Bedroom Overhaul: Done!

I set out this month to bring order to the chaos that was my bedroom (plus office plus sewing room).  And I did it!

I started by sorting out the closet and all of my drawers, and then I dealt with the things that emerged from the closet--books and other random things--and cleaned out my sewing and writing area.  The best part was organizing all of my sewing and knitting patterns, which had been scattered between my room and the basement, stuffed haphazardly into various binders and bins.  Now I have a nice file box sorted by category (Sew: Ornaments and Toys; Sew:  Garments; Sew:  Everything Else; etc.)

Then, I made new curtains!

Our old white gauze curtains had grown lank with time, and the thin whiteness of them meant they served no real purpose in keeping out either cold or light.  Plus at full length, they were kind of in the way of all the furniture.

The new ones are made with two different fabrics, both pale spring green with aqua blue floral silhouettes (the palm-tree-lookin' ones are actually black-eyed Susans).  When I went through my bins of bedding, I ran across an old worn-out set of light blue sheets that turned out perfect for the linings--using them saved me the trip to Waterville to buy muslin (and the money) plus it gave the slightly-more-yellowish-than-green background of the fabric a slightly more greenish hue so now they match the walls exactly.  And, the blue makes them that much darker, so that they block more light.  I'm quite proud of my "upcycling" efforts there!

On a whim, I tucked the old curtains under the mattress to make a dust ruffle.  I've never had a dust ruffle before, so I'm not sure if it actually serves a purpose (does it keep dust out from under the bed?).  C will probably get his feet tangled in it and rip it (it occurs to me also, as I look at the picture, that it lacks the essential element in a dust ruffle of ruffleiness...hmm...).

To finish it off, I did a major dusted and vacuumed all the neglected corners, washed the windows, aired the pillows and comforter, rotated the mattress, and dealt all the nagging tasks I'd been avoiding for a long time--re-gluing finials on curtain tie-backs, re-stringing glass balls that hang in the windows.  I took everything out that doesn't belong in there, which did involve a bit of cluttering up other spaces, but I plan to bulldoze my way through the house and get everything in its place...and everything else to Goodwill.  The room has become a nice, soothing sanctuary (of course it's the place that everyone wants to be, especially since I've been neglecting housework in the rest of the house in favor of working on this).  I plan to not take anything into it that doesn't belong, and keep up with the dusting and vacuuming weekly and make the bed daily.  I promise.

Next stop:  the bathrooms!  Stay tuned for even more of Andrea's Exciting Organizational Odyssey.