Gift Wrap Organization

I finished my gift wrap organization station this week, and thought I'd share the idea with you.

I originally found the idea while searching on Pinterest, and came up with my own version. These two photos were my inspiration:

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The Container Store has a hanging over the door system, but it was almost $90 and I didn't want to spend that much. I used this four tiered closet organizer from Home Depot ($20) and paired it with these $3 hooks.

This style of hook should henceforth be referred to as drunk octopus hooks. See?

 

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Anyway. Bam. An easy, inexpensive alternative to stuffing all of my gift wrap into one of those long, under-the-bed storage bins. I (still) don't know how to use the drill, so Charlie hung them all on the back of the office door for me.

I used curtain ring clips in order to hang my wrapping paper. I suppose you could hang flattened paper boxes this way, too. I also used glass mason jars to hold ribbon.

Wrapping gifts is now much less of a pain. I can see exactly what we have, and I don't have to dig through a bin of tissue paper, ribbons, gift wrap, tape, and gift bags.

I love how slim the profile is. We always have the office door open, and you'd never even know anything was behind it.

Entertainment System (& Basement Updates)

I've been holding out on you. For Christmas (I know I know, Christmas?!) Charlie and I decided to go smaller on the gifts for each other, and focus on doing something "bigger" for the house. Enter the basement entertainment center.

It's the Ikea Besta system, and we love it. I drove myself half insane over Christmas break scouring the web for a system we liked that was stylish and fit within out budget. I considered everything from converting kitchen cabinetry and bathroom vanities, having one custom built, and even sawing apart Ikea components to make one along the lines of this:

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Obviously, ours is different. But you get the gist. I'd basically decided I didn't like the Ikea one, but it fit our budget and size requirements, so we took a trip there anyway just to make sure it wasn't the right one for us. Turns out they had it set up in the store, it looked a billion times better in person, and we immediately collected our components and drove home.

On a side note, we bought the wrong drawer fronts the first time around. This ultimately lead to the untimely death of our beloved Saturn Vue, a new car for us (Saturn Outlook), and for me a total, utter aversion to driving in any sort of snow.

On the trip to exchange the fronts, my car spun out on ice/snow in five lanes of traffic, skidded over two of them, and smashed head on into a concrete median going 60 mph. It was terrifying, but miraculously I, and another driver involved in the accident, were totally okay. Jesus so clearly was there and kept me safe, even though I thought I might be going to see Him a lot sooner than anticipated just seconds before I hit the median. It's been a comfort to know that He knows and has planned all my days and has good works for me to walk in still. I'm glad He's not done with me yet :)

Very rationally, after I hit the median and realized that not only was I alive with all limbs in tact and no blood to be spoken for, maybe I could just keep going on my merry way to Ikea. Such devotion and dedication you never did see. (This obliviously didn't happen- I didn't realize my car looked like THAT!).

ANYWAYS. I just had to insert that little side story that went into the coming together of the entertainment center. Those new drawer fronts better be darn grateful.

I'm loving the slim profile. So Besta now lives in our basement, and we love it. There's a lot more storage and room for display stuff. 

One of my favorite parts is the drawers. Maybe because we only have three of them in our kitchen and I feel drawer deprived?

I guess I like decorating with books. Can you tell? A lot of them are from Goodwill.

Also, a few minor basement updates. I went in to Joann Fabric for interfacing, and came out with this fabric instead. I love the colors and pattern.

I also decided to take down the two floating shelves by the mirror wall. It seemed too cluttery with the entertainment center.

That's all, folks.

Upstairs Bedroom

Happy Friday! I wanted to share our latest room update with you: I did a quick and inexpensive update in our upstairs third bedroom.

It had sat for 3 1/2 years with a terrible, terrible little boys sports border running around the ceiling. I decided that if the only thing I did was take the border down, it would be better than nothing. Which of course led to painting the entire room, the trim, and a few update projects to finish everything off. You know how it is. Here's the ugliness before:

And a close up, just for good measure:

Currently, this room is only used to house Leo's kennel. For the life of me, I could NOT think of what else to use this room for. We already have an office with a separate desk for things like sewing, crafts, and gift wrapping.

Eventually, it'll be a nursery, but not for the near future. Charlie, being ever so practical, suggested I try to pick the color I would want the nursery walls to be, so that we don't have to re-paint. So I scoured Pinterest nurseries for a while (which felt very odd) and settled on a light gray. It's the same color as our basement office. I figured gray is here to stay (at least for a while), is nicely neutral, and goes well with both girl and boy decor. If all else fails, at least I won't have to smell paint primer while feeling nauseous.

So here it is.

Better? I think so.

 

 

Leo's kennel. Too bad we still need one- that dog is like a goat with the things he finds to eat.

My goal was to only spend money on paint. Like I said, we only use this room for Leo's kennel, and the bed and nightstand are more of a placeholder than anything else so the room doesn't look empty.

Just an FYI: The "headboard" is a 2' x 3' bulletin board painted white. I had extra fabric from the first attempt at making a roman shade for the basement. I cut it to size and pinned it on. Boom. Headboard on the cheap.

Enjoy the start of your weekend!

Office Gallery Wall

I finished the office gallery wall a few weeks ago, and wanted to share it with you! This wall was originally blank and blah, and needed some (cheap) jazzing up.

I bought 11 frames at Goodwill for a grand total of $17.39. Yes, that's right. They have color coded tags, and all the blue tags happened to be $1.49 (two of my frames were $1.99- so much more expensive). The other three I already owned.

Check out your local Goodwill- they have a monthly calendar which says in advance which sales are on which days.

I hoarded gobs of blue sticker frames with terrible art in my cart like a wild woman. But wasn't it worth it?

Everything got a few coats of white spray paint, some cheap/free printable art, and went up on the wall.

The people who created some of these prints are so talented and creative! In recognition of their work, here's the image sources, if you're interested.

Mustard Seed Tree Print
Summer Stargazing Chart (free printable)
Minneapolis Cityscape
Hello Lover Camera Print (free printable)
Keep Calm and Click On Print (free printable)
Fruit of the Spirit Print (free printable)
Love Tree Stump Print (free printable)

A few are my photography/creations/old art/pages ripped out of an atlas :) Hey, use what you have.

I've been holding back on fall stuff for the first time in years. I'm usually ready for fall in July, and right now I'm just ready for more August and summer vacation. Enjoy the last month of summer!

The Kitchen

Woohoo! The kitchen is finished. It's actually been finished for a while, but I'm lazy about blogging :)

Since my last kitchen update post, we've grouted and switched out the light fixture above the sink. And Leo has some new pop-of-yellow dog bowls. Very big update, you know.

I love this fixture- it's so shiny and nautical/industrial. Definitely an upgrade from it's predecessor.

I switched out the art and the dog bowls. I wasn't sure if I'd like the green curtains with the new wall color, but I think they look good.

Here's the other side of the kitchen. I've been in a color pop sort of kick for a while, and am trying to infuse some into this room.

My grass was actually still alive when I shot this photo. Whoops.

My view while washing dishes. Except not anymore (the bushes are all gone- more on that project later).

The flour and sugar canisters got new labels, too. I was getting sick of the chalkboard ones.

There you have it. Out with the dark and cozy, and in with the airy and fresh.

Front Garden

Well... I've been rather MIA from this blog for a while. But it's summer, so I suppose that's okay.

We've almost finished the front garden we started last summer. I say almost because it's 92% done, and Charlie and I always have a hard time finishing that last 8%. Of any project. Either way, the plants are in (and have been for a while!). It's nice to be mostly done.

There are hydrangea (my favorite), boxwood, catmint, dead nettle, hanging baskets with purple petunias, a mini arborvitae tree, and tall white stalky flowers called larkspur (I think, lost the tag- someone confirm this?) that Charlie refers to as "the corn" since it looks a bit like a corn stalk.

Is this last one larkspur? I think so. Either way, apparently it attracts bees.

The catmint has quadrupled in size. It's taking over it's part of the garden, and I think I'm going to have to split EVERY plant, probably EVERY year. I love catmint, but it's a bit invasive.

Here was my original idea:

And here is what we did. I might take out the corn and put in alium (like in the photo above). I'm not in love with it, and it was cheap. Wasn't our grass nicer back in April? I suppose it IS always greener somewhere else.

There you have it. The front garden, almost done.