Challenge Space - The Home Office

I'm obviously not embarrassed to show off my extreme messes.  This is my home office.  It's attached to the master bedroom and you actually walk through it to get to my closet, or the screened in porch.  I actually do work from home a couple days a week, so I spend quite a bit of time in this room.

It's an absolute mess.  It has looked like this for years.  My office needs to serve dual purposes as being the place I can actually work my professional job and be the family command center.  You know a place to store all the school papers that come home and pay the bills.

This is the space I picked that I wanted to do a complete overhaul.  Both design wise and cleaning/organizing wise.

So here is what I am planning to do over the next month or so:

1.  Purge the space.  Letting go of old documents and books that are severely outdated.
2.  Deep clean the space.
3.  Paint the walls.
4.  Hang photos/artwork.
5.  New curtains....TBD.
6.  Rug?

To anyone else out there fighting the battle of school papers, I have some organizational ideas I will share with you later this week.

For today, I can share with you the progress I made on the first step, purging.  Here is how the home office looks after taking down 10 baskets full of recycled paper.

Now it's time to deep clean and get things moved and prepped to paint.

In Progress

We got hit with a major "weather story" ice storm a couple weekends ago.  I say that because the ice storm was predicted but did not come to fruition, at least not as much as they claimed it would.  What it did do.  It canceled school and it also canceled our holiday party.  The holiday party has been rescheduled and I am still slowly working on my new dress.

The other new project we have been working on around here is our basement stairs.  And my we I mean my husband has been doing more of the working and I have been watching the kiddos and trying to keep them out of his way.

Here are the stairs as they currently stand.  All primed and ready to go.

Now the question is.....where to go from here.  I have a few ideas and my husband has an idea of his own.

My husband would like them to stay all white, matching the trim color, and then adding either a runner or carpet stair treads.  And if I can find the right runner for the right price....I'm on board.  But I also want to look at just painting the stairs.  Or you could paint the risers either in different colors or using some type of pattern.

So for now we sit with primed stairs, just waiting for a decision.

Bathroom Curtains

I did a post a few months back when I was trying to figure out what we were going to do with our bathroom window.

Well, the bathroom looks good, but it definitely needs some color added to it.  And curtains can certainly accomplish that.

I received my fabric order yesterday, so here is a sneak peek of the window and fabric (plus you can see the chandelier is finally installed, and the fabric is sitting on the tub which is also installed).

Now if I can make myself stay up past my kids’ bedtimes, I might actually get these sewn in a couple of days.  Which I know my husband would appreciate, finally having something covering the window.  We also need to find trim to finish out the window itself.  I guess we can call it a race to see who can get their piece accomplished first…the curtains from me or the finish trim from Jesse.

Main Floor Bella’s Room–Week 6

Let’s get another update on the construction process.  Our contractor is pretty much finished up, minus a few cleaning items and such.  Last week he completed the installation of all the tiles.  So it was our turn to get in the rooms and start painting.

I’ll admit having to prime and paint both ceilings and walls takes quite a while, and quite a few coats.  We still are not done, but here is a sneak peak of Bella’s bathroom.

You may notice the painted piece of furniture sneaking it’s way into the photos.  This is the piece we decided to paint and turn into a vanity.  The color actually matches the shower floor tile better than the picture is showing.

You may also notice that the wall color is matching the wall tile.  Total accident, but it works.

We have another coat of wall paint that needs to go up and then it’s time to install trim/baseboards.  Once that’s finished the vanity needs to be put together and hooked up to the water lines and the toilet can be installed.  At that point we pretty much have a working bathroom.

But let’s talk another design dilemma.

Barn doors.  They are creeping up everywhere and I really want to use one between Bella’s bedroom and bathroom.

Here is an example of a barn door between a bedroom and bathroom.

My dad actually has an old door laying around that I would like to convert, but I’m afraid with the 36” opening we did for handicap accessibility, the old door won’t quite be wide enough to cover the space.  But here is an example of what the door looks like.  I would probably paint mine a mint green color to match the bathroom color scheme.

There is also the possibility to make your own doors out of wood.  I really like this double x door idea shown below.  But the likelihood of getting a door like this made is very slim around these parts…we are busy.

Another good option is the lightweight barn door application.  It’s lightweight because it’s a frame of wood with fabric in the middle.  You could potentially use an indoor/outdoor fabric to create the door that would hopefully work all right in the bathroom environment.

I think I have my husband on board for the barn door idea.  Now we just have to agree on the execution of the door and finding the time to get it made/installed.

Window Dressing

My husband and I have a problem.

It all deals with the window in our bathroom and how to keep the neighbors from seeing in.  Or seeing us naked to be more exact!

My husband wants blinds.  They are easy and they match the rest of our house.  Here is a photo from our hall bathroom, and our master bathroom window would look similar with blinds.

I want curtains.  I have been obsessed with them ever since I saw an episode of Sarah Richardson’s design show and she put these curtains in the bathroom.

I don’t have yellow going on in my bathroom, but have thought about these sheer curtains, seen below.

A compromise between the two might be to do something like shutters seen below.

Ours is just one small window to cover.  Stay tuned for decisions made….or who will win?

Getting Closer

I have my small office housed in our bedroom’s sitting room.  I have been slowly making it over and trying to make it more functional.  My office inspiration was this picture.

Although to be honest, in my profession we have a lot of books and we use a lot of paper.  So my office will always look busier than this one, but the other month we got a little closer to my inspiration when we finally added a chandelier to the room.

I really like the beaded chandeliers, but they can be a little pricey.  I happened to have an extra chandelier laying around.  This one to be exact.

We took it out of the dining room when we replaced it with our craigslist find during our dinning room remodel.  I was super excited to find out that I could twist the arms of the chandelier up, and once I covered it with a coat of Antique Bronze spray paint…it now looks like this.

I still think I might be able to add some beading at some point, but for now it makes a huge improvement to the lighting in my little office.

By the Way – that picture is actually pretty clean for my office to look.  I did mention I swim in paperwork!  I also apparently don’t believe in staging my photos, what you see is what you get.

Ways you will use Math after school–Making a slipcover

At first I thought I could just use a picture and take measurements on my chair and come up with a perfect slipcover on my own.

Then McCall’s patterns were 70 cents, and they happened to have a slipcover pattern that I could modify for my own use.  I was sold.

I didn’t think it would be a walk in the park, but I thought it would be manageable.  I spent hours and hours taking measurements and modifying the pattern pieces, then cutting out the fabric itself.  I followed the directions and kept trying on the slipcover as I went.  Even with taking measurements, I was having to adjust quite a few things as I sewed, especially around curves.  I was also finding that I didn’t really make all of my adjustments correctly.

But in the end here is what I came up with.

From the front it actually looks quite good.  From the back…it’s a disaster.

Notice the weird gaping part in the middle back.  That is were common sense comes in.  I cut all the pieces exact to fit.  When I went to slip the cover on, I realized one huge fatal flaw.  I could not get the skinner bottom piece of the upper chair back over the wider upper portion of the chair back.

So I had to cut a slit in the slipcover and sew in some extra fabric.  Eventually I plan to sew on some buttons so I can close it up and it will look better.

Another problem is that the back must have taller proportions that the front, because if you look closely the skirt slopes up towards the back.

That would be an easy fix by adjusting the bottom hem, but I just don’t feel like taking it all apart and sewing it up again.  So for now I will live with it.

The pleats turned out pretty good.  I should probably go back and iron it, but again, I just want to be done with it!

The one slipcovered chair has made its way down to the kitchen.  Only 3 more to go, and I am really hoping they go smoother and that I have fixed all the kinks.

It will definitely be a bold pattern to break up our boring brown kitchen.

Stress

I’ve been a little down on myself lately.

I’ve been super busy at work, on what turned out to be a pretty stressful project.  In my life stress means I don’t take care of myself, I’m tired, and I don’t want to do anything.

My days consist of getting the kids ready in the morning, working all day, and then taking care of the kids again around 4pm when they are done with school/sitters, etc.  Once the kids are in bed at 8:30pm, I’ll admit I often just head straight to bed myself, that is how tired I am.  In fact my husband and I have hardly had any time to speak to each other lately.  We usually eat dinner together, but besides that we have the divide and conquer theory of taking care of the kids, since they like to do such different things.  And if we are both going to sleep as soon as the kids are asleep, well we don’t have any alone time together either.

I also haven’t really been concentrating on eating good.  Whatever is easy, fast, and minimal clean up is what has been going on the table around here.  I noticed on our last months budget we had almost tripled the amount of money spent on going out to eat.  That directly affects how I have been feeling about myself, how my clothes have become tighter in the past month.  I also have been so tired that the thought of doing any physical exercise makes me want to curl up and ignore the world.

I was so excited for the school year to start.  To have both kids taken care of and doing exciting activities on their own for the majority of the day – 5 days a week.  Except after being at school for only 2 days, both kids got sick.  And then a few days later, I caught their same cold.  More miserableness for our household ensued.

We are finally at the tail end of our colds.  My stressful project at work is finally over.  Both kids are loving school.  I am finally seeing a light at the end of the tunnel.  One that I hope stays bright for quite awhile before the next thing hits us…because it always does.

I have been itching to be creative again, to eat better/prepare more meals, and yes to even get in more exercise.

So I have jumped off and am tackling a huge daunting project.

We have this kitchen table and chair set that we bought off craigslist a couple of years ago.  It was ugly when we bought it, and I always had plans to change it.  Here is an old picture (Oct. ‘12) showing the set with it’s usual mess on top.

My plan was the re-stain the table a deeper color like the photo below and to make a slipcover for the chairs.

I may have talked about these plans before, but I have actually started working on it.

And now that I have started the project I am asking myself if having fabric chairs around young children is really a smart thing to do?  I will just have to hope that the stain guard I spray on them really works, and that if needed since the fabric will slip off, I can wash it and not ruin it. 

Anyone else have fabric kitchen chairs and young children?

Dining Room Changes

We just finished up remodeling our dining room.  We didn’t do anything major as far as changing layouts, knocking down walls, etc.  We did manage to touch pretty much every surface of the room.

When changing colors in a room, don’t over look the power of spray paint.  Or even paint in general.  All our decorations and furniture were from our first house.  In our first house I went with a burnt orange color.  Therefore my decorations were that same orange color.

But a little spray paint on the plate easily changes it from orange to navy blue.

And a little antique bronze paint on the candles takes them from orange to metallic.

I also used the scraps from the new drapes to sew a table runner.  I am thinking about adding some metallic paint to that as well, but have not attempted it yet.

And lastly the old dining room chairs had a faux black leather seat cushion.  Seat cushions are very easy to change out, and make such a dramatic difference when you add a bold print.

And let’s not forget we also spray painted the chandelier to get rid of the bright white candle holders and made them also navy blue to blend into the room better.

So if you get tired of your old decorations….see if you can paint them before you decide to buy new!

If you would like to see all the before and after pictures of our dinning room remodel click here.

Sources of Inspiration

There are a couple of design shows that I like to watch religiously.  Project Runway is one of them.  I usually have clear favorites when watching, but this season the designers have been all over the place and the challenges have been so “limiting” that it’s hard for me to pick a favorite.

I do however have two different designs that I am eyeing and hope to recreate one day.

First up is a chiffon number.  The judges didn’t actually like this print, and I sort of agree.  I do however have a chiffon print that I already purchased and was hoping to make into a dress, once I saw this design it gave me an idea.

This second one I absolutely love.  I love love love it.  I don’t think I can pull off as deep a plunge in the front, and I definitely can’t pull off as high of a slit, but maybe something halfway like it could be done.  This was made out of a soft jersey knit fabric with leather trim.

I also have been watching Fashion Star lately.  Does anyone else watch it and get mad when Saks Fifth Avenue buys something that you like?  Because then you know you can never ever buy it, the price will be ridiculously expensive.  Plus it just goes to show you that it could be the exact same item of clothing but sold in a different store can make it 100 times more expensive (maybe a slight exaggeration!).

Anyways…I am really starting to like jumpsuits.  Here was a design from last week’s episode.  It was for sale at Express, but all colors have sold out already.  I really wish I could have gotten over to the store to try it on.  I really want to make one, but I’m not sure how it will look on me.

I’m thinking maybe I should attempt a shorts style one first…like this one.

Because if nothing else, it would make a cute swimsuit cover-up!

Pinterest Challenge Wrap-Up

It’s time to wrap up my pinterest challenge.  If you have been following me you know I have one more item left to create, which has been postponed due to Easter.  So here is my original pinterest board for the challenge.

 

I ended up doing a super secret pinterest challenge instead of #1, Disney inspired pictures - posted here.

I completed the crazy sock monkey pants out of knit scraps all sewn together posted here.

I painted on a dress I already owned in a similar fashion to this inspiration photo and posted about it here.

I repurposed an old sweater and turned it into a new printed shirt and posted on it here.

I attempted to make the globe as shown in the inspiration photo, but haven’t found the right pieces to finish it out posted here.

Lastly I switched out making the sweatshirt since it should be the beginning of warmer weather.  I was going to switch it up and make a fancy lace dress for an upcoming wedding.  Since Easter came first I went ahead and switched it up again and made this dress posted here.

I plan to continue making pinterest inspiration pieces once a week or so.  Next up will be this lace dress.

Check back to see how it goes.