Spring Cleaning

When we are coming out of winter, I always get a sense of too much. I've been eating too much, wearing too much and my house is full of too much stuff! It all just "snow balls" during those hibernation months.

At the first sign of sun I shed coats and scarves, which in turn reminds me to shed pounds, and with the windows open and the sun streaming in, I take an extra look at all the STUFF everywhere in my house.

This year I was especially eager when it came to getting rid of the clutter because during our hibernation I read a life changing book. LIFE CHANGING BOOK Y'ALL! Have you seen it?

"The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing"

I mean, the words "life-changing" are in the title! This is not your ordinary "organize your sock drawer" kind of book. It is more about why we have too much stuff and how we can change the way we think about letting things go. It really addressed my problem of "what if?" What if I need it? What if I lose 20 lbs and fit into it again? What if that style comes back? What if, What if, What if?!?!?

Let me officially highly recommend this book to you. Within a day of starting it 5 garbage bags of just clothing, of just mine, left my house. Another 2 bags of Wesley's old toys followed shortly after and three tubs of her old clothes also left our humble abode that week. That is a lot of clutter that is no longer in my way! And the book claims, once you try it you will never go back to your cluttery ways.....

And then, this weekend when the weather was finally nice enough to spend more than two minutes in my attic, it happened. ....Matt and I showed no mercy. I wish I could show you a before picture, but I was 1. too embarrassed and 2. the pics wouldn't do it justice, because all of the crap that lurked in every square inch of that space. What I do have is pictures of some of what left that day.

Boxes on boxes, bags on bags. It had to go. This does not include the trash we threw out, this is just the goodwill donation. Dude. It was cathartic. Will I need the elephant lamp we let go of? Possibly. Will I miss some of Wesley's tiny baby things? Most definitely. But were they giving me any joy in my attic, or improving my life on a day to day basis? Not at all.

This is the key. I thought shoving things away didn't hurt, saving something for a rainy day can't bother you, but it does. This is Marie's point. IT'S NOT ABOUT THE STUFF! It's about the mind set. If your life is packed physically, you feel it mentally. No one will ever see my clean, sparse attic or clean, drastically reduced closet of clothes.....but when I need something from the attic or the closet, I can now easily go find it and this frees me. You see, the stuff that clutters our houses, steals our time.

Your space shouldn't just be organized, it should be downsized. It's not about shoving it out of sight, it's about knowing where everything you own is. You can only do this when you own less, or at the very least only own what you love and what you need. With less things in our house, there is automatically less to clean up, it is just a positive, physical fact. It has made "cleaning up" very easy.

I feel like I could go on and on, but I won't. There is so much more to it and I have miles to go to be a true student of Marie's. But the small changes we've made so far have had such a positive effect, that I know I want to continue. In the meantime, every time I pick something up in my house I ask myself "Does that bring you joy?" "Do I need it?"and if so, "Does it have a specific place to go?" The answers have to be all yes. And it has made a big difference. 

Happy Purging! Happy Spring!

Gallery Wall

I refuse to apologize for not blogging for exactly two months today. Number one cause none of you care, it's not like I say things that are that riveting. And number two I haven't had time because I was busy doing fun stuff I'm not sorry about.

Whew! Now that that's off my chest.

Gallery Walls. Ahhhhh decorating. If you have known me for long you know that decorating my house stresses me out. I never know how to make a decision, I don't want to be matchy matchy, but I'm not bold enough to be daringly different. I'm a dork.

Luckily I live in the age of Pinterest and I surround myself with snazzy decorating friends who I can copy :)

So when we sold the piano, and got rid of, sold, moved the antique buffet ( anyone want a antique buffet?) that weighs a bazillion pounds, we ended up with a big blank wall in our dining room. I had a collection of pictures and mirrors I liked, I just had to get them in the right order.......

I also ended up cutting up newspaper in the shape of all my decor so I could tape it on the walls and move it around until it was exactly right, but somehow I have misplaced that picture of my insanity. I did use the trick of laying a blank piece of paper under my finished arrangement and drawing it so I knew where to tap all my nails in on the wall! That was a very helpful trick, thanks Pinterest!

 So here is the finished wall.

I still feel like it is missing something.....I want something that is not in a frame. Something that will add dimension and a different texture to the wall. But for now I love it. Gallery Wall = done!

What do you think? What would you add? Where?

Our {Fake} Campout

Fall weather means it's time to spend as much of your life outside as you can! But being the technology junkies we are it means, moving things you love like Alabama football games and The Wizard of Oz outside with you.

Enter homemade drive in movie theater.

 

Here's how we did it, not rocket science. And it cost $0, because everything we needed we found around the house.

1 piece of plywood, laying in the attic. 1 white bed sheet, stuffed in a box in the attic. And a staple gun. That was our "screen"

Then I found hooks and metal rings in the basement that attached to the porch decking to hang the screen up.

Then we hooked up our projector to our laptop and voila!

And now that we have the set up, we are looking for every opportunity to get outside in nature and watch TV.

Like a kid's first "Wizard of Oz" experience!

 But this time I ramped up the outdoorsy experience. I added a fire pit, hotdogs on a stick and marshmallows for roasting! That's downright camping y'all. I mean, as long as you define camping as having a bed, blankets, access to a fridge, bathroom and wireless internet, right?

I think I earned a merit badge on this one, for reals.

DIY:: Home Decorating

We are slowly but surely updating the decor in our home. You know how you just need a fresh look every once an awhile?!?!

So here's what we've done so far, some rooms are close to done, some rooms only have one step.

Bedroom:

Our bedroom got a fresh look using old ideas. We purchased a mid century modern bedroom set from an antique store and it made the room SOOO much better! Turns out giant furniture from the 21st century just doesn't fit a tiny room built in 1922. The lower profile furniture looks so much cleaner and the room looks more spacious!

So of course I don't have any before pictures cause I'm a great blogger like that. But here is our updated (vintage) bedroom:

Chest of Drawers

Side table ( I spy little lambs....)

Console Dresser

Still looking far a few wall accents for this room. But other than that it's done for now!

Next two rooms is just a sneak peak. The official revel will be by the end of September.

Here are some hints from what's happening in the dining room.

It may be a new color

New chairs are involved...

And some great new lamps

Up close

And a brand new, antique, china cabinet ( I spy missing French Doors)

This is what is so hard about decorating for me....it is a process. Unless you have A LOT of disposable income and you can just open a West Elm catalog and buy every piece in the room, it comes together pretty slowly. We have learned from some very gracious friends (hm hm Lara and Aaron) that it takes patience and "just trying it out" to find out what really fits in a room and what should be returned. Even if you have to return 18 curtain panels and an 8 x 10 rug.

So last set of sneak peak pics are of our guest bedroom, that may or may not contain our future Mid Century Modern buffet ( if my massive Art Deco monster ever sells on Craigslist, I'll move it to it's rightful place in the dining room). 

New bed and new bedspread

I spy a rug that needs returning!

So thats my horrible post about our decorating journey, that is far from finished. But we are beginning to see the end....

DIY:: Home Updates

As you know, we live in an old house. Which makes quick fixes that normal homeowners take care of on a Sunday afternoon, giant ordeals to us that have to wait till I have summer break. 

Take this minor hole from an old towel rack that had fallen out of the wall.  Just get a quick wall patch kit and fix it right up you say? What you can't see from the picture is these walls are plaster. So when I used the good ol' patch kit, it left me with a bumpy mess!

YUCK! The patch just wouldn't lay flat. I pulled it down and repatched with just plaster the second time.....slightly better

But now the problem is, I don't have the paint to cover it up, so I have to repaint the whole bathroom now. Another project for another day.

What I did paint on the other hand was Wesley's bedroom dresser. The white drawers where looking a little grimy, so I did a quick coat of rose pink and ta da!

This project went much smoother.

And finally we installed a new dining room light. I have never really liked the chandelier in the dining room, but it's not that offensive so it's taken me 4 years to replace it.

This is the best picture I could find of it, because I (of course) forgot to take pics before I took it down.

Like I said, nothing really wrong with it, just not my favorite. And we have gone pretty vintage in the dining room, with an art deco buffet, several mid century modern serving pieces and a early twentieth century piano. So the modern light fixture just didn't fit in.

Luckily I found a light I did like at the Habitat for Humanity Restore for just $7! I figured it was worth the risk for that price!

Here's Matt installing it in his work clothes because I had started installing it 10 minutes before he came home, thinking it would only take me 10 minutes....not so much. Nothing in our house takes 10 minutes.

All in!

Closer look

Detail 

So this is only 3 projects done (ish) from a list of at least 14! Some being as small as replacing dead outlets, some as big as wanting to knock down a wall in our kitchen. I have just run out of summer, and run out of will power to get in over my head.

What do you think? Any hints on how to get better at "This Old House"? Maybe don't start projects at 5:50pm? Hire professionals?

Counter Offer

When we bought our house 3 years ago we sat down and made a list of things we wanted to do to it. The usual, paint rooms, replace fixtures, landscape, have 33 double hung windows installed you know normal list. Most things were inexpensive, tedious home improvement projects we just wanted to do to make the house more our own. And we plowed through the list one by one, even the windows. But one thing that was on the list that kept not getting done was the kitchen counter top update. Mostly because it was something I did not know how to do myself, or so I thought.

I had heard a rumor of people who were brave enough to paint their old laminate, formica counter tops. And then I saw it pinned on pinterest.

It was only $60 and it would take approximately 2 days and it transforms my old, ugly counter tops into granite {ish}!

Here is my thought process--I don't like the counters now--I can paint them to what I want for only $60---If I screw it up I get to buy new counter tops--win/win!

So here is my Giani counter top adventure!

First I scrubbed the counters down with an SOS pad and taped off the trim.

Then I told my little house guest I was going to paint the kitchen counters, but by the look on his face when I started I don't think he believed me.

I put on one thick coat of the primer and the journey had begun!

I already liked it better than the blah grey! And this was just the matte black primer.

The next step was the marbling effect with "mineral paint" And this is when I got really nervous. I mean I can roll a paint roller, but be artistic with a sponge...not so much...but the handy dandy video tutorial assured me it was foolproof, just start sponging and layering. So I did.

Ummmm, it was awful. Like really, really bad. I was devastated. I started researching granite costs and home improvement loans. I mean, it looked like Wesley got into paint and just hand printed all over our counters. But the more I did the worse it got. So Matt convinced me to leave it alone and let it dry. I proceeded to scour the internet for tutorials to fix this mess. And I discovered the key was more layers. It was going to be like camouflage, not patterns. So I started again. And it started looking good, like really good, like granite!

Final step, seal it. This step also threw me a few curve balls. When I rolled on the poly it made a texture, where before the counters had been completely smooth. And of course real granite is stone smooth so texture was ruining my fake granite. But poly shows every single bump, which includes the bumps you make when you layer 50 coats of sponged on mineral paint.  My genius plan was to use a foam brush with the second coat, to smooth the top coat out, yeah all that did is create very visible streaks. So here was the scary thing, it said only do 3 coats and even if I wanted to more, I was running out of top coat, so this 3rd time I had to get it right. I used steel wool to even out the brush marks and made peace with the fact that this was not real granite it was a can of paint and there would be a few bumps and rolled on my last coat. No luck, I didn't have enough poly to finish and everything looked uneven. BOO. I was back on Lowes.com putting in my kitchen measurements and scheduling estimates. Again, my level headed, calm, supportive husband stepped in {after rolling the dry poly with a wet roller, but that's neither here nor there}. He assured me 4 coats would work, he went to home depot and got me a new can of top coat and rollers, came back and finished our beautiful counters. Hero!

 Ta da!!!!!

Wes approves!

A few close ups:

You can kinda see the texture in the close ups. But we've lived with it for a week now and I can tell you truthfully, I don't notice it at all. Now that it's a functioning kitchen with all the appliances and decor back on the counters, it just looks like a shiny black marble surface {That shows every tiny fingerprint, but so would granite!}

We are super satisfied, even if we did try to screw it up every step of the way!