From the category archives:

house

need some help …

October 8, 2009

If you had to ask me one specific thing about photography or processing, what would it be?

I promise to get back to doing some “how’d you do that?” posts very soon!

I am currently working on moving our entire office/playroom into our dining room so that we can rip up the carpet, paint the room and install our new flooring.

Will also be painting my desk and the remaining bookshelf while we have it out of the room.

Also preparing for a garage sale in 2 weeks.

And that’s the stuff that’s not even on my to-do list!

{ 3 comments }

Got a bug up my heiney about painting *something* but we really didn’t have the extra $$ to buy 2 gallons of paint for my current project (office / playroom) — so I took the leftover paint from Emma’s room and started painting the downstairs bathroom.

Wait, I guess it’s considered a half-bath when it’s just a toilet and sink, right?

Anyway, the before shot is pretty much like every other room in our house — homebuilder’s white, lol.

And after.

Mind you, there is natural light outside the bathroom while inside the bathroom is fluorescent, so it’s hard to get a grasp of the actual color. But it’s the same color as Emma’s room.

here is a better view of the color in natural light:

Aww, look at little just-toddling-around Emma!!

It was a 2-naptime project with just me painting, so it went pretty quickly, in spite of painting behind the toilet and trimming around all of the nooks and crannies. But I think it turned out great.

To finish it up, I’m going to get fluffy white rugs and a new soap dispenser to try to keep it as light as possible.

And we are now out of this paint, so no more rooms will be Olympic Royal Palm. ;)

{ 2 comments }

oh my. no, really. OH MY!

June 17, 2009

in house

I freak out about one specific thing on a daily basis …

laundry.

the clean stuff? it’s in piles
and laundry baskets
and stacks on the end of our bed

the dirty stuff? supposed to be in these beautiful laundry hampers on our balcony.
but it’s mostly in piles in our bathroom and laundry room
and the laundry room spills out into the kitchen, so we eat our breakfast, lunch and dinner NEXT TO PILES OF DIRTY LAUNDRY

I would take pictures, but honestly, I’m too lazy to get up and take pictures {which would explain how we get piles of laundry all over our house} but here’s an old picture which explains it quite well.

See? It’s been happening since June 16, 2008, which is when that picture was taken. Hasn’t changed at all since then. And frankly, it was probably like that on June 16th of every year since I moved out of my parent’s house.

Okay, it was like that when I was still living with my parents, too — mom would have to come into my room, put everything that was laying on the floor into big garbage bags, and put them in daddy’s shop before I would do anything about it.

So I could probably blame it on her. Say that I was so emotionally damaged from having my stuff practically thrown away that I don’t even know how to keep up with it, now. Yeah. Let’s go with that.

I mean, it is NOT that I am just lazy and hate doing laundry. No, that’s not it. See? I don’t need therapy – I can figure this stuff out on my own!

Anyway, I freak out daily about the fact that me and laundry? We are never ever EVER going to come to an agreement. I should just accept that and move on.

I keep telling myself, “One of these days, you’re going to catch up with your laundry. You’ll get it all washed, dried, folded and put away. And then it’ll be EASY to keep up with it. Then, you can do one load a day, fold it while you’re watching Oprah, and put it away during commercials. One day.”

But that day has not come. And even if it DID come, I’d probably end up forgetting the last load that was in the washer, leave it in there until it got stinky, re-wash the clothes, put them in the dryer, throw them into the oversized chair, and leave them until we had 7 more loads of dirty laundry piled up in various rooms around the house.

OR! I can get up right now, make 3 big piles – lights, darks, towels – and then start doing laundry. I could have all three loads finished today!!! I could put them all away tonight after Emma goes to bed, and tomorrow would be THE DAY THAT I DON’T HAVE TO DO LAUNDRY!

Or I could just keep reading blogs and drinking coffee and enjoy the peace and quiet that comes with Emma in preschool, Ken working upstairs, and clothes rotting away in piles all around our house.

Ahhhh … blessed silence ….

ps: Mom, please don’t show up with garbage bags. I really will do it soon!!

{ 5 comments }

our playroom box system

June 10, 2009

in get organized,house

I am sure this idea is not original, but it’s something that I recently started doing with Emma’s toys, and it is working WELL for us!

I don’t feel like E has a TON of toys, but she prefers smaller toys, which are messier. I’m really trying to get a hold on clutter around here, so I decided to do the box system with her playroom toys.

I bought some clear boxes w/ lids at Dollar General for $1/each, and I have different toys in each box.

I waffled about labeling them, because I’m sure the contents will change over time – plus, they’re clear, so I can see what’s inside. For now, I think I’ll just leave them label-free.

So the rule is … one box at a time. She can make a huge mess with one box, but if she wants a different box, she has to clean up the first one.

She’s not into stuffed animals, and they’re easy to pick up, so they live in the blue and green canvas boxes. The remaining cubes in the shelving unit hold puzzles (we only keep 2 at a time in her playroom), coloring books, and reading books.

She also has a set of wooden blocks and a set of foam blocks that stay in the downstairs closet, which I cleaned out and re-organized a couple of weeks ago.

I am currently in the process of cleaning out the rest of her toys. I have a few boxes packed up for future baby, but there is some that she doesn’t like that I don’t care to keep.

Side note: she’s currently walking around with one of her baby dolls, patting baby’s back, and saying, “It’s okay, baby. It’s okay.” Awww.

I am also working to get this office / playroom cleaned out so that I can paint it. And possibly get hardwood put down if we can scrape up a little extra moolah. But that’s another post for another day.

I need to go tend to these piles of paperwork, now …

{ 2 comments }