House Update: Come See Me New Living Room...

So, this post has been a ridiculously long time coming. As in, 2 years and 3 months long. Prepare yourself for an absolute onslaught of photos, because friends ... MY LIVING ROOM IS FINISHED! This feels epic just to write, so even if no one cares, I will treasure this post, lol.

Let's begin with how this room looked when we purchased the house 2 years and 3 months ago...

This pic is ridiculously small, sorry, but this is how it looked when we toured for the first time. The house was built in 1969, but was sold (and redecorated) in 1990 before we purchased it. Oh, that nasty mauve and cream. Everything in the house was country colors: mauve, cream, country blue, butter yellow *shutter*. Oh, the awful memories.

The living room and dining room are the biggest undertaking as far as painting walls - look how tall that ceiling is! We loved the beams and the size of the room, and just how different the house is, you know? I could see the potential. We had great plans to paint and fix and decorate, and we did a bit, but then we had to move more suddenly than originally planned, filling our house with boxes of junk we didn't get to sort through, and making other more necessary fixes come first. Quickly, it all became overwhelming trying to live here, work, and fix the house all at once while still keeping our sanity. I would have small bursts of home improvement moods, but they were few and far between. We just eventually let everything sit like it was and just tried not to think about how awful it looked. Before this past January rolled around, I had manage to paint almost all of the living room, except the far wall and dining room - it was too tall for me, so the wall was the last remnant of the awful pukey mauve. 

We had a tumultuous New Year, as I've mentioned several times before. My sister, Shannon, was staying for a few months to visit over Christmas, and she decided I needed a project to get my mind off of my personal life, and that my house needed serious need of assistance. She loves fixing up houses, and she hadn't gotten to do any home improving since she left for Japan over a year before, so she was itching to paint something, lol. She lit a fire under me, and we tackled the projects I had started years before while she was visiting. I have other things to show as well, but I'm still doing the final touches. The living room though got its final finesse two weeks ago, and I've been working on this post ever since. So ...  without further ado ... here is what my living room looks like now...

This is the view as you walk in the front door and turn to the living room. Notice anything different, lol? The paint was purchased long ago from Sherwin Williams on sale. It's their Super Paint Latex paint in Sedate Gray (possibly the most depressing color name ever, ha ha) with a satin finish, and the trim is their Pro Classic Latex Acrylic paint in untinted white. This was the largest single expense of the room, and I'm guessing I spent $200 on the paint, but that was back when I still had a little money so it worked out.

This area was the first to be finished, but I've made some little additions over time. We used to have our tv in here, but back in October of last year we decided to move the tv into the cleaned out den since it's cosier in there. So, details. The metal thing on the wall came from the clearance section at Target about 1.5 years ago for $24.00. The couch and chairs were the best Craigslist score I've ever had - yes, I kid you not, they are from Craigslist. Amazing, right? A man down in Vero Beach had purchased a model house that came fully furnished, so they sold off some of the model furniture. I happened to see the listing 10 minutes after he posted the couch, and I was the first to contact him out of what would be over 50 people. My dad and I drove down that night with his truck and got this baby for $100 (I know, right?!). Since we had come so far, he said he was eventually planning to list the chairs as well, so he went ahead and let us get them as well for another $100. These chairs were almost brand new - only sat on when people toured the model house. It's still crazy when I think about it, lol, but I've had them since shortly after we purchased the house.

The side tables were ours from our condo, and the coffee table was a yard sale score at $15 - it has a small scratch on the top, but other than that it is perfect. 

The other half of the living room is pretty sparse looking at the moment. I have a coffee table that I purchased a long time ago that will become a bench for that space under the window - I'm just trying to find fabric that looks good with the other couches. The table in the window was Justin's grandparent's. I even painted the metal frames of the windows white back when I painted the bay window area and it's still holding up wonderfully :) Back when I painted this window area, I replaced the funky dirty cream colored blinds. Oddly enough the smaller windows were the most expensive because they were a custom cut size. All the blinds in this bay window cost $100.00, but it was worth every penny as it is so much brighter in here now!

Here's the little corner I previewed a few months ago when I painted this table. The table was free from a friend when she moved and I painted it Espresso brown. The lamp was thrifted for $3, the shade was a clearance grab from Target for $6, the doily was thrifted for $0.25, and the plant came from Liz when she moved. The painting is one of my favorites I found at a thrift store for $5 (more info on that below), and I put that creepy wicker monkey in the archway as a joke and he has now become a fixture - he was free.

Ugh, it's a terrible quality before photo, but this is the bay window before and after. Pretty crazy, right? I love this area now. 

As you rotate around the room, the music area is next. This area will change a little over time. The old hi-fi cabinet was inherited by my husband, along with the cabinet holding the records (the record player is on top) and about 1/3 of the records inside. Next to the hi-fi is a stack of the larger record collections from the 60s (The Longines Symphony Orchestra plays Nat King Cole, etc.) - these won't fit in the cabinet now, so I have them here until I figure something else out. On top of them is a neat Italian cookie tin that I use to hold things like record cleaner and other accessories. Eventually, I will do a little carpentry and cut out a bigger area for the record player, and set mine inside to kind of re-do the cabinet.

The other side has the record player and speakers (some day to live inside the other cabinet), along with my keyboard and piano music. The red chair will be painted another color sometime - I just haven't decided what color yet. The red chair was a thrift store score for $6.00, and it has a really neat pattern on the seat.

As soon as I positioned everything like this, my first order of business was to alphabetize my records. Before this, they were in about 4 different places in boxes and stacks, so it is AMAZING to have them not only all in one spot, but also to have them in alpha order so I can summon up any one that I want. Ah, sweet organization :) I also celebrated this new spot by playing my Wham! album. Like you do...

The next area around the room is the dining area. Gordo even posed for this shot - how lucky are you? :) Look a little different? 

The dining room has my awesome solid wood table in the center, which was given to me by a friend when we bought the house. It needs to be redone, but until then it just always has a table cloth on it. The table cloth was a sale purchase forever ago for $9, and it was actually too long. This was one of my finishing touches two weeks ago - I finally cut down the table cloth to fit the table and the leftover piece was just large enough to cover the top of the sewing machine table (the actual top is horribly rusted because its former owner kept it around their pool deck - weird, right?). The chairs are a mix of two sets - 4 are Ikea Ivar chairs that we used with our Ikea table in our old condo (that table is now in my sewing room), and the other 4 were a set that I bought at a thrift store for $15.00 just so we would have chairs. I can technically fit all 8 at the table, but it's a bit crammed, so that extra just chills in the corner unless we need it. I also replaced the blinds on all these side windows - I was worried it would be too expensive at first, but seriously lucked out. All 3 of these large windows are actually 6 smaller windows of a standard bedroom size. So I was able to buy 6 regular sized mini blinds for $3.99 each! How cool is that?! This is such a vast improvement from the horribly dirty cream colored ones. The light coming in the room is so worth the $24 these cost, no question. 

Again, sorry for the bad before picture here, but this is a before and after of the dining room. The walls were cream colored with cream trim and 2 layers of wallpaper under the chair rail. Getting all that wallpaper off was not a fun experience, and it took me a long time to decide what I wanted on the bottom. Should it be all the same color with contrasting trim? Should it be an accent color under there? I just didn't like any of the options mentioned, until Shannon suggested painting it all white and eventually making fake wainscoting. Since it was the only appealing sounding idea to me, we went for it and I really do love how it turned out. The entire area under the chair rail is painted with the same semi gloss pure white paint as all the trim, and I plan to eventually add wooden frames of the same size all the way around and paint them white to match so it looks like real wainscoting. Also, we do have a new light fixture to hang above the dining room table, but I have to wait until I can afford a professional electrician to install it for us. One of these days.

That extra chair just lives here, but it comes in handy occasionally elsewhere in the house. That gold colored chandelier belonged to my Great Grandmother, and it is at least as old as the early 1950s (I know this because my Grandmother says her mother-in-law had it before she married my Grandfather and she just remembers how much she hated cleaning it when they lived with his parents, lol). The square framed print was picked up at Marshall's (with another to match on the other side of the room) way back when we were in our condo. I plan on cutting the frames open and putting some of my shots in them from when I shot square format film during my experimental photography years.

This china hutch as well as the lovely Noritake china inside came from my Grammy - they brought it all back from when they lived in Okinawa. I have her fancy silverware in a case in there too :) The china pattern is a pretty pink rose with silver rims on the dishes. I have a crazy huge service, including 14 tea cups, lol. Now that it's finally in its place and accessible, I can actually use it for company :) The vases at the top all came from Justin's Grandma.

This cute Bistro sign was in our condo too, and I thought it was fitting to have it over the kitchen archway. And that picture is the one that matches the other frame so its print will change soon. Also, I still need to spray paint that ac vent white.

I love my gallery wall in the center of this room, but it is still a work in progress. I'm searching through my final junk room to find a few more things before I make everything a done deal up there. Everything up there is a mixture of thrift store finds, things I picked up on vacations, some of my husband's photography prints, or things I've won :) I also absolutely LOVE the sewing machine table. This was an estate sale deal that I snagged for $20 because it was still left at the end of the sale. Like I said earlier, it was kept around a pool deck before so it is pretty rusty. The bottom still looks good - it's just the awful top that has weathered boards and a metal top that is all rusted. I plan to replace the top later on, but until then the table cloth works well. 

The art work around the room are all total favorites that were great finds over the last few years. Let's start with the top corner. This is a metal hurricane map that is an enamel sign so you can get a little hurricane shaped magnet to track the storms - how cool is that? Not only that, but it's colors were awesome, and it was only $6.00 at a thrift store frame and all - it had to be mine! One of these days I'll try to find a hurricane magnet, lol. The globe map is a really recent find - originally the hurricane map was in this spot, but it looked a bit small so when I found this it was ousted. This map is this weird golden metallic iridescent print of a 15th century or so map. It has Latin writing around the edges, and the gold color shimmers and moves as you move in front of it. This also came framed, but there's no glass, and it was only $5.00. It looks great above the record player! The butterfly print is one of my favorite pieces of artwork in the house - it was another $5.00 thrift store find. This is a signed and numbered lithograph that looks to be hand colored by the artist. It's called Fantasia II by Pearl Abrams and it is number 95 out of 200. This came professionally framed from a gallery and it's a very high quality piece. I tried looking it up and it would sell for somewhere around $150 from what I can find, so that's pretty cool :) I put it next to the arch into the foyer, so it is a prime location that I pass every time I need to leave. Even the colors go great in the room. I just love this thing, lol. The coffee table has another recent item - the Buddha statue. I grabbed the statue back in March at Marshall's (of all places, right?) and he was sold as a yard ornament. My husband and I have both gotten pretty into Buddhism this past year, so I had been looking for a small Buddha to have around, and then found this randomly for $14.99 - sold! Also the plants and the neat plates they are on came from my friend Liz when she moved. They were kept outside before, plus they had plants on them, so the plates were pretty dirty. A quick cleaning though, and they are a really lovely turquoise glaze on them and they look great in the room :)

Isn't it amazing that the room once looked like this? This was during my frantic search for the perfect wall color - the room would just suck any good aspects out of any color I chose. It was something to do with the beams and the carpet and the lighting - I don't know, but it was a nightmare. I'm glad  I persevered though, because this really is the perfect wall color. I was even complimented by a friend of mine who sells paint for a living on how well the wall color went with the sofa, so I was pretty pleased :)

And just for posterity's sake, this is what the room looked like in January when Shannon had just finished the large wall and we were working on the kitchen cabinets. Yes, I lived with my room like this for weeks, lol.

And even just a month ago, the room looked like this. This was just after I finally finished painting the cabinets so I got to clear this area of painting supplies. Just this change was a major celebration, but I still had to figure out the record player placement and whatnot.

I didn't clear out all this clutter and excess furniture until just two weeks ago. Now that it's all finished and I love the room so much, I can't believe that I ever lived like this complacently. I'm addicted to clean spaces now at least. 

And, because I could, I had to post a panoramic view of the whole room :) Isn't it awesome?!

This is now one of my favorite rooms in the house and I find myself deliberately hanging out in here while I knit or read just because I can. Finishing this room also coincided with when I read Marie Kondo's book, and it really made me understand why I want to be in here. I can now honestly say that I LOVE most all of the items in this room. The furniture may not match the rest, and the carpet may not be in great shape, and the bay window is pretty stark still, etc, etc, but every one of the items I have put in this room bring me joy. It's amazing how much that simple fact changes how the room feels. Each item in here was hand picked by me, even down to the framed quotes. I have other plans, of course - I'm still digging out all of our "family pictures" we had in our condo so I can make a gallery wall next to the arch into the foyer, for example - but even in its current state I can't fully describe how much the feeling of the room has changed. Every item brings back fond memories or pleases my own personal eye, and no professional decorator could have given me that individualism in this room no matter how much money was spent. Yes it took two years, but it feels so worth it to have everything just as I like it :)

Summary:
Paint: approx. $200
Furniture: $260 (and counting)
Blinds: $124.00
Art Work and Decor: $114.25 (and counting)
Misc Hardware: $30.00 (plug, switches, plate covers, nails for pictures, etc.)
Total: $836.50

Holy crap, that's much more expensive than I thought, lol, but the fact that the price is including a new couch set, that's pretty freaking good, right? We paid more than that just for our other couches that are in the den, you know? So considering that this price is a completely custom, finished room that's really cheap. Plus this expense was spread out over the past 2 years, so it never felt like that large of an expense. By the time I get other planned projects finished up, this room will still be about $1000 - and this is technically two finished rooms :) I'm totally happy with that price.

So, if you are still reading, and you have put off doing home improvements because you think it will be too expensive, I hope this shows that it really doesn't have to cost much. It won't be quick, and it won't be without lots of hard work and labor, but I can say it is all 100% worth it. I can't wait to see how this room develops now :)

WIP Wednesday: Knitting and Home Improvements

Man, it has been a while! I can't believe how the time flew by - I've had so much going on that my blog hasn't shown the progress. But progress has indeed been made! First off, here is my sock:

I know it's an awful picture, but at least it's looking more sock-ish now :) Once I turned the heel, I had to try it on (much to the dismay of the purl rows between the motifs, lol) Now I'm just continuing my way up. I plan on making these as knee-high as I have yarn to do, if that makes sense. I am just a smidge shy of how much yarn the pattern calls for, so I might not make it truly "knee high". They do seem to fit nicely though, so that's good :)

I feel like I should make my full excuse as to why I've been so busy - I'm finally finishing a bunch of things around my house! My sister has been in town from Japan, and she has made it her goal to get things done in my house, lol. She loves diy, and living on base housing she hasn't been able to do anything where she lives, so she's living vicariously through my house - that's just fine by me :)

This is just a sill preview, but it shows two of the finished areas - my hall and foyer are painted gray with white trim, my living room is finished being painted (the other side of the room still had never been painted, lol), and we've even started hanging art work - it's kind of a miracle after living in a sadly unfinished house for 2 years. She also is painting my cabinet doors and drawer for my kitchen - I have functioning drawers! That alone has been kind of life changing. Now I'm working on getting all my art work together so that we can design a gallery wall. I've even ordered a few new prints, so it should be pretty exciting :) That picture above the lamp in the photo is a hand colored lithograph I bought at a thrift store for $5.00 year ago - it's numbered and signed, and it's professionally framed and everything. I love that I get to see it hanging up everyday now! I can't wait to show more progress once the gallery walls are done. So exciting!

Hopefully this makes at least some kind of good excise for my lack of knitting, lol.

That's it for me this week :) Head over to Stitch Along Wednesday to see what others are working on too!

Actual House Progress: The Pink Bathroom

Guys, I'll level with you. I'm basically the worst homeowner ever. I used to be so gung-ho about fixing things when we first moved in ... then suddenly we found more and more problems that we had to fix before other more aesthetic things could be done.

One of these problems was the pink bathroom (a.k.a. the main bathroom we use right now). I pulled all the cheap wire shelves out of the closet so I could replace them and paint the walls (it's just drywall in there). Upon closer inspection it turned out that the paint from the walls that came into the edge of the unpainted closet was peeling up in reasonable sized sheets. When I talked to my trusty Sherwin Williams man, he said that this means the drywall hadn't been primed ... and judging by the chipping of the paint around holes from old wall anchors, the rest of the room hadn't either ... which means it will eventually all peel off the walls! Ugh! Turns out the only way to fix this is to literally scrape all the paint off the walls and ceiling in the entire room and prime then paint it all again. Yeah, I think you can guess how excited I was about that prospective task. The worst part of all was that all of the items I had to hand up on the walls had to wait around and take up space in other parts of my house.

Well, last Sunday I decided I'd had enough. Sure, there are still holes in the walls that need to be fixed and I still have to scrape the paint, but I have no impending plans to get that done. Why not at least enjoy a little organization in the meantime? So I spent a little time and finally hung things up ;)

Ta Da! I didn't take a before picture, but imagine it exactly the same just without anything on the walls and much dirtier, lol. I decided over a year ago to embrace the pink tile and it has since grown on me - I actually like it now :) Anyway, my progression around the room began in the shower:

We bought one of those corner bars with multiple shelves on it last July, but no joke it didn't last until November. I was standing in the shower one day and it fell on me - the spring had no tension. I always intended to take it back to Target and say "What The Heck?" but it's not exactly easy to bring something in that's so large. Anyway, fast forward to before last Sunday and we've been setting all of our shampoo and whatnot on the towel bar and in the corners of the tub ever since. I had this small glass shelf from our condo that I had above our kitchen sink - it hasn't been used since we moved. So I thought it would be a great replacement :) It's mounted just above the tile, so it's kind of high but luckily my husband and I are reasonably tall so it's not a problem for us. Now everything is out of the way yet easy to get to and we don't risk bumping other things off the narrow towel bar to fall to their death. Also, I got a small white hook to hang our "to be used imminently" towel on while we are in the shower. I hung it between the tile and the window - again out of the way but easily accessed. Now  no more slightly damp towels when we need to dry off and we don't have to set our towels on the sink and lean over almost slipping to our own death. Look how much death was avoided with these small changes :)

Next came this Ikea shelf unit - again this was in our guest bath at our condo and has sat in our spare room since we moved. I really wanted to get something else in this bathroom since I felt this looked too wimpy in here (I was envisioning an actual cabinet), but I haven't found anything yet and I already have this. Up it went! I decided to hang it above the toilet instead of centered in the space on the wall, which gave a little sliver of wall that is perfect to hang up this little porcelain flower piece that belonged to my Great Grandmother. Incidentally this porcelain piece also lived in our guest bath at the condo, but it works really well with the other colors in here I think.

The final piece I hung was this sweet Ikea mirror. I've loved this mirror ever since I was first introduced to Ikea furniture, but I never had any place to put one. When we decided to go with a black and white and floral scheme in this bathroom, this mirror was the first purchase I made :) Nothing like finally having an excuse to get something you want. I admit it's a bit ornate on such a small wall, but I don't care, lol. While I love this mirror as a decorative item, I have to level with you - this was the most awful thing I have ever tried to hang in my whole life. I am meticulous about hanging things - I always center and level everything, sometimes even coordinating gallery walls. Hands down, this thing was harder than all those combined. There are no angles, very little even-ness, and it has those stupid little plastic holes on the back that the screws have to line up with perfectly. I spent at least 30 minutes just measuring and marking before I figured how to hang it up and still center it on the wall; even then I was just barely off and I had already drilled anchors and everything. I was able to just whack the anchored screw to the side a few millimeters and it sunk right in (never to be moved). I even managed to get the bottom point perfectly centered in the tile grout :) I bashed the crap out of my finger, but in the end I won and now I finally have this up on my wall. Success!

It may not seem like much, but when you've lived with blank white hole filled walls in a room you use multiple times a day for over a year the difference is amazing. It's a downright pleasure to hang out in the bathroom now :) I gained not only better looks but also better organization. Sure there are plenty more things I want to do to this room, but I think it's safe to call this a Stage 1 renovation that I can appreciate for now. The funniest part of all this is now that I see these pictures, that window is screaming for a curtain - it just looks so naked! Luckily I have quit ea bit of black fabric in my stash, I just have to decide on a design.

Hooray for actually making progress on my house!

Sewing Room Revamp - Tour My Space

I've been toying with the idea of changing things around in my sewing room for quite a while now. I liked it before, but it was just feeling too crammed. I originally had my desk situated so that my back was to the wall - I know it seems silly, but this was so that I could monitor the door, lol. I don't like to be snuck up on. The problem became that with the table where it needed to be, I had to kind of scooch in and around the desk edge to sit down, also things tend to get piled around the desk area as I'm working on them, so i could be pretty awkward to move around. One thing I have learned about myself is that if there is any type of obstacle to me getting where I need to be, I will avoid tasks that require me to be there. I need things to be easy and carefree. I know it makes me seem lazy, but it is what it is. If there is any awkwardness or when things are too cluttered and junky, I kind of shut down and all productivity goes out the window. That would defeat the whole purpose of this room as its only purpose is to be productive, so I knew it was time for some changes.

I know these aren't great photos - I could've sworn I had a photo of the previous layout on my blog already, but it turns out this was the only one I have that isn't a close up of a specific detail. Never assume :)  And I had to use my phone today for the "after" shot and the light was really messing with the iso. Anyway, I know it's hard to convey that I made lots of changes since the "before" photo is from right after I moved in, but trust me when I say it's an incredible difference when you've experienced being in it before and after. The biggest change you can see in these photos is the orientation of the desk. I finally gave in and turned my desk around. I liked being able to see the rest of the room, but this is SO much easier to move from station to station in the room. I think of it like how they tell you to plan your kitchen - you want an unobstructed triangle of space connecting your work areas so that it's easy to go from place to place. Before I would have to sidle around the desk to get to the ironing board or the table, now it's a straight shot to either - super easy!

Another long-time-coming change is that I finally raised up my table! I always knew I wanted it higher, but I could never figure out a good looking way that would raise it up enough. This change is actually what inspired me to make all the other changes - this whole redo was pretty out of the blue, lol, I just finally felt like making it happen. I was give 3 of these white drawer units by a friend when she moved months ago. I had 2 of them already in the room (one is in the closet) and I used them to store my yarn, so yesterday I brought the third one in to raise the table. The table is expandable, so it has a 5 inch area under the top for all the mechanisms. By just setting the edge that supports the mechanisms on top of the drawers, this raised the table up 10 inches! And so far this seems like the perfect height. It hits me right above my natural waist, so I don't have to hunch way over to cut things out. The weird thing is that when I stand next to the table, I feel ridiculously tall just because the table is up so high. I'm only 5'7", so I'm not all that tall, but this seems a really good height - also since it feels so tall I doubt I would be as likely to just toss stuff on top of it like I used to. I can now stand upright and work at this table which is so awesome. I've already used it :) I did also pull the table out from the wall to clear the area under that basket of tools - it worked ok though because now I can put my wheelie cart and my cardboard cutting surface out of the way but still easily accessible. I also filled the new drawer unit, lol. The bottom is stuffed full (literally) of my finished amigurumi - shamefully they used to live in a large plastic bag under the table, so it's much better this way. The middle drawer is my sewing WIPS and the top drawer has drafting materials (like tracing kits and whatnot). I also have plans to add a removable bar in between the table legs to hold my roll of drafting paper (this is currently in the works, I just have to get the dowel rod cut). I even have space to store my cardboard for photography and my cutting mat in between the drawer units :) I seriously am thrilled with just this one change so much that it wouldn't matter if the rest of the room was changed yet.

Moving around the room, I made a little ironing board station. The ironing board has always been in this corner, but I hadn't wrangled all the other pressing tools together before (they used to be on the shelf unit by the closet across the room - no good). This metal shelf thing is something I got from another friend who moved and it was sitting empty in a different room - perfect opportunity to use it :) Now I have the iron, starch, water, hams and press cloths all contained. Now my husband doesn't have to toss my hams on my desk when he needs to iron his uniform. The basket under the board is all items that need mending and I figure this can just be a regular fixture as well to keep them all contained. 

Keeping with the organizational theme, I had a large stack of patterns and books from all my thrifting adventures over the past few months that had no home. Once I moved the table out from the wall, I had the perfect amount of room for this little bookcase. I got 2 of these cheapy bookshelves on the side of the road (my neighbor threw them out!) back when we moved - one is holding my cookbooks in our den, but this one has been holding random things in the garage while I decided on its in-house use. It worked perfect here! The pink bins were also free (given to me by a friend), and one has all my embroidery floss and supplies while the other has a few sweaters that are waiting to be unraveled. The shelf top is also perfect for holding other organizers. The middle pic is on the other side of the room next to the ironing board. The steam press is on what used to be a shoe rack - I took the cloth dividers out and I will add wood to make real shelves - and the basket inside it is things I want to alter. The plastic drawer units were a yard sale score - all of them for $2 months ago. I had to clean them and they are older so they are made of slightly harder plastic then is used now, but they are a great size for holding all my sewing tools and notions. I have the drawers all divided and organized so I can go right to what I need. I hope to find nice labels soon to make it even easier :) And the final shot is a close up of the ironing station. I used the lower shelves to hold things I had no place for - like my yarn winder and my box of animal eyes. The shelves are also the perfect width to hold 2 of my WIP project baskets. I snagged these in the dollar spot at Target a while back and they are a great size to keep all my in progress animals together - no more misplacing body parts :)

I couldn't get a good head-on pic of my desk due to the window back lighting, but here is a shot to give you an idea. I thought of a different lamp to use while I was writing this post, so it will change soon, lol, but you get the idea. To the left of the desk is the trash can so I can just swipe threads off at random, and next to that is a tower fan - the ceiling fan groans something awful in this room so I never turn it on. Maybe I'll finally try to fix that...

And with all my organizational changes I decided to finally hang up a few things I've had waiting. My mom got me that mirrored scroll square for Christmas (!) and I only just hung it up - you can't rush, lol. And the little frame is a really cute postcard I bought at Epcot in the Japan store when I was probably 15 - again, you can't rush. I think it looks perfect here, so I'm glad I saved it :) I also re-distributed my books on that little shelf unit. I rearranged/de-junked my étagère. I pulled out Norman, The Giant Squid for a little time in the sunlight. He is still one of my favorite animals, so I'm happy to see him now. And Soepkip is chilling next to The Stylish Nadine and her wig collection, lol. My amigurumi books have spilled over onto the top shelf and the black floral boxes have rattles, squeakers and jinglers (the small one) as well as my fancy/more expensive sewing patterns like Colette and Sewaholic (the bigger one). Also, I finally hung up my inkjet transfer above my thread racks. I made this back when I did experimental photography big time and I just always liked how it came out. It's a photo of a flowering plant taken with a Holga camera, then inkjet transferred onto canvas. The transferring blurred the lines even more than they already were from the original shot, but something about the color combo and composition I have just always liked. I guess since it's "art" I don't have to be able to say why I like it, lol, I just do. Now i get to see it everyday :)

Here's a close up of the Japanese post card - isn't it cute?! I came across it in a box of stuff I've had since I was a kid and the colors worked perfect for this room. I even had this empty frame that it fit in - talk about meant to be :) So now I have a little nod to my day job in my room that still "goes".

Well, I hope you've enjoyed this little tour of my sewing room :) I will admit that there is another wall you haven't seen at all - it's still pretty junked up, lol. I have a large stack of boxes in front of the closet with random supplies and fabric that I haven't found homes for yet. I'm working on it though. I have so much fabric that I will be doing a bit of a purge soon - I'll post here with the link in case anyone would be interested whenever that happens.

I am ridiculously happy with how this room is coming out, and I've already made more plans for its future. One of these days I will make valance boxes over the windows, finish painting the dresser and mirror (it will hold fabric), and hang some shelves and more artwork. It's coming right along though :) And happily I've had most everything I need on hand for the changes I've made, so I don't even have to spend any money. Even with all the things that still need to be done, this is still the most finished room in our house - what does that say about my priorities, lol. I just know I love being in here now, and I really can't wait to really test the configuration and get sewing!

Pink Bathroom Update (& Our Latest House Catastrophe)

Last I mentioned my pink bathroom, I was sharing my plans to embrace the pink-ness and go with a pink/black/white color scheme. I have A LOT of plans for this room, and it is far from complete. However, I have gotten quite a bit done on it, most of which was months ago before our first overnighting house guests came in July. I never posted my progress because I had a few frustrating things happen, but it seriously looks so much better than it did when we moved in that I felt it deserves to be shared, even in its unfinished state.

This is what the room looked like when we moved in - not terrible at a glance. Once we started looking into things, we realized how much work this room would need. The caulking was either crumbling and pulling apart or someone had smeared new caulk over it and it looked just awful. And when I say "the caulk", I mean all of it - there is even caulking around the edge of the floor time. Craziness. So, I've tried addressing the caulking issue (still working on it, but it's better now), and when I pulled out the million wall anchors from the wall, I discovered the paint was peeling away; this meant that the room was never primed, just painted, and the only way to fix it is to peel the paint off the entire room and put a sealant over it before painting again. Yeah, so that's not done yet. I have at least accessorized and cleaned the daylights out of the room and at the moment (and for the past few months), it looks like this:

I'm really loving the black and white floral theme :) It's still a long way from finished, but this has become "my bathroom" and I seriously use it everyday. This is where I shower, fix my hair, get ready for bed, everything, and the little changes that have been made have greatly improved how the room feels. I really love it now :)

This is a general idea (created with photoshop - oh the joys of technology) of what I want to accomplish in here. I made this plan back in May or June and I actually ended up getting the exact shower curtain that I put in this pic (it was from JC Penney and I had a gift card - score!) as well as almost identical floor mats with matching hand towels - all of which is the Better Homes and Gardens collection from Walmart of all places. I still have quite a few big jobs ahead (resurfacing the sink in white, painting the cabinet black and adding nobs, framing the mirror, converting the closet into French doors, getting a new light fixture, making curtains, painting the grout white, peeling off/sealing/repainting the walls, and figuring out something to go above the toilet), but at least I like where it's going and I enjoy being in this room.

I'm making little strides with it every now and then. Last night, for example, I sealed/caulked around the faucets. I've needed to do this for a long time - they were never caulked so all the water that splashes when washing your hands seeped under the fixture and down in to the cabinet. I've seriously found puddles in there and it is so mildewy and gross. I don't put anything in it right now, just a towel to help with the water. So before I start painting the cabinets and counter top, I needed to address this water issue. I had a nightmare of a time with regular caulk on tile before - turns out that's because you can't use regular caulk - duh, right? I looked around the caulk section until I found the ones that said Kitchen Tile and Bath and I knew I was good. I decided to get Dap 3.0 because it said it is water sealed in 30 minutes.

I'll be honest - this stuff was not what I was expecting which really lead to a big mess at first. Once I got the hang of it though, I loved it. You apply this like caulking - Run a bead around the fixture, press it in the crack with your finger, clean up the excess. But the cleaning is a bit more complicated than that. You have to go back over the still wet sealant with mineral spirits to clean off the excess gunk (and there will be lots of excess). I was so worried when I first pressed it in with my finger that it would look like a big white goopy mess forever, but when I went back with the mineral spirits this was the result:

Can you see the sealant in the photo to the left? No, right? I zoomed in on the middle shot to see the little bit of white in there. It's almosts invisible - I love it! The right photo is to show how it stops the water :) I'm seriously so glad I don't have to worry about the vanity cabinet anymore!

In other news, we have a new catastrophe this week. We went in the back yard to check our avocado tree (turns out we have one) only to find that we couldn't get to it because of all the freaking bees! Honey bees have taken up residence inside the walls of my outbuilding/shed.

That's the shed up there. And the avocado tree trunk - yeah we weren't getting any avocados yesterday...

See the bees? They are going up into the holes in the cement block through a little space around the pvc pipe from our water pump. Yeah. At first we weren't even sure whether they were bees, but I was lucky enough to be able to take this picture:

It's totally a honey bee :) I was really impressed with my iphone camera's abilities on that one, lol. So I have called a bee removal guy and apparently they have to bust holes in my cement to clear out all the honey and larvae inside. Yet another thing to cost a bunch of money! I'm very adamant that the bees aren't killed though - we've even contemplated having our own hive just to help with the bee situation. I'm not sure that we are ready to start one up right now, but these bees shall live! lol

Any bees in your shed lately?

Weekend Update: 2 Week Edition!

I've been up to all kinds of things the last 2 weeks and I have yet to blog about the, lol. So I figured I would just combine it all into one mega post - lucky you :) I started off last weekend by finishing all the painting around my bay window to finish off my wall I was working on in the living room. I also changed out all 4 sets of blinds there. It sounds like a simple thing, but it was seriously a lot of work - there will be a separate post about that later.

Once the window was done, the only thing left before moving the furniture back was to change out the old light sockets. The sockets all over my house are not only yicky cream colored, but most of them have been painted on or all scratched up as well - no so pretty. So, I changed them out:

Two of those are actual plugs, the other is just a plain cover. Originally there was a large cable just in a knot and sticking out of the wall. We still have no idea what type of cables they were - it wasn't tv cable or a phone line - so we just pushed it back into the wall and covered it with a plain cover. Now it looks great! No more big hole!

After completing those sockets, I was on a roll and continued with more sockets upstairs. Out bedroom has been painted since before we moved in, but the switches and whatnot have remained old and without covers ever since - which meant there were big dark holes in the wall everywhere. So, I changed out 2 light switches:

As well as covering one with a plain cover (like in the living room) and 5 double plugs. One of the plugs was a home-done install that tapped into the switch for the closet light. It was really difficult to do (the box wasn't mounted right so it kept pushing into the wall as I screwed into it), and on top of that they cut the hole for the box too wide. A normal plate cover just wouldn't hack it. I ended up having to go to Lowe's and buy an extra large cover. Here is the difference:

Quite a difference, huh?(sorry for the crappy photos) Of course that extra large plat was double the price, but they are really cheap anyway so oh well :) After the sockets I finally hung something on the wall in there!

So that was one weekend down and I was definitely pleased with my progress :) This past weekend I decided to keep the momentum going. I've been putting off painting my vent covers for the living room ever since we moved in. It's been on my list and all, but the weather here just hasn't permitted much outdoor spray painting.

 So I finally buckled down and decided I've had holes in my nice finished walls long enough and painted them :) I started with 2 coats of Rustoleum Metal Primer in White, then finished off with 2 coats of Rustoleum Spray Paint in Semi-Gloss White. I went with semi-gloss to match the trim in the room and it worked great. I even bought new screws and painted the tops white to match!

This is my intake vent cover in its permanent spot - directly next to the tv so we see it all the time. It is SOOOO nice to not see a giant hole into the air conditioner cabinet! While I was in there I also replaced that plug too :)

To install the vent cover I had to move the couch and get the ladder in there (the vent is about 12 feet up). While I had the couch moved I decided to change that plug as well :)

And here is my vent cover now :) Isn't it great?! lol Seriously if someone had told me I would be this excited about vent covers one day, I would have said they were crazy. But there is no denying it - I'm ecstatic with how they look. I was also inspired to finally hang this big metal wall art. I bought it at Target at least 5 months ago when it was half price in the clearance isle. It seemed huge in the store and even around my house before I hung it, but look how small it looks on that huge wall, lol. That just goes to show you how big that wall really is. I can't wait to get actual pictures up there around it.

The best part about completing all these little things in the living room is that they were literally the finishing touches in their areas. I can now look at a totally finished section of my house :) It's a great feeling.