Christmas 2013

It's Christmas.

I like my chalkboard wall. It's still feels like a simple clutter-free way to decorate.

After I took the photo I added a magnetic calendar over the yellow chair. My friend had made a beautiful one at her house, and I wanted one too. Her's had a rustic red frame and was extra large - both made it look rich and more striking.

However, I opted for a cheap version. I went to GoodWill and found this for $3.99

And I put on command strips, flipped it over and stuck it on my wall. I used magic marker to outline the edges and bought the number stickers and nativity stickers at Hobby Lobby. I cut the tip off one of my star ornaments and hot glued it to a magnet. And this is the result:

Sorry the picture is a little blurry - the sticker details don't show well. But I'm happy with it.

I was low on decore for the tree, so I used some butterflies that will soon go to the Church Girl bathroom. I took leftover fabric from the chairs and put them in the frame and attached the butterflies. I also found $2 packet of name tag butterflies that I added to the tree.

And the matching chairs:

The livingroom as a whole:

In the kitchen I put two wreaths on the window and Tristan's nativity art:

In the Dining Room are the three trees on the windowsill.

And on the front door the wreath my mom made me. I love this wreath because it works for all winter long, not just Christmas. I simply left out any red, and that makes it winter vs. Christmas. I had these sage & white green floral things that my bridesmaids carried, and it was nice to find a place for them in my home.

And that's a tour of the Christmas decore!

Two New Couches

A lot of changes happened here lately, specifically in couches.

First, my husband said he was tired of having the desk shove up under the low ceiling in our bedroom - that he'd rather have it by a window. So we moved it to the toy room - excellent location, and the kids love using the big tabletop desk for playing too.

But that left a long low bank area in our room.
My friend was selling her couch (offered it to me for a lower price on Tuesday) but God didn't give the thumbs up for me (it wasn't fair to her and it wasn't God wanted me to spend $400). She sold it Wednesday and I was disappointed. Thursday a lady I'd never met called to see if I'd be interested in a yellow couch. She'd trade it for a photography session, and deliver it too. God's plans are always so much better than ours.

I found a clearance lampshade for $10, a wooden lamp at GoodWill for $6, and used my old end table and coffee table. I might change it up eventually, but for now, it's all set up happily.

Since the rest of my bedroom lacks yellow, I added some yellow ribbon to the headboard, and some felt flowers.

The pillows were $7 each on end of the season clearance (they're outdoor pillows) and the body pillow was $5 from Target. I already had the yellow placemats under the clock and lamp, so that worked out well.

I was all happy about my new couch when ANOTHER gift was added.

One of my friends lost her apartment in the tornado and was left with nothing. She'd mentioned before that she liked my bird couch, and I felt like it fit her personality well. I wanted to give it to her, as long as I could figure out a replacement. I'd always liked the HomeDecorators Gordan sofa - but they run about $1,500 with shipping. I was keeping my eye on it over Black Friday, but told myself that was silly, I had a budget too small for even a Black Friday price. So I asked God about it and looked on Craigslist in a 3 hour radius. (FYI I have looked on and off for the past two years and never found one that wasn't out of price range or already gone). I was a little shocked to find the EXACT Gordan sofa I wanted Brand New for $280. It was slightly damaged in shipping and missing some nail heads. Two to be exact.

My husband gave the thumbs up and I went and picked it up. It even fit perfectly in the van. And I sold my kids unused train table for $80 and won a $200 story-contest that week. So God totally dropped the whole thing into place - isn't He amazing?

Isn't it beautiful? And for $1.99 I bought a packet of nail heads and replaced the two missing ones.

I got the coffee table this summer at GoodWill. It was in our outside porch but I moved it in. The lines add some feminine to all the masculine. Even our dog matches our very manly black and brown house.

So God gave me two beautiful couches this week. It's been fun. Now I can move my special green chairs into the living room!

Simple Autumn

I love October, November, and December.
And I like welcoming these into my home through little symbolic decore.

But lately, when I look at seasonal decorating, I think "Wow that's a lot of STUFF"

So, this year my goal was to be simple, while still embracing the warmth and charm of underlining the season.

Last year my "Quentin birthday" was my fall mantle. This year I simplified. No orange even. And can be left up even after the birthday is over:

This blanket goes in Quentin's room, but makes a pop of orange down here for fall.

I threw the glitter pumpkins that the boys made on a tray in the livingroom. It makes them see their art as part of our decore.

 

This swag is takes 10 seconds to lay on the back of my buffett, but it makes a nice fall contrast with the black wall.

 

And I drew some art on the wall as well

 

And our easy centerpiece - on a tray so I can quickly remove it:

Decorating DOES celebrate. I want to feel like we celebrate Thanksgiving. I want to celebrate the changes of seasons (flowers in the summer, pumpkins in the fall...)

I just want to celebrate with LESS. To not spend time decorating and undecorating and storage full of stuff. We will see how Christmas goes...

Boy Room & Guest Room

Since our guest room is our exchange student's bedroom, our occasional guests were sleeping on the floor in my youngster's bedroom. Since his room was so large, I felt like it would be doable to keep an extra bed set up in his room, but still look intentional.

Here is how the room looked when we bought the house:

And when we moved in, I put Quentin's crib on the wall, painted his name over it, and called it good My original thought was to paint his name HUGE on the wall, and then have photos right overtop in the middle of it. But, this is how it turned out.

At a garage sale I found a bright blue metal bed for $15. So this was my item to "work around."

It appeared to be the color of painters tape, which inspired me for stripes on the wall. I didn't love creamy-beige-offwhite color of his room, but instead of painting the whole thing, I wanted to blend this color with more of the contemporary pops of color. So I painted white stripes over the bed area (to accent the high ceiling peak) and used blue painters tape to cover my wobbly lines. I had to paint over the "Quentin" name - so that determined where to start my stripes. I decided I didn't care if they were all equal sizes.

This is how it looked after completing the stripes:

 

My favorite wall art would be one very large scale piece that was fun and had good colors for my room. However, I have a closet filled with odds and ends, and it was more prudent to use those. This is what I came up with:

 

 

I put the crib on the other side of the room:

If I were choosing - brown wouldn't be my accent color. but since I had the brown curtains already, I went with it. And my sister in law had given us this brown elephant blanket years ago. It was nice to pull it out again. The gold lampshades were on clearance, so I was happy that the brown could welcome those tones in.

 

 

If I were choosing, a Restoration Hardware look would have been my preference - beautiful layers of neutrals. But since I found the blue bed, I knew I needed to scoop up that price and work with it. And having brown curtains made me need to embrace that - as well as the beige walls. That meant I get to narrow my options, which is actually VERY FREEING. If I had unlimited options, I'd be overwhelmed and not confident that I was making the best choice. But there is a lot of freedom within limits! Since I was going blue, orange is the opposite on the color wheel and so it easily compliments. I knew I was looking for things in blue and orange, and that was a a fun hunt.

 

 

This was my most expensive side:

This "poof" was $15 at Walmart.

The lampshade was $10 clearance at Target

The lamp was $15 clearance at Lowes

And the alarm clock is that cool "display on the ceiling" that was originally $65 and I bought for $10 at Tuesday Morning (nice clearance area!) 

The blue tray was also Tuesday Morning clearance for $3 and the blue pillowcase another $3

The giraffes are from a friend in Brazil

 

I wasn't strict with "orange only" - this was a $3 chair from goodwill that is red, but I'm still using it.

 

Even though I have blue and brown, it doesn't bother me to throw some black in too. Here is a window that a friend gave me. In our old house I had made these drawings for the boys room, so I used them again here by gluing them to the window glass.

 

 

Dresser $10 at a garage sale. Not a great dresser, but it works.

The truck was 80% off on clearance at Hobby Lobby.

 

 

 

 

On the other side of the bed I bought a friends Ethan Allen side table for $15

The outside view is a nice feature of the room too

 

And one last photo:

 

 

This was a fun project - not very expensive and a drastic difference. I wanted a "teen" feel to the room, so that it was balanced between my son feeling like it was his room, and adults still feeling comfortable and welcome at our home. A "teen" feel seems to bridge that gap between a 3 year old and 33 year old.

God really helped things fall into place and gave me cooperative kids and smiled on the project, and it was nice to spend time with Him doing this.

Purpose

For the past 10 years or so, I've had a "word of the year"

Something that God has given me, where He whispers "I'm going to reveal this to you this year, unfold it farther for your heart"

Here are some of the past words

Worship (realizing it's an act of each moment - not just during prayer or singing, but in disciplining my children, in how I speak to my husband, in how I care about my neighbor)

The Fear of the Lord (recognizing His holiness. His authority. His worthiness. Putting life into perspective through that lens. Fearing the Lord causes gratefulness, and wonder, and excitement about such an awesome powerful God loving ME)

Grace (such a deep word. And I learned about accepting grace and recognizing grace and GIVING grace to others)

This years word is "Purpose"

I want to live intentionally, to know why I'm doing things, and what is important.

How is it going? Well, I don't deserve any trophies.

Parenting is a big one. Purpose means continually removing the clutter and going back to the basics. Obedience. Listening. Time. Hugging. Teaching God's word. Investing. Turning interruptions into opportunities.

Marriage is a big one too. We have had more time for "dating" this year - which has been great. But it's so easy to take each other for granted instead of intentionally investing. It's easy to become housemates, or partners, and lose the connection of soul-mate.

Time is a huge area. I find myself so busy all the time. My time filled up. But how much of that time has any lasting usefulness? How much of that time do I even value? And in what ways am I carving my life to "redeem the time" and invest in eternity?

I'm in the middle of a friendship struggle... I'm still asking God about it... but knowing the purpose of relationships. And at what point it is beneficial to "drop" a friendship. I've never found that necessary before, and I've never gone through this sort of a path before. I'm not sure what the answer will be. Maybe it's worth building this relationship, or maybe it's time to separate. God will guide me, but at this moment I really don't understand the answer yet, nor what He expects from me.

And last, but not least, is my home.

I want purpose in my home.

Not just in our family spirit and rhythm and rituals, but in the function of each room. In keeping clutter low. This is SO HUGE for me. To simplify in the home, and not have so much STUFF. I'd like to do this with the wardrobes to, to have high functioning outfits with less clothing in the closets.

I've moved towards this goal by having a rough "plan" for our weeks

Family meetings on Monday nights
Fuse ball games on Tuesday nights
Church on Wednesday nights
Exercise/soccer/biking/walking on Thursday nights
Date night on Friday nights (mom and dad, OR mom or dad with a kid)
Family movie nights on Saturday
Fire nights (roasting marshmallows) on Sunday

But I'm ready to buckle down and start purging clutter.

When we get back from vacation. I'm going to get a grip and simplify.

I've already embraced the feeling of less whenever I've "redone" a room.

When I intentionally remade the family room, I found ONE large photo for the wall, and ONE large sectional and ONE lamp... I've really enjoyed that room because it's just calm. Not stuff everywhere.

No pictures tonight. Just journal.

Couch-Back Bench

When my mom and I recovered this couch (err, mainly mom) I didn't have her bother with the back. I intended to have it up against a wall.

At Christmastime I rearranged the furniture to fit the tree, and my husband announced that he preferred the couches rearranged like this permanently (although he initially chose the placement of the couches). All that to say, my mess of a back of a couch was exposed.

I did paint the peach-pink-floral mess, to try to clam down it's obnoxiousness. But this was as good as that looked:

We were often sitting on the back of the couch too - it just seemed to need seating here. I had a trunk there for a while. But when I moved that it was just bare and strange.

So one day I was fed up with it and I drew out a nice design for a solution. And after staring at it I thought "that will take me a lot of work, and it's so miserably hot outside, I'm going to have two exhausting days building this bench - by the time I drag the three kids through Home Depot and get all the boards cut and then paint them all and then screw everything together... it sounds awful."

I threw the perfect plan into the trash and went for the shortcut. I went to the garage to see what was available. I had a board that was ALMOST long enough. But I had no legs. Then I spotted two tree stumps that had been used to lift the lawnmower while fixing it. I rummaged through the firewood and found another similar sized log. Since they weren't perfectly straight I couldn't have the logs all the way under the board, but I didn't really care. I screwed it in, slapped some deck paint on top, and had my bench. The next day I went and bought a $10 board to attach to the back of the couch, and I used some leftover brats too, and that helped the couch and bench happily team up to give me function - and a better visual too. Here is the end result.

And some detail shots for the fun of it

 

 

And the lentil sprouts I was snacking on while making the bench (I rarely make sprouts, so I feel like it merits bragging rights if I did eat some!)

and some black-eye-pea sprouts too. My sprout mentor informed me that a black-eyed-pea is about as large of a sprout as is tasty to make. Smaller dried things tend to make better tasting sprouts. Like grains, for example. Anyway, here is the other bowl.

And those were the unique aspects of my Tuesday. I've got some housekeeping to catch up on now!