Progress!

It has been a long Monday! 

I've started to re-do the old bloggity blog here...so please excuse me while it is transitioning:)

I'm also starting some fun, Pinterest related projects soon!  Just as a preview, more specifically...these things:

This fun "BOO" Halloween decor, from here :

Also, I'm dying to try this, from here :



More updates on those as I get the projects underway.  I am totally excited about doing home decor stuff again, cooking fun new things, reading fabulous new books, and sharing it all here for you!  Good night!

Project progress

I've been working on our "entry way" in our town home.  We actually honestly don't have an entry way, we just call this space right under our stair case our entry way.  Anyways, I re-purposed this an IKEA sofa table, it was beautiful and looked like new....only to find it was way to big for the spot.  The spot is sort of awkward.  It looks way to plain to NOT have something there.  But only a certain size shelf or table will fit.  It used to look like this:

So many issues here.  The white didn't match a single thing in our family room.  Plus, it was so open and showed all our junk!  Our cube shelf behind the dining room table helped with that.  While I love the IRISH stuff, we have to find a new place for Ireland, because it was too much green in this space - it didn't match!  Frodo's kitty condo got nixed from here too, it's fun for him but way too ugly for our public space!

So here is what we ended up with:

We had this shelf from Target in the basement, so we brought it up and it fits nicely in the space.  Don't worry we still have to jazz it up and decorate it.  The B I bought from JoAnns and painted black/brown which matches all our furniture. 

For our wedding we got adorable little cocktail plates that have cities on them.  We hardly every use them for parties (always use plastic for parties!  lol) so I decided to use them for decoration.  What do you think?

There are six different plates that have six different cities on them.  I love them here because it introduces our "travel" theme in the house (London in the family room, NY in the dining, Tuscany in the Kitchen, Paris in the bedroom, etc...)  We still have to fill that shelf with stuff.

 Close up!

 As for how I hung them, I stole borrowed a little idea from Young House Love where you trace your pictures on newspaper or ads and cut them out.  Then, with painting tape, you hang them up and move them around until your heart is content with the placement.  This way, you don't ruin your walls by putting lots o holes in them!

You measure down where your nail will hang off the frame, or in this case, the plate and draw an X on your ad where the nail will go.  Then, put your nail right through the X.....

 It's a genius idea.  My walls thank Young House Love and whoever else thought of this idea, it is truly genius!!  So anyways...then you have all your nails up and you just slip the paper out from under them.  The painters tape allows you to stick the paper to the walls and remove them without ripping paint off.  Genius....

Then you hang all your lovely pictures, or plates, viola - all done!!!

Here is a close up shot of one of the plates, LONDON of course:)

So that is what I was working on this week!  I'm also about halfway done Bella Tuscany.  I'm off to read that now...I have to get to bed early since Career Day is tomorrow!  It's my first as a school counselor! 

Have a great week everyone!!

Welcome home, shelf!

Happy Hump Day!

FINALLY!!!  We got the shelf from IKEA that I wanted so badly.  It wasn't too $$, got it for $129.  I love it!!  It = more storage space, and I like that!  Our dining room is "NYC" as you may know from the house tour , so we keep thinking up ways to "NYC" it more.  I liked the idea of the shelf (over a huge pic, because do have a huge pic right across the room in "London" - it'd be too much BIG art!) because in NYC its all about using the space you have - in those tiny apartments where everything has to flow AND work...this shelf helps us use the space more.  Especially because all our mail and cookbooks were piling up here:

We are moving this white shelf down in the craft room (and Frodo's ugly kitty condo) and replacing it with a much sleeker, nicer "launching" pad set of furniture.  I love what Young House Love has going on in their hallway with their entry table, we want to copy it, you can see a pic of that here.  We like the clean look of this entry ensemble, as well as the little cubes that can be used as extra seating if need be.  I know I know, we have that huge red couch (Clifford) but sometimes we do need the extra seating if we have enough people over (Ravens games, Christmas parties, etc).  Anyways, we want to do something like this for that space.  But on to the shelf...gotta love that IKEA...

 Here is Dave, putting it together - don't worry, I helped too.

 This is a pic of it all put together and me starting to fill it up!!  We can tuck away all our mail in those little cubes, and also art/homework supplies in another, and my coupon stuff and flyers in yet another, we lots of space still for pictures and other decor.

 See my Home Management Binder and my Recipe Binder, tucked into their new home? 

 And I love that I have lots of space for cookbooks too, I have a lot and now I can get even more!

 We are still playing around with what-goes-where and somethings here won't live here permanently, I need to find more NYC-ish things, maybe some art, etc to go on here.  I don't want it to look too cluttered, but I want the use of the space to make sense for us too.  Its going to be all about finding the balance:)

It tones down that red wall too.  The pic sitting on top may not stay there.  I have a project brewing for the top of this shelf, something to add more "oomph" to the space and put more color into the room - its so black and red right now and I want some accent colors going on in here!  Hint: the project involves Modge Podge - good times!!

So that's my shelf that I've been dreaming of for months now, finally sitting in my NYC dining room.  Life is good:)