Ashley Hackshaw, Author at Ashley Hackshaw / Lil Blue Boo

Travel Embroidery Art – New England Inspired Stitch Work

March 20, 2018 by Ashley Hackshaw

Travel Embroidery Art – New England Inspired Stitch Work

I know I’ve been gone a while but it’s for a good reason! We recently went on an extended road trip to New England. We covered 0ver 2,400 miles in our little Prius and made it all the way from North Carolina to Maine. I’ll share all our stops in another post but I wanted to show you how I kept busy in the car for such a long trip…embroidery:

I packed a small ziplock bag with a rainbow of thread colors, a few needles, a small pair of scissors and one hoop. I used a disappearing ink marking pen to sketch things out starting with the waves, then the ship, and finally the underwater sea life. Here’s the finished hoop:

I finished most of it on the road but the last thing I added when I got home was the ship “rigging” because I had to use some thinner thread:

Closer detail of some of the sea life:

I used a few French knots for the octopus to bring out her tentacles:

Someone shared a link on my Facebook page to a poem written by Corrie Ten Boom with the words:

My life is but a weaving
Between my God and me.
I cannot choose the colors
He weaveth steadily.

Oft’ times He weaveth sorrow;
And I in foolish pride
Forget He sees the upper
And I the underside.

I almost love the underside of my embroidery pieces more than the finished side. I’m not very efficient with thread and often zig and zag across the back as my mind thinks through the composition:

the back of the embroidery hoop - Corrie Ten Boom

While I worked in the car on my embroidery, Sienna used the same thread to make friendship bracelets. She ties the end to her water bottle to work. Brett is always driving…he prefers to have control of the car. We also love to listen to audio books! This trip we listened to the entire book Home by Bill Bryson. We learned so much about how our currently way of living came to be. It’s really amazing how our idea of comfort has really only been around for 150 years. We skipped over the chapter about bedrooms because Sienna was in the car and there were some not suitable parts for young children…it’s not explicit…but just mature content. It’s definitely a must read though…and mentioned a lot of places that were on our trip:

Home: A Short History of Private Life by Bill Bryson

“The beloved Bill Bryson gives us a fascinating history of the modern home, taking us on a room-by-room tour through his own house and using each room to explore the vast history of the domestic artifacts we take for granted. As he takes us through the history of our modern comforts, Bryson demonstrates that whatever happens in the world eventually ends up in our home, in the paint, the pipes, the pillows, and every item of furniture. Bryson has one of the liveliest, most inquisitive minds on the planet, and his sheer prose fluency makes At Home one of the most entertaining books ever written about private life.”

Now that Sienna is older I want Sienna to pay attention as we travel. I watched an Annie Leibovitz documentary once where she talked about how her love of photography came from the frame of a car window as her family drove in their car on trips. Every since then I try to limit the screen time somewhat and we’ve switched to audio books. What do you like to do in the car to pass the time on long trips? How do you keep the kids entertained?

Our Farmhouse Renovation – Modernizing the Farmhouse Floor Plan

February 28, 2018 by Ashley Hackshaw

If you’ve been following the Sixty-One Farmhouse on Instagram you know that we are finally in the stage of putting the house back together! It’s been a long road and I’ve been looking through photos from the end of 2017 to see how far we’ve come. Last September we had just finished most of the exterior of the house and finally had nailed down what we wanted the interior of the farmhouse to look like. Here are some photos of demolition just to remind everyone of what that entailed:

Never forget.

It’s amazing what you can uncover about the history of a house during demolition…and sometimes there are more questions than answers. If you remember, I was able to track down a photo of the farmhouse from 1925 from the family of Grace and Vascal Williams:

Sixty-One Park c. 1925 - Bryson City Farmhouse airbnb

During demolition we uncovered a second front door that had been covered up at some point, but it’s still there in this photo. When I was looking through old census records I discovered that the Moody family (owners from 1912-1917) had boarders living with them so this was probably a separate entrance. In the photo there’s also a screened porch on the right side of the house that at some point was enlarged and framed in to become part of the house. I’d always wondered why the farmhouse was built so close to the hill (we ended up having to dig out the hill and add that huge retaining wall) but it turns out originally it wasn’t so close to the hill! The screen porch in the 1920’s was much smaller…it was only later that the footprint of the house was enlarged, maybe around the 1940’s. Here’s what I’ve been able to piece together so far about the first floor around the time the photo was taken:

I’m not even sure that the staircase was there yet because there used to be a doorway right into it:

The Downstairs Floor Plan:

Based on all the layers of the house we uncovered it was evident that the farmhouse had undergone many changes. Here’s the farmhouse 1st floor layout when we purchased the house:

There were a few changes we wanted to undo and a few changes we thought the farmhouse needed to modernize it:

Removed the “dining room” bathroom: The farmhouse originally only had one small downstairs bathroom and the floor was rotting out from under it. Either to account for that, or to add an additional bathroom, the dining room had been converted into a large bathroom and laundry. Not only was it an odd location for a bathroom, it also resulted in awkward hallways and door locations. We removed that entire bathroom right off the bat.
Moved the kitchen and dining room: The small awkward den between the old master bedroom and master bath resulted in a lot of dead space so something had to be rearranged. The centered picture window in that space was the perfect spot for a kitchen sink, it would just have to be reduced in size. Everything else fell into place after that. Having the kitchen, bar, dining room and living room all together made the perfect open floor plan.
Created a master suite: We were able to move the master bedroom to the other side of the house where it still adjoined with the bathroom. We also added a small closet which was huge because there were no closets downstairs before.
Added a laundry, small den and 1/2 bath: By rearranging rooms we ended up with much more space and were able to add a laundry room and a half bath. We also added a small den off the master bedroom where we can put a pull-out couch for renter’s with small kids. It also adds a second living area to the downstairs.

The guys had an overall plan but they mostly just focused on one room at at time during the framing process. Jaime owns a local custom home building company (Perkins Enterprises) with his brother Erik so he’s an expert at this type of thing. The downstairs framing was well underway by the end of last summer…this is the new master bedroom and bathroom:

Mr. Plott (who grew up in the house) said that he remembers there being a cast iron stand-alone tub in the old bathroom but eventually it was changed to a shower:

We kept the downstairs bathroom in the same place just re-arranged it to work with the new location of the bedroom:

I should mention here that the guys also had to reenforce all the ceiling and floor beams to ensure the structural integrity of the old farmhouse! You can see the new ceiling joists in this photo of Jaime and Brett installing the new smaller window for over the sink in the new kitchen area:

The Upstairs Floor Plan:

With three potential bedrooms on the second floor we really wanted to add a bathroom upstairs if it was possible. The guys basically started took it down to the bare bones because that was the only way to do it right:

Once all the walls were opened up the guys were able to find additional space:

Here’s the original upstairs floor plan:

And here’s the new one with a new bathroom that opens up to the upstairs bathroom as well as the landing so it can be accessed but the two other bedrooms:

Framing in the new upstairs bathroom:

Looking up into the old roof, just for fun. That’s old wormy chestnut…very rare these days but plentiful back in the early 1900s because of the chestnut blight:

Sometimes I wonder if some of the wood from the this house came from the old house that sat on the property before the farmhouse. Some of the wood in the farmhouse is REALLY old. You can see an old house in the bottom right of this photo that sat right where our farmhouse sits now. And that amazing house in the background? That’s J.H. Everett’s huge Victorian house! He’s the one that built the farmhouse back in 1911 and sold it the next year. That amazing mansion doesn’t exist anymore…the First Baptist church sits there now. Can you imagine tearing that thing down?! Makes me want to cry. Anyway, the enormous mansion was built for Everett as a wedding present from his parents. According to The Heritage of Swain County it was built between 1875 and 1880 by Rufus Summerrow. I wish I could go back in time and chain myself to it when they decided to tear it down. I would. The hill in the background is where our current ranch house sits…so much coolness in one old early 1900s photo:

(Photo from The Heritage of Swain County 1988)

I’m jumping forward a bit but we did redo the roof of the farmhouse around October and it was at that point that we could really see the old roof vs. new. You can see how the screen porch was converted into the kitchen in the 1940’s (Maybe I’ve missed my calling as a house detective…I kind of become obsessive about it.):

Here’s what the house looks like patched together from the inside…the insulation you see is the only insulation in the whole house…and I’m guessing it was added in the 1940s as well. That’s the old kitchen stove chimney which we sadly had to take out because it was crumbling:

I’m just going to share one last photo for now because this post is getting a little long. My favorite from this past year…Jaime and Brett taking a break from rebuilding a floor. They are the hardest workers I know! And I think the photo looks so timeless (except for the McFlurry and ShopVac):

You can read more posts about the Sixty-One Park Farmhouse here and follow more progress on Instagram here (@sixtyonepark) and here (@lilblueboo).

Thanks so much for reading! The most often asked question we get is what we are going to do with it! It will be a historic Airbnb starting this summer for those visiting Bryson City and the nearby Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Creating an Art Studio – My Basement Art Studio Transformation

February 13, 2018 by Ashley Hackshaw

A short history of creating an art studio:

Back in 2015 I shared this photo with the caption: One day this will be an art studio. Can you see it?

This was our creepy underground basement room that leaks and has gazillions of spiders. First, we fixed the leaks from the outside (it was a grading issue) and I blocked all the potential entry for bugs:

Painting the Walls White

I knew for the basement to be an inviting place I needed a blank slate so I caulked all the cracks and we painted the walls white with a stain blocking paint:

Adding a Wall Easel

I used to have a large standing easel and all I remember is how much room it seemed to take up. What I really wanted was an easel system on the back wall of the studio that could hold several canvases at once and could also be easily adjusted. The solution we came up with was a simple wall easel made from five 2×4’s and a small dowel. One horizontal 2×4 was bolted to the floor the rest of the 2x4s would lean vertically against wall. We used a drill press to add the holes to the vertical pieces so that pieces of dowel can be moved up and down making it completely adjustable:

I added a few other work tables and shelves and here’s what it looked like at the beginning of 2016:

At some point I hung up these deconstructed vintage mattress springs as bulletin boards:

A year later I still wasn’t doing much art in this room because it had become more of a storage room for my project supplies:

Storage Solutions

The solution to all the bins and boxes was to build a shelving rack in the other side of the studio. The rack just consist of six 2x4s and the bins slid right in:

I added a few other shelving racks near the easel too and all the sudden the studio was a little clearer:

It still didn’t feel right though. I couldn’t decide if I was just being a brat or if there was something off. I finally figured it out…it still felt like the basement storage room because of the gritty cement floor. My first way to fix that was to paint the floor white.

It didn’t take that long to paint. I should have done this a long time ago. Here’s a short time-lapse:

A post shared by Ashley Hackshaw (@lilblueboo) on Jul 19, 2017 at 11:15am PDT

Painting the floor suddenly made the room seem bigger, brighter and cheerier! It changed everything.

An Oversized Worktable

When I was in California I used to have two huge worktables and that was something I definitely missed but I wasn’t sure if the room was big enough for one. Brett had the idea to place a large piece of 4’x8′ styrofoam on the floor so I could test out the size before we actually built a worktable. I walked around it for a few days and decided it would be great:

Brett had some scrap wood laying around and so all we had to purchase was the finish-grade plywood for the top of the table. The best idea was the storage shelf:

I painted the top and the shelf below with the same paint I used for the floor:

Getting use out of the storage shelf:

The studio is always changing and will always be changing. I painted the door one day with art quotes just to spruce up this side of the room:

And I will forever be trying to perfect my organization:

Especially for my paint:

The most important thing for me as an artist is to be able to create and not have to clean everything up….I can just walk away from the mess and leave works in various stages of completion:

It’s definitely a space I love to be in now as you can see from all the artwork in various stages:

Art Studio Upgrades

It’s funny that the two major things that I consider upgrades are a 1950s heater and a TV. The basement stays around 60 degrees all year round except for when outside temperatures drop to the teens for a few days and my ancient old heater keeps me warm:

For Christmas I asked for TV and I got it! Sienna seems to spend more time with me in the studio now that I have Netflix:

Here are some studio scenes from the past few months….it’s fun to see how the art changes and what is in process:

Things rotate in and out:

An eclectic mix:

A floral streak:

Inspired landscapes:

I’d love to know what is your favorite thing about your creative space. If you could change anything what would it be? Feel free to share a link too to your own studio if you have pics!