office overhaul

Our office was purple and green, and it really needed a paint job, but we had already put all the things in there and the colors were d-a-r-k. I do not understand why they were those colors or why they were so dark. I polled Facebook & Instagram for paint colors for the walls, and we settled on Light French Gray by Sherwin Williams. It is perfect! It is just the light gray I was aiming for. Our kitchen cabinets are an Olympic color called Dogwood Blossom, so I opted to match our upstairs built-in shelving to that. I value consistency in paint colors in a house (each room in my house is a different shade of beige.  Each one. Different.), so this seemed like a reasonable idea which paid off, because choosing between shades of white sounds pointless.

Here are my super-fun taken-on-my-iPhone before photos:

After much taping, priming, painting, and more painting, we finally had a room we would really love.

Here is a grand tour of our office with the updated colors:

this is a very clean version of Austin's
desk. this is not my desk.

I do claim that desk!
{what do you do with a glider you don't use?}

found this gem today at Kirkland's for $15!

a look at our brackets. we love the flexibility.

pair of curtains ordered from Kirkland's
for $25

we made our giant ruler go to seven feet
instead of 6!

I used to walk in this room and just think of all the work it would one day need - almost every time. And now I get to relax and enjoy it. This is a room Austin works and plays (computer games) in, where I spend time with the Lord and where we get general home chores done. I wrap gifts and make crafts in here as well. It's been a huge change since the room was painted. The room has come together with new accent pieces - frames, wall decor, and shelf decor.

So happy to be done... or mostly done. We have doorknobs coming in this week!

xo,

Elizabeth

mini home updates

Sometimes we have these projects waiting in the wings that just "eventually" need to get done, (I prefer "immediately", Austin prefers "maybe, sometime, who knows"). Below are a couple of Liz-only projects. (The back yard was a primarily-Austin project.)

1) Pantry.
Our pantry is impractical. You cant see everything in it. It's the biggest we've had to date, and we've filled it with junk because we couldn't see what was in it. My solution? Shelving in our laundry-mudroom (now laundry-mudroom-pantry!).  I can see everything! I bought the shelving unit and had it all sorted and assembled within an hour. I can't wait to actually cook all this food that we couldn't tell we had before! This shelving unit came from Lowe's. I used a $10 off of $50 coupon on it, too.

Top shelf: lunch food, bags
Shelf 4: spices and dinner food items (beans, pasta, rice)
Shelf 3: way too many jars of honey, breakfast items
Shelf 2: baking supplies (I don't know how we got so many)
Bottom shelf: dog food (tub), water bottles, gatorade

2) My desk.
We decided I didn't need a formal office since I'm not working at home anymore. I was using this desk during the five months I was working form home, and I love it. We based all our new living room furniture off this $80 Target find. It has no drawers, but we all know I like to keep things simple, so I'm not bothered by it. Anyway, I finally got it staged and decorated the way I want it to look! We're going to move that bookshelf to the man cave (maybe? If the man cave ever gets cleaned up enough??). The chair is also from Target, but unfortunately, you can only purchase it in-store. I think it was somewhere around $60-80. The wood legs match the desk better in real life. So does the frame of the chalkboard. ("True Colors" just started playing in my head..)

I love my little chalkboard! $20 on Amazon.com

Next down the pike: fixing our gate (thanks to our escape-artist dog), tightening up the railing in the front, and, of course, the bathroom remodel!

xo,