And we re-arrange the dining room once again!

This wall has kinda always bugged me.



When we moved in I had this idea for rustic floating shelves to display all of my pretty white bud vases against the blue wall, but that never happened. Instead we found this great midcentury piece that has done the job okay.

Problem was, the wall was just too big for it. I hated the mirrors and the wedding pictures on it. But, no real solution had appeared so we just kept it and I continued browsing craigslist.

We were supposed to buckle down this weekend and get the house totally ready for our upcoming house exchange (strangers staying in our house while we stay in theirs).

Then, on Friday night, I found this!
And the dimensions were PERFECT for either our living room OR our dining room.

They were asking $300 for it, but that was definitely not in our budget, so I asked if they would take $150. They said yes! The thing is GIANT (112" long by 89"tall). I figured we could sell one of the other pieces and make $150 to make it an even trade.

Let the re-arranging begin!

Like I said awhile ago, I was kinda over the expedit in the living room. The books were always getting messy looking, I couldn't hide the TV in any way that looked great, and it just didn't feel like a grown up home to me.

Here's what they both looked like...





As we were planning what to do with the expedit my mom came down and told us she would buy it from us. Not having to post it on craigslist is awesome.

We called the movers and they would pick up our new bookcase at 3, bring it here, put it back together, then move the expedit up to my mom's.



When we moved the expedit into the hallway, we realized someone had been stashing snacks behind it for a LONG time.


The plan was to put the TV in the Rumpus Room and put the new bookcase in the living room.

Then we realized the TV would fit in the display from the dining room...PERFECTLY. And all the equipment could fit in the storage underneath...and the speakers in the spot above! I didn't even mind that the TV wasn't covered. Because it fit in the spot perfectly it wasn't too offensive.



Did a little switcheroo...(see the expedit awaiting the movers in the hallway)...


Bubbs hooked up the electronics while T modeled his "robot pants"


To make a long, boring, and whiny story short - the movers stank like pot and were horrible at their job. Bubbs and I ended up paying them for two hours (plus tip) and we put all the furniture together ourselves, dissembled the expedit, moved it upstairs and put it back together (not an easy task).



Apparently Elmo was riding a train in this photo.



Our entire Saturday was eaten up getting this beauty together and mounted to the wall (to avoid toddler death by climbing). Then we spent Sunday morning putting everything back together again.

We still have holes to patch, but I love the results.


The dining room looks giant with this in there. It seems a little busy with all the colors of the books, so I might arrange by color some afternoon during naptime, but for now, I like it.

I need so much help in the shelf styling department, but I see many garage sales in my future to make these shelves pretty :)


Ta Da!

House-aversary

We've lived here for one year today!


































































Cheers, to many more!

On The List

At the end of September I made a list of things I wanted to accomplish around the house.

Moments later, my hubbs quit his job and the list changed a bit.

Of the things on the list we accomplished two in two months.

1) Hang string lights



2) Paint headboard


(by the way the quilt is gone and we're all white now - for now)

3) Half did re-binding the "dee dee" (T's blanket) - bad quick 10 minute job that worked for awhile.

4) At the bottom of that post I mention that I won't even start decorating the rumpus room, but hey - that's almost done!


My cheaper to do list:

1) Figure out something to do with the TV "hider" in the expedit. I'd like something less wrinkly. Maybe a bamboo shade?



2) New bedspread for our bed - something with some pattern and possibly. Muted and mellow.

3) Fix up/ make pretty the shoe bench


Sadly, this is what our entry way looks like a lot of the time. We have tiny poorly set up closets in this house so all the coats end up living here. The shoes don't get put inside, things that are supposed to go downstairs to our storage get stuck here (by the front door) and it takes a couple days to get there. I need to figure out a way to make this more efficient, but I'm not there yet.

I need to recover it, and possibly paint the wood - though maybe stain it...what would you do?