I took photos of my room when I first arrived back in February. I looked around at all the work that had to be done and figured I’d feel a lot better about the process if I took pictures and compared the progress.

Today, the president of the country came to my city so we are just keeping a low profile today. I usually spend at least one of my two days off all day at home, catching up on reading, doing my laundry (in the machine, or by hand, depending on whether there is electricty). Today was an electricity day and so I decided to tackle a project I have been waiting two years to finish…I hemmed my curtains. I had a local woman make them for me but she made them about a foot too long and they have just sat there with the extra foot piled at the bottom collecting dust….a LOT of dust.

Well, I took out my sewing machine that I bought off another worker that left earlier this year. It is a beautiful sea-foam green and is from Japan so I can’t read a thing on the dials and have to experiment and guess and hope that I have the right tension for the stitches, etc. And, I actually hemmed my curtains. I’ve been looking at them every weekend thinking, “I should hem those” but something else always seemed more important. I guess life still can be productive when you are holed-up inside your house! ☺

So, without further ado, here are the before and after pictures of how I’ve made my room into a nice little sanctuary…
Before: (sorry the poor quality. They were taken with my camera phone at night)






After:




The room is a weird shape…long and rectangular. So, I split it into two with a sitting area so the other girls can come in and sit and chat and we watch movies in here sometimes. The other half is my bedroom area and I just finished what I was wanting to do by hiring someone to make my bookshelf. Now, after 7 months, I have finally unpacked all my stuff!