Last summer, my husband became the part-time pastor of a small church in a small town about an hour from our home. He spends a couple of days here during the week and then we're both here Friday through Sunday. We have house-sitters in our house in town while we're here.
Fortunately, the church has a parsonage that we've enjoyed staying at. It's almost - but not quite - like having a vacation house. There was no furniture when we arrived, so it's a pretty Spartan vacation house and it's not exactly a vacation-type setting, but it's quiet and peaceful and we are enjoying our time here. Church members have donated some "vintage" furniture, so we have quite an eclectic vibe going on here - everything from mid-century modern to the 1970s to today!
We intentionally decided on not having a television here. We can stream TV and movies on our laptops when we want to, or we can listen to the radio or read or we can just be quiet. Typically, I have some kind of work to do when I get here. It's a great place to work on grant proposals or marketing materials for the capital campaigns I work on in my "outside" life. Sometimes I have trouble working from home because I'm easily distracted by laundry, cooking, cleaning, Dr. Phil re-runs, eating, errands, yardwork, house projects, more cleaning, more laundry and anything else that I think needs to be done right that minute. Those don't really apply here, well, except for the cooking and eating and a small amount of laundry and cleaning.
Of course, there's no way I could spend any amount of time anywhere and not have something crafty or quilty to do. Over the months I've brought crochet, English paper piecing, embroidery and small quilts to work on. I've had to get creative with my set-up. I have a small sewing machine that is my "travel" machine and I've set it up in the bedroom that was supposed to be (at least in my mind) "the pastor's study" on a desk donated by a church member. Dave prefers the kitchen table - more room to spread out. And he does spread out!
However, if he's using every inch of the kitchen table, I can't use it as a cutting or ironing area. I can set up one of those mini ironing boards on the kitchen counter and that works pretty well.
Last weekend I discovered that the laundry room makes a perfect cutting area. My 18x24 mat fits perfectly in a little "indented" area (I can't think what else to call it) on top of the dryer and I can lay out small quilts on the top of the washer. There are bright overhead lights in this room and a huge window (just to the right of this picture), so the light is just perfect. Can't do huge projects there, but can do small ones really easily.
