I was home alone Friday night which is a dangerous thing. You’d think I’d just relax and enjoy the peace and quiet, but no, for some reason the fact that I had an old sewing machine upstairs in my unfinished/unclimate-controlled bonus room popped into my head. I’ve had this sewing machine for at least 20 years. Mama bought it for me, cabinet included, for $50 so I’d have something to sew on when I was young. Mind you, I am not a seamstress. She has tried to teach me to sew, but it seems like every time I touch a sewing machine it jams up on me. That tension knob is my worst enemy. But anyway, I had this sewing machine. For a while I used it as a laptop desk, then it sat in the basement of another house, and then it got moved to the aforementioned unfinished/unclimate-controlled bonus room in this house. And Friday night, for some unknown reason, it popped into my head that maybe it didn’t need to be up there in the extreme heat and cold.
So I started wondering where I could put it. And honestly, I can do some simple sewing. Like hemming things, but that’s about it, and I thought if I had it somewhere it could be used maybe I would actually use it sometimes. I brought it downstairs and moved it around and finally decided it could sit at the landing at the bottom of the steps. There is even an outlet there so I can use it if I decide to.
And you know I couldn’t just sit it there and leave it. I had to do some decorating with it. I wish I could open it up and display the machine but it takes up too much room to do that. You’ll see what I mean further down in this post.
Here’s a before shot I took a while back…just an empty little space needing something small to make it more interesting.
And here it is now…more interesting, right? I had to move the four-pane frame to center it over the table then I added some other things I already had around the house.
It is hard to take a picture of a picture with glass over it without getting a glare, but I tried. I took this little series during photography class in November 2008.
This platter looks kind of old but I bought it a couple of years ago at Marshall’s for $12.99. I happened to have a plate hanger stashed in a drawer so I just centered it under the picture.
These silhouettes are some I had done as a gift to Mimi back in 2003. Just last week I was trying to explain to Charlotte and Samantha what a silhouette was and I told them to ask Mimi to show them the ones I gave her. She had taken them out of their frames and put them in a book, so when they asked about them she told them they could have them back since they liked them so much. I didn’t have a plan for them when they brought them home, but when I was looking for something to go on the table they seemed to work. I just happened to have two black 5×7 frames that I wasn’t using at the moment, they were tucked in a drawer. I never get rid of frames, you never know when you might need one.
Have you ever seen a silhouette artist at work? It’s amazing to me how quickly and precisely they cut them out. These were cut by artist Lena Bengtson when she came to a children’s shop in Charlotte. 
Here’s a shot from the stairs so you can see that the table doesn’t take up much room.
I promised I show the sewing machine further down, so here it is. To use it I’ll have to turn the table to the other wall so that I can open the top.
It’s a Singer machine made between 1955 and 1959…I know that because after I moved it downstairs I googled the serial number because I was curious. It still works great although it only does a straight stitch, nothing fancy.
The little chair I have sitting with it is one I got from Goodwill for $6 about two years ago. I had intentions of painting it black to go with my kitchen table, but it’s a solid oak schoolhouse chair and I just couldn’t do it. Instead Daddy tightened it up because it was a little shaky and had a crack in the seat. Then I stripped and refinished it and I love it. 
So now you know how I spent my Friday night…exciting huh?
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