The weather is definitely cooler here, and fall is in the air. I would love to be the person who decorates the whole house for the season, but to be honest I’m doing well to get my fall-themed wreath hung. :-) I picked this up a few years ago, and I like how the vibrant oranges look on our front door.
Welcome, fall!
I mentioned in my post about our bedroom that I was hoping to sell our current dresser/nightstand and replace with something that fit the room a bit better. I am not sure when we’ll have the finances to do this, but it’s fun to brainstorm.
As a refresher, here are the pictures of our bedroom as it stands currently:
I want to get rid of the dresser/mirror, the nightstands on either side of our bed, the other nightstand, and probably get a headboard as well. I think a nice rug would complement our room well, and we definitely need to think about window coverings/new blinds. Those would be father in the future, of course.
After checking out all the dressers in Ikea, I think this is the one I want (the HEMNES 8-drawer dresser):
I also like the matching nightstand (the HEMNES chest with 2 drawers):
There is also a matching headboard that I wouldn’t mind, but I don’t have strong opinions on the subject. I’ll have to be creative about replacing the mirror, but Ikea has a lot of fun options.
I really like all these pieces in white, but I don’t know how well it would match our walls. They are a very, very light blue/gray color – they look white in pictures. I love their color, but it wouldn’t be enough contrast to white furniture. I have two options… One, paint the walls of the room to a darker color – perhaps the same blue/gray but darker? I don’t mind doing this, but it does add another cost to the room.
The other option is to get different color furniture. The HEMNES dresser and nightstand come in three other colors:
Unfortunately, the headboard only comes in white so I’d have to look for something else. I can’t decide which one I like best and will match our room. We have somewhat of a blue/tan/green theme going on, matching our quilt – I would probably continue with that color scheme.
I need to find something for between the closets and door. If we put a piece of furniture there, it needs to be narrow – I am always hitting my leg on the corner of the current nightstand. We also need an easily activated light, since the switch on the wall works the overhead fan. I was thinking a floor lamp, but at the same time I would really like to have some places in our room that are out of reach of little hands. I could put shelves on the wall over the dresser – on either side of the mirror perhaps? I still need to think through our options for this.
What ideas do you have?
I am going to try something new – we’ll see how long I am able to keep this up. I am going to try and update this blog every Tuesday with a house project that we did over the weekend. The purpose is twofold… one, it should keep this blog from getting too stagnant. Two, it should keep me doing things in the house. There are a lot of free or very inexpensive projects (as far as decorating, etc.) that I can do that will really help this house look better. I just tend to be very lazy!
This wasn’t something we did this weekend, but recently we did make a positive improvement to our living room: we got a new rug!
Here is a picture of our old rug:
When we moved into the house, we realized we needed something in the living room. Rugs are expensive, and to be honest I was not ready for that investment when I really had no clue about the decor of the room. So, we went to Home Depot where they were having a sale on 5×7 ft. rugs and picked out this blue one. I ended up really liking the color, but it was a little too small for the space. Also, I wanted something that was softer since we spend a lot of time on the floor. I decided to get something fairly neutral, matching our chocolate brown couches. We went to our nearby Rooms To Go Outlet and came home with this rug:
We got an 8×10 ft. which has helped somewhat keep our couches from sliding around everywhere. I looove the feel of this rug under my feet! We still need to figure out the perfect arrangement of our living room, but this is pretty functional for now.
I’ll have to use this rug to inspire me when I actually get around to decorating the house!
I haven’t been writing here much. Mostly, it’s because we really haven’t done anything to the house! I keep saying I’m going to have a small project every week that I write about, as sort of a way to force myself to actually do it. It works in theory, but I have been so busy lately that just keeping the house clean has become a challenge.
We did do one thing this weekend. One of the reasons for my busyness is that I am now the Web and Blogging team leader for Atlanta Birth Center. I have really been enjoying it, but I do find myself spending long hours on the computer, working on a design or trying to get emails out. I was sitting on the couch to do all this, but I realized that it was killing my back. I needed some sort of table to work, preferably in a room where I can keep an eye on Savannah playing. I didn’t want anything fancy because I didn’t want the temptation for clutter, but I wanted something big enough for my laptop and a notebook to jot down notes.
We looked at Office Depot where I got my computer desk 6 years ago, but apparently they don’t sell inexpensive, simple computer desks anymore. So we went to the next logical thing – Ikea! Of course they had the exact thing I was looking for, and only $20. We headed down there to check it out. Unfortunately, my timing was all wrong as it’s back-to-school time here in Georgia, and they were completely out of the $20 desk. I decided to pop into the As-Is section to check it out before giving up. I did find a desk – or rather, a table? I am not sure what it was originally supposed to be, but it was perfect. The best part? It was already put together!
It didn’t take long to find a spot for it, and I am really happy. I can easily see the entire room, and I am next to a 3-prong plug with a grounded outlet (which isn’t always a given in our house). I may switch out this new desk for the table I’m using for my sewing machine in the guest room, since this desk is prettier, but for now it’s working out pretty well.
I’ve talked before about our pantry (or rather, lack thereof). We have been using a baker’s rack as a pantry, which would have worked great if we didn’t have a toddler. I would find pantry items scattered throughout the house, and once I discovered several cans missing labels (sounds like she’s living up to her middle name!).
We looked for another pantry for a while. Our biggest problem was that the only space to put a pantry also had the HVAC vent for the kitchen, so whatever we got had to be at least 6-8 inches off the ground. We also needed something that was able to be baby proofed. Last Saturday, we finally bit the bullet and bought the one we’d found at Ikea.
We spent 6 1/2 hours that night putting it together. It was so complicated! We only stopped because it was 2am and we really needed to get to bed. We didn’t have time all last week until today, when we finally finished it. It looks great! I have most of the pantry stuff put back. I just don’t know what to do with my cookbooks; I’ll have to find somewhere else to put them. (I’m thinking the secretary in the den?)
One thing I love about this cabinet is it’s so versatile; when we redo the kitchen we’ll be able to easily find another use for it in another part of our house.
Here’s how it looked before:
And here is our new pantry:
Sorry the pictures are dark. One of the bulbs is burned out in the ceiling light. You can see this thing is almost as big as the fridge! I’m not used to seeing it yet… I keep catching it out of the corner of my eye and thinking the fridge door is open. It is good to get everything behind doors though. I think ideally I would have preferred something that wasn’t quite so deep, but really it’s perfect. (Technically, it’s made to hold a microwave. So we could move our microwave in the kitchen if we wanted and have a vent-free pantry in the dining room where the microwave currently is, though really we should just save our money for a kitchen reno.)
Anyways I’m still getting used to it, but overall it’s a good thing.
I finally bought a retractable clothesline to hang over my washer and dryer for the diaper covers that have to be air-dried. I used it for the first time tonight, and I really like it!
With the discouraging news about our foundation, I haven’t had much motivation to keep our house clean and decorated. I’ve noticed this is a vicious cycle. Because I don’t stay on top of housework, and I feel ashamed of my house. Because I feel ashamed, I get frustrated with the amount of money needed for major repairs. Because I’m frustrated with lack of money, I have no motivation to clean or decorate. And so on and so forth.
I know that the best way of stopping the cycle is to stay on top of housework, even when I don’t feel like it. There is a site called Habithacker which I discovered a little while ago. She has daily posts meant to inspire and encourage people to get into the habit of daily housework. All last month, I tuned in daily to the “Days 1-31″ for nesting (home management). At first I did well, but fell off the bandwagon shortly thereafter.
Since it’s the first of the month again, I am determined to do better this time! The first day’s assignment is to “polish your place” – in my case, I decided my place is my kitchen sink. The kitchen is probably my least favorite room, after the upstairs bathroom, as far as layout and how it looks. So the least I can do, the dishes, will probably help with my perception of the kitchen. I’m hoping, anyways. :-)
Here is what my kitchen looks like right now. My goal is to either load the dishwasher or wash all the dishes before I go to bed tonight. Hopefully, I can keep that up. :-)
When we got our guest bed a year ago, I went to a local discount linen store to get curtains, bedskirt, bedspread, and pillow shams. I thought the bedspread especially was beautiful! I still think so. However, after a year it has *not* held up. The stitching in the quilt is coming undone, and raveling to the point of being impossible to fix. I’m disappointed, especially because this was a guest bed, and not something that was used with any frequency. (A lot of people think that my cats tore up the quilt with their claws, but I just wanted to mention that this isn’t true. Their claws have done their fair share of damage on things around our house, but this quilt isn’t one of them.)
I decided to get a new bedspread/quilt for the guest bed. Since the bedskirt and curtains are still fine, I wanted to match them. I like the look of a quilt because me using the room for my sewing projects. It kinda puts me in the mood.
I’m pretty happy with the new quilt. I feel like it has a fall feel, and looks as warm and inviting as the other quilt. I hope this one lasts much longer!
The one negative thing about having a split level and a baby is the fact that there are two sets of stairs we need to protect. Savannah isn’t climbing up stairs yet, but we did have to go out and buy gates for the top of the stairs. For the top of stairs, it is recommended to have baby gates that mount on the wall (instead of the kind you can step over). After Savannah fell down the stairs and broke her leg, we realized that we needed to take care of it ASAP. So over the past few weeks we picked up two baby gates for our house.
For the stairway going down to the den…
And at the top of the stairs by the bedrooms…
So far they’re working out pretty well. I’m not a big fan of the one by the bedrooms, but it does its job. It’s just not very pretty. :-)
I posted some pictures of Savannah’s bedroom a while back. It didn’t change too much from when we moved in, except for the paint. At the time, the only thing we kept in her room was a changing table and her clothes. Now, we have a crib and she sleeps in there. (We keep most of the toys in the playroom downstairs.) Also, I organized her clothes last January and never took a picture! So here it is finally. :-)
Savannah’s room. I really, really want a glider so I can rock her! I have been scouring Craigslist but have not been very satisfied with the prices.
The changing table & dresser of sorts
Savannah’s closet. In January I got that bookshelf and that has been PERFECT! I really like having it. I also got some rubbermaid containers for her clothes that she’s outgrown. I put all the “outgrown” stuff on the top shelf of the closet.
Savannah’s crib (Ebony is demonstrating where Savannah sleeps)
