Home decor rule I'm breaking: unstyled bookshelves

I feel like this is the year that our attitude toward our home is really shifting. When we moved in 6 years ago, it was a starter home and we thought we would be moving on to something bigger. But we are coming to realize more and more that this is the home and neighborhood we want to raise our family in, even though the house isn't as big as we thought we would need with 4 kids (more on this later). With this new view of our home, we've (I've) really started making strides to turn it into everything we want. It's freeing, because instead of worrying about how things will affect resale value (ok, let's be honest, I've never been too concerned about that), we are just doing things we love, even though that means sometimes breaking all the home decor rules. Most rooms in my home do not look like a Pinterest board... but that's ok, because they make me smile every time I see them.
First up, my unstyled gigantic bookshelves.
I have posted about these several times.
That's because they're awesome and they deserve lots of recognition!
There are tons of tutorials on Pinterest about how to "style" bookshelves. That ain't never going to happen in our house because we have too darn many books.

And that's not all... there are more on the floor to ceiling bookshelves in our room. I know I could do a better job about arranging these books by color, or size, or splitting them into different sections, etc.... but we have a system. Jason agonizes over how these books are arranged, each section blending perfectly into the next, authors staying together, short stories with short stories and novels with novels. They are crazy and each shelf is stuffed with books, but we like it that way!

Last summer Helena asked Jason if he could measure her against the bookshelves. I said it would be ok, thinking he would discreetly mark with a ballpoint pen against the edge. Instead he scrawled "Helena, 6/19/14" in green sharpie across the whole thing. After that I decided our kids' height should be a work of art, so I used a gold paint pen to mark their height and doodled their names big and proud. 

I just put little bookshelf markers along every shelf a few months ago. It was hard to know how to label them, because like I said, our sections kind of flow into each other... we ended up with labels like "War, what is it good for?", "US Americans", "Americanarama", "Cowboys, past and present", "Paranormal teen romance", "INFINITE JEST", "Something clever", "Nerd", "Graphic Novels", "Ladies' book club", and "I love lamp". You'll have to come to the house to see what kinds of books fit in those sections.

Another thing... you will always find stacks of books on every shelf that haven't been reshelved yet. It sometimes drives me crazy because I like things neat and tidy and not cluttered, but we are a family of readers and we really read those books. Like, all the time. There are always several that are in rotation and so are just stuck on the edge of the shelves instead of "put away". 
So there you have it, the first of one of the many rules I am breaking as I decorate my house. Take away message: do what makes YOU happy in your house, and who cares what your neighbors, friends, relatives, strangers on the internet, or future realtor think!

Five year house anniversary!!

We are celebrating our five year anniversary of living in our little home this month!!

I can't believe it's been five years.

When we bought this house, we had a five year plan. It's not a huge house and we thought we would be moving "up" after five years. I had no idea how attached we would get to our house, neighborhood, friends, ward, and school. I can't even imagine leaving! We really lucked out with everything. I put 0 thought into schools when we were house hunting (Tempe was only 2) but our neighborhood school has been great and is in a great location that allows my kids to walk to school (Juno's preschool is in an elementary school on a really busy street next to the freeway off ramp and none of the kids walk--it's made me really appreciate having a safe walking school!)

I have really come to terms with us staying in a "small" house long term, even with a fourth child. People raise bigger families in smaller houses all over the world--even in the US--and it's a really silly attitude to think we are outgrowing our home. I've learned to cut back on our stuff and really organize and use our space better and I feel like we fit just fine (for now!)

So, to celebrate our fifth anniversary I'm sharing some pictures of our living room. I have struggled with our living room, home to the giant mirror wall, but for the first time in five years, I really like it!

So since we've lived here, we've painted the room (Stone Fence by Behr) and built giant bookshelves (actually my dad did both of those things for us) and I have had a hard time committing to fabrics for the window seat cushions and pillows. I think I've finally found something I will be able to stick with!

Gold letter A hanging over the fireplace... 

New chairs, new pillows on the couch, and a view of the bookshelves. Also found wood window shade and birch tree curtains.

Gigantic bookshelves with my globe collection lining the top! I love my globes. I know that you can find tons of posts on Pinterest about how to "stage" bookshelves, but to be honest, we just have too darn many books and we need the space for them and not cute knickknacks. That's the mirror behind the shelves, by the way--people often think it's just a room divider and the wall is open.

These are the chairs that my mom got me last month!! We had mismatched, old, falling apart chairs that I hated so much and I think she finally got sick of hearing me complain, so she offered to buy me some new ones. I found these at Target for $70 each. 

I added the gold tips on the legs with metallic spray paint and I kind of love it!

View from the top of the stairs, just so you can get a better idea of the room. We love how much light this room gets and it's fun to sit on the window seats and read.
Overall, I love how this room has turned out--cozy, a great gathering spot for us to plop down and read our many books, but still presentable to guests when they walk through the front door!

My Pinterest inspired bathroom and laundry room makeover!

Back in January, I decided to repaint our guest bathroom. I needed a project, and since it was the brightest turquoise you have ever seen, it seemed like the right room to work on. I totally shocked everyone when I decided to paint it a neutral color, but I wanted to try something new. And guess what, I like it!

I call this my Pinterest inspired bathroom because it looks like every other bathroom posted on Pinterest--neutral "greige" wall color, ruffle shower curtain, shelves over the toilet, you get the picture. I mostly took all my favorite elements from my "hall bathroom" board on Pinterest and copied them.

I got the shelves from Target. The jute covered container is a #10 food storage can that I hot glued jute on. It took forever and I got major rope burn on my finger, but I love how it turned out and it's great storage. The little yellow frame is a cross-stitch that I got at DI. It says "Dearest Daughter, God is near you". I thought that was appropriate, since this is my three daughter's bathroom. The other frame is Tempe's earring holder. 

Instead of a towel bar, I got four decorative hooks from Hobby Lobby and screwed them into wall anchors for the girls to hang their towels on. Don't mind the old wall anchors that I just painted over. I couldn't get them out of the wall and I stopped caring. Also, the wall color--I spent $3 on this. It's a funny story, actually. I found it in the Oops paint at Wal-Mart, but it was from Home Depot (had a tag and everything). I suppose I could have just walked out with it, but I took it to customer service and they agreed to let me buy it for $3. It's a great color, but flat, which isn't great for a bathroom. So far it's been ok and I figure I can afford to paint over it if I have to!

This bird cage is something I did years ago and it never "went" in our bathroom. Now it does!!

The cabinet in here used to be kind of light pine (I'm not sure what you would call the finish). I painted them white and put textured wallpaper on the door front and added some cut glass owl knobs.

I saw this on Pinterest and really wanted it, but those things are like $40 on Amazon. But after I started looking for one online, I found this one at DI for $4!

Ruffled shower curtain!
And now on to the laundry room. My laundry room is just a closet in the hall bathroom with some folding doors on it. It used to have three shelves that were barely hanging out of the walls and the walls themselves were all scuffed up and gross. And the lowest shelf was hung too low, so I couldn't open my washing machine all the way! 

I put up beadboard wallpaper on two of the three walls and painted the third the same color as that metal star (also as my garage door--another $5 Oops paint find!) Instead of three shelves, I just put two back up--high enough to open the washing machine fully. I wanted nicer brackets, but they are kind of pricey, so I just spray painted the metal ones. I LOVE how they turned out!!

 The top shelf has my girls' "special" boxes. I also keep gift wrapping supplies in here, but besides that, I keep it decluttered. It makes me so happy to open this closet and do laundry now!

{Mr. and Mrs.} master bedroom

So it's been a while since I started my master bedroom makeover. In fact, it's been so long that I've been staring at a half-finished room for so long that now that it is actually done, I don't really feel that sense of accomplishment that usually comes with finishing a big project. Darn! But I am really happy with how it turned out. With three little kids, our whole house seems like it is filled with toys and other kid-related junk most of the time. I really wanted our bedroom to be a special place where we can celebrate being a couple.

I'm not going to share any before pictures because they are all on the other computer and I just don't have the energy to --spend more time uploading pictures from a half-dead computer. So you'll have to use your imagination. The walls were builder beige, the light fixtures were late '80s mod sconces, and there was a forest green, velvet cushion on the window seat. Oh, and there was a mirror niche in the wall behind our bed. A big ugly mirror.

What is it with my house and mirrors?????

Our bedroom is really big with vaulted ceilings (high vaulted ceilings). I started by painting all the walls navy blue--no paint info, because I got the first gallon as a $5 oops gallon. Then I had it matched for the additional gallons I needed.

To take care of the mirror niche, I used a section of the fence that my neighbor lost in our windstorm. My dad helped me to mount it on the wall directly over the mirror niche, using flush mount hardware. Easy peasy!

I got the bedside tables from KSL and spray painted them coral (Krylon Coral Isle) and then glazed them. I really love how they turned out!

We went to New Orleans for our honeymoon so I just HAD to get this poster from Orkposters.com.

The light fixtures on this wall were these white ceramic half-globe things. Blerg. I got the new little guys from DI (excuse the ugly lightbulbs, please) and replaced the globes with new ones. I looooooooove this picture of me and Jason! My favorite picture ever.

I love my new windowseat area. It used to just have a velvet cushion on it but we NEVER sat on it. I used it mostly to stack DI donations on. I decided to make it more of a focal point, so I stenciled the windowseat with some mustard yellow oops paint and hung some sheer white curtains from Ikea. I added some vintage books and a typewriter and a couple of candlesticks and pillows for accessories. But the best part is definitely the light fixture. Oh, the light fixture. I almost cried when I saw it at DI. I love it so much. It only cost $5. Can you believe that??? I am really the best at taking pictures, huh? Too bad I can't capture the true awesomeness of this light.

And hanging over my sewing desk are some of the paintings Jason has done for me. He paints one for me almost every year for my birthday or Mother's Day. So sweet!

Summer evenings

I'm not even finished in my own bedroom makeover, but I'm already starting to think of what I would love to do in my girls' room! It won't happen for a year or two, because we have to decide who will be in which room long-term. Right now we have Tempe and Helena in the smaller bedroom and Juno in the bigger one (??? I don't know why....)

*Tangent* Our house has three bedrooms--a huge master and two very small, awkwardly positioned kids' bedrooms. Both are arranged in such a way that there is only one place to put a twin bed in either room (due to closets, windows, doors, heating ducts, etc). It's annoying. I feel like I could have designed much better bedrooms, a much better use of space. So in at least one, we are hoping to rip out the closets and move them to the other side of the room so we can fit two twin beds in that room instead of a bunk bed. So, a little more of a project than just redecorating!

But when we do decide who will be where, I have some great ideas for a summer evening inspired bedroom: citrus color scheme, firefly jars, paper lanterns, and this awesome awning as a window treatment.

And since Picnik is closing in April (sob!), I made a bunch of summer evening printables to hang in the someday summer evening inspired bedroom:

My friend Danielle has this design as her blog header--hope she doesn't mind I copied her!!

Saw this one on Pinterest and made my own... sorry, I didn't pin it, so I can't give you the original source. I looooove it because my sweet little Tempe has adorable freckles sprinkled across her cheeks and nose.

I've seen things like this allll over the internet, but I made this one.

GIGANTIC bookshelves

Sometimes I have a really hard time coming up with a post title... so I decided to just go with something descriptive today :)

You may remember the bane of my existence, the gigantic mirror wall in our living room. I've tried several things to improve it--this empty frame collage and painting the walls in the room. Both of those things helped, but it was a still a huge mirror with a crumbling corners and a crack at the top.

Well, a few months ago I was at my lovely friend Tanya's house (who is, by the way, a fabulous decorator and an amazing thrifter). She has a set of Ikea Lack bookshelves in her living room--they're the kind that have an open back. All of a sudden inspiration struck.

Ikea discontinued the Lack shelves, but that was ok, because I found plans to build them on Ana White's website. And since my mirror is a monster (8 1/2 ft by 12 ft), I decided to modify the plans to make the bookshelves the same dimensions.

Luckily I waited until my dad was out here on a business trip. He did 90% of the work, but I learned a lot! Dad helped me assemble them and put them up and then I finished all the patching, sanding, priming, and painting, which was a huge job in and of itself.

Jason and I spent the weekend categorizing books and arranging (and rearranging) them on the shelves. We also did a little furniture rearranging--I think the room feels so much more open and inviting now!

Jason and I always said (from the time we were just dating!) that our dream house would have floor to ceiling bookshelves with a bookshelf ladder. Well, they aren't floor to ceiling because the ceiling is vaulted, but if it weren't vaulted, they would be! I want to get the bookshelf ladder from Ikea to put at the end unit.

My poor photography skills are really not showcasing this project properly. You really have to see it in person to appreciate it's awesomeness! The shelves are directly against the mirror (and don't worry, they are anchored firmly in place) and so the back of the bookshelf is the mirror. It looks really neat!

This room still has so many things I want to change about it, but we will just have to get there one step at a time. In the meantime, at least I have an awesome shelving unit with tons of storage space and character!

{Gray and white striped wall}

What happens when you troll around Pinterest too often?

You end up with stripes--gray and white stripes!

Last Thursday night I decided I wanted to do something to our house--anything. So I got Jason to agree to stripes on the wall in our upstairs hallway.

On Friday I went to Home Depot to look at paint samples. While I was there, I checked the Oops paint and found the perfect gray. Now, gray is a hard color to pick. I know because I tried to pick a gray for our living room and failed miserably. Everything I picked was either too blue or too brown. But there I was, in the Oops paint section "just to look", and someone had picked the perfect gray for me! It was meant to be. So of course I bought it--$2 for a quart of perfect gray paint. Then I picked a white--I ended up with Creamy White by Behr, which turns out to be the perfect white.

Friday night I painted the whole hallway white. I never before understood how anyone could bear to have plain white walls until I saw this white. It is the most creamy, delicious vanilla white you have ever seen! It's gorgeous and just plain white walls were a great improvement over the builder beige that was in the hallway.

On Saturday while Jason and the big girls were cleaning the church and Juno was taking a nap, I taped my stripes and painted them gray.

On Saturday night I peeled off the tape and swooned.

On Monday I painted some old frames in our garage mustard yellow, also a $2 quart from the Oops section at Home Depot. On Monday afternoon I hung them on the wall. Jason thinks it looks better plain--I might agree with him, I haven't decided yet. What do you think? Plain striped wall or striped wall with empty frame collage?

Our front door opens into the living room and the stairs are right there on the landing, so this is the view from the front door. I love it. This room has been my least favorite room in the house until the last few months when we (I mean my dad) painted it. The color on the walls in the living room is Stone Fence by Behr. It's very blue when it's sunny, very gray when it's overcast.

Even with the recent paint improvements, I still have quite a few projects to do in this room before I am totally happy... and this picture doesn't even show the ugly '80s builder grade tile on the landing!
But I have a BIG project to work on next week that hopefully will take care of one of the things in this picture--stay tuned! And by big I mean BIG.

Goodbye, coffee table

So last year when I finally caved and told Jason he could get a flat screen HDTV, we had a little organization dilemma. That coffee table was supposed to be my temporary fix--well--I guess it was temporary, just not as temporary as I thought it would be.

Last week I found a gem at DI, in my favorite part of the store--the yard area. They keep the crappier furniture back there, but it's where I always find the best stuff. In my opinion, the furniture kept inside the store is way overpriced, but the stuff out back is juuuuuuust right. I picked up this funky old table for $15, spraypainted it with my favorite Krylon Cherry Red, and glazed it with a black glaze from Valspar (I couldn't find Ralph Lauren glaze anywhere, grrrr). I really love how it turned out!

Our Blu-Ray, satellite box, and Wii are in the middle compartment. The little door slides along a track so we can access them easily when we need to, but hide all the clutter when we have company. And we finally have enough storage space to get out the rest of our movies! Well, some of them at least.

The shapely legs and the intricate carvings are what sold me this table. Man, I am really not a great photographer, even with the help of Picnik, because the glaze totally accentuates all those details. It looks so great in real life!

Plus I have a thrifting tragedy to share with you in the coming weeks, so look forward to that!

a new look

I've never loved our front door. In fact, I think it looked like the front door at an elderly couple's retirement home or assisted living condo. It wasn't me and it didn't reflect my personality at all.

So I decided to do something about it.

I bought a $3 sample jar of Behr paint and yesterday when it got above 50 degrees, I went to town.

Now that is me!

(it doesn't really say "Bam!" on the bricks)

From the street, it's a nice muted dark color. It could be dark blue or even dark gray. But as you get closer, you realize that it's a lovely shade of plum. Or eggplant purple. Or royal purple. Or.... some kind of purple. The actual color is called Legacy from Behr.

I hope all my neighbors don't think I'm crazy.

xoxo hugs and kisses xoxo

{First of all, thank you for all the encouraging, thoughtful comments on my last few posts. So many of you have reached out to me and I truly appreciate it. Crazy as it sounds, I am actually very grateful for this experience because of the growth I am seeing in myself. It's amazing what blessings can come from "trials"!}

I know my blog has been pretty heavy lately, so I thought I would post some of my fun Valentine's Day decorations. I don't really go too crazy for any holiday except Christmas, but Valentine's Day is such a fun spot of cheer during dreary winter months, so I'm trying to collect more decorations. I "shopped the house" for all of these and was amazed at what I could turn into Valentine's Day decorations!

{Photo booth pictures of me and Jason from our years before children with a nice red satin bow}

{One of my cake stands and domes--I try hard to keep it stocked with goodies}

{We have about 25 of these kitschy vintage statues and several of them are "love" themed, so I brought them off the bookshelf in my room where they were gathering dust and nestled them around the house. This little guy is my favorite, though}

I also gathered every red thing that I own to display--a vase, a wreath, an empty picture frame with a heart shaped wreath hanging in it, a candelabra. Since red is my accent color of choice, it was fairly easy to find a lot of decorations!

I got both of the big girls little tin mailboxes from the dollar section at Target (they have THE BEST Valentine's Day stuff right now) and starting on February 1st, I'm going to leave them a treat, a love note, or a little surprise every single morning. I'm sure they will love it, and hopefully they will want to leave each other surprises as well!

What are you doing to celebrate Valentine's Day?

Organization dilemma

The night before the LOST series finale, I finally gave it and told Jason he could go get a flatscreen tv. I gave him very strict instructions to only buy a tv that would fit in our existing entertainment center. Well, he got carried away at Wal-Mart and ended up getting a tv that is about 6 inches too wide, which sent me scrambling to D.I. with crossed fingers to find something to put the new tv on.

I was pretty lucky--I found this coffee table for only $7, and with the help of some Old English, it's in pretty good shape.

I pared down our DVD collection to the things that we watch frequently (all of our Disney movies, 30 Rock, Arrested Development) and put them in baskets and storage bins. The Blu-Ray player and satellite box and Wii all fit just fine on the floor. I would love to have something with storage again someday, but for now, this works out well.

Here is the problem!!!!

Our house has weird wiring. Some rooms, you have to walk about 6 feet into the room before you come to a lightswitch. Some rooms have tons of electrical outlets--some have very few. The very small hall bath has 2 light fixtures controlled by 2 different lightswitches.

There is only one logical place to put a tv in our house (due to mirror walls, walls of windows, windowseats, and fireplaces) and that logical wall has two electrical outlets--one on each end of the wall. Not in the middle, where you put a tv. See the dilemma?
So we have this giant tangle of cords next to our tv stand and an extension cord/powerstrip stretched across the floor to reach the outlet. I am at a complete and utter loss as to what to do with this stuff. Any ideas?

Accent wall? Check!

I asked a few weeks ago about painting an accent wall... well... I decided to take the plunge and do it!

Ahhhh I love it so much! I'm so glad I decided to do it.

New paint and new bedspread means I need new pillows, too, right? I'm not thrilled with how the dark blue one turned out--I thought contrasting thread would look awesome, but it just shows my crooked gathers. Next time I will go with matching thread.

We got this dresser from D.I. last summer and I spray painted it brown. Love the shape, love the size--unfortunately, it doesn't have drawer runners, so it's not a very nice dresser. But I was going for looks when I picked it out.
Just a note about those framed prints above the dresser: I know you can't see them well in the picture, because I am not good at photographing things, but they are pencil drawings of architecture from the French Quarter and they are very dear to me. My grandparents lived in New Orleans while my grandpa was in school and he drew them while they lived there. Jason and I went on our honeymoon to New Orleans, so not only do they remind me of my grandpa, but also of our honeymoon. I'm really not a big "art" person--I would much rather have nice photographs than most art--but these are very special to me!