Second Guest Room Progress

Because we had several overnight guests last week and weekend, and needed to use all sleeping spaces available, I really wanted to get our second guest bedroom in better shape.  Here it is with the previous owners' things:

As I discussed in the last post, for most of the time we've been living in the house, it has been used basically as a storage area for random items.  I cleaned it out and found homes for all of the stuff being stored in there, and as of the beginning of last week it looked like this:

So the first thing it needed was some paint.  Not only to cover up that sample swatch on the wall (I hated that color, good thing I got a sample first) but also because the paint was very scuffed and dirty.  Because it was a flat finish painted over wood paneling, it seemed to absorb dirt and was impossible to clean.  I wanted a light tan/beige color and admired the color that YHL's living room and a few other rooms were painted in their first house.  According to their source list, it was Glidden's Sand White, which is no longer available in a swatch.  I went to Home Depot to see if they could find the color formula in their computer.  Long story short, they found something called Sand White but it was not by Glidden but I decided to just go for it and buy a gallon and a quart without getting a sample or even having a paint swatch card!  (I know, I live dangerously).  After several hours of scrubbing the walls and baseboards and vacuuming so that dirt, dust, and dog hair weren't permanently sealed into the walls, I was ready to paint.  The verdict: I really like it! It's hard to tell in the pictures, but its a sort of gray-ish light tan, very neutral, which was what I was going for. 

In real life the color looks better, but this picture shows the change from old to new, before the walls and doors and trim were all the same color:

I removed the old, cheap, and ugly blinds and the valances the previous owners left us and replaced them with new curtains:

I put the bed on a plain metal bed frame (before the mattress was on the floor) and got a new duvet cover and throw pillows:

I want to get some matching nightstands and new lamps, hang pictures on the walls, and add in a few other decorative accessories.  I also want to paint and change the hardware on this dresser, which is actually my dresser/changing table from when I was a baby:

So basically the room still has a long way to go, but in my opinion anyway its already a huge improvement!  We don't spend much time in here, but the room is highly visible whenever we walk by and its a much more pleasant view now.  I am excited to work on all of the rest of these projects and complete the room!

Organization 101

This is going to be a pretty boring post for most people, unless you are really into cleaning and organizing :) Most people don't know this about me, but I love to have things organized.  When I was a little kid, one of my favorite books was the Berenstain Bears and the Messy Room because I loved how organized their toys were at the end of the book.  Having my surroundings organized makes me incredibly happy (It's always the little things in life, isn't it?).  However, I get super overwhelmed when there is a large amount of "stuff" that I don't really know what to do with- this is embarassing to admit, but a huge pile of unopened mail has been known to reduce me to tears, lol!  So I really have to work myself up to ready to tackle a huge organization project.  When we moved into our house in January, we obviously unpacked all of the major things that we would use every day, like clothes, kitchen stuff, etc.  We also unpacked most things that are easy to put away, like books and DVD's.  But after several months of living in the house, our basement/family room was still filled with packed boxes.  The things in these boxes were a random assortment of things that we don't use on a daily basis but don't want to throw away or give away, like board games, random memorabilia from our wedding, office supplies, etc.  In April, we painted literally every surface in the basement- walls, ceiling, doors, and had carpeting put in.  Because of the carpet, we had to remove everything from that room, and instead of sorting through everything and finding permanent homes for it, we just distributed it between our two extra bedrooms upstairs and the utility/laundry room in the basement.  Until this week, a few items have been unpacked, but the bulk of it still remained sitting in boxes, cluttering up our house. 

I finally worked up the motivation to tackle this project!  What was really preventing me from doing so before is that I was just so overwhelmed by not being able to figure out what to do with all of the stuff once it was unpacked.  What helped me the most was to make a list of categories that these unpacked items fell into, and then come up with locations for each category of items.  The categories I came up with were:

• suitcases, bags, and travel-related items
• electronics and related accessories (i.e. cameras, camera cases, chargers, etc)
• photos and photo albums
• craft supplies
• sentimental memorabilia (i.e. cards, other random things I can't bear to part with)
• gift wrapping materials
• decorative items (i.e. candles, vases, frames)
• Eric's sports cards and related items
• sleeping bags, air mattresses, extra pillows and blankets, etc.
• office supplies
• board games
• small kitchen appliances and serving items that we don't use regularly

I was able to divide up all of these items between the closets and dressers in each of the extra bedrooms, a hallway closet, a cabinet and small shelf in the laundry room, and the closet in the family room.  We started on this over the weekend and I finally finished putting away the last of everything tonight.  I feel SO much better now that this stuff is put away!  Here is a before and after of our third bedroom:

                                                                      Before: Yikes!

After: Clutter free, but the room is in serious need of some decorating help!  I have a big project up my sleeve for tomorrow

We organized tons of other spaces in our house over the last few days, basically every single closet, cabinet, and drawer.  I forgot to take "before" pictures of these other spaces, but here are some "afters":  (Disclaimer:  these are not the prettiest spaces in our house, but are super functional!)

Eric worked really hard on organizing his tools and workbench:

storage on other side of laundry/utility room:

Pantry in Kitchen:

Pot Holder and Towel Drawer in Kitchen:





Cleaning products under kitchen sink:

Linen Closet (No before pic, but the towels used to be thrown in there any which way they would fit, usually in a crumpled, balled-up mess):

This is so nerdy, but I find myself just looking at these spaces and basking in the organization!  I wish I had done this sooner!



So I'm jumping on the blog bandwagon...

My husband, Eric, and I bought our first home in December 2010 and since then we've been working hard on improving it and making it our own.  I have wanted to start a blog for a while to document all of these projects as well as our lives in general.  When we were looking for a house, one of our biggest concerns was finding something that our dog, MacGyver, would love.  That probably sounds silly to most people, but our dog is like a child to us!  We wanted to find a house that had a good sized yard for him to play in and a good neighborhood for him to walk in.  Of course we had a wishlist for ourselves too!  Here is us in front of the house on closing day:

The house is a 3 bedroom, 1 bath back split, the main level in the front, the bedrooms and bathroom are a half story up to the back, and a family room and utility room are a half level down to the back.  It was built in the 50's, and while it was in good condition and did not need any major work, the finishes were pretty dated.  We have done a lot of work so far but still have a long way to go!