Zone 3 - The Girl Room Post 1

Well, after much hard work....the Girl Room is almost done.
Here is the grand reveal of the girl-beans and their style...

(I have been hunting through my files to find "Before" pictures, and I could only find a couple:)
This was the view from the door:

A mattress stayed directly on the floor because we couldn't figure out how to fit two twin beds and a toddler bed without a bunk.

The former clothing area - Bitty Bean's clothes were actually hodge-podge stored between the closet and Boy Bean's room.

This is what you see now when you enter the room:

The organized and labeled clothing area :)

(More on that later in the week)

The bunk beds!!!! (Bitty Bean is purple and String Bean is teal)

(We also stashed our extra crib mattress under the bed for those middle-of-the-night sheet changes.)

Jumping Bean is pink and she picked the zebra sheets....because her FAVORITE animal in the whole wide world is a flamingo, and the next favorite is a zebra! :)

The curtains are from Target - the girls LOVED the ones in Pottery Barn - but $100 a panel? Not a chance. Target looks quite similar for a fraction of the cost. Happy mama. Happy girls.

Jumping Bean has the nightstand/book shelf - a beautiful piece of furniture their Great-grandfather made.

They have their name-art from their great-uncle Jim, and the painting they made when Bitty Bean was 1 month old.

Individual pictures tinted with their colors (teal, pink, and purple)

And their newest collaborative art piece: The Bird collage. They all painted the background and then did a collage of papers for the birds. (More on that another day too!)

Space for their piggy banks and earring cleaner.

Tea cups from two sets of Great-Grandparents.

All in all? I am thrilled to pieces with their room! It is organized, reflects who they are, has pieces from many family members in it, and easily stays clean!

Definitely a win. :)

~Whitney Copyright 2013

Zone 3 - The Girl Room

My girls.

String Bean,

Jumping Bean,

and Bitty Bean.

They are pretty fantastic.  I mean, really, really cool people to hang out with. They can make me laugh until I cry...they can make me cry in a half-second...they can drive me crazy...they can stump me...they teach me daily.

I'm just extremely glad I know them. And I can't wait to see the women they become.

I've been thinking a LOT about them and their futures lately, because I've been spending exorbitant amounts of time in their room, going through their things, and figuring out what they like.

One thing is certain - they are three INDIVIDUALS.  They are sisters - they are bonded with similar memories, the same crazy parents, a complete hatred for bugs - but they are not the same. And I LOVE that.

I learned from the Design Research that String Bean and Jumping Bean may be from the same family and only 25 months apart - but they could not be more different. To summarize their differences - here is how they answered my question "What would your dream room look like?"

String Bean: "It would be clean, with lots of white. Not much stuff around. Like Auntie's house. I mean, I like our house, Mommy, I just like how Auntie doesn't have tons of color, better."

Jumping Bean:  "I want to live inside a magical, beautiful, rainbow. With color exploding everywhere."

Right. 

Thanks for making this easy. :)

I loved learning what they liked and getting their input on design.  We spent hours together over the last 5 months looking at magazines and Pinterest, discussing what they liked or didn't like. It was so much fun! They loved the time spent together where I just wanted to know what they thought and liked - where there was no wrong answer. Time where they could dream up whatever they wanted - not that we would be able to make that dream happen, but so that I could know what their dreams looked like.

So. Much. Fun.

(In fact, we looked at ALL the pre-made Pottery Barn Kids AND Teen rooms, online; and they agreed on 3 rooms. THREE. Holyheckamama.)

The girl room has been just for String Bean and Jumping Bean...then Bitty Bean moved in when Boy was born - and they loved being all together....When Boy was a year, Bitty Bean moved in with him - she worried he was lonely....but by the time he was 2, Bitty Bean was BEGGING to join the girl room.

Therefore, all 3 girls share a room.
And they love it.

And Boy loves it. He has space where he is not harassed to death, or bossed, or forced to play with My Little Ponies. (But his space is for a different month)  :)

String Bean's favorite color is teal, Jumping Bean's is pink, and Bitty Bean's is purple. That was my spring board. I decided to color code all their stuff and then keep the large things white. They all DO like pink, so that is the other "neutral" color.

Here's a peek:

Guess what you'll be seeing this week? :)  The grand reveal of Zone 3: Girl Room.

Hooray!
~Whitney Copyright 2013

Zone 2 - The Living Room (post 3)

*** I apologize in advance for the obscene amount of pictures in this post. Since this is already my 4th post regarding one room in my house (you can find the other 3, here, here, and here, if you bored out of your head), I decided to make it very long instead of adding yet another post. The jury is out on if I made the right call. ***

So, I'm allergic to not changing.
We have lived in the SAME house for THREE STRAIGHT YEARS!  And, while this has been a really amazing experience...I have realized I've become accustomed to change.
I'm unnerved by things staying the same for such a long time.
Which means I needed to re-arrange furniture.

Naturally.

 This is what my Living Room looked like when I was starting February:

Not bad. Not great.

This is a long room with a gazillion windows. 

And has been the hardest room I've ever had to decorate and configure furniture. 

I love the windows! 

I love the fireplace! 

But holyheckamama it is super difficult to lay out.

The white kid-size table was a FANTASTIC Craig's list find - and didn't normally sit in that spot. 2 chairs (that were as comfortable as they were ugly), occupied that particular zone. But the chairs were out of the house for a little bit while Molly from The Industrial Cottage worked her custom-slip-cover magic.

Then one night after we put the kids to bed, My Love said something in response to one off-hand remark I'd made a couple days earlier. He said,

"Honey, you want to re-arrange the living room furniture?" 

File that under "Top 10 sexiest phrases ever."

Within an hour and a half, every single piece of furniture had been moved. 
Yes, he loves me. 

Biggest life-altering furniture move?
Taking the piano off the wall...and backing it up to the couch. LOVE it there!

But it wasn't complete.....not by a long shot. 

Poor man.

One week later, he came home to an obscene amount of picture frames (and other stuff) laid on the floor in a specific pattern...and a wife with a I-have-a-project-going-and-won't-be-able-to-sleep-until-it-is-done-face.

I told you he loves me!

A LOT.

Now, every time I walk in the living room I smile - because that wall says he loves me.

Really, he had a LONG day and came home and hung all those pictures, even though he wanted to just sit on the couch and do nothing.

Without a ladder.

Yep.

He just stood on the back of the couch and leaned back on me.

I'm a helper. :)

The bare spot under the long shelf is supposed to have a picture under it (see it hiding on the couch??)....but the command strip didn't work. I'm impatient, and wanted to post pictures anyway. Please use your imagination.

Also imagine there are actual pictures that mean something to OUR family in all of those frames...because the pictures they came with are hanging on my wall. Eventually, 8 of the small frames will have a picture of the front door from every house we've lived. 

Here is the final tour....

The view from the back of the room -

Chair #1with a custom slipcover in bleachable white denim. :) It makes me very, very, happy. We turned the bookcase on it's side and now it is an easily accessed kid zone. It holds some toys and children's books. (See earlier post detailing how we contain the beast known as kid stuff.) 

Courtesy of Craig's list, the neighborhood can now watch tv from the alley behind our house.

You're welcome, neighborhood.

View from the middle of the room (above) and the front of the room (below).

Please note beautiful chair #2. Also known as the-most-comfortable-chair-you-will-ever-sit-in. Which is what has saved its life all these years. Your butt is just super happy in that chair. Now my eyes are happy to look at it, too!

(Imagine the TV cabinet and giant TV on the right of the above picture.)

(And my floating shelves with the owls on them above the white chair in the back of the room)

There you have it! Our living room - Zone 2 - as of this second.

There is no guarantee that I will not change something in the future....but it will definitely NOT be the picture wall. 

Or the furniture layout.

But a nice round, wood, coffee table?

(something like this one I saw at Haynes)

Maybe an accent table?

(Like this super funky one from Target)

And a beautiful lamp?

(not that we would EVER buy this - but I love the look of it!)

Oh Pottery Barn, why do you have such lovely things?

I could see stuff like that migrating in. 

Window something or other should probably happen too....but my brain is hurting from all this decorating already. 

Now my poor second floor is naked. 

But hey, my kitchen is organized, my living room is beautiful, and I finally figured out a system that keeps the toy mess at bay!

I'm calling it a win. 

Thanks for reading!

~Whitney Copyright 2013

Zone 2 - The Living Room (Part 1)

In January, I told you about how organizing in this house was a'happenin'. I had divided the house into Zones to work on, and planned on slowly working through the entire house during the deployment.
The deployment that was cancelled.
But, instead of throwing my organizing plan (yes, I have a plan for organizing....mildly psychotic) out the window, I decided to take advantage of the Muscle in the house being home. :)
January - Zone 1 - was The Kitchen. It was 2 parts of organizing babble.
The good news?
All the changes I made actually WORK. Things have been consistently put away. The children are able to help with all the things I had hoped. I'm able to keep my areas cleaner - although the stove top is still the bane of my existence. (That and the shower. I hate cleaning those two things!)
The better news?
The success of the kitchen has motivated me to keep going through the house.

Side note - when I pick one zone, I still have to maintain the other zones of the house. So, sometimes even if my monthly zone is, say, the living room....I still may end up going through kid clothes. Life has to keep happening - and I can't always complete the zone I planned...so I do what I can and then start work on the other places.

My living room has been a source of struggle for me since the day we moved in. It is a HUGE room (don't ask the dimensions, I have no idea) with about 10 million windows. I LOVE it! All the sunshine is marvelous and feels so open. However, after living in 6 small and 1 medium house...it was quite a change.

Here are 2 pictures showing ALL our furniture that wasn't expressly bedroom/dining room related....

Quadrupling the size of your house DEFINITELY makes your furniture seem smaller! 

And having a pretty house, makes the furniture that doesn't look so great REALLY stand out.

Oh well.

We had places to put butts.

Not pretty places - but comfy ones!

(I'm not even showing you the COMPLETELY empty back 1/3 of the room!)

In fact, it has been such a struggle - I posted about needing help back in November. :)

I've made a bit of progress...the 3 pillows in the corner? Fantastic find and they totally go with my owls.

AND thanks to my genius friend, Molly, I will change them into removable pillow covers that I can wash!! (Why that never occurred to me, I'll never know.) I just need to find a zipper for the 3 non-washable pillows...the Owl, bright Green, and Crazy Bird. (See below) :)

My new favorite piece of furniture - this super-awesome-completely-makes-me-smile-every-time-I-look-at-it TV Stand. 

Other pillow I love - it called my name from Garden Ridge. And all 4 pillows were on CLEARANCE!! People, that is my love language. Well, that and food.

These cutesy shelves were in the damaged section at Bed Bath and Beyond for $5...so I bought them. I had no IDEA what to do with them, but I figured it would come to me.

It didn't.

They sat in that very sad hodge-podge state for months.

Iamsoashamed.

But yesterday? That changed! Now they are filled with cute little things that I like! That go with our room! That I like! (Yes, I said that twice...it was double important)

I mean, seriously, how cute are those little speak no/hear no/see no evil owls?!

I also went through ALL of the toys and got rid of about 10 million things.....but more on the toy de-cluttering/organization, tomorrow. :)

And, most likely....the entire layout of the room will be flipped in the next 2 days. I told you I was taking advantage of having the Man home! :)

~Whitney Copyright 2013

Help me out....

Alright people in the world wide web....

This chick needs your help.

Decorating.

(Please disregard this entire post if you have a life and don't want to waste your time with useless stuff)

I'm not super-awesome at decorating....or really just plain awesome....I'm more of a "here's a place to put your butt - hooray if it is clean!" kind of decorator.

But I would like to be a tad bit more advanced. I know it won't happen over night....that takes more money than I want to spend. Especially since we are planning to fork over some moolah for a port call next year. :)  But I at least need a direction to head towards....

So here I am, asking for your opinion.  Which, quite honestly, I might hate. I'm rather particular when it comes to decor - although you wouldn't know that because most of our stuff is hodge-podge-works-for-right-now.

To help with an idea of what I/we like...and what we've got to work with...here are some pictures of my house....

I love, love, LOVE this pillow. The randomness of the owls, the fun collection of colors, that it is comfy and functional, that it doesn't look stuffy/grown up. :)

All colors have to come from here. This pillow is the spring board of inspiration. :)

We have a large dark "leather" sectional

First wall hanging we bought as old married people. I love this. :)

What is currently on the huge wall in the living room....needs more....don't know what.  

Apparently, I like bright green.

 This painting just makes me smile.

Rug as you walk in the house

(Is that an entry-way rug? I have no clue)

Art from when we lived in Chicago - Love the Windy city!

Art in the entryway - I like the bold colors

Art in the dining room...I still like this, although not a 10. 

My Love is not so sure any more. :)

Metal piece in the kitchen - we both love it still.

A couple shots of what we have to work with in the living room....

Painted piano - not my favorite, but the price was spot on and it is in good shape. 

Hand-me-down chair that will soon be recovered....color to be determined....

Hand-me-down chair that will soon be recovered....color to be determined....

To get a tad bit more of a picture in what I like - feel free to check out my pinterest. :)

I'm clearly bad at adding texture and depth. Help me out! 

~Whitney Copyright 2012