Unintentional Sabbatical



Swiper: No, that's not her
hat. If you'll notice
prior pic of Desctructo and
The Interrogator you may
recognize that hat....



Decoration detour for the last week...sometimes life takes precedence and you have to focus on those things most important...

Destructo and The Interrogator

 Opening season kick off for T-ball last weekend along with first round of real games...so that weekend was dedicated to all things baseball.

Then began the week-o-illness with calls from daycare about kids with fever, multiple trips to the pediatrician and all plans to complete any kind of project by April 16 sidelined. Friday April 15 was a planned vacation day for me from my day job. What I hadn't planned for was the assistance I would get from the interrogator since she was home for day 3 with unexplained fever. Lack of sleep and lack of food didn't do either of our moods any good for the day but we pushed through it and successfully completed too many loads of laundry to count, 4 changes of bed sheets, review and retire of all kids clothes that were too small, too worn out or just too ugly...several advanced meal preps for the weekend, cupcake baking and decorating, a quick trip to the grocery and POOF...where the heck did my 'vacation' day go???

Saturday April 16 and what had I accomplished in the dining room that was to be completed by this point? Nadda, zip, zilch...other than the rug and roughly primed walls I had completed nothing. Saturday was also dual birthday celebration day for the girls celebrating a late #2 and an early #1 with extended family...

One thing I think I forgot to mention...and one of the main reasons I had set the weekend of the 15th as my target...I have invited my Bunco group (funny because we don't actually play Bunco) to mix and mingle over appetizers for the evening and had hoped to have the grand unveil.

Noon - Saturday April 16...primed walls, rug on floor and no paint color that I love. I stumbled upon an old 5 gallon bucket of paint in our garage that had been there since we moved in over 3 years ago. Opening it up I find it looks like my homemade Italian salad dressing after it has sat in the fridge a few weeks...oil on top, gunky chunky brown beneath. No paint stir stick to be had so I rounded up a ruler and went to work...I think this may be...wait....YES IT IS!!!! It is the camel color that is in my master bedroom that is one of the best neutrals I've seen AND wait...I think...YES IT DOES!!! It absolutely compliments the wheat color in my rug perfectly!!! I have a few random painting tools around, I'm still in my pajamas, my parents, sister and her husband and my nephew AND my three kids are running around like crazy but what does my heart desire? PAINT PAINT PAINT!!! With a few hours left before company arrives I go to town. Quickly rolling my way around the room leaving all trim work in hopes someone would kindly offer to do it for me. That is the one thing I despise about painting. Probably because I never have the patience to tape anything off and usually end up getting paint everywhere it shouldn't go. Down to the wire...hmmm...I think I have a small paint brush somewhere in the garage...still no offers to handle that trim so it looks like it's up to me. Brush in hand, sweat rolling down my face and time running too short for comfort (still refuse to tape off) I go to work and VOILA! Room painted and 60 minutes to spare. Still need to shower and dress, room empty but painted ...BRING ON THE CAVALRY!!! In come sis and mom to the rescue. This room needed some desperate staging.

This tall beauty arrived the night before with my folks. Nothing I love more than hand-me-down relics that add charm to any room. Fits perfectly between the two windows. The behemoth is not completed yet so all I have is an old table that belonged to my husband prior to marriage. We painted it black a year ago and began using it as our desk in the office upstairs that has since become another nursery. It's horrible but beggars can't be choosers. In it goes along with some random chairs I bought years back from World Market...just because I liked them and not because they actually went with anything I already owned or any styles I was already using in the house. Black table, brown chairs...throwing caution to the wind...

Art - thank goodness I hadn't bothered to fill in the nail holes in the wall before painting. Those nail holes served me well along with a picture hubby took prior to me removing the original installation from the walls. Kudos to my very talented art guru for bailing me out of the very first party ever thrown at my home about 1 week after we first moved in 3+ years ago. She pulled in random elements I'd collected and threw them together on my wall in a pattern I still love to this day...why rock the boat??? Check her out over at http://greenwayacre.com/

Now for that gaping recessed area that I've always found to be an odd feature in this room...toss in a hand-me-down hutch base from my grandmother (also painted black many years ago)...I see it coming together right before my eyes.... still missing the touches of 'me'. I'm no fan of void wall space and really don't care much for the current lighting but you know what, not half bad for a few hours of work.

I'll check this one off as my 'temporary' fix and call it a day! Because that recessed area has been bothersome to me since we moved in I think I stumbled upon the solution while perusing random blogs on organization the other day. Check this out:

Compliments to Maillardville Manor http://www.maillardvillemanor.com/2010/07/billy-bookcase-all-trimmed-out.html for this inspiring and cost effective solution. Can you believe these are inexpensive Bill Bookshelves from Ikea http://www.ikea.com/??? Varying widths and heights with the addition of crown molding painted to match and another VOILA moment for me! The look of built-ins without the ridiculous cost or hours of labor to measure and cut..measure and cut...measure and cut. I'll be Ikea bound by end of the week.