We took "Labor" Day seriously...

this year and we got to work on a couple of projects around the house that we have been putting off. On Saturday morning we dropped Lucy off for grooming and got to work on our master bedroom closet.

Here's Lucy before and after our groomer got a hold of her...


Our bedroom closet is gigantic...we joke that if we lived in Manhattan, our apartment would be the size of our closet. The bigger the closet, the bigger the mess! It was a total disaster, but after a full morning of work it looks like this...



I don't even want to mention how many goodwill bags we loaded up after the big clean-out. I'll just say we have a very substantial donation. ;)

Yesterday afternoon I took on a major sewing project for our master bath. We have a glass block window that gets way too much sun and heats up the entire room. So, I got the bright idea a few months ago to whip up a roman shade. Well, let me tell you, this was NO small task. I've made lots of window treatments in the past, but this one raised the degree of difficultly quite a bit.

We started it about 4pm and were hanging it up at around 11pm! Our only break was for dinner. I did all the sewing and Joe cut all the dowels and the piece of wood at the top for mounting. He also helped me with measuring and manuvering the fabric while I sewed. It's a large shade (45" x 60") and I used the black out liner for the sun, which is pretty darn stiff and not very easy to work with.

For my first (and probably last) roman shade, I think it turned out pretty well. There are gaps on the sides, which would normally drive me crazy, but I'm hanging drapes up later which will cover the sides.

The shade is made from a drapery panel that matches our drapes in the bedroom...


Here's how is looks drawn up...


After all this work, we are taking a full day off to relax today. We're heading over to a friend's house to lounge by the pool. Joe is smoking some pork ribs for dinner...YUM!