Spring Decorating Ideas

One of my very favorite things to do is organize and decorate my home.

But, it's really hard to do with kids, kids, budgets, kids, time, kids,

husbands, life, messes, life, and kids, etc.

Wayfair wanted to make it easier for us by making a list of some

current Spring Decorating ideas we can add to our home. 

Just pick 1 of these ideas to add to your home this season.

This makes it easier.

Treat yourself to one of these for Easter, or Mother's Day.

If kids can get jelly beans, then we can get 1 thing to make our house happy.

The Craft Room - Done!

Do you remember my before and after post of my undone, unfinished craft room?

Guess what?  I actually finished the room.

I have AFTER photos.

Are you ready?

The room's not perfect.

I would probably do things a little different.

But it's done, it functions, and I like it.

The kid zone:

The Sewing Space

The Storage Space

The Gift Wrap Station

Where the stuff came from to put the room together:

Room Paint Color: Tempered Sage, Valspar

Green Wall Chalk Boards: Pottery Barn

Homemade Curtains and Fabric from JoAnn's (Thread Holder from JoAnn's too)

White BookShelf: Target

Wall Shelves: Lowe's

Desk: Office Depot or Staples?

Storage Baskets: Michael's and Fred Meyer

Word Frames and Wreath: Hobby Lobby

Bird and Birdhouse Picture: Fred Meyer

Gift Wrap Station: Old furniture from D.I. primed and painted white.

I screwed on the curtain rods to the upper shelf unit.

That's what I used to hold the rolls of gift wrap and ribbons.

See close up photo above.

Children's Table and chairs: Target

Mini Chalkboard signs: CostPlus

Sewing Machine: Costco

The truth about the room, now that it's done and I use it:

We still do almost all of our crafting at our kitchen table.

This room serves more as our storage place for craft supplies,

the room is not far from our kitchen.

The computer and family papers are not in this room.
I love that about the room.

It rarely looks like the above photos.

It's a project room, a place to store ongoing projects.

It's great to have a room for just that.

Here's what it looks like most of the time:

 Piles of Laundry, Legos on the floor, etc.

Undone kitchen curtain project, more legos. 

This is why doors are good things.

We just shut the door,

when we need to ignore something for a while.

Cute as a Button

Last Fall/Christmas we went through a dishwasher leak disaster in our home.

Our hardwood needed to be replaced in our kitchen.

Our carpet in our family room, which is connected to our kitchen, also needed to be replaced.

All of our furniture from the family room was removed for the new hardwood.

After the flooring was redone,

and the Family room was completely empty

this left me with the potential to redefine how we use our family room.

Then, decide what decor and furniture could best fit our family needs.

1st step - Some additional seating.

I purchased these chairs on sale at Pier 1 Imports.

I wanted neutral, comfortable chairs.

But, the room still needed a little color pop!

Then, I got the idea to fabric paint the buttons on the chairs.

(Idea inspiration here.)

I love how it turned out.

I just used this fabric paint from our local sew/craft store, and a small paint brush.

I did 2 coats to help get the right color I wanted. I waited a couple hours in between each coat.

I put painters tape around each button to make sure I just painted the buttons only.

It was an easy project. Lindy, my 10 yr old, helped paint the buttons too.
I love the results.  It feels good when a home decor project goes right! Yeah for that!

Maybe, just maybe, I'll show you some other changes I've made to our Family Room.
No promises, though.

Before & After Photos of my Sewing - Craft Room!

We have a lot of rooms in our home.

One room on our main floor was being used as my computer, office, sew, craft, play, school room.
If you're more curious, here is another post with photos of this room.
This quickly turned into a cluttered, unorganized crazy mess, where I hated to be.
It was supposed to be my favorite room of the house.

We started to make it better by moving the computer office stuff out last summer.
This has worked great.
Now, it's ONLY to be a sewing, craft, creative room. A sanctuary for me.

Before:

After:

I tricked you, didn't I?

Yep, that's how it works around my house.

I never get to the AFTER photos.

You thought you would see a

fun, newly, decorated Sewing-Craft room.

Nope.

Maybe you'll see it 5 years from now, if you're still reading this blog.

But, it's still a BIG maybe.

If you want to feel inspired with great after photos,
you can enjoy this blog I just discovered.

A little quiz for you

We've been:

A - Attacked by Aliens

B - Stricken with Bird Flu

C - Preparing for the End of the World

D - Tackling a Do-It Yourself Project

E - Suffering miserably from a dishwasher leak

I'm not in the mood to give you the answer today.
I might tell you someday, or I might not.

Needless to say, I'm looking forward to 2011 coming to a quick end.
My life feels a little upside down to put it mildly.

On Sunday, I've been asked to speak in our church about 'Enduring our Trials Well.'
I guess they know I'm becoming an expert on this subject.

Since laughing always makes me feel better, here is a blog that always gives me a good laugh.