decluttering

fix your bed

19 January 2013 by Andrea Leave a Comment

When I was growing up, fixing my bed was mandatory. Every. single. day.

Being a natural-born slob, I fell out of that habit once I didn’t have anyone telling me what to do. But now that I’m on a quest to beautify my home on a very slim budget, I started thinking about some of the things that I can do on the cheap, or even for free. Like…

…fixing my bed!

For those of you who are naturally tidy, I’m sure you’re sitting there reading this saying, “Duh!” but for some of us this is going to be a huge revelation.

So today I decided to get back into the habit of fixing my bed. I know someone who always says, “It only takes 2 minutes to fix your bed.” But not being the type to believe everything I hear, of course I had to time it.

Two minutes and 24 seconds. And I’m sure that the extra 24 seconds was because I spent a little extra time fixing the pillow cases and fluffing the pillows, which wouldn’t need to be done if the pillows hadn’t been stuffed and piled on the side of the bed for who knows how long.

So basically the two-minute rule is true. Look how much better everything looks! And really, who can’t spare 2 extra minutes out of your morning routine? Even though I’m tempted to say that I can’t, we all know that on most days we can spare the 2 minutes.

Most of all, it will make your room so much more beautiful and your bed so much nicer to retire to every evening.

Francois the sock monkey thinks so…

keeping it real

16 January 2013 by Andrea Leave a Comment

So where do I begin with the massive undertaking of cleaning up my office/loft/art studio?

The art table?

The front desk?

Or maybe the back desk?

I think we’ve found a winner, folks. The back desk seems to be the least offensive, so I think I’ll begin there.

Just keeping it real, people.

no cost project

15 January 2013 by Andrea 2 Comments

Who have I been kidding?

I’ve said that I haven’t been doing any projects because I’ve been, um, short on funds (ie, broke), but seriously that’s no excuse. Because it doesn’t cost anything to clean. And boy does my office/studio/loft need a good cleaning.

I should really be embarrassed to post a pic of it here, but since I have no shame (in addition to no money), here goes…

OK, this is an old pic, so it’s not quite this bad. But bad enough.

So I decided that until I can scrape up some cashiola for my next project, I will begin the massive undertaking of cleaning my office/studio/loft space.

I started at the entrance of the loft space with Megan’s desk.

Megan’s desk is so named because it was a desk that I trash picked from my former neighbor Megan’s house when I lived in California. Now almost 7 years later, we still call it Megan’s desk. Kind of an endearing name for a desk.

Here is Megan’s desk, in all of her cleaned up glory…

Isn’t she loverly? (The chair I picked up from Target a couple of years back.)

If I recall correctly, the desk was Ethan Allen that Megan dared to paint a creamy white. Also if I remember the story correctly, Megan may have had to revive her mother when she found out that she had painted classic furniture. Of course I adored Megan for that and many other reasons!

At some point, Megan was ready for said desk to move on, and she was living across the street from a trash picker at the time. The rest was history.

Until last weekend, Megan’s desk was loaded up with crap, basically a repository for things that needed to be moved, stored, donated, or thrown. So I cleared it out and here she is.

In fact, now that she’s all available again, I may have plans for her elsewhere in the house in the future. But first things first. I still need to finish cleaning the rest of this space, even if it takes all winter.

And at the rate I’m going it might. But I’ll share the embarrassing pictures every step of the way!

design vacation – craft armoire

21 February 2012 by Andrea 2 Comments

Time for a design vacation status update.

I’m enjoying my design vacation and letting inspiration take me where it takes me. This morning I was inspired to declutter one of my two craft armoires.

I’ve been hanging on to a lot of supplies and found objects for projects that I’ve been contemplating for years. I’ve come to the realization that if I haven’t done the projects in the 5+ years that I’ve lived here, I’m probably not going to be getting to them. Some of the various paraphernalia even traveled across country with me from California to Ohio. Which is kind of silly, now that I see it in writing.

Here’s how far I got…

Still more to go, since I want to consolidate the two armoires into one. But look at all of this excess…

Lots of stuff gone – two bags being donated, two bags of recycling, and a bunch of stuff that I sold to our local resale shop to the tune of $43! (The cat stayed…)

More to come!

And don’t forget to enter the Spring Cleaning Giveaway for a chance to win this adorable sterling silver charm bracelet!

Click here for contest entry details.

design vacation – keeping it real in the master bedroom

20 February 2012 by Andrea 5 Comments

Sounds kind of scandalous! But when you see this, you’ll realize how completely scandalous it really is…

Messy-licious! And there’s more…

Nothing like watching an episode of Hoarders to jump start the spring cleaning bug.

And that, my friends, is my bedroom. Let’s just say it’s gotten out of hand. So I started with a big cleanup. Which took a surprisingly long time. I’m sure that had nothing to do with treating myself to occasional trips to Pinterest.

While it’s not quite ready for the full reveal, here’s a little something…

Nothing wrong with this vignette, but I’ve been trying to add a touch of mod around the house, so I want to mix it up a bit.

I found a terrific iridescent vase at Target, and it looks pretty good…

…but it could use a little more height. Something along these lines…

These are pieces of wood that my son broke when he was in tae kwon do. But the raw wood looks too, well, raw, so I painted it with a gray craft paint, not worrying about priming or if the woodgrain showed through the paint. Call it character and texture.

There, that’s better. The painted wood adds height and texture. Plus the wood pieces have special meaning to me, and now I’m using them instead of having them stuck in a cabinet. My son even wrote his name on one pieces, making it extra special.

Plus it looks great, don’t you think?

Don’t forget to enter the Spring Cleaning Giveaway!

Showing off at these link parties…

house goals – 2011 edition

9 January 2011 by Andrea 8 Comments

Over at Nesting Place, the Nester came up with a brilliant idea – house goals!

Given that I work full time and procrastinate, leaving me with limited time and energy, I thought that house goals would be perfect for me.

So here are my 2001 house goals…

Repaint the stairway wall
Paint the kids’ bathroom- COMPLETE!
Add curtains to the master bathroom – COMPLETE!
Clean up my office
Scour my teenage daughter’s room after she goes off to college
Add drop cloth curtains to the family room windows – COMPLETE!
Get that damn satellite dish off the roof
Buy a dishwasher
Tile the kitchen back splash
Paint at least 1 kitchen wall
For the love of all things holy, DECLUTTER!

As you can see, it’s an expansive list. I probably could have listed 3 or 4 times the number of projects, but in the spirit of keeping it real, I decided to stick with 12, so that I could reasonably do 1 project per month.

Here’s a little more detail around the projects…

1. Repaint the stairway wall

So, the stairwell wall has already been painted, but it still needs another coat. And apparently it’s taken me a while.

Last year at work, we had a holiday white elephant exchange and do you know what I got? Paint! Two gallons of slate gray paint! The exact color that I was planning on painting the stairwell wall already. Every now and then, fate sends a little gift of home decor love. Now I’ve got to get on the stick and finish the job.

2. Paint the kids’ bathroom– COMPLETE!

No photos of this madness. All I have to say is this about that…teenage hair dye explosion. Walls, door trim, baseboard. Splattered with dark brown hair dye.

Needless to say, all future hair dyeing has been banned.

I thought that I might get this project done when I was on vacation over the holidays, but it just didn’t happen. However, paint has been purchased, so it can happen any time inspiration strikes.

3. Add curtains to the master bathroom – COMPLETE!

I just can’t seem to get past the creepy feeling that people can look into the cracks between the blinds. So curtains are in order. Just need to find the right ones.

4. Clean up my office

This seems as if it should be a simple enough project, but it’s my combination office, craft room, and general lounging area. And it’s been neglected for quite some time. Lots of filing and decisions to be made about what stays and what goes.

5. Scour my teenage daughter’s room after she goes off to college

The same teenage daughter who experienced the hair dye explosion has a room that could potentially be condemned by the health department. And honestly, I’ve given up on getting her to keep it consistently clean. Every now and then she has a flare-up of cleaning, but it gets out of hand more often than not.

So, when she goes off to school, I’ll be in there in my hazmat suit, ready to sanitize.

6. Add drop cloth curtains to the family room windows – COMPLETE!

I’m planning to join the Internet Bloggers Drop Cloth Revolution (IBDCR) and make curtains out of drop cloths. ‘Nuff said.

7. Get that damn satellite dish off the roof

So, I happen to have a satellite dish dangling from my roof by a thread. No, we don’t still use the satellite. And yes, I’ve become that neighbor.

But who can I hire to get that damn thing off the roof? I just don’t know who does that kind of thing.

8. Buy a dishwasher

Although my house is only 4 1/2 years old, the dishwasher is no longer working. I’ve already spent a small fortune to get the problem diagnosed, but it’s still not fixed. It could be fixed, but the dishwasher repair guy told me that it’s a design flaw, and would likely be broken again within a year. So I opted to not fix it and put the money toward a new dishwasher. In the meantime, I’m using a $2.99 solution…a dishpan, and frankly, not doing such a great job of keeping up with the dishes.

9. Tile the kitchen back splash

OK, what I’d really like to do is an extreme kitchen makeover, because the layout of my kitchen is really dumb. But since I don’t have an extra $10-20k hanging around, I’ve got to make due with what I have. So I’ll at least add some cosmetic changes, the first being tiling the back splash with those cool & funky little glass tiles.

10. Paint at least 1 kitchen wall

Most people probably wouldn’t stop at just 1 kitchen wall, but with an open-concept floor plan, the walls go on forever, without a logical stopping point. So I’ll start with a goal of 1 wall, and figure out where to go from there.

11. For the love of all things holy, DECLUTTER!

Well, there’s probably not a whole lot more that needs to be said about this issue. I’ve been leaning more toward minimizing than maximizing, and I am going to continue to follow that trend, little by little, throughout the year.

Those are my true confession house goals 2011 edition…what are your 2011 house goals?

basket case

9 October 2010 by Andrea 2 Comments

Or perhaps I should say a case for baskets, so you don’t get the wrong idea!

Baskets are a great decorating tool for containing things that might not look as impressive standing alone. Since I have a lot of unimpressive things requiring containment in my home, I tend to use baskets. Plus, my sister used to be a Longaberger consultant, so I got some awesome baskets as gifts and she was also kind enough to extend her employee discount to me.

(If you’re not familiar with Longaberger, it’s a family-owned company here in Ohio that creates artisan-quality handmade baskets. Longaberger is BIG in Ohio. Their baskets are beautiful. And expensive. All of my basket buying was before the collapse of the world [and my personal] economy. If you like the baskets, but they’re out of your price range, be sure to look for them on eBay…plenty of them for sale there!)

Anyway, on to the fun part…the pictures!

A fruit basket (perfect, since it has a plastic protector, so juicy fruits don’t ruin the basket).

Coasters are one of those things that never seem to have a home. Hence, the coaster basket…

Who wants to look at icky vitamin bottles, especially when you take as many supplements as I do! What better place to store them than in a basket!

Extra pillows for watching TV and a cozy blanket for when it gets chilly…all of it fits perfectly in this laundry basket, plus it looks cute next to the fireplace.

Those of you with gaming kids and/or husbands know there is always the ubiquitous video game paraphernalia, which never seems to want to stay in one place, until the arrival of the faux rattan video game basket. (Got this from Target, and sadly they no longer carry them.)

Since we live just two doors down from my sister, we have a near-constant flow of stuff going back and forth between houses…forgotten jackets, magazines moving on to their next reader, outgrown kids’ clothes being handed down to the next kid on the list, dishware from already eaten leftovers, coupons, books to share, toys…I’m sure you get the idea. Needless to say, my sister’s family really needs their own basket at my house or things would be haphazardly tossed all over the house…we call it “The Outbox.” The Outbox is a vintage-look wire basket at the base of the stairs that’s close to the front door. Then every now and then I’ll empty the basket and load up some kids with goodies to take home.

So, I guess it’s true…I am a basket case! Are you one too? I’d love to hear how you use baskets in your home.

simplify

10 September 2007 by Andrea 1 Comment

Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about simplicity. Thinking about what it means to simplify. Or, more specifically, what I need to do to simplify.

Simplicity may seem counter to what a decorator stands for. After all, don’t we fill houses with stuff?

Well, sort of.

Decorators choose special elements to make a house a home. To be able to focus on the unique, special aspects of a home, there must not be clutter & chaos.

An excellent book on the subject of eliminating clutter is It’s Just Too Much by Peter Walsh of the television show Clean Sweep.

One of the things Peter focuses on in the book is the emotional attachment we have to things. Often, we feel that we can’t get rid of something because of the memories associated with it, even if we no longer need or use that particular item.

He sings the tune that we must realize decluttering doesn’t mean we have to get rid of the memories.

Even though you & I may not have newspapers piled up to the ceiling, and probably aren’t candidates for Clean Sweep, I would bet that many of us are holding on to something that we could afford to let go.

So, I challenge myself, and I will challenge you too…start to look at everything you own. If you love it & it has a place in your home, keep it and treat it with the respect if deserves.

If you don’t love it, or have ambivalence about it, pass it on to someone who needs it or will love it.

Simplify your life by simplifying your stuff.