Pick Up Sticks

Getting Organized

We live in a tiny house...really tiny house.  It is a Cape Cod that has 2 bedrooms on the first floor, a living room, bathroom, kitchen and a new addition - we call the sunroom.  The second floor has two bedrooms - a large master bedroom and a tiny additional bedroom we once used as a nursery and then as an office.

As our boys got older and moved out - well one is out and has his own house while one is at college - the use of the 4 bedrooms has changed.  Our oldest son's room became our youngest son's room.  The youngest's room became the guest room/office.  My husband expanded the closet in the small bedroom upstairs for himself while the rest of the room became a storage area by default.  I decided to switch closets with my husband and claim the whole small bedroom for myself. 

We started decluttering the room and switched out closets - which forced us to go through clothes and shoes.  We donated quite a bit to the local thrift shop.  Now the room will become my craft studio.  I am so excited...to have a space to get all my supplies organized in one place.  Right now things are stored through out the house.

I started by painting the tiny room a sunny yellow...just the perfect color...not too bright.  I LOVE it...the room glows...and since there is only one window...it needs all the brightness it can get.  I found a floral fabric that I also love...it is very modern and graphic looking...with large flowers in various shades of yellow and black and grey.  I plan on using it to create panels on the doors of the armoire - which right now have a wire mesh...and you can see all the bins of yarn in it.

This past weekend we had our new bed delivered - a king size to replace the full size we have had for years - and share with our dog - ugh.....  Now our upstairs is all torn apart - as we had to move furniture around to have the bed delivered.  The progress I was making on my craft room has been displaced with lots of items temporarily moved in there - that coupled with the need to drag out some bins of warmer clothes has made for more clutter - it never seems to end.

It is a work in progress...but is getting there....more to come.

Busy...busy...busy...and a pomegranate martini

Life is busy...lots of home improvement projects going on...once we finished the new room (sunroom...family room....not sure what to call it) it made the kitchen look shabby.  I like the cupboards but the flooring needed to be replaced...so we extended the cork flooring from the family room into the kitchen...which required the removal of a 300 lb radiator and the tearing out of the old wainscoting and putting in new.  So of course then we needed to repaint...the kitchen and down the hall.  It's all done.  But the change in color meant the red jelly cupboard no longer matched...so it has been repainted and will be finished tonight. We still want to replace the countertops...but that is one project that will NOT be finished before Easter.

So needless to say I am tired...two rounds of painting Saturday with a trip to do some birthday shopping for our DIL, a trip to Troeg's Brewery - a weekly event to fill our growler - RyePA - Scratch #18 - yum!!! Then lunch out with the hubby...had a great greek salad...a trip to Tar-get...and back home for the 2nd round of painting.  Today meant more painting, grocery shopping, cooking and yardwork...I am exhausted.  Plus the hubby replaced all the old outlets and light switches...it all looks great.

Saturday night I settled in with my knitting - diminished rib cardigan - one sleeve to go - and a pomegranate martini - so good!  I mentioned last night on Face-book that I was drinking a pomegranate martini...unfortunately my MOTHER is also on face-book and read it and was teasing me about it today - she's keeping tabs on me through face-book...the perfect reason that I have not "friended" my children...they don't need me keeping tabs on them!

Tonight...a little knitting...some really bad TV and off to bed...exhausted.

New Room

Our new room is nearly complete. Flooring is in – finally – this was the big hold up. It came in 3 weeks later than expected and held up lots of other projects.

Our contractor – Mark – says he will be done this week.

Can I tell you how much I love this room already? It is 16 x 20 and has 11 windows and French doors. The room faces south and gets great light. It will do double duty as a dining area and small family room area. Plus it has a nice closet – which is a luxury in our older home. We have never had a coat closet or a place to put the vacuum cleaner. This closet will be heavenly!

Because we have never purchased a brand new home we never had to make all the decisions that come with building a home. Or have a brand new space to start fresh with – not try to convert some one else’s space. It has been fun – picking windows, lighting, flooring, furniture, etc.

We chose cork flooring – which I LOVE. It is so much ‘softer’ than hardwood or laminate flooring. There is cork on both sides of the floor which seems to cushion the floor. It feels great under foot. We chose cork because we have original hardwood floors in most of our house. It was impossible to try to match this flooring. Because we will extend the new room flooring into the kitchen and down the hall, we wanted something to complement the original floors. This looks wonderful with the old floors.

We still have so many decisions to make. We did not want curtains in this room – but decided on bamboo roman shades. These need to be ordered. We need some furniture – we have a brand new table with 6 chairs – and ordered another server-type piece to match. Now we need pieces for the family room end of the room. We really don’t want it to overwhelm the room – just want 2 chairs – on the small side – with a table in between. And a TV stand – as my parents bought us flat screen TV for this room. It is so hard for me to visualize everything together when we are buying pieces of furniture.

We repainted the room this weekend.  I absolutely LOVE the color - burnished sable by Ralph Lauren.  The room glows!  We moved the table and chairs in this weekend and now I can get a better picture of how much room we have left for the 'family room' side.  The table looks great in the room.  My goal is to keep the table set all the time and change pieces out for the seasons.

Don't mind the blue painters tape or molding that still needs paint.

Lists

How come I can make lists and lists of everything I want to get done but they never seem to get done?

I have lists of things that need to be done around the house. Adding a brand new room on makes other things in your house look shabby.

I have lists of things I want to knit and tons of yarn to do it with. But I get bored with projects too easily and then start something new. Ravelry does not help this situation – there are too many gorgeous ideas.

I have lists of gardening ideas. And plans drawn out and plant lists.

I truly think I am ADD. I get overwhelmed with what needs to be done or what I want to get done and then nothing gets done.

So – my new hope is to try to make small lists – ones that are not overwhelming. My husband is helping me with this. He has gotten more involved this past year in making choices for the house and garden. In the past I planned everything and made all the choices – mostly because he was busy coaching one kid or the other in a sport. Now that we are mostly empty-nesters he has more time and we have more time together. So having another person helping out with some of my lists helps. He is also much more realistic about things than me. He can see the big picture but not need to have it all done at once like me. He keeps me grounded.

He is also very patient. Like yesterday – when I came home to our new cork flooring in the addition – which I LOVE by the way – I panicked because the color we picked to paint the walls clashed with the new floor. When we picked the wall color we did not have a sample of the flooring with us. Big Mistake! When he came home and saw the walls he agreed that we would need to change the wall color…no big deal…it’s just 2 gallons of paint and one days work. So calm…unlike me who was so upset. So tonight we will meet at Home-Depot after work and choose a new wall color – armed with flooring samples this time. Plans are to repaint this weekend as we both have a three day weekend.

New Room check list – choose a new wall color – done.