Full House

I've mentioned several times in previous posts that our home and our family have undergone several major changes over the past couple of months.  There are so many things to share but I only have the energy to share a little at a time. :) :)

Those of you who have been with me for a good while know about the loss of our son-in-law, husband to our oldest daughter.  This month, Sept. 28 will be the one year anniversary of his passing. Our daughter Shannon and our grandchildren have had an extremely difficult year to say the least.

Towards the end of May this year, Shannon told us that she and the children were unhappy and just could not continue to live in the house in Tennessee now that Greg was gone.  Ray and I invited them to move in with us.  Shannon left the decision up to the children, whether to move to New York and be with us, and in the same town as her sisters, or move to South Carolina and be near Greg's side of the family.  In the end, the children chose to move to New York and live with us until Shannon could get back on her feet and find a house of their own.

On July 28th, Ray and our other three daughters drove to Tennessee, rented a moving truck, packed Shannon and the kids up and brought them back to New York to move into our home.

Our entire family attending the New York State Fair a few weeks ago

(minus our youngest daughter who is already back in college and our little Ava Jean).

Many things had to be "shifted and relocated" before Shannon and the children could move into our house.  You may recall that our daughter Emily just bought her first home this summer.  As she prepared to move into her new home, our daughter Amanda started preparing to move out of our downstairs and into the small home that Emily was leaving.  (Ray and I purchased a small home in the village five years ago and our girls have taken turns renting it from us.)

Once Amanda had cleared out the downstairs bedroom, I started preparing it for our granddaughter Abbi.  As you will quickly see from the pictures below, Abbi ADORES elephants.  With little time, and a little budget, I got to work.  Ray had already installed the new flooring in this bedroom a year or so ago, when Amanda decided to move back home.  Although the flooring was in place, he had not finished the trim work, etc.  As he worked on the trim and minor touch-ups, I used a shower curtain extension rod and hung this adorable cloth shower curtain I found on Amazon.com as a closet "door".

The window in this downstairs bedroom is an odd size.  Strangely enough, I found this $4.99 cotton scarf/wall-hanging on Amazon.com in the perfect size.  Once it arrived, I used some black quilt backing scraps from an earlier quilt I had made and backed the cloth to give it more shape, insulation and room darkening qualities.  Then all I needed was a set of curtain "clips" and it became a very unique and cute curtain.

Ray installed a ceiling fan.  I am a "light" person...a room can never be bright enough for me, especially in a downstairs, dark room.  I love the LED light bulbs we used!

Next came these VERY inexpensive tapestry pillow covers.  After stuffing them with 18" square pillow forms I couldn't be happier with the finished product!

Couldn't resist this elephant head to hang on the wall...

This was actually an outdoor garden decoration but I thought it would be perfect as part of the décor in her room....

Abbi was only planning to bring one tall chest of drawers, her tv and a purple moon chair.

We already had a twin mattress/boxsprings set stored in our garage that had been our youngest daughter's until she moved up to a full size bed two years ago.  The bedding set (comforter, sheets, bedskirt and pillow sham) had also been Kirsten's and I had packed it away.  Abbi's favorite color is purple so Kirsten's things turned out perfect and saved me quite a bit of money!  The rug was a new purchase. :)

We placed a desk, chair and new purple desk lamp in the room for homework.  You probably can't tell, but I even placed purple ink pens in the new lamp and a new purple journal on the desk.

This picture just shows the area around the door of her bedroom, the small table with purple scarf topper is for her little television.  The wall to the left will be where her tall chest of drawers will go.

I am so pleased with how everything turned out.

Below is a short little video tour around the bedroom.  I've never attempted to insert a video in my blog so I'm crossing my fingers that it works properly for you!

More reveals later....until then....smile and enjoy your day!  I hope you get some sewing time in as well!