Thrift Score June

I found these lovies my last trip to drop off donations.  I'm super excited about the PYREX S/P Shakers, especially since i didn't realize they were PYREX until after I got them home and was ready to fill them.  The branding is an etched glass very small towards the bottom.  they work great, actually the only set of shakers I've brought home that I've actually used. 

The farmers tin is perfect for our flea market money box and the tulip dish goes (well mostly) with my Japan Tulip Canister set that I have in my bedroom.  They are both stamped Japan, have the same coloring, but  but the tulip pattern is different...I was so close.

I found this green Hoover beauty on a local FB Yardsale page and I'm loving how well she still works.  I need to order new bags, but outside of that I don't regret my purchase. 

This guy has an funny store as he almost didn't even make it home with me.  I walked by him twice at a local church's annual flea market my mom and I participated in.  After some debate I realized I wasn't even spending a dollar on him and if I found that he would have no purpose in my home that I would just simply resell him for what I paid so I happily paid for him and took him home.  

He was useful for about a week as a place to store extra change, but then decided to use him as part of my staging to sell my IKEA BESTA TV Stand and I've had multiple buyers interest in him.  I should seriously start a bidding war for him.  Highest bidder gets the whale! 

Happy Thrifting!! What kind of goodies have you found???

SM: Learing to Simplify

I've definitely made some progress this year when it comes to simplifying my home and feeling like my life is balanced again:

• I scaled back on my possessions by committing to work the flea market on a bi-monthly basis.
• I created a facebook page solely for posting my items for sale. 
• I've opened a separate bank account so that the extra income actually goes on bills.  
• I've caught up on 3 bills that I neglected -- though I still have 2 more before I'm completely caught up.
• I've accepted the fact and realized that it's not possible to clean the house, workout, take/edit/post photos of things for sale, declutter, spend time with my boys (aka the cats), cook a healthy dinner, work on my blog, and pay my bills all in one day.  Trust me when I say that this was not easy for me to admit.  I'm a perfectionist so my mindset say that I should be able to do all this but I came to realize that trying to do all this wasn't adding quality to my life, just more stress. 
• I admitted  that I needed a daily and weekly routine to help simplify my schedule and allow myself to work on all the areas that I listed above while staying focused and organized. 

The further I get on this new path of simplifying my life it helps me to tackle more to-dos that once made me feel so overwhelmed.  Life is definitely looking good now that I can see the light of a simple vintage life ahead of me once again. 

As I continue to create these printables for myself I'll make sure to share them with you just in case it may help you in your daily routines and path to a more simplified life.  Below you'll find my first printable that I made to write down my goals for the my Fitness, simplifying my home and my personal / blog for the month of June.   

Just Right Click and select “Save image As…” if you want to use my printable.  
The fonts used are: The Skinny + Orniste TFB and a Gentle Touch.

Here are a few sites that I've found helpful in creating my daily/weekly routine and learning to use a planner:

• Life According to my planner
• The Thinking Closet: The One Thing I Changed 
• From Overwhelmed to Organized:   Why Simplifying Is More Powerful than Organizing

Word of the Year: Simplicity

My 2014 goal is to live a life of Minimalism with less Superfluous, unnecessary, esp. through being more than enough, stuff surrounding me. It's really because I know I spend way more time then I really need to cleaning & reorganizing my "stuff" and what I want to be doing is cleaning less and doing doing the things I love more and that's why I want my word this year to be Simplicity.  I want to live a simplified life and set small goals each month that will get me to 50% of my possessions by the December 31, 2014.  

I plan to donate items and then use Craigslist, and eBay to sell the majority of the items that serve no function or meaning to me and this will allow money to be used towards bills and fixing up my home so it will be ready for the market in 2015 and I can move into a smaller dwelling.

I'm not sure what this year in the end will bring, but I do hope that it entails more time with friends and less time cleaning.  I do also know that it's not going to be an easy journey and that they're will be a lot of work ahead and new habits to form, especially since I have quite a stockpile of Superfluous items spread about my home.  

The Basic Plan:

Start with a Room.
Yep, room by room is the basic start for me and my first room to tackle is My Bedroom mainly because it has the least amount of items in and it's really the room I want to contain as little as possible.

As I've taken time this last week to sort through my room I realize that I have a lot of clothing and jewelry that I really don't wear so my main goal here is to photograph them in the best light, which will include ironing. 

This coming week my plan is to begin the ironing process and then hang all my shirts in one area so that when I'm home and the sun light is shining I can snap out the photos without having to stop. 

Then I will take another day to edit the photos and yet another day to post them on eBay and package them.  Yep, I plan to pre-package everything so that way I have the exact weight of the items and I can easily store them until they sell. 

creativly speaking

Lately I've been calling my 3rd bedroom my creative space, which seems to fit all that I want the space to be; housing my workout gear, craft supplies, my workout gear, and home management system, and of course write my blog posts.  I'm pretty excited about my current plan, which I'll talk about later in another post, but I'm pretty sure it will make you laugh at how OCD I am when it comes to planning.  

It's been nice seeing the progression of the room even just over a few weeks.  Each day I have been working on a new task that moves at least one item out of the clutter zone and it's made the biggest difference.  It's also nice having some of my favorite things in use, like my vintage shelf that now houses my ceramic rooster, diy sun shine art, vintage deer stapler, and simply DIY art.  In the near future I plan to paint the vintage shelf love-in-the-mist (light blue) by Martha Stewart. 

Some other projects that will have to wait for another phase is painting my IKEA RIBBA frame Love-in-the-Mist.that I have show casing  an Eames print.  Can you tell I'm obsessed with this color blue?  Along with wrapping this pretty floral print from Joann's around a cork board.  I would prefer to hold off for now until I actually have my desk systems in place so I have a better grasp as to what size cork board I'll have room for. 

I would like to paint 2 of the walls the Love-In-the-Mist as well, and add in Moonglow (light green) and the pink from Cave Girl Office Reveal as my accent colors. 

At this point I don't have a deadline for the space to be complete as I know it's going to take some patience on my part to allow for time to find the exact pieces, in the right color and a convenient location.  It would definitly take less time if I bought the items new, but I just can't afford to do that right now so I'll be keeping an eye out on craigslist. 

For now I just have to use what I have on hand and try to make things work, but it's not been easy.  My desk is held up by two end tables so it's not quite table height so I end up hunching over in my chair to work. 

shock and aw at the market

I'm sure you'll drop over in shock when I tell you that my mom and I went to our local Flea Market this morning to sell.  Yep, I know what a huge shock and it wasn't even my idea.  Willing without prodding my mom started going through things in the hallway yesterday sorting, and pricing while I worked on our 3rd floor.  It was amazing how much stuff we really had just lying around.  Our neighbor Ty, about 15, came over to help take things down to the main floor and gathered a few of the mega block toys and some other items from the basement.  

It really helped pricing things before hand and really it took no time at all to get things ready.   I was really expecting it to be more be more pain stacking then it was.  Our new neighbors, who had just moved in this week, even came over and bought a few things before we packed up the van.

So on our first day of gathering we already sold an  4 IKEA coffee mugs, a 6pc blue decorative plate set from TJ MAXX, jeanette rose plates, vinttage Jeannette china Desert Rose pattern, vinage canister set and an IKEA Knife block,

It wasn't long after they headed back next door that we started to load up the van.  For as bad as everything looked in our living room once we packed everything in the van it didn't look like much; however after gathering a few more items before we headed to bed and in the morning the van was jammed packed with money making potentials. 

My alarm sounded around 6 this morning and I was a bit nervous since there was no sign of movement from my mom.  However, by the time I finished my shower my mom was already downstairs gathering the items from the living room and loading them in the van.

Once everything was loaded and our snacks packed we made our way a few miles down the road.  We were unsure we were even in the right placed since there were no signs except for a camper show, but once we round the corner and felt a litter better until we had a short moment of did we miss a cut off time to pay to enter since there was no one at the toll houses; however once we passed through and asked a seller he directed us to the man in charge of lot assignments and after paying $15 for 2 spaces we rounded the market to find the best spot and ended up at the same spot we originally thought about taking.

Before we started setting up a few early birds came over asking up questions who were looking for jewelry and other trinket items; however we had none of the asking.  We mainly brought mega block toys, doggy accessories and walking items, some vintage items, a small amount of baby clothes, and some other miscellaneous items. 

We filled up a both parking spaces, which also included our van taking up the back half of the two spaces.  We sold a good bit in the beginning and towards 10am, but it was mostly dead and even the people we saw walking along didn't have much in purchases.  Oh, yes and I can't forget to mention that I had two guys make a move.  Yep, totally not lying.  I was just wearing my daily yoga pants and a modern large floral top and some makeup; nothing fancy.  The first gentleman was older about my grandfather's age who bought a truck with mega blocks for a neighbor kid and an adjustable dog bowl set for the stray cats near his house.  I had walked over to his van carrying some of the items he bought to be helpful.  Plus he was walking with a cane so he didn't have much in free hands to make this in one trip.   Before heading back to the van he asked me when would be the next time I would run into him and mentioned about getting my number and I chucked.  I mentioned that I enjoyed his conversation and we could talk again the next time we are both set up at the market, but politely mentioned that getting my number  wasn't going to happen.  I chucked the whole way back to our set up and mentioned it to my mom.  He seems safe, but it never hurts to inform those around you about men making moves that you've turned down especially just in case.

Oh, yes and a few hours later a man in his 30s came over to me and handed me a note and said it was from his friend at the set up a few lots down.  He also said that he waiting until I was away from my mom to hand me to the note so he didn't offend my mom.  It was a bit odd and felt a little like 2nd grade so it caught me off guard, but I opened up the letter and read it. 

If your curious, here's what it read:

If you didn't guess from my note above I did mention it to my mom, as again, you never know what type of people are out there so it's good to share situations like this.

I also had my mom not to long after our conversation walk around the market and see who my potential admirer was.  She didn't approve.  Although, my curious nature wasn't satisfied with her opinion and wanted to see for myself, so I wondered around the market again and ended up heading over there when being flagged by the young man who gave me the note.  I talked with the two of them and they seemed very nice, however, I did tell them a small white lie and mentioned that I was married.  The gentled seemed like a nice guy, but still a bit older then I would go for and not my type so it just seemed easier that way.  I'm sure God will forgive me of my lie this time and not judge me to harshly.

I didn't leave the market unscaled and brought home 2 small vintage finds that only stole $3.25 from our profits.  One of the items is a brass cottage house and picket fence key holder that will work beautifully for our spare keys.  The second item is a daisy kitchen timer by Mark Time that I've actually been eying on etsy for the last year.  My preference is the mustard color, but for $3 I will enjoy having the beige and brown option and using it when it times for our 15 minutes of declutting.  

Throughout the morning I jotted down a list of the items we were selling so at the end we could talley up our earnings have an exact account of what we made instead of estimating what we think we sold and made.

This was about 1/3 of what we had brought with us so overall I'm very happy with our results and we plan to attend next Sunday and the last market on the 25th and hopefully we can eliminate more items from our vast array of clutter and earn enough money to repoint our basement brick foundation.  We did eliminate a few awkward items and giving new life to our unused items.  Now someone else can enjoy some second hand love.  

What are some of your favorite finds from flea markets?

{10 minute} Fabric Letter DIY

There is nothing like a little color to put a smile on your face and that's just what this little project did.  Yep, I'm smiling one because I completed a DIY project and two I have color on my walls!  It all started with in April when I finally installed my Run Strong gallery wall.  It included a few inspiration quotes and images that revolved around running.  I was was over joyed at how it turned out, but a few weeks ago I was trying to think of a way to add some color since mostly everything is white.  

Well, as I was sorting through a few things in my spare room I came across a few pieces of vintage fabric given to me earlier this year.  I wasn't sure what to do with them so I had them in my spare room and just this last week I knew exactly what I wanted to use one of the fabrics for as soon as I read this fabric wrapped letter DIY.   So the other night I gathered all of my supplied and while watching a movie I began wrapping my R. 

Supplies:

* batting

* fabric 

* scissors 

*staple gun
* cardboard or wood letter

I also came across this Fabric Letter DIY Fabric Art that makes using the cardboard letters a bit more interesting. I will definitely have to try this when I find a coordinating fabric to wrap around the sides.

I first started by wrapping the batting around and stapled it to the letter, though I think using spray adhesive would have worked nicely to.

As you can see it doesn't look very pretty from the backside, but the good thing is that no one will ever notice unless you take it down and show them.  I had already had a command strip Velcro attached to the letter so I made sure not to cover it so I can hang it back on the wall.

 

You can still see where the fabric was to short to go around the thick side of the letter, which is why at some point I will do some coordinating fabric to adhere around the edges so it doesn't look so rough.

 Ah, now isn't that better.

Simple Living part 3

HomeCare

Here is the last part of the Series Keeping the Balance and with it I hope to achieve a maintainable plan in creating a neat and happy house.  The one thing that I struggle with is my perfectionist personality, yes I willing admit to my slight type "A" personality that likes to have things in their place and really as a single adult with no children I don't feel like that should be difficult.  However, since purchasing a home that is almost 3x the size of any apartment I've resided in and has 2.5 bathrooms it feels a bit overwhelming to keep up with.   It's also not just myself that I'm cleaning up after, since my mom moved in with me last June and she doesn't share the same tidy-home philosophy.

For me it's been easy, because of the number of moves I've made in my 7 years living in Colorado.  I started out with a huge load and with each move I downsized, and even between moves I would sort through my items and make regular trips to the goodwill.  However, my mom has been primarily stationary for the last decade and even with the 3 moves she did make anything that didn't fit (floor to ceiling stacked) in her apartment was taken to a storage unit, and left there to be sorted through later.  Although nothing has really been done there except to add more items.   The sad part is that most of the items were not purchased with the idea of using them, but with the intent of reselling.  Let's just say that she never following though with that and she never learned to stopped purchasing items so her material items kept creating more chaos and taking up more space.  

I will say this that in the last year my mom  has  made some strides in improving on this habit.  We have sold many items and things FINALLY clearing out.    I do feel like we should be further though this battle, but there is always an excuse not to work on this process.  My mom does have many strengths that come in handy, like calling the city to take care of garbage left by previous tenants, trimming tree branches that have caused damage to other home dwellers in our neighborhood and on top she also works full time as a in-home care giver. 

Goals

A lot of her items are small and many, so what I hope to achieve is creating a numbering system to log them and then find a home for the items in the basement once they have been posted for sale.  Being that our basement is unfinished all items will need to be safely stored in sealed containers to keep them clean, and easy to reference.  I also hope to that the items will sell and well gain some much needed income to use for bills and replacement items.  I also want to schedule a day each week for us to work on these items, and have an area in the house where we can take professional-novice photos. 

Moving toward a tidy MCM Home

Life can be funny sometimes and remind you just how simple things really can be when it's the right time, and now seems to be that time for us.  We've been working on smaller projects that have allowed us to move forward in our tidy mcm home and it's filled us with such joy.

I also love that by traveling to DC and Baltimore has helped to remind me of how much I love to travel and that I don't want to spend my days cleaning my home, but that I want to spend my time with people I love and blessing them.  It's also ironic how I bless people is cleaning and organizing, which really is a passion of mine, and I'm glad to inspire others in that same direction.  

A few of the things we've done lately that has spun the wheel towards our mcm home was selling our sectional.   It's really been a process, as I started out with just wanting to sell the left side - one arm chase, but it wasn't meant to be until I was ready to part with the entire set.  So after taking new photos and updating the listing the sectional sold on May 17th. 
 

It was a joyous feeling that filled my heart when the living room was empty for the first time since moving in and now I was free to begin the journey of creating a tidy mcm living room.  I had to keep reminding myself to be patient during this search so I wouldn't buy something, because I think it would work and I may love it, but I really had to love it....like eyes light up I LOVE this piece for us to buy it.   

Surprisingly it didn't take long and to find exactly what I wanted in my space and for far less then what we sold the sectional for.  It was pretty fantastic actually, and we even made a few new friends along the way and found some new stores to check out. 

 Instagram Sneak Peak: Sofa

 As written in the journey of creating a tidy mcm living room I talked about how we scored our mcm sleeper sofa, and after a few weeks I'm still loving this piece and sit on it often.  I'm also really looking forward to doing a DIY on my $4 mcm table tripod lamp.

 Instagram Sneak Peak:: Living Room MCM finds 

I think my favorite part of this journey is that it really didn't take long.  It was almost magical - like it was meant to be for us to find these items now.  It was such a fun time to spend with my mom and even more magical when we agreed on a few of the pieces, well maybe not the tripod table lamp, but the couch - YES!  You know it's meant to be when two people who agree to disagree on furniture styles find a happy medium and my home is really starting to reflect my love of the 1950s simple living.

 I'm also really glad that we waited and for only $80 we found a great loveseat for our space that was also a sleeper so we didn't have to compromise about having a place for guests to sleep.  This was such a blessing and saved us over $500 on buying a new sofa that I really didn't love, but could have worked.  Also, I love that the bottom legs are simple screw in pegs so I can swap them out for tapered legs. Oh, and I almost forgot to mention that the sofa is pretty light, even for a sleeper sofa.  A guy friend and myself moved it from the van to the house and it's pretty easy to maneuver in the house as well.  I love easy to move furniture!

I'm also very excited to have a sofa/loveseat height that works with my mcm tapered round end tables.  They are so adorable and at only $2.50 for a set of 2 was a steal. I'm also loving the scalloped edge black magazine rack that I found at the Salvo I purchased the sofa at.  I found it when we went back to pick up the sofa 2 days later. 

I'm hoping to have my gallery wall up and displayed in the next week or two, but I've been pretty hesitant on hanging anything.  I'm a command strip kind of gal, because I always end up hanging things up wrong.  This time I'm gathering some extra cardboard to cut out the frame shapes and note where the holes go and hope to purchase some picture ledges from IKEA so I can create a similar look to #3 on my design board.

As you can see my dining room is also being weeded out and the large objects are finding new homes.   My mom's had a commercial elliptical for a few years and it's been moved between my living and dining room since moving in and really neither of us use it enough to justify keeping it.  I had it posted on Craigslist a few months ago and people kept trying to talk us down so I had taken the ad down.

In May I decided to create a new listing with fresh photos and within 2 weeks the elliptical was been sold to a young medical couple who is very excited, which makes my heart happy knowing that it's going to a good home.   They were also very impressed with the quality and smoothness of the Precor, especially for our asking price. He is receiving a quality machine for about half the price new & I'm glad to bless such a lovely couple, especially one who is very grateful to have it. 

It's funny how it all happened, like an aha moment when you know it was meant to be. Now this lovely cruiser bike that I purchased on June 1st resides in it place.

What are some successes you've had with downsizing and decluttering?  Have you had any aha moments or just hit the right timing?

part 1: Fit Life
part 2: The Social Dancer

2013-03-20 GID: Bathroom Chaos

This room has been in total chaos for several months now; really for the last year since I can count on one hand how long the room has stayed clear. My mom has A-LOT of things; really they are everywhere and even when I think I'm making progress she'll find something to clutter up the space. It's very frustrating even for the non-neat freak that I am and I am a firm believer that things should have a home so they go back to it every time. My mom just put's it where ever there is space and sometimes she just shoves thing into a space - like the fridge. Even with things labeled she still makes her own space for items. Again, very frustrating. 

On Sunday I really just had enough of this room, enough of walking past piles of stuff and leaping over things so I can get to my washer and dryer so I took charge of clearing out the room. My mom is great at avoiding cleaning out clutter; she'll always find an excuse why she hasn't gotten to it and to her it's always legit.

for the most part my mom and I get along, it's really just the stuff and clutter that makes up most of our quarrels, but as you can see from the before photo you can understand why I quarrel over clutter.  

While cleaning out I cleared out the white plastic shelf in the bottom left photo& 2 others that you can't see, because there is so much in the room.  The two boxes under the laundry basket in the bottom right photo is mostly items that need to be listed on Amazon - Books and DVD's which have no place being the bathroom.  I moved them out into the hallway in hopes that my mom will sort through them this week.    Plus, we've moved a bookshelf to my 3rd floor to house our Amazon listings so we can find them when they sell so I know she'll be more likely to take care of the now.  

She had about 6 tubes of toothpaste, 5 deodorants, about 4 cups of liquid eye drop packets and another few cups of the liquid bottles,  8 chapsticks,  6 moisturizers, and 5 toe nail clippers just to name a few things she had hiding in there.  I took all the extra items and they will be moved to the basement where we have several shoe boxes that house our extra toiletries. 

There is also a tall hamper on wheels that you can see below in the before pictures.  It was being housed in front of the tub.  It works much better in it's new location where it's out of the way and easy to move when we need to get to the washer and dryer.  

Alright, finally it's cleared out.........Yeah!!!  I can walk right in and not trip or anything and I can easily get to my washer and dryer.  Goal achieved. 

As you can see it's still a huge difference with how clean and sorted everything is, but there is still work to be done with making it more like home.   Like painting all the walls.  I had painted the toilet wall area a pretty blue, but I think I want to change it out and all the other walls are still the original yellow.  I would like to put some type of shelving above the sinks and eliminate the odd shaped wire shelves my mom had installed behind my back.   I'd also like to see the base cabinet go at some point.  It's just way to big for the space and not practical.  Really what I would like is a linen closet, that would be fantastic, but that's still a bit out of my league to attempt. 

I left some things for my mom to do since this is technically her bath space.  I use the one on the 3rd floor so ALL of this stuff is hers.  There are a few organizers I left onto of the base cabinet next to the toilet, and the items behind the door and on the door I didn't touch.  I also asked her to do a deep clean the bathroom while all the surfaces are cleared.  I also added some things in her tub like extra  shampoos/conditioners for her to choose ones she wanted to use now and the rest will go downstairs with the extra's.

3013-02-27 GID: Home to do updates

For being sick this last week I've made some good progress with the house, and if you follow me on instagram then you've seen a glimpse into my progress.  It's been fun getting some of these little projects done that I've been procrastinating because I'm really not crafty or real great with any power tool other than my power drill.  

My mom had brought home a Wardrobe for us to use in the living room, but it was just way to obtrusive into my entry way and there was no other place to put it.  I decided to use it for a while, but when we started to post more items onto craigslist she agreed to put this up.  We ended up lowering the price & re-listing the ad each time in the few weeks (always deleting the old one, such a pet peeve to see duplicate ads).  I was glad to get what we did since 2 sellers in Baltimore were selling the same on for half of what I got out of it and the two ladies who bought it were delighted to get it.  I think as delighted as I was to see it gone when I got home.  

What's even better is the IKEA TJUSIG Hat and coat stand that I was going to replace it with I scored on the 9th from a person in Camp Hill who was selling the white and silver one for $20, that's a $30 savings from the original price and it was in new condition and all put together. 

My inspiration for this project came from a pinterest search for Scandinavian wall art.   More to come in a post soon.

Can you believe it I not only committed to a color for my kitchen, but I actually started painting it!!!  With all the priming and prepping I had to do I only managed to complete this side of the kitchen, but more to come with Martha Stewart saves the day part 2

I found this curtain pair at Marshall's Wednesday while out and about and had planned on hanging it in my living room, however, it was a food to short, but turned out to go very well in my kitchen.  I grabbed my Home Depot curtain rod that I've been storing for my bedroom, but had recently decided not to use for, and attempted to install it on the wall.  I like the look, not in love with it.  I still really want it for my living room, but for now this is the home where it will reside. 

I had bought these pretty curtains from Marshals and I thought they would look amazing in my living room, well once the walls are repainted, but they turned out to be a food to short for the space.  Plus, in order for them to look amazing I would need 2 panels for each window, and they only had 1 set available.  I ended up putting the current curtains back up, and moved the new curtains to the kitchen, as shown in the photo above. 

2013-02-20 GID: Martha Saves the day p1

Master Spa Reveal

My Master Suite has been in a state of blah since I moved in last year and my design inspiration has been zilch.  When I first moved in I thought that purple would be a good color, but after painting a sample patch on the wall I decided to pass.  since then that purple patch has been driving me crazy and I've been wanting to paint to cover it.

As you can see everything is a bit crowded here and the cords to the radio are unsightly.  I dislike the lighting above and the unpractical, but pretty tilted mirror. 

I did manage to score an art deco inspired paper towel holder from Marshall's for under $10 to used to hold my tp.  I wasn't sure if the roll would fit over the triangle top, but it's a perfect fit and works wonderfully. I also found a pretty mint quilting square that I ironed and mounted in the frame above the toilet. 

The towel rod was just unpractical for my 2 towel use each day and it ended up just having things draped over it so I took 3-tier towel rack my mom hadn't been using that worked for a while, but really just took up to much space.

A few months ago, I started to narrow my color search to mint, but I was still hesitant on a specific shade or brand until I found a room inspiration from  Kristen and Mike's Mid-Century Oasis Home Tour on Apartment Therapy.  I feel in love with their dining room color Araucana Teal (flat) by Martha Stewart and there launched an easier way to choose my color scheme.  

source

At my next trip to Home Depot I checked out their paint swatches and found a happy point with the Araucana Teal family and left with several swatches to think about, including Sea Grass and Popcorn which are going to make up my new spa chic master suite.

Two weeks after that trip I headed back to Home Depot to return some supplies from my basement project that I had yet to start and left spending my return + some to get a gallon of Sea Glass, Endive, & Kilz Primer.

It took several hours to even be ready to paint the bathroom, since every time I had to head back downstairs to gather some supply I missed I would be distracted by cleaning something or checking my email since were trying to keep open for email inquiries from our craigslist ad since most people tend to set visits during the week.  I was sure I had gathered all my supplies the other day when I was in the basement, but around 2pm when I started the prep work I realized I had missed a few supplies like my paint extension stick, an 8' ladder so I could tape the ceiling, and hardware to hang my towel rails.  Let's just say I got my exercise that day going up and down 3 flights of stairs and finally around 6pm I got around to actually painting.

Since my plan is to sell the overhead lighting I didn't fuss to much with painting near the light since once it is removed I could easily paint over the whole area.  So for the time being I just wrapped the fixture in 2 plastic bags to keep from having any paint mishaps.  I hope to replace them with a pair of IKEA SAVERN Wall Lamps or something similar.  Once the room was painted I found myself really liking the current fixure, so I may just give it more time before making any changes to the lighting. 

I was also glad to finally install the Grundtal Towel rail I had purchased 6+ months ago from IKEA and I love how it looks.  I actually fell in love with my master suite when I saw the color on the wall and I just love how everything turned out.  I never would have dreamed this bathroom would look this beautiful.

1.

IKEA bench that contains my morning toiletries.

2.

I had purchased this frame to actually frame quote art on the towel wall, but I had gotten the idea to frame the clock and when I tested it really liked how it looked; almost like a flower or sunbeam.    

3.

Love, love, love my Starbucks coffee cup I found 2nd hand for only $0.50 and it fits well with my decor and design style for the bathroom.  It holds my coets (aka flat cotton balls I use for my toner).  I purchased the acrylic turntable at Target for $12. 

4.

It's so nice to finally have the Grundtal installed and I love how it looks against the green.  It's also perfect to hang my hair and body towel and I don't have to reach far after my shower.

5.

The towel rod has knobs behind the rail, so you can either hang a single towel or 4 towels with ribbon hooks, but it fits my deodorant well and now I have easy access after my shower.  Though once I install a mirrored medicine cabinet above the sink the deodorant will go in there.  

6.

I like how the gold flower shelf looks against the green and it holds a lovely photography of a white horse that I found online.  At some point my veneer birch cabinet will go there, but that will have to wait until the budget allows. 

2013-02-06 GID January Cure Updates

Since the January Cure began I've been working hard on little and big projects and thankfully, finally crossing off house to do's off my list.  My main floor is looking pretty amazing right now and is actually presentable for guest.  I had thought I would throw a Mimosa and Pancakes brunch for my gathering, but with still so much to do I've decided to keep it small and just have an old friend over for dinner instead.  I plan to still host the Mimosa party, but after I've repainted the first level and hopefully by then I'll have sold my one-arm sofa and IKEA Adobode Wardrobe {using for coat storage} and replaced them with an IKEA TJUSIG coat rack and IKEA Strandmon Wing Back Chair.

IKEA WARDROBE CRAIGSLIST AD

KLAUSSNER SOFA CRAIGSLIST AD

Lately, my mind has been going in lots of design directions for my bedroom, kitchen and office/guest bath and I've got lots of index cards with ideas that are ready to be implemented.  Last weekend I headed to JoAnn Fabrics and gathered a few supplies, but will need to revisit and swap out a few items in order to finish.

Here are a few index designs I'm working on:

I'm really loving this design and that it inspires me to wake up in the morning.  I had originally thought to spell out WAKE UP, then went to MORNING, and am now set on RISE & SHINE.  Once the letters have been wrapped in yarn and spray painted the gallery will be added in between my windows.  The current gallery wall will be taken down that I had added in my last bedroom redesign, but didn't have any particular meaning. The mirror is one I purchased second hand and plan to paint the cream plastic floral frame white to match my RIBBA IKEA high gloss white frame.  It's also a nice symbol for the sun. 

I have a beautiful heavy duty copper frame that's 24x36 that has an ordinary print that I'm not a fan of, but I love the frame. I've been on a debate on what to do with this, but now plan to hang it to the left of my bed with the quote from Paul Reese Believe You can do it, Think no other way, but "Yes You Can." The Human Body is Capable of considerably more physical endurance then most of us can believe. I really love this quote and hope to read it everyday as a reminder that I can be more and do more then I think I can. The art print I plan to spray paint white and then use stencils to paint the letters on.

I purchased a gallon of the Sea Glass {minty green} for my guest bath and the Endive {celery green} for my kitchen as well as a KILLZ primer to paint over the California surfer blue that's currently on the wall.  I also purchased sample of the nimbus cloud {grey} to see if I want it on more than one wall.  I'm pretty excited for the colors and look forward to seeing the new colors on my wall.  The plan is to tackle that this Saturday and forgo my trip to IKEA.  I figure it would be best to go when I can also Purchase the Wing Back Chair - once the sofa and IKEA wardrobe is sold. 

October 22, 2013 update
I have since decided not to do the rise and shine cardboard letter art nor the copper frame art, but I did spray paint the flower mirror and am using it above my dresser as part of my make up station.