A Bit Under the Weather

I've been a little sick for the last several days.  Nothing major - a bad cold.  Yesterday I got a nice steroid injection and I'm feeling better today.  Yay!

With little sewing going on, I thought I'd share some pics of our laundry room makeover.   I'll start by saying that this has been a work in progress over the course of the 18 years we've lived here.  Some of the changes done during those years have included installing a tile floor (to replace the damaged vinyl one) and covering the cinder block wall with a water repellant surface.  Did I mention the laundry room is in the basement?

It was pretty nasty when we bought the house.  The good thing about the room is that is big.  Well, long and skinny is probably a better way to describe it.  But it does have plenty of space.

The big problem left to conquer here was to cover the plethora of ductwork and wires running the length of the room near the ceiling.  We didn't want a permanent structure built around everything, because we do sometimes have to access the wires and gadgets up there.

Here's what we were dealing with - 20 feet of this!

The first step was to install a long series of shelves below the wiring.  We left a nice gap for the dryer vent, as you can see.  We hung the shelves with large L brackets - they're on top of the shelves so they don't show.  We painted the bottom and edges of the shelves to match the walls.
Then came the sewing.  I made a simple curtain - 15 inches long by 20 feet wide.  I used a drapery fabric that closely matches the wall color.  The hardest part of the curtain was hanging it!  It was a comedy of errors!  I spent an entire day with little success.  Then hubby joined in.  After two evening, lots of laughter, second guessing, and trial and error, we finally had it up and level.
Now one more little problem.  The wires all come down the wall in the far corner beside the window.  Once again, fabric to the rescue!  We hung a curtain rod over the window and arranged a single curtain panel to cover the corner.
Voila!  We think it looks much more finished and refined.  The pictures are some old cross stitched pieces done by me and my mother.  I hung them low purposely, to draw the eye away from the shelf/curtain.  It's nice to be able to mark a project off our list.