Home Style Evolution Series: 2nd Bedroom

NOTE: I'd like to supplement the Living Room Evolution post with this one, for now. The living room post is proving to be hard to keep from turning into a book. And the kitchen is the room that took us the longest to transform in the first place, so it will be a doozy too!

This room has always been a bit of an "anything goes" type room. It's the 2nd bedroom with no bed/Office/Craft Room/Writing Room/Workout Room/Storage Room.... etc etc.

When we first moved in it was the storage room. Our attic is inaccessible (the door is stuck shut and we don't want to risk what might be living up there to break it open!!) so we just started piling stuff up inside this room.

But after about 6 months I wanted an office, someplace where I could write, craft, blog, etc. And at the time, Aaron was studying to pass his insurance license exams and so I wanted someplace nice for him to be able to study.

This room has been a bit of everything. And a lot of that time I didn't take pictures of it, because it was a god-awful mess. 90% of the time we kept the door closed. But, I'll share what I have. This could get ugly....



Pretty sad, right?  (The table had been my Dad's desk, I love it! My mom has it now.)


This is the most miserable looking mess I've ever seen. Why is there a tupperware bowl laying in the chair??


 
 This was the day we moved the desk in. Aaron settled right in.


When I quit working a public job and started my journey as a work at home wife, I needed to make the office functional. BADLY. So I took a little time and did a little rearranging and reorganizing.


Setting the desk in the middle of the room this way was a good idea at the time, as long as I didn't put another thing, not even an extra paper clip, in this room.

 
 The one shelf for crafting supplies worked for about a minute. I didn't realize I was such a huge crafter...



 I really liked how this looked, especially with the big zebra print letters.



After a while, I realized I needed more space in the room. I needed to be able to walk in the room, for starters, I needed more crafting storage, more photography equipment storage, and I needed someplace to put the treadmill my darling bought me after years of prodding. I tried, unsuccessfully, to add a seating/reading area into this room on numerous occasions, but it never did work out. It just made the room look and feel too small and too cluttered.



I ended up swapping desks with my Mom after I started writing again. I've got three different novels in the works at the moment and spend a lot of my time in this room. The way it's set up now is certainly the most functional it's ever been. I do, desperately, need to sort through everything in the room and get rid of some things....

I love the set up of the desk. I love the art over the desk, which I made myself... I love that I finally figured out how to hook my MacBook up to my monitor and keyboard ;) My chevron lamp shades were from Dollar General as well as my orange clock and chevron pen holder (it's a tea light holder actually.) I love my little cork board with my pictures and note cards tacked on it. Alas! Woe is me... my printer doesn't work anymore :(

This shot of the room is the view when your standing in the doorway. I'll admit, it looks like jumped up mess. The black shelving unit holds all of my photography supplies - office and studio-  and a few extra baskets for organizing.  I've got a lot of stuff. And the white unit is actually 3 sets of Sterilite plastic drawers that holds all of my crafting supplies. From bottom to top: Gift Wrapping Supplies, Jewelry Making, Drawing/Art, Writing, Crocheting, Note Cards, Scrapbooking/Stickers, Office Supplies (the ones that don't fit in my desk, I'm a junkie) and finally Large Stationary. The crane looking thing on top is a craft supply organizer/light from OttLite that my cousin got me for Christmas a while ago. I LOVE IT. If you are a crafter go to WalMart and GET ONE!

Tabby has her own little nest in Mommy's office, where she can see me, otherwise she flips her tiny mind.... and that's where she's at right now, curled up in a ball asleep... with her nose in her butt. Ew. Dogs. Even so, she's still soooo cute!!!

And of course over to the side is the treadmill. :)  I've got a few movie memorabilia tins on the wall and then some of my own playbills and posters on display from my glory days in the theatre. 

 (In case your wondering, the big white thing is a Kenmore dehumidifier. We got it at Sears 5 years ago.)

As far as looks go, this room has like.... none. Aside from my attempt at art over my desk. However, from where it was before, this room is a masterpiece.

I spend so much time in this room, thanks to blogging, and my writing and crafting. It's not my dream space, by any means, but it's getting there. I've got plans to do a MAJOR clean out in the closet in this room and maybe store my black shelving unit inside there. I'm planning to buy a sewing machine and at present I have no real good place to keep it....meh. I'll keep you all updated with that!


Thanks for walking down memory lane with me one more time!

Busy Busy Busy: Updates!

It has been a wild and crazy couple of weeks around here! I've been so busy that I haven't even had time to think, let alone get together extensive Home Style Evolution posts. I hope, for those of you that are actually reading them, that you are being patient with me, and understand that life sometimes gets away with us all.

The Saturday before Memorial Day, my Mom bribed Aaron and I into coming to her house for a cookout, but only if we spent the morning laying pine straw mulch around her landscaping. We can't turn down my Mom's homemade burgers, so off we went! It was a beautiful Kentucky Saturday, so we didn't mind!

Us pasty white people ended up with some pretty impressive sunburns.

Monday was Memorial Day, so we spent that with family, then Tuesday I painted my front door. Wednesday I was laid up with one of my lovely chronic headaches and Thursday I tried to play catch up! I cleaned my house, did some laundry, etc etc.

Memorial Day with my in-laws. Mother in Law and 3 sisters in law!

My front door. Check out the post all about it here!

I spent last weekend on the move, on Friday I cleaned a house, that wasn't my own ;), and ran a bunch of household errands, then on Saturday I made a trip to Louisville with my Mom to visit some family and celebrate my 3rd cousins graduation from college (it's the first of many, he's so stinking smart!). Then on Sunday it was "homecoming" at the church where I grew up. so we trekked over there to spend the day.... the food was ah-may-zing.

Then on Monday we had a plumber come out to fix our kitchen sink. It's leaked off and on for the entire length of time we've lived here. We'd fix it ourselves and it wouldn't leak for a while, then it would just all of a sudden start gushing. It was getting to be very old and very irritating. I was having to wash dishes in a plastic tub, then dump the water either outside or in the bathroom. I was breaking my back.  Plus it was starting to rot the floor out in that cabinet. Not good at all! So we finally got fed up and called in professional help. Turns out we had to have all of our pipes (except for the one coming out of the floor) replaced, the basket drains replaced and had to have a vent added on to help it drain faster. It was about a 2 hour job but my sink doesn't leak and drains now, it was worth it!

The finished product! Now I've got to get an organization method in place!! That excites me way more than it should! 

Yesterday afternoon, my Father in Law stopped in and helped me... ok, I helped him... install a chandelier that Aaron had surprised me with about a month or so ago. I'm so tickled with the result!!

Such a handy feller to have around! :) He's just presh!

It took us way longer than we even imagined it would, but in the end, it got put up and was beautiful! To congratulate us for all our hard work, I fixed us all a big supper while the boys (Aaron and his sweet Daddy) went to pick strawberries! 2 quarts of strawberries and a cheesecake later, I was done like the Thanksgiving turkey!

The finished product!

We were unable to center the chandelier over the table, because it would have interfered with the ceiling fan, but I love having all that light in the corner, so I'm not complaining!

It's been insane around here, but I'm hoping to work on some posts today. I'm having issues with getting Blogger to post my scheduled posts, so while I may have something scheduled to go up it may not, IDK why. It's driving me crazy.

Thanks for staying patient with me!