Randomness

Remember the fab moleskin icons that I used to clean up my desktop? Yesterday the AT geniuses provided me with a link for Leica Icons...I've replaced my photo file icons with those. It's cute.

Also, I've been trying to figure out the best way to get organized now that I'm down to the nitty gritty of it.

Decorno (whom I stalk under my personal email alias) is using a binder for her kitchen renovation. My next big project will definitely involve one of those.

MSN (shockingly) had some good organization tips:

I like this one but don't know where I'd apply it, exactly.

This one more likely:

(here)

Especially since I have a nice large wall over our toaster oven.

And not design related at all, but I'm sharing anyway because I love the image.

Back to the Guest Room

I know - I'm obsessed. It's the room we're going to use the least often, so why am I fixated? Because I gave my husband the walk in and the "big" bathroom and I need somewhere to store my books and stuff and I'm sick of tripping over things.

So the bookcase might be in its permanent spot, depending on the size of the guest bed (we now have our first confirmed visitors - in town for the 4th of July. Woot!) but the chair will have to move (maybe?).

Any way, to completely brag: look at how good this bookcase looks! (for now)

There at the top, one of those mag boxes is filled with the last 12 months of Domino (I cull the oldest one monthly so they don't overflow and file the tear sheets)...tear...

The paper-wrapped items in the first image are the gold-framed mirror and a plain unframed rectangular mirror. I have no idea where I'm going to hang them.

I have a thought to hold off on buying the vanity I want:

(available here)

And just purchasing a little tufted stool to slide under this table:

and hanging the gold mirror above it and using the table as a vanity.

Stools options haven't even been researched so who knows.

And just so you don't think I'm completely on top of everything all the time - I spent today burning 23 cds for my sister, instead of dealing with our kitchen table/dining area, which looks like this:


Partly because my brain hurts from all the alphabetizing, leveling, drilling, and hauling, but also because in those storage boxes are glasses like these:

(here)

And I'm secretly hoping that husband will say we can put our mismatched glasses away - donate or put them out in the summer kitchen and use these full time. Mostly I'm sick of having things to store.

Every day I get a little closer to having an actual garage sale. Maybe when I get back from Dallas and the weather is a bit warmer...

Weird room ----> Walk-In

So remember the weird little room? And the changing plans...a little trip to Home Depot and roughly $40 later and voila! Husband has the best closet in the house. Probably in his life.

The curtains in the bathroom belong to the homeowner. It's on my redo list.

I switched the tall bookshelf (from target, will be replaced because it's not going to survive another move) with the short one so that there could be natural light and fresh air. The lamp was just there to help me see.


That's all I bought, excluding the shelf at the top. That's leftover from the loft. (tear)


I moved my vintage/formals and the wrapping paper to the now-empty guest room so the right side of built-in is exclusively suits. Husband's suits. My bags are up on that shelf because I just haven't moved them, yet. I know. Lazy me. The left side is still coats.

After.
I did not color coordinate his clothes. He even wears them in order as to ensure equal wear-and-tear. There will probably be a little bench/stool in there somewhere so he can sit and tie his shoes. Until then he'll have to walk 15' to his desk and sit there.

Now his clothes have room to breathe!

And the bonus is that the owner left his mirror so now Husband has one, too!

It's not the closet Big built for Carrie, but it's a good start.

I have too many girl parts!

My big problem with older houses is one that is luckily easily rectified: shower heads. Old shower heads just suck. Really, that's all there is to it. Generally they were originally good, but decades of mineral deposits and lack of attention leave them with water spraying everywhere but where you want it. Ours is no exception:


Luckily, I have a nice gooseneck hanging around, so I unscrewed the existing shower head and prepared to install the new one. And then I made my discovery: both parts of my equation are female parts.


So I fiddled around a bit and discovered that not only is the ring permanently attached and *female* but even if I were to just push it back I couldn't screw the gooseneck to the pipe because the pipe has a weird bulby tip:

I know what you're thinking and stop it.

Luckily I have a plumbing guru on speed dial. Fingers crossed for a speedy resolution so I can have a decent shower!

Reader suggestion: Walk in Closet...

An idea we hadn't even considered for the Tiny Weird Room. A Walk-in closet. And since it would be husband's walk in closet it wouldn't be too weird...

Trust me. Check out his clothing situation as it is now:

View of shirts from the floor.

View of slacks, sport coats, and suits from the floor.

Not pictured: t-shirts and sweaters, which are on a shelf above this stuff.

Shoes, belts, sundries - ON THE FLOOR. (ick)

This is the right side of the built in that exists in the weird tiny room. The plastic-wrapped clothes are suits that needs tailoring. The rest is my vintage and the gift wrap organizer.

He's got a 3 drawer dresser as well, but it's currently in use as my bedside table so it will probably continue to reside there.

My plan? Inspired by the commenter on the previous post and Jane from Sea Of Shoes: a Walk In Closet.

My thoughts are to put tension rods in at the spot to the left of the built in closets, like so:

(image)

And then this to the left where the door to the furnace is, since that needs to be accessible:

(image)

And for his shoes:

(image)

Although if it were my shoes, then I would completely copy Jane:

(image)

As it is, I'll just have to be patient...

And hey, maybe we'll put some temporary wallpaper up so the place isn't *so* dreary...

Library? Craft Room? Weird Little Space we Stick Boxes in and Otherwise Ignore?

We have a weird space:

From wall to wall it's 8' wide and 11'3" deep. That's the entry on the right of the diagram - the door at the top is to a very slender bathroom. The built in cupboard (top left) is 2' deep and 4'2" wide. The water heater/furnace housing is 2'3" by 5'1". It's one of the rooms the owner doesn't want me to paint, which is a shame since the only window is too small to fit a Jockey through and the walls are paneled. And not the cool panel that reminds me of the quickly-becoming-ubiquitous tree wallpaper, either.

I'm not even talking about that carpet. Luckily it exists in this tiny weird little room and the "rec room" that's attached to the summer kitchen. Those built-ins are already full, by the way. The left side is coats and wrapping paper and the right side is husband's overflow and my vintage. Have I mentioned our tiny closet situation?

So this is what I'm brainstorming today as I continue to organize the inside kitchen. I'm putting off the summer kitchen, garage, and rec room until it's reliably in the 70s...so March, I think.

I did pick up these for the inside kitchen:


Oh, and I did a flickr search and found some "Craft room" sets that I find inspiring. If only I could PAINT!

This one has a bedazzled phone, among other goodies. It's much more intense than what I need. I basically need gift wrap and scrapbook storage. Which even feels like over-statement because all of my scrapbook gear fits into a specialty bag that is lighter than what I carried daily to college. Her craft room also has that Keep Calm and Carry On poster, which is starting to feel contrived to me.

I would like to have a sewing machine and dress form one day, and that room would actually be good for that. But I don't own either of those items, yet.

This one has an Anthropologie Window display that I enjoy.

I love the wall color in this one.

And I just like the personality in this little corner shot.

We'll see what I can come up with for my corner space.

A bar...and cookies

Little by little things are getting organized...which makes me happy... Behold!

This used to hold various kitchen implements, and we had an old coffee table top on it and we used it as a breakfast bar. Great in the loft, but not practical in our new place. Our old bar was actually a bookcase purchased at Target for the grand price of $20. It can all be seen here.

This one has always held platters and cake stands and it still does. As well as vases.

This idea I got from The Greatest Show of Our Time. Season one. The sleepover episode. You can see it as a butler walks through the scene about 15 seconds in:



You know you love me
XOXO

Finally! Something complete enough that I can walk away from it

Check it out:

Bookcases: you know them as the ubiquitous and amazing Billy Bookcases from IKEA.

Ok - so what's temporary about this is the empty shelf on the bottom left. It's empty because it's sitting over a (closed) heating vent. And while we never turn the heat up to anything truly balmy, I didn't want to risk warping anything by having it directly over the vent.

Also temporary is the rug by the front door. We needed something and it's roughly the right size.

Finally - my Wall of Shame was dismantled prior to the move and the hallway is too tiny for such a gallery so the photos have been spread out over the flat surfaces, which I don't always like but am going to live with until I get it organized and hung.

The rest of the house still makes me cringe upon entering.
So that's where I'm at. Yippie!

Once Begun, Half Done

Mary Poppins was cracked. I began well over a week ago and let me tell you that I was not instantly "half-done." Not even remotely. In fact, it wasn't until Tuesdayish that I considered myself half done. I barely consider myself Half Done now.

What is half-done, you ask? Simple- the Guest Room.

It's the empty square at the top of the floor plan. (Our room is in the front of the house, which I normally don't like, but it's bigger.)

You might remember it looking something like this:


And as of Wednesday, it looks like this:

(those boxes contain items which belong in the Garage...where they will be placed this weekend. Another project altogether.)

And:


The cats have since been locked out of the room in order to protect it for future guests who might be allergic (dear friends and my Mother-In-Law) also to protect our chair from their claws.

The chair used to be covered in this completely destroyed avocado green polyester itchy grody upholstery. My sister inherited it from my father who got it from a friend who built it during while he was pursuing his architecture degree. Structurally, that chair might survive nuclear holocaust. She hated it, so I took it. Because it's a nice scale and it's cozy.


I had it recovered in Soho Serenade in Noir (cut velvet, Robert Allen, to the trade) and now she loves it. She's got too much pride to say she wants it back, but I can see it in her eyes. And the fact that before we moved, she always lounged in it.

The console table was a present from Husband from Room and Board. I'd like you to the table, but I can't find it on their site.

The bookcase is second hand and originally Storehouse. I think it might survive nuclear holocaust as well. I'm still trying to decide what other books are going on it. Suggestions?

We're getting this daybed, as inspired by this blog. If you don't read her blog, you should. She's actually in the process of converting the guest room to a nursery and it's so inspiring.

I promise to post pictures.

P.S. Don't you just love the flying saucer light fixture? It's like something out of an Ed Wood movie. And don't you love that there's nothing I can do about it because we're renting and we'll likely only be here for a year before I (probably) go insane and must leave the suburbs?

More pictures forthcoming. We're going to IKEA this weekend. Woohoo!

AWOL

Sheesh. I have no words. So here's an explanation. In photos:

My husband's car. A 1997 Saturn SL2. It has less than 100k miles on it. This is what happens when the hydrolics go out on the ramp of the car carrier. This damage (plus whatever might have happened to the shocks/motor mounts) totaled it. Luckily we have good insurance and no real need for a second car. And Husband is going to use the insurance money for a scooter and/or a new bicycle. Something carbon that doesn't come with pedals.

I just like the labeling here.

Kitchen/Dining

Guest Room

Our Home Depot looks like George Jetson designed it.

The living room about halfway through Sunday. (Boxes and furniture were moved in on Friday)

I took halfway through photos last night, but to add them now will make for a really long blog. So I'll leave you with just one. Remember the cat beds? Well, one of them always had toys. We decided that maybe it was time to remove the cat toys from it and put it to use as a planter...since that's how it was designed.

This is not its final spot, but as of right now we're not tripping over it and the cats can access their wheat grass. Which they love. There are dirt paw prints all over the place now. If there weren't also empty boxes, packing paper, and general detritus all over the place I'd be bothered.

P.S. While I was scrolling through trying to find the cat bed photo I saw all of those pictures of our old loft. I miss that place. I miss Dallas. Part of me is glad that we decided to try a completely different lifestyle in our new town so that we could have this experience. But it's still so new that mostly I just miss my old place. Maybe that will change by the time I stop tripping over boxes.