House Tour 2012: Living Room

My head feels like it's made of solid lead.

I blame the blooming trees. They're beautiful, but they make me feel off. It's not too bad... no migraine or anything, yet. And their loveliness is nothing to complain about. But, I think I may have to keep the windows shut tomorrow.

Anyway. Not feeling super chatty. Not thrilled with the photos. (Hello, overexposure). I've had to use the older camera for the full room shots. Our newer one only has a 50mm lens. That just means I can't fit a lot into a photo with it (a room = a lot). There is a serious difference between the two cameras. We're saving for another lens for the new camera, but they're pricey! I've had to relearn the oldie this week.

So, here's what my little Canon Rebel gave us today.



Okay, so... yes. Right away, you'll notice that one wall is pale yellow. Your eyes do not deceive you. We painted the rest of the room Benjamin Moore's "White Dove" at the end of the summer last year, but left this wall alone. We plan on putting grasscloth up. You know... later. In retrospect, I think we probably should have just painted the whole room. Who knows when we're going to get to the grasscloth? I have a pattern of doing this - thinking we'll get to some little odds and ends far more quickly than we actually will. And the odds and ends stay odd for months.



Our globe has seen better days. I don't do vintage globes, by the way. I'm really strange about things like lead. Wow - I wasn't planning on mentioning lead twice in this post, but here I am mentioning it for the second time! I get freaked and have been known to actually shell out the $20 for lead test kits just to be sure before I bring something into our home. I also am a germophobe. Sometimes. PLUS, there's the whole we-use-this-for-geography-and-we-can't-have-people-getting-things-like-the-Democratic-Republic-of-Congo-all-messed-up-because-of-an-out-of-date-globe.

Maybe I'm feeling more chatty now. As I type, chattiness is coming out.

I mentioned all that about the globe because, clearly, we need a new one. Quite a while ago now, Punkin removed the equator to use it as a headband.


Maybe not a headband. But, something like that.



All Baby's accoutrements there in the corner.



So, if you've been wondering about how our rug and sofa choices are coming along, the answer is "swimmingly". I have been so pleased with these slipcovers. Less than a year after we got them, my sweet baby nephew spit up nearly ALL of his bottle on one of the loveseat cushions. Sam quickly mopped it up with a burpcloth to keep it from seeping into the actual cushion... which is good. And the seat cover went in the washing machine and came out looking like new. I've washed all the seat cushions maybe 3-4 times and the back cushions once or twice so far. I hang them to dry and then give them a spin through the 15-minute steam cycle in our dryer before putting them back on. They still fit like a glove. (Fit like gloves? Plural?). (Did I punctuate that - or this - correctly?). They've been great for us.

The rug shed wool fibers LIKE MAD for months and months and months. The care instructions stated to not use the roller thingy on the vacuum, but to vacuum it like you would a bare floor... no roller. That did zero good. So, for probably the first six months, I painstakingly got down on my hands and knees and vacuumed that thing with one of our vacuum attachments. That way I still got the full suction, but without the roller. Finally, we just decided to risk it. We've been using the vacuum the regular way and now the rug doesn't shed anymore.



I'm very glad the regular vacuum works fine on it. And I'm very pleased with the rug. The sofa and loveseat are - I think - Pottery Barn Comfort and the rug is the PB "Brandon" rug.



Just to be clear - as I take these photos, I do stop from time to time to parent the half-naked hooligans running through my shots.

I'm glad for the books. Truly. I do wish we could keep the bookcases neater, but it is what it is. I'd rather the books get used than have pristine shelves. And they do get used. A lot. So, that's very good.

That box is a return I've been meaning to take to the post office. TOMS. Too big.







These closer up pictures are with my newer camera.







I really like the golden yellow pencils with the peacock blue mug. That color combination is very cheerful. Too bad they aren't all sharpened.



So, you knew it was coming, didn't you? The infamous bookcase. I'm not really ready to make a final call, but - I think I ruined it. The primer worked all too well... in a few places. The paint was peeling off great, until we hit that little skinny trim piece. And some on the bottom. And little nooks and crannies. And the entire inside back piece.

I'm not giving up, yet. But, it is getting close. I'm so ridiculous.



It's not a bad little room. Minus the bookcase. And a few other eye-sorish things. It's bright. I'm very thankful for the windows. I'm liking the aqua puffs. They're leftover from SweetP's birthday party. I have a tendency to leave birthday decorations up for a while... just because they're festive. But NOT balloons. Balloons make me a crazy woman. I leave them up for a few days... because I'm loving and thoughtful... but then I pop 'em. No guilt.

This is technically a Wednesday post. It's late Tuesday night as I write this. I'm going to go ahead and publish it now, because all you sensible people are sleeping at this point and won't know the difference. And because I like to read my own blog posts. Not just in the "preview" window. I like to see the done deal and check my spelling.

And that way I don't have to get out the trusty laptop in the morning. I want to make something special and yummy for the children for breakfast and not log on (not even to check email) until after lunch.

Have a great day! And good night!

at least there's a little snow

I don't think I'm going to get the sunshine I wanted for good indoor photos this week. It's still overcast, but there's a little snow on the ground. That makes a huge difference in the light. Still not quite enough for great photos, but I'll take what I can get.

Snow light is one of my favorite things about winter.

Maybe one of my only favorite things about winter... once Christmas is past. Still fightin' the good fight against the winter doldrums. That last pillow from Olive Handmade came the other day.



It helps :)



There's a yellow backing that you can only see a teensy bit if you're looking from the side. Just that little peek of yellow helps, too.



The green pillows were the first to ship. The fit is just a touch wonky, but I used larger pillow forms than the seller suggested. I like the pillows full. The suggested pillow size was too wimpy and sad-looking for my tastes, so I shoved a 22" form in :) Now they're pretty much what I was wanting.



With the quilty pillow, it's probably a little too Spring-y. Oh, well. Girl needs some Spring!

Across the room from the happy, pushing-spring-too-soon pillows, this is still in progress...

Dumb bookcase.



And right beside that eyesore, the girls were working on their morning lessons...





And this little cutie was playing in her bouncy seat.





She's not crying - her super long eyelashes bother her eyes sometimes and make them water. Sugar! She is, seriously, the easiest baby ever.

Brother was downstairs watching Signing Time. Ummm... I think they were teaching the sign for "grumpy"... I hope? Maybe he just needed a snack.



He was watching it on the M.A.S.S.I.V.E new tv Sam bought on New Year's Eve.



I expected the tv purchase. It was only a matter of time. I did not, however, expect it to be so M.A.S.S.I.V.E. And did I mention that it's big?

Sam and I have a date night tonight (woot!) and we're going to IKEA. Among other things, we're planning on buying a table for the very large tv. Clearly, the current improvised table, although serviceable, isn't really adding a whole lot to the room.

We aren't going to be painting the paneling and brick in the family room just yet, but I am trying to make it a smidge more cheerful. It's been brown and dreary since we moved in... neglected while we worked on other priorities. When the Christmas tree came down, I decided the mantle needed something kind of loud and extra smiley.



I'm not sure how "me" it is... it's more "me in January" than anything else. So far so good, though. I haven't plummeted into quite my normal funk. No crying yet, even.

That makes me feel like hot stuff!

And I'm reeeaaaalllly excited to get the new table and have fun with Sam tonight :)

Lots to be thankful for :)

I took more photos than I had time to upload today. I'll share the rest next week! Have a great weekend!!!

the living room list

Hey, guys. I'm hot stuff this week - two whole posts! Look out, world! And I'm feeling chatty again, too. And like sharing pictures :)

Do you remember back in the fall when I said I was going to work on the living room? Do the items on that little sheet of paper? This one?



Well, I got started painting the living room right away. Nothing earth-shattering. The same white as the trim - Benjamin Moore White Dove. Then, I got to the part of the list about painting the bookcase. And, truly, it's all kind of a foggy, painful memory now, but somehow I decided to try to paint the bookcase a gray color with a bluish, greenish undertone. Try to pick up some of those colors in the rug. As I recall, those were my intentions. However, I did not want to paint the shelves. I didn't want to paint them because I knew they'd get trashed. This is a bookcase for children's books and it gets used many, many times a day. Painted shelves would be wasted in a matter of days, if not hours. So, I wanted to leave them as is. Or, as was. I stayed up late priming and painting. I got the stupid thing done and... long story short...

I hated it.

Great. Great! Like I have all the time in world to paint furniture just to ruin it. It might not look bad here, but all I could think was that it reminded me of the freshman year desk my sister had from Big Lots. It looked dated and nasty. I sank into a big, big funk. My list. My poor list :( My poor bookcase.

Do you ever just get unreasonably funky, even though you know it's ridiculous to get so grumpy over something so... well... unreasonable? That's how I felt. I knew it was silly to get discouraged about it. What good was that going to do anyone? But there was a big, ugly bookcase in my living room. The very living room I was trying to make prettier.

A funk ensued. Go ahead. Watch.

Untitled from homeforthebetter on Vimeo.

Ha ha. How immature is that? I got over it, of course. Making fun of myself helped. By the time I was done shooting that little video, I was laughing about it. I decided to try to paint it white and see how that went. It looked better at least. It was white on the outside and a kind of gray inside. You can see it a little in the background of these photos from Christmas.





It looked okay white, but it just wasn't doing it for me. I left it alone until this afternoon.



Can you believe that?



It just peeled right off.

I had read on a number of different blogs (which shall remain nameless) that you could skip the sanding step if you used Gripper primer. Well, I skipped the sanding step and I used Gripper primer. Aren't you impressed with how well it held up? But, really, it's a good thing. Because I could just peel off the paint I didn't like! :)

So, it's about 2/3 peeled now. There are little nooks and crannies that are giving me some grief. I'll pick at them here and there tomorrow. Now I know. And now the bookcase will be brown, again. But, technically, I finished the list.



I made the blankie early on. Love it.



It's chenille on one side...



And Michael Miller's Ta Dot in "Stone" on the other :)



I didn't tie it or quilt it or anything. It's just the two pieces of fabric sewn together and flipped right side out. It has a nice weight from the chenille, and it lays almost like a duvet since the fabrics are loose.

Very cozy. Very cheerful.



That wall behind the sofa is still yellow. We left it unpainted because we have other plans for it. Later :)

As I was looking for photos of the blankie, I found a couple more of painting the room...





... and that bookcase. ha.

I bought fabric to make Christmas pillow covers, but I never got them made. So, instead, I ordered some from Etsy to help with my post-Christmas doldrums. They're GREEN. Because outside it's BROWN. I'll take a few photos of them when we get some sunshine for a decent shot. Oh, and when the last one arrives. I'm still waiting on one little pillow.

So, that's all I'm doing to the living room for now. And I'm not really planning on choosing another little paper right away. I'm in a crafty, let's-make-the-house-look-like-a-kindergarten-classroom type mood these days, so I have a few others projects in mind. Tonight, for instance, I'm priming and painting this...



... to house a Lego population explosion. I promised the children I'd get their Lego cabinet done before I started what I really want to work on. This came in the mail today! Even the grayest, coldest January doesn't stand a chance against the sheer HAPPINESS of this fabric :)



Thanks so much for sticking with me, guys :) Have a great day!

a video

do you like to watch videos on blogs as much as i do? there's just something about posts with videos, especially if i've been reading the blog for a while... seeing photos, reading about lives. then, there's a video, and the blogger seems more like a real person than they did before. but, maybe i'm just weird like that.

i'm posting a video tonight. not because i think i'm this terribly interesting person or that you've been dying to see more of me, me, me. just because i think they're fun. and they do show a different side of things that photos alone cannot. and can i just say that i'm thankful for vimeo? i wouldn't feel comfortable uploading to youtube, but vimeo seems to have tighter controls in place and it's easy to use. after trying to upload in a slew of diferent ways, vimeo turned out to be the best option. so, props to vimeo.

we got started on our little list for the week. i figured since the painting was by far the biggest deal on there, that was a good place to start. plus, the day was pretty mild so i could have the windows open.

boosting morale from homeforthebetter on Vimeo.

i wanted the children to help. problem is i "don't do very well" when i have too many helpers in a small space all at once. but, i wanted them to be a part of the painting today. i want them to feel some sense of ownership when it comes to these never-ending house projects. and kind of boost morale in a way. we can all get tired of the paint cans and exposed walls.

so, the younger two (besides baby) helped with the first coat and the older two helped with the second. even with those shifts, i still broke it down more and worked with one child at a time. it went surprisingly well. i kept a wet paper towel nearby to wipe the excess paint off the baseboards and take care of any drips that dripped away. i was fairly relaxed. i think they had fun.

half of the room is done now.

yay!

more of the list tomorrow!


(what do you think? do you like the video post? should i do more of this kind of thing?)

8 little lists

i had a million thoughts running through my head the other night. things i want to get to before spring. projects that i think would really make a difference in the ongoing process of making this house our home. some tedious stuff. some creative stuff. i jotted down a quick list that night, hoping it would relieve my poor brain and help me get to sleep.

it worked.

this morning was unusually quiet. the younger guys were playing with a car track that had been put away for a few months, so it was like a brand new toy to them. the older two were going strong on their morning lessons. i had a hot cup of decaf, a sleeping baby, and a quiet kitchen. very nice. i decided to take a look at that list.

and i rewrote it. made it a little more cheerful. i put each room and its bulleted list on a separate little piece of paper.



tomorrow is punkin's second birthday party. we usually only do one, but not all the family could come on one weekend this time. so, two parties. sam went camping with little dude the weekend before last. that means 3 weeks without a saturday to work on bedroom 4. i'm in limbo until sam gets to the closet shelving. then, it'll be my job to prime and paint all that. woot woot. until then, though, i'm just doing normal days... nothing extra on the house.



that's been nice so far. but baby is settled into a routine now. the house is reasonably clean. the kiddos are doing well. i'm ready. ready for a project :)



i'm thinking this is worth a shot. i may not get past a week or two, but it seems like a good idea at this point. pick a paper on friday. work on that list throughout the following week. just until the week is out, even if the list isn't done. if it is done - great! if not, the paper just goes back into the bowl. no stress. on crazy weeks, we just do one or two things. some weeks we should be able to do a lot more. but, my goal is to always do at least one thing on the list for that week.



there are eight pieces of paper. 8 weeks worth of projects. then we'll stop. even if everything isn't done. we should finish up the 8 weeks right before Christmas. i like the idea of getting a lot of little things taken care of before the end of 2011. and i like starting on the first week of a new month. and on a monday.

i'm sequential. can you tell?

choosing the room on a friday lets me have the weekend to gear up and collect anything i might need for that week. sweetp (and baby) helped me out this morning. the first room we'll chip away at?



very fun :)

the dining room chairs

the dining room chairs were driving me crazy. once my "nesting" instinct really set in with Baby, they just had to be done. done! now.

i finished painting them really fast in just a few days. (they are far from perfect). i wasn't really being picky when i painted them. i just wanted them to be finished. i was tired of the folding chairs and i had this feeling that it was kind of now or never. i was only 34 weeks, but i felt like painting them was a necessity. it was a feverish project, completed on the double (and on the picnic table so I wouldn't have to bend down) while the children played outside around me. nesting city. funny - i had Baby less than a week later.



so, they were finally white. which was good. but they didn't have any seats! which was bad. i had planned on recovering the seats long ago, but hadn't chosen a fabric, yet. i wanted a charcoal and white ticking, but i couldn't fine one. do you do that? get something so specific in your mind's eye that then you can't find it anywhere? because no one makes it? silliness. anyway, Baby came sooner rather than later and... well... you get the picture. we still had those dumb folding chairs and no fabric. they looked sad and they made me grumpy :( i decided to put the white chairs at the table anyway. two of them had reasonably useable seats. two of them were completely seatless. a little risque, really. seatless. and what's sadder? folding chairs or chairs with no seats? i guess i thought any progress was better than nothing.





they stayed like that for over two months. the older girls do their morning school at this table, so they would choose one of the chairs with seats and just plop down, right on the bare batting. it might not have looked the best, but at least it didn't seem to affect their math scores much.

early last week, i was in joann's and noticed the indoor/outdoor fabrics were 50% off. the time was ripe. i took absolutely forever trying to decide, but eventually settled on "morgan tile". i didn't want the chairs to stand out too much, but i didn't want them to be boring, either. i think the total came to around $17 with the discount. score! i happily took the new fabric home to my poor seatless chairs.



but, when i got it home... i tried to convince myself it worked. really, i did. the pattern, though. the scale of the pattern was all wrong with the pattern on the rug. they competed. big times.



instead of jumping into things right away, i laid the fabric on one of the seats and left it. i wanted to see how it felt to live with it there. to help me really decide. i kept checking it out for a day or two. nope. no dice. still competing. the chairs made your eyes fix on them now. i didn't want that.

phooey.

i was back at joanns a few days later, getting more decorations for punkin's birthday. i had all of the children with me, but baby was sleeping and my kids are (generally) good shoppers, so i decided to go ahead and look for a better option. it took me a looooong time. i think i stood in line at the cutting counter three different times with three different fabrics. good thing there was a line to give me more time to deliberate! i don't think i would've been happy with the first couple of choices.

i wound up choosing a thin black and white stripe that looked very similar to ticking. it wasn't indoor/outdoor, though, and i had been trying to go that route for stain reasons. but, it was marked down to $9 a yard. good enough, right? get this - when i took it to the cutting counter, the joann's lady told me it was 50% off of the marked down price! i got all the fabric i needed for four chairs for around 7 beans!

woot! :)



i took it home. held my breath. oh, hooray. it looked great with the rug, and - although pretty safe and traditional - not too boring on the white chairs. i covered the cushions over the course of the nest 2-3 days and evenings. it doesn't really take that long usually, but i was working with snippets of time here and there, so it took me longer. like this post. i wrote some of it this morning. saved it to finish later. now, it's 2:57 pm, the older kids are watching a quick video, Baby is kicking and cooing beside me, pandora is playing a xylophone rendition of tom petty for babies (seriously? who knew?) and i'm typing w/ one hand because i'm pumping and stopping to talk to baby and play with her. yep, pumping. baby hasn't quite figured out this whole nursing business quite yet. she's doing better every week, but i'm still bonding with my medela on a regular basis. so, while i pump, why not blog? ha ha. i'll probably save this post again, load the photos later tonight or tomorrow, and finally post it after 4-5 short blogging sessions. snippets of time.



so, now the dining room chairs are done. makes me very happy to have that crossed off the list. my pregnant-lady-in-a-hurry paint job will probably need touch ups here and there, but so far no one's come in the house and immediately started inspecting my chairs for thin paint spots, so i think we're good for a bit.

hope y'all are having a great day. enjoying the crisp fall weather. love it.

by the way... after tom petty?

aerosmith.

for babies.

ha.