there to deal with later, I can't do that anymore. Nothing on the floor but the furniture legs and 3 QIs, so it's easily vacuumed a couple of times a week.

When strangers come into the house, they're fascinated by the stash and ask lots of questions. Because of a neighborhood car accident last year, I was giving a statement to a police officer, who then called one of his colleagues into the house to see the room, pretty funny. He said his grandmother was a quilter.

I died of laughter last summer, when a young woman Obama supporter rang my doorbell. When I got to the door, her eyes were really big and she was quickly backing away from me, although I was going to speak with her, she just kept backing up, then waved her hand and ran down my driveway, not saying a word. I thought she was a strange bird, then I figured out what her problem was.

I have a sign on my front door that reads WARNING: Quilt Pox NO KNOWN CURE Very contagious to adults. She didn't stick around to read the fine print. We didn't get any more Obama supporters here the rest of the political season. I guess she spread the word to stay away from my house. QUILT POX didn't scare off the Republicans though, too funny.

Denise

Congratulations and absolutely, Polly. :) Congrats on the mucking out and finding lots of good stuff. "Absolutely" about the hairs -- a sticker is so uninspired, while you can just *tell* that the hairs are there after careful consideration and testing, no to mention approval.

That is pretty funny. Your sign just shows how important having a sense of humor is. YOur sewing area sounds pretty cool Denise. MY sewing room is right off the living room and the door is rarely closed. Kind of tough to hide it that way. I visited a quilter friend the other day. Oh my. She does many dozens of charity quilts every year and has an amazing lot of fabric. Folks give her tons of fabric since she gets so much done. Her quilting room is wonderful but looks like a tornado hit there. It works for her but I like to at least start in a tidy room. Might not last long but I just can't work in too much chaos. Everyone is creative in there own way though.

Taria

Oh how I understand! Even when I get things straightened up in here I am not sure there is a floor!!! A few years ago after a major storm did serious damage to the house we had to replace the floors in my studio. That was a nightmare I never want to do again. I had to move everything into the kitchen and living room and then we squeezed our way through things until the floor was in and things were done. I never want to do that again. Even the idea of having a carpet cleaner come in is something I have not done since only because I don't want to move things around. Today however, the studio looks fair. I did my best to get things cleaned up before starting my quilting marathon. I know it is not going to stay this way for very long. Here's to having it clean for a day!! julia

I'm sure you've said, Polly, but I must have missed it...what type of floor are you putting in your sewing room?

Oh gosh, Denise, that IS funny. :-)