Blah, blah, blog!

Is there anything he can't do?

I hope I don't offend my husband, but I'm categorizing this post under decorating because this garage makeover is just pretty.  For anyone with a great memory, you remember the Great Garage Purge of 2008 Don't you?
Remember the progress reports of the cabinet building?  My excitement when the drywall went up?  And of course, who could forget move in day?

Here is one final post in the saga of our garage makeover:  the cabinet doors.  Ahhh....we no longer have huge pieces of plywood laying along side our house!  That husband of mine is one talented guy!  And we love our cabinets!

PS:  I still live in my office;)

Try to keep up...this might be confusing

Once upon a time, my "formal" living room was blue.  Upon moving in, I immediately painted it the most wonderful asparagus green.  It looked like this and I loved it:

Then one day, the combination of my three grubby little kids and that butter yellow slipcover made me decide that room needed to "calm down", so I launched a "While You Were Out" project and painted the room a nice calm Rocky Mountain Sky (B-O-R-I-N-G) grey blue and called it our Reading Room.  You can read all about it here.

Well, that lasted about 15 months....

....and then I found this fantastic apple green velvet settee that was going to make the most wonderful photography prop:
Seriously, I was only going to buy it to haul it around to pose kids and families on it in parks and at the beach and store it in my office.  When it arrived and I realized how large it is and how lovely it is well....a vision began to form in my head....and a trip to Lowe's paint department and quadruple lattes and an audio book was in order!

Guess what color I had to go with?  Yep!  The very same Olympic Asparagus Green and a matte black accent wall.  I LOVE my results!  I listened to Beach Music until 1 AM and painted not only the entire room, but every damn inch of baseboard I could see.  I got this crazy idea Thursday night, starting painting Friday afternoon and was all done by Saturday at noon, but my curtains took a week to arrive.  I did not want to take photos until the damask was hung:

It is difficult to see due the shadows, but I put a pretty music stand to the right of the settee so P can practice her clarinet in this room.  We've also set up her easel to the left of the bookcase near the large window near the dining room table so she can get back to her painting whenever she wants now. 

Art work by moi...that's right...summer term before my senior year in college spent sketching and painting my way through Italy and Greece earning Humanities credits with some architecture students at UofA.  That was awesome.
It has taken me four years to finally get this room right.  Now we love it and we use it.  Every one of us loves it.  We use this room to play games, listen to music, read, practice music, knit, paint (see P's easel to the left of the table?) and nap (our chairs recline!).  It makes us happy!

I feel pretty....oh so pretty.....

This was my vanity as a teenager.  I think my mom and dad made over my room when I was 12 or so.  I remember BEGGING for it in the Levitz showroom.  My mom kept it all these years.  It is now perfect for my sweet Baby D...five years old and ready for her close up...

When I asked D what color she wanted her vanity to be, she declared, without hesitation, "THIS ONE" and promptly pointed to a great retro aqua.  I opted to bring it down just a smidge and went with a more zen Bahama Sea.  I still need to go back and brush in the gold detail, but here it is:

Not bad for a one day project!  Daddy even went to the fabric store with me tonight to choose the new seating.  He reupholstered it while I dug through old photos trying to find one of this vanity in my teenage bedroom to show D (no luck).

I think she likes it.  What do you think?

Having a place to pretty up, really ought to help this kid's self-esteem.

My little plate tree makes me so happy

I picked up this nifty little plate stand during a late night run to TPT with  my neighbor Wendy.  I actually had to dismantle their darling Christmas dessert plate display that featured poporn ball & cranberry ornaments hanging from the top.  I wish I had taken photos in November and December to show you how cute I've had this thing because I'm on my third run of seasonal plates since I picked this stand up in late November.  I love it because I can fill it up with inexpensive seasonal plates and the kids can grab cereal bowls and cups all day long.  Decor with purpose.  Love it!

Pre-Thanksgiving, I filled it up with clearance ceramic plates, bowls and coffee mugs I found at Homegoods in spiced orange, browns, and greens.  Perfect for the 2 weeks of fall we get here in the southland.

Pre-Christmas, I went to Target and got all kinds of cute melamine bowls and dessert plates and those silly water-filled double-walled cups with sprinkles.  Very festive.

I picked up this latest set last night: glass plates and shallow bowls in amber and green glass with that 1970's retro vibe.  I'd love to tell you that I picked it up at the local thift shop, but alas, I found these funky wares at IKEA while shopping for my office chairs.

Be sure to give me a shout if you find any cute pink and red Valentines salad plates and bowls!

Since our weather refuses to cooperate...

...I'm bring fall indoors!

Wednesday morning, our family room looked like this:

Turquoise was cool, but doesn't quite jive with my pumpkin spice lattes.  So I picked up a gallon of Behr Earth Tone from Home Depot and two hours later  instant autumn: just add paint.

I also picked up a couple of $5 cans of Rustoleum Hammered Bronze spray paint and sprayed my mantel and white picture frames to tie it all together.  My spice colored pillows were $6 at Wal-Mart, and I added some new mantle knick-knacks from the new home decoratoring Mecca. Armies of SUVs and minivans point toward TPT during certain hours as women march in under a hypnotic state.  It must be a new vortex.  My mom, neighbors, and I have been there about four times since it opened two weeks ago.

...and don't EVEN get me started on the Christmas decor at TPT.  AH-MAZE-ING!

At the 15 and 4th street.  Shhhh....don't tell anyone!

Office Hours

I'm in!!

I'm amazed, grateful, and downright giddy with delight with my new office space! Here are some construction shots and early move-in day shots:

This is what it look like when you exit my laundry room from my house into the garage now:

This is the view from the driveway (this used to be a 3-car garage).  I love my little windows.  I think I'll put little window boxes filled with flowers under them.  This is like the playhouse I never had...

Welcome...Baby D has assumed the role of official greeter:

I still have cafe curtains to hang, gallery wraps to select and cabinets to fill.  But I'm and I love it!

I have the best husband in the whole wide world.  Thanks for listening and making it all happen T!

Progress Report

We're planning our work and working our plan.  Over the past two weeks, we have cleared out a TON of stuff from the garage.  Yard sales are out, Craigslist is in!  We have sold everything from our garage refrigerator to the kids' bounce house.  Everything must go.  We have drywall to buy!

My oh so clever husband priced out garage cabinets and workbench systems then promptly jumped on the internet and found plans to build his own.  I will admit that I was SO against this at first!  But he is doing a beautiful job and his cabinets and shelves will likely be standing long after this house falls down.

And further evidence that yes, I am indeed getting old:  T and I were up and in line with the other early birds at 6 AM trying to score deals on a pre-hung door, window, ceiling fan, light fixtures, counter tops, and other office building essentials.  Our "old" Home Depot is closing down and the entire store is on close-out.  Don't worry.  Three brand new Home Depots and three brand new Lowe's have opened in the same town, and most right across the street from each other.  I saw several neighbors in HD at 6 AM.  We're all nuts.

The framing on the new office should start this weekend!

A Midsummer Night's Purge

I typically do two large purge sessions each year: August and December.  My August purge is to prepare for the Back-to-School efficiency plan. My December purge is to prepare for the Christmas onslaught of new toys AND the New Year efficiency plan.  Each purge typically leaves me feeling energized, efficient, and empowered.

This summer's purge has been dragging on since June.  When I moved out of my office and gave P her own room, I had no place in which to move my stuff.  I have been living with piles (and piles) of scrapbook supplies and office mess all over my dining and living rooms.  My family has been incredibly patient with this mess and this weekend, T and I decided to tackle it and get it done.

I searched Craigslist late last week and found this used office armoire on Saturday:

I spent all afternoon Saturday priming and painting it to help it blend into our reading room.  This is the result:

Speaking of our reading room, here is the new configuration:

T has settled into his new recliner three times now muttering, "I don't think I'm going to get much reading done in this chair...." before he falls into an after-work snooze.  He totally deserves a comfy chair.  I am happy he now has one. 

I wish I could report that this summer's purge has left me feeling empowered, energized, and efficient,  but it hasn't.  Instead, I feel downright ashamed at the ridiculous amount of STUFF I have collected over 10+ years of scrapbooking.  If I never snap another photo of my kids...if I never purchase another piece of patterned paper or Prima Flower, I will still fail to exhaust my stash.  That, is shameful.  With my excess staring back at me, with no place to live, it becomes suffocating. 

I remember years ago, my mom saying that someday I'll likely move on from scrapbooking.  I remember thinking she was nuts.  I love so many things about this hobby: documenting, story telling, capturing, sharing, connecting.  I have discovered that my enthusiasm for the art of scrapbooking is waning, as the sheer excess of too much stuff is suffocating me.  Maybe it is because I look at the gluttonous piles of chipboard and paper flowers and think of how many groceries or gallons of gas I could buy with what I spent on it.  Maybe it is because our family of five, with all of the energy and noise, and stuff that comes with us makes me feel like the walls are closing in on our excess. My husband is convinced that digital scrapbooking is the way to go.  He says that my blog is pretty much a digital scrapbook anyway.

After the frustration of trying to find a home for it all, I'm inclined to agree.

S.O.S.! I need your hidden storage ideas!

I'm STILL living in limbo.  While my precious tween is all moved into her Joghurt-inspired room (and currently cruising the Hawaiian islands), Mommy is still pulling her hair our trying to come up with a solution for the 10+ years of scrapbooking supplies growing like Tribles in the dining room, living room, and various cabinets.  This cannot go on.

I have measured and mapped out more failed ideas that I care to share here, but I think I have an ultimate solution.  And no Korie, it does not involve moving to WV so I can have a basement studio all to myself (though it does sound appealing).

I need to reduce the entire room full of supplies down into a manageable Scrapbook Armoire.  I need to be able to close the doors on my creative messes and walk away in peace.

So here is the deal:

• My beloved PB-inspired custom Project Table is either going into storage or on Craigslist.  I am aware that I will never find another piece like this again.  I love it, but it requires a dedicated space.  It is too big to shove under a living room window and pretend it is an accent table that doubles for hard core paper crafting.  If I can sell it to off-set the costs of the new armoire, I'll have to bid adieu...
• My dream reading room is coming together.  I'm sending my wing back chairs out to get reupholstered in a rich orange spice twill next week, and I found two espresso brown club chair recliners that fit perfectly! I'll add a second Expedit bookcase and hunt down a round coffee table and we'll be sipping coffee in our reading circle in no time!
• The new armoire/hidden office in a box will live on the wall facing the reading room.  It will be the very first piece of furniture you see upon entering through our front door.  Right now I have a very old pharmacy cabinet with glass doors that holds a ton of books.  That too, will go into storage.

So here is where I need your help.  I've been Googling my little heart out trying to find a suitable solution.  Here are some contenders:
This is called the "Original Scrapbox".  Pretty amazing design and it seems to hold a ton.  I'm not thrilled with the workspace, but the bajillion pockets and drawers seem to be the big selling point with this one.

This is the Hobby Hideaway.  Beautiful, high-end, customized furniture.  It is also half the price of a car (or at least a Hawaiian cruise):

This is really a smart system.

And really....look at the possibilities....

Sigh....
This is another system that is really more suited for a dedicated room (I need doors to close it up) but I just love the idea of how organized this woman must be.  BTW this is a Scrap n' Cube system:

I've been scouring Craigslist looking for a gently used office armoire. If I find one, I want to paint it orange spice to match my chairs.  I just know if I hit the vertical kitchen storage section at IKEA and maybe throw up some peg board, I can create something without having to sell off my first born.  But then it again, that would free up my old room......

I am trying to buy this one on Craigslist.  I'll let you know:

A Room Fit For A Tween

Friday night my office, my beloved creating and personal space, looked like this:

May we all observe a moment of silence for what was once my refuge, my pride and joy, my space.

How can I be sad when I now have this room to brighten our home? This room was totally fun to create!  I present to you, Peyton's new 'Tween Dream Room!

 

My mom, brother, kids, and I took a field trip to IKEA Friday and loaded up our carts in the marketplace with bedding, curtains, lamps, chandeliers, and those crazy lime green stools.  Peyton hand picked her wall colors on Thursday night and even helped paint the green until 11 PM Friday night.  Saturday morning, I got busy painting the stripes and circles.  By Saturday night, the room looked mostly like this.  Walls and furniture done, curtains hung, lighting in place.  I spent all day Sunday moving closets and drawers around and getting the other two kids squared away in their newly enlarged rooms.

Look how cute her outlet covers are:

A little wall bling for miss thing:

Don't be too impressed.  Look at the mess I have yet to conquer:

See you in a few days after I find my way out from under these piles.