Before and afters
Here are the before and after photos for my landing strip, my bed, and some seeds I planted. I still need to work on lighting and art, but I'm happy with the way things have progressed.
Bedroom: pillow
Here are my new pillows. These were a good find at Kohl's: they match my color scheme; they're satiny; and they only cost $15 each.
Bedroom colors
For my 'glacier' bedroom, I had been wavering on how to finish off the colors in the room. I already have a blue duvet cover and brown sheets (see previous posts
colors, patterns &
before & after), but was unsure how to finish it off to make the room work. Maybe some light brown and some lighter blue? some purple? light green? I couldn't decide.
Right under my nose was the answer: a print I bought in Alaska called "Glacier Moon" by Byron Birdsall, yet to be framed. Since I'm planning to put it in the room, I pulled it out to check out the colors. It gave me all the answers.
Blues, a hint of purple, white, and brown...
Flowers!
Tulips everywhere...
I didn't take photos of the last bunch of flowers, so I thought this would be a good break from I-cleaned-X-today.
In the bathroom, I get three flowers for the price of one!
Style Tray: colors, patterns
I've been looking at colors and patterns for my bedroom (blue and brown) and my living room (red and black?).
Some things that strike my fancy...
Living Room: This reddish print is a easy-to-remove wallpaper from Sherwin Williams. It would be interesting to put this up on one wall; maybe the one with the bookcase to see as you come in or the long wall behind the desk. It would definitely be dramatic. I'm still trying to avoid paint as a renter.
Bedroom: I need to add a color to the blue and brown to make them work together better, mainly cooling off the room. Some potential color palettes include a purple and white, though I'm not too fond of the light green with the rest of the colors. I think it starts to look too trendy, which means I'll probably hate it eventually. I'm not fond of the butterfly either, but I like the color combination. The purple has cool and warm characteristics, so it's an interesting bridge. I had been thinking about lighter versions of the blue and the brown, like a sky blue and a camel color, but I'm not sure how that would work.
UPDATE:
I was looking at some of my spring clothes and I noticed that one of my skirts has the colors I want to use in my bedroom, minus the green. That's the last photo with the funky design.
Progress: weekend boxes
This weekend I started in on some boxes in my closet, specifically ones holding stuff from high school and college. Both boxes contain paper filed in file folders by year or category. It's fairly organized already. The idea for both of these is to eventually merge some of the contents with my photo album, just to give it a little extra something.
I went through the high school box, throwing out old essays and copies of school newspapers. There's still a lot, like dance photos and letters and college applications, among other interesting goodies, but it's not as stuffed as it once was.
Then I started in on the college box. This is about the same size, but I managed to purge more. I need to replace this box with a file box to have it fit better.
So, one box each. Not bad for me. The next box was full of plaques. At one point in high school, they were covering most of a wall above my dresser. Out of the 10+ I found, only 2 meant enough to keep around.
I've got a couple piles in my living room now: one for goodwill, one for my mom to look over to determine extra sentimental value (and if she wants to keep anything), and one of stuff to be sorted and put away.
I'll feel better when it's not all over the place.
Landing Strip
Where should I put my keys and purse and mail and coat when I get home?
I enter directly into my main living space. There's no hall to use to make putting stuff down easy. See my
floor plan.
To the left is my mock-up of a possible solution. You can see there's not much space behind the door and the wall heater makes it hard to put anything nearby. When my front door is completely open, the door knob hits the wall heater, thus preserving a sliver of space behind the door for a shelf. To the left of the heater is a doorway.
Right now the keys and mail go on the coffee table. I'm fairly good about sorting the mail and moving it from there fast into a recycling pile or a basket to file. Some stuff goes straight into recycling before I even get near my apartment. My purse goes on the floor next to the coffee table, The hall closet around the corner is full of shelves, so it doesn't work well for coats. I put an over the door set of hooks where I put my frequently-used coats (or if I'm lazy, they get thrown on the couch for a while. I swap my shoes to slippers on the floor between the door and the couch, but shoes tend to pile up there (there's just under 8" of space on that side). As a side note, in my de-cluttering phase, I've cleared everything off the bottom shelf of the coffee table so it doesn't look as bad.
I've been thinking about putting a little something behind my door. I (barely) have space there for a 12" wide x 4" deep shelf for mail. Since that's not deep enough for magazines or for any sort of console table, it won't serve the all-emcompassing purpose I need it to.
As a compromise, perhaps I'll just add a couple hooks for a coat and purse, and a shelf for flowers and small pieces of mail.
I like this
Craftsman hook by
Atlas Homewares. Maybe I'll get 2 or 3 in the bronze finish.
Any recommendations?
Style Tray: Bed Pillows
Bed PillowsMost pillows I've seen in blues and browns don't match my colors, and the ones that look like they come close are really expensive. That's why I was excited to come across this pillow cover at
West Elm. The blues might be a little off, but there might be enough variety of shades to not matter.
$12.99 at West Elm.
I'm not sure if there is too much white. I'll have to do a photoshop mockup.
UPDATE: I just found out that West Elm is all out of the color combo I wanted. Grr... Back to the drawing board.
Here are my new pillows. These were a good find at Kohl's: they match my color scheme; they're satiny; and they only cost $15 each.
Living Room: This reddish print is a easy-to-remove wallpaper from Sherwin Williams. It would be interesting to put this up on one wall; maybe the one with the bookcase to see as you come in or the long wall behind the desk. It would definitely be dramatic. I'm still trying to avoid paint as a renter.
Where should I put my keys and purse and mail and coat when I get home?
As a compromise, perhaps I'll just add a couple hooks for a coat and purse, and a shelf for flowers and small pieces of mail.
Bed Pillows
