Shakin' In My Boots

You would think the writer of a home decor / diy blog is fearless when it comes to jumping into a new project.  Although I admit I am braver then most, there are still things that make me shake in my boots.  And in this particular case fear has kept really ugly window treatments on my walls for almost two years now.  Wow that is embarrassing!

I have told you about these babies before.

They are in the sun room and were left by the former owners...thank you for that.  They involve a lot of fabric and a pretty substantial anchoring system.  And to add insult to injury the rigging was screwed into the grass cloth walls.  


So all I could see in my mind where giant screw holes left behind in the very hard to match and patch grass cloth paper.  All this = me doing nothing.  


But today that all changed.  I got an itch to do something big.  Similar to the one that led to my husband waking up at 8am to the sound of me destroying a patio with a sledge hammer.  (That was several years ago in another house but it still comes up at parties.)

The problem with that "itch" is it usually leads to a mess, which is what you see going on above.  But the mess is totally worth it!  What used to look like this...

now looks like this...

The windows look huge, the grass cloth doesn't look so jungle and the holes in the walls aren't even that bad!

I even dragged the mess out to the garage and the room is for the most part back to normal.  All in a naps work.  

Now if you know me in the least you know the windows wont stay naked for long.  I have a plan to dress the windows back up (minus the jungle theme) and tie them into the rest of the first floor color scheme.  And I think I am going to be able to do it all on a pretty slim budget.  Keep your fingers crossed and I will keep you posted! 

Clean Up That Mess!

I was watching HGTV the other day (I know, shocker) and it was that show where they tell people if their renovations where worth the money.  Anyways, the kitchen they were looking at had a desk space and the designer said "Don't put a desk in the kitchen.  All it does is get filled up with piles of junk."  You know what, I have no idea what she was talking about.

OK so in truth my reaction was partly embarrassment, part relief that it wasn't just me and part "Nice! I have the builder to blame for my mess, not me!"  But any way you look at it I knew it was time for a fix. 

(Does it look any less messy in PicMonkey "HDR")


And just when this mess was about to eat up my desk entirely Marshall's to the rescue!

Hold on, quick tangent...I love HomeGoods as I'm sure you all do.  But the closest HomeGoods to me is not close at all, probably a couple hours away.  But did you know Marshall's owns HomeGoods?!?!  And most good Marshall's these days are expanding their "HomeGoods".  Meaning they have an increasingly good section of some of those goodies you would find at a HomeGoods store.  So if you are as far away as I am from the real deal check out your local Marshall's and you wont leave empty handed.

But back to the messy desk - a walk through Marshall's the other day turned up this fabulous organizing gem.

Metal, three baskets, rustic / industrial feel, and the perfect solution to my disaster.  A couple of nails later and it was up on the wall ready to be filled.

A section for magazines, one for bills and the last for coupons.  All the perfect fit.

Five minutes of throwing things out, sorting, returning items to where they once came and filling my new storage and I actually remembered what the surface of the desk looked like.

Wow!  What an improvement!  And I only spent $20.  Gotta love Marshall's!

BTW - this made me think about how organizational projects often look so good at first but given a few weeks everything goes right back to being a mess so I thought I would show you what a couple of my other org projects look like at this very moment.

Do you remember the pantry project?  When it was first complete it looked like this...



And at this very moment it looks like this

Pretty happy with that!  It isn't going to stay perfect but the organizing I did really was functional (not just pretty) and it really has been working well for me.  Good job Jill!

Remember the shoe storage?



Let's see how it is looking...

Again, not perfect but it is working well.  If the wall was bigger maybe 3 more crates would do the trick to keep extra shoes off the floor but as long as I keep the not worn so often shoes in the bedroom closet the space works out great.

So the moral of the story?  Eat chocolate...oh wait that is the moral of every story.  But honestly taking the time to get things organized does pay off.  And as silly as this sounds, when it is not only organized but pretty I am that much more motivated to keep it looking good.  Hey...a little style goes a long way!