In the Garret

We haven't been upstairs much on this blog, and since we've just got it organized and cleaned, now seems like a good time for a visit! We don't spend much time up in the garret in the summer because it gets so hot, so it has been largely neglected for the last few months. But my parents are coming for a visit that weekend, and since the upstairs is also our guest space, it was time to get it shipshape again. Matt tidied and swept everything, and I organized the desk space, and now it's looking very nice. Not that my parents expect everything to be spotless, but it makes me feel better to have it all clean when they come.

It's a nice place to sleep, although it's warm enough right now that Mom and Dad might opt to set up their tent in the backyard where it will be nice and cool. 

My sewing corner, where I wish I had a nice set of shelves to organize my fabric on, rather than using the bursting-at-the-seams ragbag I have now (which used to be a pillowcase). The rainbows on the wall are from the prism that hangs in the window.

View from the south window and our very dry front lawn.

Just don't open up my desk- it's still a mess inside! Organizing all my papers will be a task for next week, before school starts (all of my notes from spring term still haven't moved from where I stashed them in June...). The fluorescent lights we use for starting plants are on the right, just out of sight behind the desk-- you can see the glow from them on the wall.

Matt's collection of antique tools at the top of the stairwell.

I've started some leeks under the lights in the hope that they will do better than the ones we planted directly in the garden. They're already taller than the ones that have been in the ground for a couple months...

View from the north window, of our very dry backyard.

 The "book corner" at the top of the stairs. No shelves, but this works fine for us so far! If we do decide to add shelves, they will need to be long and low, because of the slant of the roof.

Down the stairs and into the hall.

You can see here how cozy our house is. The "hall" is actually only about ten feet long, with six doorways coming off of it, to the bathroom (to the left of this photo), to Lisa's room (behind me as I took this), to the living room (to the right of the dark shelf), to the kitchen, upstairs, and to our bedroom. The lovely half-curtain hanging over the stairway is a Japanese noren that Matt and his mom brought back from a trip to Japan when he was 14.

Our garret is such a nice extra space, and whoever painted it (and our bedroom) that perfect shade of green has my approval! I'm looking forward to spending more time up there  as I go into student mode again, and as the weather cools down. There's no better place to be when it's raining than up under the eaves.