A New Year, A New Start
I love the beginning of a new year. I love the freshness of it. I love that I can indulge my cleaning and purging tendencies without my family thinking I'm too much of a weirdo.
The boys are off of school until Monday. I was determined that this week would be a git 'er dun week and so far it has been!
First of all, I got completely caught up on scrapbooking. I have about 5 pictures from 2013 that are waiting for me at Costco, but that's it!! Woo to the hoo! Major accomplishment right there. So glad that's done.
Second, I was able to make a bunch of stuff like laundry detergent, milk kefir, yogurt, etc. I'd really slacked off on all those things with all of the holiday busyness so it felt good to get back on track.
Third? Welllll, I did a little switch-aroo today. Ever since we moved to this house, I knew that we needed to get a couple of large cabinets or something to fill in the space around the tv in our livingroom. The little Target shelves that we've had in every single house since our first home 14 years ago just weren't cutting it. They were way undersized to the point that they looked a bit silly. But we just didn't have the money to go out and buy something new. I realized a couple days ago that I actually already have the perfect shelves! I know, DUH. I mean, really. See last year I was all on fire about getting some large bookshelves for the schoolroom. We found the perfect shelves at IKEA. They are large, but they fit perfectly in the schoolroom, one on either side of the window. Perfect. So the realization I had was that the big shelves in the little room could be swapped out for the little shelves in the big room therefore fixing all of my (decorating) problems with zero cost on our part.
Here's the before and after.
Here are the little shelves in their new home:
Much better!
Also: the desk was in the same spot but pulled out from the window and turned the other way. So in order to sit you had to walk around the desk. It looked nice and I liked that I could sit at my desk and see both boys at work, but it took up way too much space in this small room and I'm lazy so walking a-r-o-u-n-d the desk all the time got old.
Also, also: See the chairs in front of the bookcases in the first picture? Those were oops chairs. We bought them simply because they were paired with our couch at the furniture store. Yeah.... Didn't measure for them or anything. For the past two and a half years they have been in our livingroom, off to the wall on the right, pushed together like some kind of weird love seat. Except that our livingroom isn't made for a love seat so the person who sat on the near end could kinda see what was on the tv, but the person on the far end could see nothing. It was an odd set-up in that these chairs were neither good for tv viewing, conversation, nor were they visually integrated into the room. Now each chair sets in front of a shelf and they face the couch. Still lousy for tv viewing, but the other concerns were addressed. I'll have to take what I can get.
Also, also, also: I did all of this with only help from the boys. I may be little, but if there's furniture to be moved and decorating to do - watch out! Ben's reaction when he got home was awesome!! We just casually chatted about swapping shelves, oh I dunno, two days ago, and then he comes home tonight to find it all done and decorated and nothing was broken or scratched or anything.
One more shot of the livingroom:
Sigh. Love it!
The boys are off of school until Monday. I was determined that this week would be a git 'er dun week and so far it has been!
First of all, I got completely caught up on scrapbooking. I have about 5 pictures from 2013 that are waiting for me at Costco, but that's it!! Woo to the hoo! Major accomplishment right there. So glad that's done.
Second, I was able to make a bunch of stuff like laundry detergent, milk kefir, yogurt, etc. I'd really slacked off on all those things with all of the holiday busyness so it felt good to get back on track.
Third? Welllll, I did a little switch-aroo today. Ever since we moved to this house, I knew that we needed to get a couple of large cabinets or something to fill in the space around the tv in our livingroom. The little Target shelves that we've had in every single house since our first home 14 years ago just weren't cutting it. They were way undersized to the point that they looked a bit silly. But we just didn't have the money to go out and buy something new. I realized a couple days ago that I actually already have the perfect shelves! I know, DUH. I mean, really. See last year I was all on fire about getting some large bookshelves for the schoolroom. We found the perfect shelves at IKEA. They are large, but they fit perfectly in the schoolroom, one on either side of the window. Perfect. So the realization I had was that the big shelves in the little room could be swapped out for the little shelves in the big room therefore fixing all of my (decorating) problems with zero cost on our part.
Here's the before and after.
Here are the little shelves in their new home:
Much better!
Also: the desk was in the same spot but pulled out from the window and turned the other way. So in order to sit you had to walk around the desk. It looked nice and I liked that I could sit at my desk and see both boys at work, but it took up way too much space in this small room and I'm lazy so walking a-r-o-u-n-d the desk all the time got old.
Also, also: See the chairs in front of the bookcases in the first picture? Those were oops chairs. We bought them simply because they were paired with our couch at the furniture store. Yeah.... Didn't measure for them or anything. For the past two and a half years they have been in our livingroom, off to the wall on the right, pushed together like some kind of weird love seat. Except that our livingroom isn't made for a love seat so the person who sat on the near end could kinda see what was on the tv, but the person on the far end could see nothing. It was an odd set-up in that these chairs were neither good for tv viewing, conversation, nor were they visually integrated into the room. Now each chair sets in front of a shelf and they face the couch. Still lousy for tv viewing, but the other concerns were addressed. I'll have to take what I can get.
Also, also, also: I did all of this with only help from the boys. I may be little, but if there's furniture to be moved and decorating to do - watch out! Ben's reaction when he got home was awesome!! We just casually chatted about swapping shelves, oh I dunno, two days ago, and then he comes home tonight to find it all done and decorated and nothing was broken or scratched or anything.
One more shot of the livingroom:
Sigh. Love it!
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