November | 2013 | The Overall[s] Adventure

As I mentioned the weather was pretty crappy during this vacation, so I had to come up with inside projects. And my spare room has been on the to-do list for ages. I really want a cute space for those few times a year that people actually come and visit me. And I have all of my awesome extra furniture just shoved in there not really being particularly cute. And the number one reason is, as always, CEILINGS SHOULD BE WHITE! Every time I look in there or even walk by, the poopy brown dark cave impression given by the hated taupe walls and ceiling is just depressing. I can even see hints of it from the hall or even laying in my bed and looking out the door. The brown had officially worn out any shred of welcome it never had. Time to paint.

I had been debating about color and had the same hang-ups I had with my bedroom — had to be cheerful and make the room feel bright. And this room is even more challenging because it faces north and is even more dreary than my room (which is why I chose my room as the master in the first place instead of the other even though it is larger). And just like the debate with my room, I ended up at the same solution — go with a known winner, cream. So the same color as my room, Chapel Wall with Sugar Dust ceiling. 3 days of painting and a room transformed.

Cast off extra furniture includes inherited red love seat, which presented problems when pondering alternate paint colors.

I bought these curtains from Ikea ages ago and were suppose to include hem tape but it didn’t so I had to get creative with a swag instead of my standard straight. Sorry about photo quality — even in the middle of the afternoon it is still kind of dark in here (but it IS November, so kind of expected.)

Moved my desk from the living room.

Love the new rug, also from Ikea, and Lily likes hanging out in here too.

Not fully decorated yet. And I need to figure what to do about a bed. I’m torn between a sofa bed or going to mattress discount place and getting a real bed. On the to-do list. Even so, it feels so much brighter in here, which spills out into the hall. Still work to do but I am happy to have made some progress.

When I moved in a year ago, the garage was, obviously, just a catch-all and staging area for all of the junk, etc. I did a minor attempt at organizing so I could find the things I need and just left it at that. Over the last year, I figured what things need to be handy and what needed a better long-term home so I could find it if I need it but I wasn’t digging through the same boxes, piles, etc. when I was looking for stuff. My other major hang up was with the cupboard next to the furnace. This thing was probably built in the 60s and has the solid-as-a-Mack truck construction typical of the era but because of the spacing of the shelves is kind of useless — nothing seemed to fit right.

Just piles of stuff everywhere

I wanted to do real hooks on the wall for the garden tools.

This is pretty organized but I just wanted to show off my badass washer and dryer — they sing to me!

So during a random November vacation when it was generally a little too chilly to be outside I decided to tackle this project. I started with grand ambitions of one of those TV DYI shows and then got bored and just ended up doing a basic tidy. I did however clean out the cupboard and put in shelf paper (already purchased when I thought I wanted to line the back of my open kitchen cabinets with it and then decided that would be too busy.) Shelf paper in, I organized all of the random stuff that wanted to get out of the way, mainly painting stuff and bottles of project goo — spackle and hole patch, WD-4, paint thinner, etc. Looks pretty good.