Spring is Here

Spring is here in the Pacific North West.  The sun has been shining for days, and the weather has been warm with few clouds in sight.  I guess the downside of all this sunny warm weather has been that there is little snowpack, which could lead to fewer salmon this year and droughts for some later in the summer.  Everyone keeps telling us that this is not a normal winter and not to get used to this, but I must say, I am enjoying this lovely warm sunny weather.  I guess this is a way of easing ourselves into the PNW.

This is the view from our living room.

Here is a look at my sad spinone begging to come in while staring at me from the deck, while I was in bed with the flu.  I am happy to report that I have finally recovered from the flu.  (This is what winter and spring in the PNW is supposed to look like. )

I haven't posted because we then engaged some painters to come and paint the interior of the house.  The rooms were all painted colors from the PNW landscape, however my paintings and tapestries were not well suited to the wall colors.  Instead we went back to painting the whole house white like our Virginia house, a very Swedish look with all of our wood trim.  At the moment it looks a little stark, but I am sure when all our art is on the wall, things will look much different.

 In the meantime, I am contemplating my 2015 Fall Fiber Festival Design for Black Twig Farm.  It will be an intarsia project.  Here are the colors for the sweater, of course you can choose your own family of colors, but I decided to go with the maroon, reds, pinks and oranges this year.  I will post more as the design progresses.  Beautiful colors aren't they?  These are dyed from madder and cochineal.  Want some yarn?  See Rachel's site, Black Twig Farm...

 As I last posted, I am working on this sweater for Rachel's son.

I am finished with the body, now I need to start on the sleeves.  I hope to be done in the next couple of weeks.  It is nice to be doing something creative other than unpacking boxes and finding places for things.

Creating a Home

Our daughter was less than thrilled with the move.  When we first told our children of our impending move to Seattle, my daughter was at first thrilled.  We were going to the cute little island with the great croissants and the ferry ride.  It was all exciting until the realization came that it was a move not a long visit.

A month and a half has passed since our move and our children are adjusting as are all the animals.  Our old dog Elsie will finally go outside without one of us with her.  She seems to think if she lets us out of her sight we will somehow pick up and move without her knowledge.  She even played with our younger dog out in the yard the other day, their usual game of tag.  Otherwise, she sits at the bottom of the driveway awaiting our return if we are out and about.

The children have adjusted to school and are making friends.

My son picked a room with the best views in the house.  He has a suite with bedroom and sitting room with sound views and painted a bright sunny yellow.  I would post photos, but you really can't tell what's going on for all the clothes on the floor.  I would like to say I was disciplined and made my kids keep their rooms clean, but I am not, and their rooms are a mess.

Linden selected the set of rooms with the forest view.  Luckily there was no fighting over the rooms, each had their own ideas of the ideal room.  My daughter has two connected dormer rooms with a secret cubby hole.  When we moved in they were painted what I consider an awful beige.  No offense Benjamin Moore, but I am not a fan of beige.  I kept thinking the room was a bit dark, and my daughter wanted to paint the room turquoise and we were worried it would make the room a bit darker, but my daughter and I were determined that it was the right choice.




Original color of the room.


Her pick:


What I then learned was that the LRV (light reflecting value) was 70.69 for the beige and 75.69 for the winter green.  Wow, the green is "brighter".  What a difference some paint makes.

Here are some before and after shots of her "new" room.

This is a photo of the closet that divides the room.

This is the "sitting" room space.

Here is the first coat of ceiling white on the beige ceiling.  You can see the contrast.

Here are the after shots.  I still have to paint the doors, so the first photo of the outside of her door is still beige, but I think the room interior looks great.

This is her room at dusk.  We just bought some Ikea cabinets in the corner, and need to buy three more to put across the back space for storage.  What a difference, no?

My daughter has a view of an enormous cedar tree outside her window with a bird feeder on the window, and a view out to the sound.

This is a view out from the bed side of the room toward the sitting room with her secret cubby hole in the right corner next to the little doll wardrobe.  The crazy dog paint by numbers were done by my dad in the fifties.  Fun aren't they?  They replaced all the puppy posters that were in her room before.  My daughter is growing up and ready for a more sophisticated look (okay, maybe you can't consider paint by numbers sophisticated, but compared to two dozen puppy posters, framed PBN's seem much more sophisticated to me!)

Here is a photo of the dresser.  You can see a framed poster of an 1800s Vogue cover that I painted in my twenties, and the fox painting that I painted for her two Christmases ago.  The cute cookie jar with the bears atop came from a craft show in Asheville, NC many years ago when I was not much older than Linden is now.

This is my grandmother's dish cabinet from the later 1800's that is filled with my daughter's treasures.  The paintings either side of the cabinet are her watercolor paintings that we framed.

A reading chair and all of her books.  A great nook for reading and getting away from her big bother brother.

A view from the reading chair back to her bedroom side.  The watercolor painting of the horses is one that I did when I was 12, not very good, but she loves it.  You can just barely see her little secret nook on the left of the photo.

She loves her new room, as do I.  It is now a bright cheery space for her.  Now if I can just get my bedroom painted!