SchoolRoom ~ the after pictures

My friends, I posted the before pictures of my school room so that I would be inspired (shamed) into finishing it.

At last, I have almost everything done in this room.  And I love it!  So here are some after pictures to show:

To the left, the worktable, piano and loveseat facing the computer desk.

To the right, the treadmill with our best work over it.

One master closet painted and turned into...

a Library

And puppy dog tails hold up the backpacks for their long trek to school.

Today was our second quarter awards ceremony.

Goals were met, prizes awarded and achievements acknowledged.

Boys Room Mamut Shelves

It is a testament to my (lack of) decorating skills that I'm posting pictures of four things up on the wall...  

But those of you who know me best realize just what an accomplishment this is and can celebrate my baby steps toward function mixing with the vaguest suggestion of style.

And once it's up there, baby, it's staying.  I will not "just move it over a titch", thankyouverymuch.

I had several (3) layouts, but Shane's preference was for none of them.  He quickly rearranged my floor mock-up, said he thought that was decent and then left the room saying he didn't care what I did.  However, time has shown (Catsup and Mustard Room??) that his style choices(of all our furniture) are easier to live with in the long run, so we end up going with that... usually.

It's always fun to put up a mirror at kid height.  So you can walk up to it and stare at your midriff.  But I think kids need to see their faces, especially when they are sure they've hoodwinked mom in the face-washing department.

Laundry Room ~ a new table!

I already did a few posts about my laundry room getting a bit of a make-over.  Strong words for the likes of me, but it did at least get some paint and new shelves!  Now a post on another small change that has worked wonders.

Since we went "dryer-less" last..... February?????  Wow, I had no idea it's been almost a year.  Okay, so I don't miss the dryer except for one thing:  down jackets and comforters.  Other than that, it's super! And there's even a fix for down: you beat it to death, gently.

I've had time to see what works and what doesn't, and one of my goals went unrealized for awhile.  I wanted laundry to enter the room, get washed, hang dry, and get folded all in that one room.  Couldn't happen.  Didn't have the counter space for it.  So Shane made me a quick, excellent little table that just fits the space and I'm in business!  Kids bring their laundry baskets in, sort the clothes into the proper hampers, and then take back their pile of clean laundry and put it away.  They also have to help hang and help fold, of course.... =)  I definitely qualify for a wicked mom badge.

We moved the washer into the corner, and now when the door is open, it isn't in the way.

The pile of laundry is just waiting for Aidan's helpful little hands to put it away...

I like that the laundry sorters can fit under the table and not look so sloppy.

But most of all, I like the extra space for folding!

You know what hanging wet laundry reminds me of?  Nursing!

Wait, hold on.  I am not folding laundry in some weird way.  I promise.  It's just that you have to be in one place to do it, and at first your mind races over all the other things you could do, should do, need to be doing...  And then the inevitability sets in and you resign yourself to just being in the moment.  Then you realize that you are enjoying the break, the quiet, the time alone with your thoughts (or your baby, if you are actually nursing).  It's a forced slow-down and I like it! =)


I'm off to do some laundry!

Another Patio Picture

Here's another update!

We are at a stopping place, now.  We have to wait for the concrete guy to come back and pour the floor before the wall crew can stucco and lay the flagstone.  Still, it feels good to have this much finished! We've already had a fire in the kiva, and we're looking forward to this fall!

My goodness, this looks really tipped over.  I had to go check outside to make sure everything is level.  I think maybe all the dirt piles around make it look tipped or something.  Looks fine in real life, and the level tells me it's okay, too. =)

The Back Patio Takes Shape

This was the progress at the end of today!

I'm so excited to get this project complete and start living in the back yard.

There will be a step so that when you enter the partial circle with the kiva, you will be lower than the patio around you.  And that will have flagstone in it!

Backyard Shenanigans

Okay, so nothing going on in the backyard is really secret misbehavior or anything.

BUT!!!! I have some catch-up to do from over the last two weeks:

The ground has broken on a new patio project and we have more concrete driveway, now!  Yay! Our car doesn't hang off the back of the slab anymore, woohoo!

I suppose I could show you the concept... It's probably on here somewhere.  If I find it, you'll know.

So far the footings have been poured for the wall and bunco seat and kiva and posts for the ramada. =) The kiva is a fireplace, the ramada is a wooden shade cover that is not solid, just beams across the top.  Can't have it solid, the wind would just be too freaky!

One thing about New Mexico... things don't get done in a hurry.  We hear about how there isn't any work, but it takes weeks for people to get back to you and get the job started.  And we are just happy to have a go on the project!  Our brick layer was supposed to start the brick yesterday, but we haven't seen him yet.  He'll be around, though.  It's going to be so cool!  Come and see us when it's done and we'll live the high desert life!

The backyard before, with all tumbleweeds neatly mowed.

The really awesome excavator!

Digging the footings.

The guy climbing out is the boss, and he is amazing!  He has an equally amazing mustache that I might be able to show in a video.  Awesome!

Around the front, we(they) widened and lengthened our driveway.

That job was done two weeks ago and it's finally useable!

The footings for the patio wall, bunco and kiva, and the blocks on top were laid out by the brick guy who will be back sometime to start mortaring it up.

The patio in context with the back of the house.

There you have it!  The patio house project going on outside, while I project away on the inside.

Let me go prepare the schoolroom for more pictures! =)

House Project: library painted

The closet turned library is painted!

We used the dark color from our bedroom for a little contrast wall.

The rest of the closet is painted our living room color.

I am happy to report that I did NOT paint the ceiling.  Just the walls and shelves.

I will paint the school room this light color, too.

Here's a quick peek at our new master bedroom!

Shane's office and our bed.  How cozy!

I plan to get a few tuscan touches around the room.  But first I must get all the painting done and all the decluttering finished.  Gotta save the icing to reward my effort and provide motivation.

House Project: Final Phase Begins

Hi y'all.....

Been awhile, eh?  I've been sitting around on my tushy trying to find motivation for further de-cluttering.  I love the results, but I'm on the hardest part, now.  Decluttering MY things!

So here's some pictures of the before, and hopefully I'll be so woefully embarrassed and shamed that I'll hurry up so I can post the redeeming pictures.  I love run-on sentences!

So tomorrow I'll take some pictures of my room (HP:room 2) that are in daylight.  Shane's finally moved his Office in there... =)  (We just need his name on the door!  Gotta go search that out on the net!)  So the room in all it's squishy coziness can be fully revealed.  My husband and I are now officially in a room with no closet and no bathroom. =D  Exciting times!

Enough about that room.

Here is room 3, Old Master, New Schoolroom, in all it's terrifying glory.  No, I won't let you see into the bathroom.  It could ruin friendships.

This is the sight awaiting you, as you peep into the bedroom door.  

I actually cheated and put all the books back in the bookcase before taking this picture.

Behind the loveseat (yes, the nasty greenish gold one!) are piles and piles of... stuff.

School stuff.  To be organized... which for now means sorted and re-stacked as I haven't yet been to IKEA.....

The above picture was taken from the below doorway.

The below picture was taken from the left of the above keyboard.

The doorway to the left is Shane's old office, the new school library!  I think it's such an exciting idea, can't wait to tweak it.

It WILL have a fake, vinyl window in it for the kids.

And it WILL be cute.

Amen.

Below:

Said office, just itching to be turned into a library.

Currently, this is still Shane's closet, because I have no room in mine.

And you can't see it.  

I don't have to share everything, for goodness sake!

Someday, I will make room for the hubby in my closet and he will move in with me. =)

This is an icing project, it has to wait til last.  But I want to do it TODAY!!!! 

So we are planning to pop over to IKEA this weekend.  But plans, as ALWAYS are up in the air.

Oh yeah, and today one bobcat and one huge tractor tore up my yard and some guys put down forms for a bigger concrete driveway and the forms for footings for our back patio!  whoop!  =)  Yippie Skippie! I've got pictures of that to share, too.  

Another day!

Inspiration for Homeschooling

Last week, I began using the internet for more serious inspiration for organizing.

I have issues with this...  deep-seated, prideful, stifling issues.

I don't spend too much time looking at the coolness of life out in blogland because it makes all my insecurities rise to the frothy surface of my mind.  And if it's "hip" and "in" and "everybody's doing it", then I want to make sure that I don't accidentally do it, too.

Like I said.  Pride issues, mostly. 

Back in high school, I was the worst, and let me just clarify WORST dresser there.  It was truly shameful, but there it is.  At some point, the fad of wearing knee socks came "in".  I had already been wearing them, but you can bet I stopped the moment I saw girls in the preppy crowd wearing them.  

But the time has come to set aside foolish pride and....  wait, I think the time to set aside pride came and went many years ago.  But I guess I had to wait until that fad passed...???  

Point being, I found some great ideas for getting organized as I perused the web and I wanted to share. You have got to see this wizardry.  One gal did a review of the most amazing homeschool room I have EVER seen.  At least, it speaks to me.  So go check it out and then I'll tell you what I loved about it.

******INTERMISSION******

Incredible, eh?  I love the huge gobs of storage that don't look sloppy or slapped together, stuff hanging out.  I love how the bins are shelves and can be pulled totally out and set on a table or work space, then loaded back up and put away.  I love the wood, I love the clean lines, I love that it's a bunch of IKEA stuff, too!

I love the wall storage up high, I love the expedit bookshelf that has books plus box storage in it.  I love how so much STUFF is organized in a way that doesn't tire the eye or the mind.  (I know about tired mind!)

So my latest plan is to:

*finagle an IKEA trip out of my husband (check!)

*catalog EVERY item in my house related to kids or school, record it's dimensions and decide what size/quantity of container I need for it

*choose which styles of trofast shelving I want and everything else I want from IKEA

I must still:

*clean the old master brm for transformation into school room

*rip out carpet (but save and store it)

*put in flooring, probably cork, hence the reason for saving carpet

*paint (ugggg!)

*convert Shane's old walk-in closet office into a kids LIBRARY!  Isn't that great?  I'm filled with too many ideas already.

How in the WORLD am I going to start school this century???  

House Project: done with 2 out of 3!

I have finished painting a second bedroom!

Hooray!  Let the rejoicing grow louder and more thunderous!

The room today: The Littlest Room, which is transforming into me and Shane's room, the new master bedroom.

Once I moved the boys out of this room, they left a huge mess behind.  It needed sorting, tossing.... mostly tossing.  But I had the boys help me, so that slowed me down a few days.  But we managed to get the mess clear, and then I began to paint.

This time, in my painting journey, I did a few things differently.
1) I pulled up the carpet so that I could get a smooth paint job all the way down.  Baseboards are not terribly common in NM.  And...  I'm not going to shell out for them, yet.
2) I did all the cutting by hand.  Shane helped me on this room, too.  We did tape the wood window trim, but taping it works there.  =)  So don't be too harsh when you notice mistakes on the wall. ;)

So here's the pictures to show you the blow by blow and the play by play.
(Shane thinks it's too "pink".  I say it will make our skin look great!)

Palette: boys old messy room

Getting started erasing that bear of a dark blue ceiling.

The ceiling and two walls are all this color(Clamshell), but it looks so white here!

Laying down some clamshell on the wall.

Clamshell again.

At night, with bad lighting, but almost done with clamshell color!

You can see the carpet pulled back.

Nice not to worry about cutting in yet.

Now for Earth Tone.

Almost done!

The east wall

The west wall

The north wall, and room is READY!

And the south wall by day.

My plan is to go a bit Tuscan in here.  I'll see what Hobby Lobby has to offer.

There won't be much room in here, though.  Our queen bed goes in here, along with Shane's desk and two work computers. =)  Should be cozy!

House Project: checkin' in

Just a quick note, and no pictures.  Sorry.

I have FINISHED painting the boys room (again!) and they are moved into their new (old) room.  This is the room they were in when we first moved into this house three years ago, but they have landed back there once again.  No pictures, because I want to post a picture once I put up shelves and mirrors and the final "decorations" in there.  And right now I am storing a love seat, bookcase and calendar easel in the middle of the room.

Because I am switching things around SO much, I have called the four rooms in the house as follows:
The Master Room (will become the school room)
The Small Room (no closet, will become the "master room")
Julia's Room
The Boys' Room

The small room is my focus, now.  As I am redoing each room, I am de-cluttering as I go.  Julia's room is good to go, the Boys room is good to go.  But the mess that Lucas left behind in the small room... !!! He's like his Mama, poor child.  We discussed the ramifications of storing "stuff" for years, and he was quick to observe that the room wouldn't hold everything.  So together we weeded and weeded and organized and made places for things... whew!  And we aren't quite done, but we are on the downhill side.

The problem I'm running into, is that I have nowhere to stick stuff as I clean out rooms.  Stuff is getting pushed ahead of me, like bookcases and furniture.  And a little pressure will be relieved when I paint the small room and can put my bed and Shane's office in there...  but the entire master bedroom will need to be emptied so we can put in a cork or bamboo floor.  WHEW!!  All of this "ceiling to baseboard" cleaning and de-cluttering is SO good for me, though!

So that's the latest.  I might have a "before" picture for the small room that will soon be MIIIIIINE! in the next day or two.  The saddest thing is that it is a beautifully painted blue room for the boys, and my previous masterpiece that I must now paint over.  No, I WANT to paint over it.... it will be my new masterpiece.

"I never look back, darling.  It distracts from the now."

House Project: more boys blue bedroom

Here is Tuesday's progress:

A start on the ceiling... what a hassle!

At least I had a bunk bed to use for part of the ceiling.

At this point, I felt a bit like Michelangelo.

Minus the talent, of course.

It comes together!

I did the right hand crack BY HAND.

I will do the wall crack by hand as well.

Maybe.

Yes, walls have cracks.

And this is where I left off.

I think you can tell which two cracks need attention.

Attention for another day!

Story:  Tonight we took a Family Bike Ride.  (We say it in capitals.) As I was doing my famous "ride up beside little kids and give them a helpful shove going uphill" I almost bashed into Aidan's back tire. Since I didn't want to do this, I didn't turn, just let the bike fall over, but somehow missed catching myself with my foot.  Hiney high, wide and handsome, I slo-mo'ed to the ground, landing on my knee and elbow.  In gravel.  Gracefully, I got to my feet and turned back to observe my Honey's reaction.  He was carefully sympathetic, and never once cracked a smile at me!  I did have a mildly scraped up knee. But I'm fine, especially since no neighbors were out.  So if they saw me, they had time to back out of their window before I looked around.  

Also: As I was suffering through this ceiling, Aidan told me that I could paint until my heart was content.  Then he asked me if my heart was content.  So I said, no, that my heart would not be content until the painting was done!  He suggested I just stop painting and that I would find my heart was content after all.  I suspect he was right, but forced myself to keep going, regardless of my heart's contentment level.

House Project: boys blue room

A couple of quick pictures of the progress I made on Friday....

The picture above and below show two opposite, facing walls painted the middle shade of blue.  I'm progressing from light to dark.

Yesterday, I started in on (and finished) the red wall.  WHAT A PAIN!  Some red does show through... but I am getting started on the ceiling today, so I can touch up any spots on the wall that are really bad.  

Somebody, give me a reason to stop!  This post is over, I have nothing left to procrastinate with!

;)

Ambitious Goals...

Heads up on a new project around here!  There will be several phases, some of which will be going on at the same time.

Project De-clutter, Organize and Rearrange the Entire House.

The parts of this project are as follows:
1. De-clutter everything from rooms to closest to drawers.
2. Eliminate as much as possible.
3. Move the master bedroom to the smallest bedroom.
4. Move the boys out of the smallest bedroom into the old school room.
5. Paint the boys new room the same as the boys old room; three shades of blue, including a blue ceiling.
6. Move the school room into the master bedroom.
7. Put a cork/wood floor into the master bedroom.
8. Paint Master(new school) Room.
9. And if possible, repaint the smallest room, new master, so it isn't three shades of blue.

I think that points 1 and 2 will be ongoing as I choose a section of house and work on it.  But I am happy to report that I have gotten started on this whole project and I have the pictures to prove it.

On the east side of the house, we have two medium-sized bedrooms with a bathroom in between.  One is three shades of pink for Julia, the other was the old school room in a disappointing shade of yellow with one red wall.  The Mustard and Ketchup Room.  This room will now be three shades of blue for the boys, a repeat of the Boys Blue Bedroom that I did last year.  Oh.  I guess that was two years ago.

This weekend, I got one wall painted in the new Boys Room, with the kids helping me!  I wish to swiftly point out just what a feat this is: This is an incredible feat, folks.

When I say the kids helped me, they really did.  Lucas manned the roller for almost the ENTIRE wall.  I touched it up to make sure it was thick and did up near the ceiling.  Julia helped me cut in the corners.

Aidan woke up from his nap and got a chance to roller for a quick minute.  He had something bothering his eye, plus chocolate chip cookie mouth.  Lookin' pretty beat!

So there you have it.  The first wall of Boys Room as it begins to cover up Mustard and Ketchup.

No worries about the red wall.  It and the ceiling will be covered up by dark blue. Oh delight!

Laundry Room Makeover!

Before you get all excited, this isn't like most makeovers.  It's strictly functional, not so much cute.  Perhaps one day I'll get around to decorating, but for now, I'm just happy to have things more useable!

However, I did get one decoration:

Before:

This is how things looked after saying goodbye to the old washer and dryer and buying only a washer to replace them.  We are now dryerless!  Oh yeah, and the shelf was piled high with junk...

Above, those doors are to the water heater, so the space is limited around those doors.

So I emptied the room(8x5.5 feet) and knocked out the shelves and prepared to paint:

The hallway full of junk that Shane had to step over every day...

And now the painting!

Taped it up, cut in the edges (with massive help from Lucas!) and the walls look so much better!

Yay!

And here's the current after pictures:

I can't believe I forgot to mention IKEA...  I forced my family to take a vacation to Phoenix for some sun, swimming and SHOPPING!  Truth be told, it only took about a half hour in IKEA before I was ready to be done shopping.  However, I had a HUGE list and so I worked out on their horribly wheeled carts for another couple hours.  Those things are bears!

The rug above is from Ikea, as are the two folding clothes drying racks.  Works perfect for doors that need to be able to open, since the racks fold out for drying and then lay flat against the wall when not in use. The red thing is a "socktopus" which has eight legs and 16 clips for socks. What a wonderful invention! We bought three.

And this picture features the two Grundtal shelves that can be used to hang shirts on.  I will be putting up two wooden shelves below them after my next trip to Ikea, and I have three towel racks to hang with S hooks and shower clips for delicates.  And I need to put away Shane's tools.  And I need to get some cute storage bins for up top.  Then I should be set!

I can now hang and dry at least two full loads of laundry in there.  By the time I've washed a third load, the first one is usually dry.  =)  

I thought I'd have to force myself to just deal with the extra work of air drying all laundry, but I've been pleasantly surprised.  It's relaxing, the kids love to help, and it slows things down and I have time to put away laundry before it piles up.  Ahhhhhh!