Isaac's Room

When we moved in, this room was something special:

Really, it was fun for a young boy, but not for a 13 year old.  We called it the 'Toy Story' room.  There was fake wood paneling all around, with a horse cloud above....

It wasn't working for Isaac:

The workmanship wasn't fantastic either.  That bothers me more than anything:

So I tore it all out.

And patched and patched and patched and patched.  Good thing these walls have texture...

Primed what I must.

I put some different molding at chair rail height because the walls were most damaged there.

Then I painted it green (Isaac's favorite color) and prepped for stripes. The end photos show the true color of the green.  This looks much more intense:

The middle of the top is technically a little lighter green.  Don't know why I bothered.

Added some light blue stripes.  They turned out perfect.

Prepped for more stripes:

Painted them black:

Though not shown, the black did not turn out perfect.  I was overconfident and wasn't as careful. 

Anyhow, it worked out just fine.  

This is how his room looks un-staged, because I failed to ever take those pictures.

See?  We live here.

There are a few more details to the room, but....I don't have pictures at this time.

Oh, the light is from IKEA (along with the shelves and majority of furniture).

The Legos represent a portion of our life savings.

The artwork is original, lol.

The Built-ins Part Three

I've had a few people tell me that I never posted finished pictures of the built-ins.  I'm going to put some up real quick here with a brief descriptions.

After the counter-top and the added shelves:

Primer and first coat?  (seriously, my memory is sooo bad):

Turning the house into a painting studio:

2nd, 3rd coat?  I recall thinking it could have used a fourth.

Starting to put it back together:

Almost all together:

Musical couches.  Musical artwork.  Neither works here, but it's the best photo I have at the moment:

And...tada!  (Except for the hardware...)

When you consider where it started....can you say improvement?!  :)

Things look a little different now and I did a painting for above the mantel.  Someday I will consider posting that.  Someday.  ;)

Master Bedroom Saga Part 2

You know that overly optimistic timeline?  Well, life happened.  After that last post, things became super crazy.  I had multiple weeks with not one moment of down time.  Not exaggerating at all.  Just about did me in.

This week has been *somewhat* of a reprieve and I have begun again.  The master bedroom organizational needs have turned out to be greater than anticipated.   Yet, the end is now in sight and it's going to be SO MUCH BETTER than what was there before.  My jewelry wall if fairly awesome, if I say so myself.  :)

Pictures soon.




P.S.  My office looks nothing like the picture below anymore.  I spent much of today going through the entire house to find things for DI.  It looks like a tornado hit.  But once I deal with the aftermath, things are going to be more manageable!

Master Bedroom Organizing - Day 1

Last night I began on my bedroom.  Technically I just started cleaning the laundry that I hadn't put away for some time.  Rather hypocritically, I make sure the kids get their laundry put away right after they do it, but I just always have other things to do when it's my turn.  :)

In one hour my bedroom was transformed and I could look at the project I need to do...

I took off my closet door a month ago in preparation for a jewelry wall.  I have been planning to build some shelves - sort of like picture ledges, but deeper - to hold my earrings and such and then put hooks underneath for my long necklaces.  Today at IKEA however, I came across a solution I wasn't even looking for.  One of their rail systems had ceramic trays that were being clearanced.  I don't think they'd be great in the kitchen, but for jewelry....

The best part of this solution for me is that I don't have to back the van out of the garage to use the saws.  It's really just the little things, ya know?

Office Completed

It may have taken me many days, but I did push until it was tidy.  Granted there are nooks and crannies that could still use some purging (like the drawers under my desk) but for the most part, everything is in it's place.

My real accomplishment was the big bookcase.  It stores a LOT of stuff that was previously not so pretty.  I organized pictures that I hadn't touched in many years.  I decided to add the photo boxes along the top to maximize my storage space.  I also labeled just about everything.  It makes me happy.

The master bedroom is next.  It's a desperate situation.  :)

Office - Day 4?

So I may or may not have underestimated.  Yet what I underestimated was not the organizing that needed to be done, but how BUSY I am.  I thought I had been wasting more time than I actually do.  I have not had time to catch my breath in the last 4 days.

I am not daunted though.  I feel rather empowered.  Albeit slower than dreamed, I can still make progress.  My big bookcase is showing signs of promise.  :)

I think the differentiating factor is that I've broken in down into manageable parts.  When I think of organizing the whole house it seems impossible, but I can do it one room at a time.

Office - Day 3

Yes, today is my third day working on my office.   The two previous days were much too busy, but today I'm actually making a bit of progress.  My big 5x5 Expedit is in here and I'm finally addressing it.  In order to free up more of the 25 squares (since I obviously have a LOT of stuff), I purchased 8 new black photo boxes today.  They are now all labeled and organized on top of the massive bookcase....and they look pretty good. 

I sorted through some picture piles that had been around for a while.  I think I've probably been throwing miscellaneous photos in these piles for nearly 10 years.  I was kind of shocked to find I never organized them before.  Oh well.  I'm doing it now.

I WILL wrap up the office tonight if it kills me.  Tomorrow - my bedroom.

Office - Day 1

These posts will really be mostly for me.  I'm making myself accountable to...myself.  :)


Today was really quite busy and rather dramatic.  Life is interesting.

I did have a little bit of time and I cleared off my desk and addressed the piano music lack of storage- go me!  I'm going to extend my office to another day so I can work on the big bookcase some.

Having a plan makes a difference.  Expecting myself to work on an area allows me to get to some things I wouldn't have otherwise even thought of tackling. 

Spring Organizing

Time for spring cleaning organizing.

My house has gotten out of hand.  It feels overwhelming.  In a smaller home you have to keep it organized just to be able to fit everything, but here I have plenty of room to stash things until I get around to taking care of them.  Obviously, the problem is that I don't always get around to it...

Here's the plan: 

*Split up the house by rooms.
*Decide on one or two days for each room.
*Organize all aspects of the room.
*Finish small projects.
*Feel good for accomplishing something.
*Make a list of future projects for each room. 


Tomorrow is going to be a busy, crazy day, but I'm going to start anyway. 


Possible Room Order:

1. Office - 1 day
2. Master Bedroom - 2 days, need to do jewelry wall
3. Kids bedrooms - 1 day, all are in decent shape with a few hooks to be hung
4. Kitchen - 2 days, lots of organizing, new spice storage setup needed, roller shade
5. Family room - 1 day, organize cupboards, hang artwork, put pulls on
6. Laundry, Bench, Foyer - 1 day, hang mirror and organize
7. Basement - 2 days, yikes!
8. Front room - 1 day, organize book cases, easy
9. Garage - 1 day
10. Daniel's office - 2 days, enlist Daniel's help  :)

Starting tomorrow...
 

Stalled

I happened to call my sister today while she was looking at my blog.  "You've never posted any pictures of your finished cupboards,"  she said.  So true, so true. 

You see, I did finish and paint them (more or less) and I've learned to really like them too.  The rest of the room however, will take some time joining my vision and has left me feeling uninspired to post.

The necessities of daily life seem to be enough to fill nearly all of my time.  I have way too big of plans for the time alloted.  Honestly between church responsibilites, school volunteering, feeding my family, cleaning, spending time with the kids, cleaning, meetings, kids activities, cleaning, other people's needs, and cleaning there is very little time to fit a project in.

Here's hoping for a productive week. 

Master Bedroom Makeover Part 2

Finally time to paint.  The molding and lower wall are the same almost white color that the rest of my house trim is.  Luckily Kwal knew what color that was since our house was built by Ivory and it's their standard molding color. 

And then I painted the rest of the room a beautiful light gray.  I will go look at what the color is later.  I've forgotten at the moment. 

Hooray!
 (Don't mind my side tables.  They are a hand-me-down from my mother and someday I plan to revamp them by making them taller and painting them and.....someday I'll get to it.  For now I like that our alarm clocks don't shine in our faces.)

I do plan to add something above the bed, but haven't found just the thing yet.

Look at all that space underneath the bed!  I store all of our swimming gear, Halloween costumes, and luggage under there with room to spare.

I loved this bedding from the first time I saw it.  I don't think Target carries it anymore, but I think I'll be happy with it for some time.

The rest of the furniture in my room was purchased by my mom at a garage sale for my 16th birthday.  She painted them mint green while I was away at camp once.  They stayed that way until I painted them white 10 years ago in a surprise bedroom makeover in our last house while Daniel was out of town.  They are old, but super sturdy.  I took the top drawer out of this dresser to accommodate the DVD player.  Since we don't watch much television, this TV is there for exercising.

I took the original mirror off of the long dresser and plan to hang this new one on the wall at some point.

Though I have more planned such as taking down the wimpy dim light fixture and redoing a chandelier from downstairs, I think it is quite lovely enough.  It feels clean and relaxing.

Before:

And after: