Paint Update

Sorry it's taken so long to show you my painting progress. I've been painting small sections at a time so it's taken a while for one room to be complete. The kitchen is finished as well but it isn't clean so I don't have any pictures of it yet. Soon. The office before: The 'office' is actually just a wall in our dining room. This works great though because we do school at the dining table so if I'm on the computer then I'm very close at hand for the kids. The after: basically paint and organization.

The dining room before: you know how on those infomercials where they show the before of someone without any makeup on and no smile so that the after is even more dramatic. Welcome to my makeupless and smileless dining room.

The after: I painted stripes on one wall. I love them. They add a little somethun - somethun, you know? I also changed out the curtains with some I had in a box. Fabric is a weakness of mine so I have lots stored just waiting to be used.

Don't forget-you can click on the pictures to see them bigger.

Bridge

The Princess Room Pt. ? I can't remember.

Disclaimer: these photos were taken on a very gray and dreary day. The colors are distorted due to the abundance of artificial light used. So, I was hoping that by announcing my plans to finish The Princess Room on the blog it would motivate me to actually finish the Princess Room.

Very rarely do things go according to plan. I still need to paint a small bookcase and two large picture frames and finish the top of the dresser. But I knew I couldn't not give you guys anything so here are some pics of the progress.

The white shelf that used to be over my t.v. is now over Princess' bed. It holds all her stuffed friends and now they don't end up all over her room anymore. Mama is happy.

This is her princess piggy bank and a peek at her curtains. I still have to line and hem them. That hasn't stopped me from going ahead and hanging them up though.

Her little pink jewelry box and a candy dish I swiped from McNana's* house when we were cleaning it out.

Her roses her daddy bought last Valentine's Day and some of my favorite baby pictures of her. And, yes, the flowers are real. I've kept them alive this long. ;-) The infamous red chair I had to decorate around. I do love going into her room and sitting in that chair. It's a great place to think. These flowers knobs are so cute and such a headache. Because of them, I now don't want to do my original plan for the top of the dresser so I'm back to the brainstorming phase of problem solving. And the bins from Target hold all her little shoes.

I promise to finish this room someday and then post pictures of the room as a whole for you to enjoy.

Bridget

*Both Hubs and my maternal grandmothers are known as Nana. To make it easier to know which Nana we are referring to we started calling Hub's Nana 'McNana' because her last name starts with Mc.

Why Haven't I Been Doing This All Along?

Seriously, people.

Why haven't I been spending the $5.oo it costs to have a beautiful centerpiece that makes me smile when I pass by it? It is even more obvious to me when I have fresh plants and flowers in my house why God created a garden for us to live in. It really does something for your soul to be around such beauty.

And I really love that our flowers are right in the middle of our everyday lives.

Literally.

Bridget

P.S. Make sure and come back on Monday for the Princess Room Reveal!

Lighting the Way

Lamps have been getting a makeover at my house lately. This lamp used to be on my desk until it got a new home in Princess' bedroom.

I'm gonna change the white ribbon out for white gimp. The ribbon doesn't lay flat like the gimp will. This fabric is actually from my sister's house. She gave me the leftovers from her curtains. I love it. The green is very similar to the green on the walls in Princess' room and it looks fabulous with her main fabric!

This is the lamp in the dining room.

It came from Ikea. I don't hate it, but I don't love it either. It's just a little too plain for me.

Notice the new curtains. They're faux silk. I love them.

Here's the shade after I added a little gimp. I had actually taped the gimp around a different lamp in my living room and loved it, but decided that the dining room fixture needed it more. It's a tiny change, but I love how it makes the fixture look so much more finished. It's just enough of a small detail. I just measured up from the bottom and down from the top one inch and drew a line with a pencil. Then I glued the gimp on with hot glue. It's not perfectly straight, but it's much better than I could do free hand. And from a normal distance, not a camera close-up, you can't see the imperfections as well. The gimp is a deep blue-green. One of my favorite colors.I love it when a small change makes a big difference.

Bridget

Doing Double Duty

Have I mentioned that we live in a small house?

Remember - six people in 1200 sq. ft.

Things are tight.

However, the problem-solving and creative solutions thrill me.

Seriously.

Ask Husband. He knows that when I'm sitting in a room and it appears that I'm doing nothing, if you look really closely you can see the faint cloud of smoke coming out of my ears and know that the wheels are turning.

Things have been in a bit of an upheaval lately. As you know, Husband started a new job with the new year and now works from home. We set up his office in our bedroom because he needed a quite place to work and since the kids and I do school in the dining and living room that really was the best place.

Except:

It made me crazy.

Not kidding.

Along with our small house comes a small master bedroom. About 12x12. And since the small bedroom comes with a small closet we have to have a dresser in the bedroom. We already sleep on a full-sized bed to help everything fit and now we are adding a desk and chair. Ugh.

Basically, since Jan 1 the room has been arranged four different ways. I just could not get comfortable in there. And I know that some of you are probably thinking, "You rearrange your house all the time. What are you squawking about this for?" Folks, I don't rearrange the same room four times in 60 days. AND before we added the desk to the room it had been the same way for over a year. I was loving the setup.

And honestly it wasn't just the master bedroom. The whole house was feeling out of balance to me. Bobo's bedroom was just Bobo's bedroom.

Huh?

You see, every bedroom in our house does double duty except Bobo's. Princess' room is also the guest bedroom. Popeye and Bear's room is also the play room. Hub's and my bedroom is also his office. But Bobo's bedroom was just Bobo's bedroom. I needed it to do more.

So Husband and I started brainstorming possible solutions. Maybe we could move his office back into the 'batcave' and he and Bobo could just share the space. Husband doesn't bring clients into his office so it looking like an eleven year old's bedroom wasn't really an issue. Or maybe we could work our schedules out so we could put the desk back into the living room. Then the kids and I would do school in the morning and Husband could makes phone calls in the afternoon. Except, have you tried keeping four kids in one room of a house and quiet when it is cold and rainy for days on end?

Right.

Suffice it to say, none of our ideas where feeling quite right.

On Saturday we took a family trip to L-town for a little shopping. Bear needed some new jeans and Husband had a new suit to pick up. We decided to try to think outside the box while we were shopping and hopefully come up with a solution to our master bedroom/office problem.

It wasn't until we were almost home from our shopping trip that Husband had an idea. He wasn't really sure if I would like it and it did take me a few minutes of thinking it through before I loved the idea.

His idea was:

To move our schooling into Bobo's room.

Yes, really, that's it. But when I let it marinate in my mind it's brilliance was evident. You see, our school supplies are located in the hall closet. I have to get everything out and bring it to the table for school and then put it away when we are done. If I forget something I have to pause and leave the table to go get it. While I didn't realize this wasn't the most ideal situation, I guess I just figured it was my only option because of the size of our house.

Not any more.

Sunday afternoon Husband helped me rearrange everything for our new classroom. It works brilliantly. The desk is big enough for two of us to work at at a time and the shelves directly above it are big enough to keep everything within reach. We did school today and I NEVER HAD TO LEAVE THE DESK. Nor did I have to get everything out first and then pack it all away after.

I am loving this.

Of course, now I must paint the room. Right now three walls are a dusty dark blue. I'm thinking a light, bright green. And we are considering changing Bobo's twin bed for a full sized futon. That way we can use it as a couch during the day and Bobo will have a bigger bed at night. We've already found the one we want. =)

We have our master bedroom finally set up in an arrangement that I can live with. We solved that problem by removing the slipper chair we had in there (it's in the living room now) and putting the desk in it's place. Now the room is practically the same way it was before it inherited an office just with a desk instead of a big chair.

And now the house feels much more balanced to me. Every one's bedroom is doing double duty.

Just as it should be.

Bridget

A Little Ray of Sunshine

I've had this ceramic pitcher sitting empty on my dining table for a month now.

I finally got around to buying some fresh flowers and chose yellow tulips with the help of Princess. They are very much a little ray of sunshine on these cold, gray, winter days.

Bridget

The Dresser

We found Princess a dresser. It is old and beat up and someone tried to do a green paint and glaze effect.

I love it.

We paid $65 for it.

I have fabulous plans for the top. I'm purchasing the materials this weekend and hope to have it done by the end of next week. I can't wait to show you. I love the lines of this dresser. The simple details. And I am totally leaving the green, glaze, funky treatment.

I am changing the knobs, however. And it's on wheels. Which is going to be very handy once I get done transforming the top. Plus, because it is up off the ground I can stash a couple of baskets under it for Princess' shoes.

Perfection. I'm also transforming the insides. Actually, I've already transformed the insides, but I don't want to show them until everything is done. It was all about having a nice clean drawer for Princess' clothes. I just couldn't put them inside without doing something and I was very ready to get her clothes out the the wire baskets they were in and into a bonafide dresser. So I got right on fixing the insides.

Plus, I moved the wire baskets to the laundry room and am loving the extra storage.

Bridget

The Princess Room Pt. 3

After sleeping in on Sunday I asked Hubs to help with my plan.

I had borrowed The Home Book by House Beautiful from the library. It is fabulous! And in it I found an inspiration room. It is actually the front foyer of the house, but the wallpaper instantly spoke to me. I decided to copy the look, while tweaking it for Princess' room. (it's on page 198, fyi)

First, I measured the wall and found the center. After marking the center at the top and middle trim of the wall I then marked 1 foot marks till I got to the corners. Luckily, the two walls I was painting in Princess' room were 10 ft long so it worked perfectly with no left over wall space or hard math. =)

Then I used some ribbon and a straightedge to draw lines from one mark on top to it's coordinating mark on the bottom. (the mark that was four over from it) and did this till I had a diamond pattern on the wall.

I will say that this is much easier when two people do it together. Thank you, Hubs!
After all my lines were drawn I then used a foam roller cover with a rounded end to stamp pink dots at all the intersections. After they were dry I used a very small artist brush to paint over the lines with brown. It took 1 1/2 hours to do one wall but I love it! And Princess is totally worth it!

I also painted the ceiling pink. It is amazing the effect a painted ceiling has on a room. A real "finisher".

I must say that Princess wasn't real excited about the changes till the pink was put on the walls. She's been sleeping in with her brothers and is really ready for things to be done. However, I couldn't finish it all in a weekend and our new mattress still hadn't arrived yet so I wasn't in a huge hurry.

Bridget

The Princess Room Pt. 2

So after the prep work on Friday, I got up Saturday morning ready to go. I first got the trim painted. It went from red to chocolate brown. Yummy.

After the second coat, I peeled off the tape and tackled the top part of the wall. The golden beige wasn't gonna work so it became 'cashmere white'. Then the lower part of the walls became 'rice paddy'. It is a very yellow green. The pictures bring out more of the yellow, but not much.
I also painted the inside of the closet 'rice paddy'. I plan on hanging curtains for doors but a girl needs a great closet, no?!

We have standing plans with friends every Saturday night so I had to stop here. I didn't mind really because I was crazy tired. But things are still a long way from done....

Bridget

The Princess Room Pt. 1

We bought a new mattress.

Finally.

You see, for the past two years we have been sleeping on a mattress purchased by my MIL at a second hand furniture store. We have a memory foam topper with a feather topper on that, but it's still not great. More often than not, Hubs and I wake up achy.

So, since we are getting a new mattress (and new bed rails for it to sit on) we decided to give our full size bed to Princess. This way, when guests come to visit (mainly my sisters) they can sleep in with Princess and Princess won't have to sleep on the floor or in with Popeye in a twin sized bed.

It's brilliant, really.

I've really been wanting to redecorate Princess' bedroom and decided that moving things around for her 'new' bed would be the perfect time. (Some of you avid B6 readers are thinking "Haven't you already decorated Princess' bedroom?" the answer to that question is: yes I decorated her bedroom, but then we played musical bedrooms and now she is in what used to be her brother's bedroom and Popeye and Bear are in what used to be hers.)

Remember: this used to be a bedroom for boys. Hence the color choices.
First before. I actually remembered to take pictures before I started taking everything apart. =)

I took pics from every corner of the room so you could get a very detailed view of the hideousness that my daughter has been living in.

It is so bad that I have absolutely no motivation for cleaning it up. This was how it was looking most of the time. And, no, I don't let my daughter play with power tools. Those were for me.

Last corner pic. The red leather chair came out of the batcave. When we moved Bobo in there we didn't have room for it so Princess got it. It made finding fabric interesting because her favorite color is pink and so I had to find something with both pink and red in it.

But don't worry! I found something perfect! But you're gonna have to wait for it.

So, Friday night (actually a week ago from last Friday) I got everything off the walls, everything moved into the middle of the room, and the trim taped and prepped for painting. Then I went to bed.

Bridget

My Jewelry Display

I have had an idea for displaying my jewelry for awhile. I saw it in a magazine and it burned on my brain. You just cover an inexpensive bulletin board in fabric and then use pearl tipped straight pins to hang your jewelry on it.

I've been waiting to purchase another bulletin board. However, when I was finding places for all the new Christmas presents I saw the brown bulletin board chilling behind my bedroom door and decided enough waiting. Time to use what I have. So this is how things started out: My pitifull broken jewelry box. It hardly held half my stuff. The rest was hanging on my robe hook in my closet and in boxes on the highest shelf. I never remembered what I had and hardly wore any of it.

Hopefully this new system will get me wearing more of my stuff.

I know the fabric makes it hard to see the jewelry, but trust me, it's there. I've almost filled the whole thing and its a big board! I also hung my silver polishing cloth on there and since this is just a half bath I'm not worried about too much moisture hurting my stuff. Basically, all we do is brush our teeth and do our business in there.

It does bug me a bit that the fabric is sideways and rather busy. I have some blue silk that I might change it out for. But until then, I'm really enjoying having all my jewelry at my fingertips.

Bridget

I didn't hang up all my jewelry. I have a few valuable and family pieces that are staying safely put away.

Gingerbread Houses

Here's another activity for you and your crazies. First you need graham crackers and vanilla icing. Using a knife, cut the grahams in half. This gives you more usable grahams then just breaking them along the 'perforated' lines because so often they don't actually break straight across.

After you have six halves per house just use the white icing as glue and make a box with a triangle on top. I made ours the night before. You don't have to make them that far in advance but you do need to let the 'glue' harden before you let the crazies start decorating. At least 30 minutes or so.

We didn't have any foil to wrap the plates in, nor did we have any plain white paper plates. So I used what I had, which were princess birthday plates, but turned them upside down. I used more icing to stick the houses to the plates. One of the advantages to using white paper plates right side up is that the rim of the plate helps keep any stray sprinkles or candies from ending up all over your house.

Husband lovingly offered to go to Dollar Tree for me and buy the candy. We buy the cheap stuff for gingerbread houses. However, part of the fun of making gingerbread houses is eating the candy while you decorate them so feel free and justified in buying the better stuff.

I poured the candy into small bowls, filled the icing bag with icing, and then let the crazies at it. I will offer one piece of advice here though: We actually invited friends to join us which always makes it that much merrier, and we had Transformers on the t.v.. Well, that was two pieces of advice but whatever.

Here's our reason for the movie: We have a ClearPlay DVD player and the kids have been waiting like forever to see this movie while our clearplay was being fixed and the friends that we invited happen to own it and offered to bring it over. So, basically, I lucked upon this little gem, but with the added distraction of the movie the kids were so much better at waiting their turn for the icing bag and candy!

Some of the crazies jumped right in while others were busy watching the movie. This was NOT a bad thing.

Here is Popeye. Remember this post? Well, here he is lining up the candy in perfect little rows. I really won't be surprised if he ends up building something for his career.

I was gonna ask you to please not look at my kitchen counters, but then I realized that by asking you to not look you would absolutely have to look and so then I just decided that this is my reality and you're just gonna have to live with it. My kitchen counters get crazy dirty and cluttered sometimes. I know it's hard to believe, but now I have proof. This is my life.

See? Here is proof of the movie distraction. He's having to look around me to see it, BUT he's waiting patiently for what he needs. =)

This is Babygirl. Her mom writes a blog too and that is her nickname there so I figured "why reinvent the wheel? If it's good enough over there, it's good enough over here." She is in the same grade as Bear. They are good friends.

And this is Babygirl's big brother, Studly. He's a year older than Bobo almost exactly. They are good friends.

Princess with her house almost all done.

Princess' house.

You can never have too many sprinkles.

Popeye is done! His house was very simple and symmetrical. And his smile is more than I can handle. SO CUTE!

Studly's house. Us moms weren't sure how interested Studly would be in this activity. Not only did he participate but he actually enjoyed himself. His only disappointment was that he couldn't eat the house when he was done.

Babygirl's first house. Yep, I said first. Not because she just wanted to make two but because when she picked it up to take it home, her arm bumped the chair and it went crashing to the ground in a million cajillion pieces. Luckily, Bobo hadn't decorated his yet (he wouldn't budge from the movie) and so he let Babygirl decorate his. I still haven't made him another yet which is why you don't see any pictures of him, but I promised to remedy that today.

Bear's house. I don't have much to say except that when I see a picture of Bear smiling like that I laugh out loud. Every time. He is so much fun.

Here are the three Babione houses. They now reside on our mantle. For the last many years we have made a gingerbread house. Usually though, I buy the kits from the grocery store and we all make one house together. After the stress of last year's house with so many opinions and decorating plans I decided that we needed a different plan for this year.

What wouldn't be happening though is buying four different kits. Not only is that WAY more money than I want to spend but that is way more gingerbread house than I want to display. This plan was perfect. I only wish I could remember where I found this idea so that I could give credit where credit is due. Just know that this was NOT an original idea.

Bobo will get his done today and if I am on top of things I'll post an update with his picture later.

Bridget