TV Room

OMG.  

I didn't realize I've been gone since February until my pal, Thirks,  let me know.   **Hi Thirks!**

What have you all been up to?  Livin' life?  

Me too.

Oh, and I'm on Pinterest alot.  Pinning things I should really be doing in real life, but I can't because I'm spending too much time Pinning.  You know how it goes, right?  It's a vicious cycle, is it not?

So, one thing I have been working on is Noodle's old bedroom.  It was (and still kind of is) a mess, but I will show you where I am right now.

But first, a little background: When we moved Noodle to her new room, I had planned on making her old room into my office and store some of her old toys in here for the little kiddos that come to visit occasionally.  So I got to work painting the woodwork and walls in the spring.  It went from Hot Mess to Cold,Unused Office: 

It looks better, right?  Please say yes.

Well, turns out, we don't use the office.
Like, at ALL.

And when One has a small house, One shouldn't have rooms that aren't in use, don't you agree?

One night, Zuddy came home from work after a long, hard day (He works at least 10-12 hours a day) and Noodle and her friend were camped in our small living room watching TV and gossiping and texting and Kik-ing and Instagram-ing and Snapchat-ing and all of those things that teenagers do on their iPhones. 

So Zuddy went upstairs to our bedroom to sit in the quiet.

I had been brainstorming about how to use the office and finally landed on using it as a small TV room.  I thought this was the perfect time to pitch my idea to Zuddy and you know what?

He totally went for it!

So now we've finished the closet.  It will be used to house all of our office stuff like files, the printer and laptop, games and movies for the new room.  

Wanna see it?  I think it's my favorite thing so far in this entire house.

Here is the before...do you remember how we ripped out the ugly closet system and "cedar paneling"?  When we took the paneling out, it took some plaster with it: 

 
Not good.

So, Zuddy put up some beadboard and we installed an elfa closet system from The Container Store.  So far, it's been life-changing.  There is more shelving in this teeny-tiny closet than I know what to do with!  See?

Now we have room for the vacuum cleaner and for visitors' coats.

My next task is to clean out the rest of the furniture and put it to use in the rest of the house.  The desk will be our new dining room table.

So that's where we are right now.  I will let you know my plans.  I'd like to do a little mood board for this room, even though I'm terrible at them :)

What have you been up to?

Closet #2

Oh, my sweet, sweet friends.....this is not pretty.  I have no pretty pretty pictures for you today.  No sir.

But you know what I DO have for you?  Pictures! (They're just not pretty "after" pictures :)  My brother and sister gave me their old camera!  And for a 10 year old camera it takes great pictures, I must say. 

So, I'm starting in on the office closet.  When we last talked about it, I had tried to remove the old shelving and fixtures and the "cedar paneling".  There was swearing.

It looked like a freaking hamster cage in there.  My camera pooped out, so I have no actual photographic evidence of this, but trust me.

I did find a photo on Google of what the "cedar paneling" looked like.  Feast your eyes:

I was taking care of my favorite baby one night and Zuddy surprised me by doing a demo job on my fugly closet.  He didn't even tell me he was going to do it!  I went in the room the next day to do a stare-down with the closet and plan my attack when I saw this: 

Sweet.
Baby.
Jesus.

Need I talk about the emotions that stirred inside of me?  I was giddy with happiness because the paneling and fixtures were gone, yet pissed off that it still looked so bad.  Oh, the confusion!

I sat on these emotions for a week and tried to come up with a plan of how I was going to get that glue off.  Sand it?  Messy.  Skim coat it?  Messy and it will never get done because I still have a whole kitchen that needs to be skim coated.


Last week I got together with my dear friend, Hilary and showed her the closet and she suggested putting up bead board instead of trying to get off all of the glue and patch all of the holes.  Genius!  I love that girl!

So, save for the bead board and the hanging rods, I'm going to finish the closet just like the Noodle's - with shelving floor to ceiling on both sides of the closet.  Here's a shot of the sides: 

Here are some shots of Noodle's closet.  The side with the shelves (we still need a few more of these): 

  

And the side for hanging clothes: 

 

Incidentally, my favorite baby?  She's 7 months old now!  Feast your eyes: 

I love her.  So do Zuddy and Noodle.  I'm lobbying to be her nanny.  

Michelle is getting sick of me lobbying to be her nanny. 

She's very happy with her going to her cousin's home daycare and being cared for by her granny and cousin. 

Whatever.  I'm not going to stop trying.  She's my baby, dammit.