Master Bedroom Remodel!

Well, well, well.

Joey and I have taken on another remodel in our house and it is in full swing.  Our house is painted all one boring builders-grade white and we have been trying to cozy it up now that our warranty is expired.  It has been fun envisioning what we want to do to transform our house into our home!

Our first project was our little powder room downstairs because everyone who visits always uses that bathroom.  It was nice to spruce it up for guests.  It turned out really nice and we are really happy with it!  That first little change bit me with the DIY remodel bug and all of a sudden I was seeing so! many! possibilities! with our house.  We decided that next up should be our bedroom.  It's one of the rooms in the house we use the most and I wanted to turn it into our sanctuary.

So what have we done so far?  It feels like a whole lot of nothing.  We have done tons, but without major change, it just feels like you're just treading water and in the same dang position for a long time.  We painted the trim, which made such a HUGE difference itself.  It's amazing how crisp and clean a room can look with some extra-white paint on the trim.  That took at least 3 weeks between taping it off and actually finding the time to do it in between weddings, birthday parties and of course, work.

Last night, we were all set to prime the walls...until we realized we had to tape everything off and lay drop cloths down.  We invested in a paint sprayer (since we have a whole freaking house to paint) and quickly realized that we couldn't do anything until all of the protectables were protected.  So we got that ready because that only takes five minutes right? HAAAAA, NO.  Three hours later it was a wrap (literally) and we went to bed.  Prep work, I hate you.  Here are some pictures of the room after all of that was done:

It pretty much looks like the inside of an old-school milk carton.  (Also?  That tray ceiling is it's own monster, but that's a whole different post.)

So tonight we finally got down to priming!  Here's Joey in his glory with his new tools:

Double-fisting the painting supplies like a champ!  Obviously I watch and take pictures.

The primer has already made a huge improvement in the room and it definitely looks like it's ready for paint now!  Our goal is to have our room back by this weekend, because clothes in 4 different spots in the house along with a completely relocated bathroom makes for a very frazzled wife and I can't handle that crap before coffee in the morning while trying to get ready for work.

Getting there (I hope)!  More later this week :)

V-Day Recap and Many Leather-bound Books

Happy Monday!

This weekend was a really nice one, filled with things to do for Valentine's Day and a mini home project that Joey and I tackled.  We didn't have any Valentine's Day plans at first, but when we both got home from work, we were starving and didn't want to cook.  Hubs suggested heading to Aubree's Pizza for dinner, since it just opened right down the street from us.  I had never been there before, so we tried it out and it was delicious.  We will definitely be going back, and that can be dangerous considering it's right down the street!

He also surprised me with a bouquet of beautiful lavender roses!  They are definitely a contender for my favorite flower now and they are making me crave springtime even more. We didn't realize it until we were eating dinner, but last year we did the exact same thing for Valentine's Day.  We ordered pizza in and watched the new Season 2 of House of Cards on Netflix.  Apparently, we like our V Day's laid back and casual.  We will probably be keeping this tradition up!  Unfortunately, Season 3 of HOC doesn't come out for another 11 days, but we were content with watching random shows on tv.

On Sunday we decided to put together the bookcase that his family got us for Christmas.  It's from Target, and we love it!  It was easy to put together with 2 people and only took us about an hour and fifteen minutes.  So excited to have it up, now I just have to fill it!  Isn't it a beaut?

Can't wait to get some cute bookends for this bad boy.  I may end up purchasing another one, too because I like it so much and I think I will need it for all of the books we have.

Have a great start to the week!

Xo

Learning How To Fold My Clothes

I was recently introduced to this book by Marie Kondo and I've got to say...she definitely made me realize that my life could use some decluttering and organizing.  I don't know what it is, but I get attached to my clothing.  I remember where I got everything, where I wore it, what kind of outfit I turned it into...and for this reason, I have kept a lot of things that needed to go.  A lot.

So I did a mini purge. (This is not what she teaches in the book but it's all I had time for at this point!)  This was a nice way to dip my toes into letting go of some really old things that I loved, but never wear anymore.  It felt really nice to do this, especially before Spring gets here. I wanted to really look at what I own and see what truly "sparks joy" for me like Marie teaches in the book.

So after the mini-purge, I realized my drawers could use a makeover in the folding department because they were still unorganized and cluttered.  I admit that I am the clothes-in-the-drawer-smasher where I pull things out, look at them, throw them back in and throw my weight into the drawer to get it to close because I'm running low on time and patience.

Marie has a whole system for decluttering and organizing your life but the one thing I felt like I needed immediately was a new way to organize my drawers.  Her method was perfect, and exactly what I was looking for.  I can now see all of my clothes at a glance, without frantically grabbing and stuffing.  I would have taken pictures of my stuff, but I was so excited to get started on my drawers I didn't take any before pictures, so, you're going to see my husband's drawers get a makeover ;)  When he saw how my drawers turned out, he asked me to do this to his!  (Little did he know I was going to do his next anyhow in my fit of a folding spree.)

I went from this:

to this in a matter of a forty-five minutes:

Now I didn't just do one drawer of his, I did his entire dresser in that time period.  By looking up Marie's KonMari method of folding on YouTube, I was able to teach myself how to do it and so I figured I would snap some pictures while I was folding.  Here's a step by step of how it's done.  (oh, and let's just pretend everything was ironed beforehand, mmkay?  Hey, this is real life people and my sister stole my iron!)

First, spread out the shirt face down on the floor.

Fold in the right side and then fold the sleeve back toward the outside...

Then repeat on the left side, so that you have a long skinny rectangle.

Once it looks like this, fold from the bottom to the top...

...so that it looks like this:

Then fold once more from bottom to top.

If you've done it correctly, the shirt should be upside down.  Next just flip it and stick it in the drawer with the rounded edge facing upward!  This makes it really easy to see which shirt it is because the design is in plain view, and easy to grab with the rounded edge facing up in the drawer.

Ta-da!  So easy.  I couldn't believe how nice everything looked when we were done, and I can't believe that my drawers actually stay nice when I take something out.  TRY THIS.  I promise, you will want to hug your dresser after.  Let me know how it turns out!

Xo

escribir.

I was sitting around with my two best friends last night having a much needed girl's night and we began talking about our age, and where we're at in life and what we've accomplished so far.  Being only 26, we weren't lamenting our age, but more marveling at the fact that we have been out of high school for eight! years! already.  Two of us finished college, one of us is a mom (it's not me), one of us just began her career and one of us is still struggling to find a job that matches her degree (yep, that's me.)  Although I guess I can't say 'struggling' when I'm not actively looking for a job in my field.  But with a Bachelor of Arts in Art History, the pickin's are slim. (High-five to my 20-year-old self wanting to be an artsy-fartsy curator of a museum.)