Hallway Mini Gallery Wall

So I am more or less obsessed with decorating with picture frames.  I  really love to be surrounded by my family and friends.  I tend to buy frames when they are on clearance and they match one of my color schemes.  Then I change color schemes and need to frames and have extras.  Such is the case when we moved and I moved towards a more masculine palette for our bedroom.  Before we were rocking a jewel-tone/black and white damask theme.  Anyways, I had a lot of extra frames and a blank wall in the hallway.  Any guesses on where this one is going?

 

The hallway is really narrow so its is pretty much impossible to get a straight on shot.   This wall leads to our bedroom and opposite it is the utility closet (where the furnace and vacuum live).

The picture frames also help the thermostat blend in.  I have since added some silver frames which look nice with the black and purple.

Here it is when looking from the doorway to the living room into our bedroom.  I think I want to add a few more that are art instead of pictures, but who knows when I will get around to that.  The Keep Calm and Carry One is vinyl on glass so I can switch out the paper whenever I want (if I get tired of yellow).  The Always & Forever frame is similar, but the ampersand is etched and the words are vinyl. All of the frames are attached with 3M Velcro Command Strips so I can move them around easily without messing up the wall.00

Laundry Room

I finally got my photo software put back on my computer so I was able to upload pictures of our laundry room.  It isn’t much and certainly isn’t super fancy, but it does the job and after three years of living in an apartment sans washer/dryer hook-ups, it might just be my favorite room in the house.  It also happens to be super hard to photograph.

The laundry room is off of the kitchen and the door on the right leads to the garage.  We just got the washer and dryer a month or so ago and they work amazing.  Turns our Alex and I can’t make decisions like where to go to dinner to save our lives but when it comes to big things like appliances, it only takes us a few minutes.  The laundry room is really more like a big closet, but that’s okay.  This is what you see when you look in from the kitchen.

This is the wall above the washer and dryer.  The shelf and bar were in the room when we moved in.  The baskets are all from the Dollar Tree, but they haven’t had them the last few times I’ve been in.  The top frame just has white paper behind the glass so it can be used like a dry erase board.  The bottom frame has metal in it so it is magnetic.  The baskets up on the shelf have various things in it—floor cleaning stuff, extra attachments for the vacuum, our iron, miscellaneous random stuff (dog treats, shoe water proofing spay, a roll of shrink wrap we used when we moved, etc.), and trash bags.

The two smaller baskets hang from the rods with rings that I used in law school to hold my notecards together.  One holds our Tide Pods and he other has stain remover, Febreeze and other stuff like that.  The phone booth is a charging station that my parents got me for my birthday a couple of years ago.  It doesn’t work real well as a charging station, but it is really super cute.  Other than that, we are trying not to keep much stuff on the washer and dryer to keep them from becoming magnets for clutter.

On the end by the dyer hangs our broom and Swiffer and dustpans.   The London canvas came from Target and the Keep Calm and Carry On canvas I made—I painted the canvas and applied vinyl I ordered online using a Groupon.  The vinyl isn’t really straight which bummed me out a little bit, but it is what it is.  I probably should have just bought a poster instead of vinyl but the DYI bug bit me and I couldn’t help myself.

The other wall is pretty blank.  I put a random dry erase board over there for notes and we keep our trash can there because it is too big to fit under the sink.  There is a rack of hooks on the garage door that I use to hang stuff that doesn’t got in the dryer.  (Please ignore the clutter on the kitchen counter, I have already cleaned it up.

So there you have it.  It’s not too much but it is functional and in my opinion, cut.  Not sure which room I will share next and I’ve got a busy week anyway so you’ll have to wait a bit for the next installment of the house tour.

Dream Laundry Room

After living for almost four years without my own personal laundry facilities, Alex and I finally bought a washer and dryer not too long ago. The apartment we lived in prior to this house didn't have hookups so we either did laundry in the basement if we had quarters or at our parents' houses. Once we moved we had hookups but we didn't get around to making the purchase for a while. Finally Alex got sick of having to go to the laundromat when we got behind so he decided we should go shopping. It took us all of about 15 minutes to pick some out. I will share our laundry room with you soon but for now, here is some laundry room eye candy.

Source: centsationalgirl.com via Courtney on Pinterest

Source: camerasandchaos.blogspot.com via Courtney on Pinterest

Source: yourhomeonlybetter.com via Courtney on Pinterest

I like how much storage this one has between the two shelves and that hangy down shelf. 

Source: houzz.com via Courtney on Pinterest

I am not sure I can justify a TV in the laundry room. But I do like the shelf that spans the top of the front loaders. 

Source: blog.familybringsjoy.com via Courtney on Pinterest

I love these bins. But instead of doing one per person, I would probably use them more for storage. It would be nice to just take Alex's softball clothes from the dryer into a bin so that they are where they need to be for the next game.

Source: etsy.com via Courtney on Pinterest

So cute!

Source: closetworld.com via Courtney on Pinterest

I am intrigued with the idea of stacking them. 

As soon as I get my photo software loaded back onto my computer, I will share some pictures of our laundry room now.  Happy Tuesday everyone!

Yay!

Good news is that my recovery disks came in the mail today and my computer seems to be as good as new. And by new I mean there is nothing on my hard drive.  However, it really could be worse.  I rarely delete things off memory cards so I should be able to recover a lot of my pictures.  Also I recently found my iPod that I thought had drowned and plugged it in to see what would happen.  Turns out it works again (just needed to dry out for a couple of years), so I haven't lost any music I don't think.  I'm on the lookout now for a good online photo storage website so if you have any recommendations, send them my way.

Hopefully I will be back soon with an actual post but I have to get a bridesmaid dress fitted tomorrow and have a bunch of work to do for my friend's bridal shower this weekend.

Uh Oh

Guess who was all ready to be creative last night and type up some blog posts?  Guess whose computer decided to freak out?  It was one of those nights.  The good news is that while I was freaking out, Alex stayed calm, cool and collected and we ended up realizing that my computer is still under warranty and my new friend at HP support showed me how to order a recovery CD which should be in the mail in the next day or too.  And all I had to pay was shipping (well I also already bought a new copy of Windows but Alex wouldn't let me open it so hopefully it will be returned soon).  Fingers crossed the recovery CD will work and I will be back in business.

Of course I haven't run a back up on my computer in a while and have been having some issues with my external hard drive so I'm not really sure what all I will have left when the whole ordeal is over.  Luckily I recently found by 80GB iPod that I thought I had killed my first year of law school when a water bottle spilled in my purse on the way to a final review.  Apparently letting it dry out for 2+ years did the trick so between it, my little iPod that replaced the big iPod and my phone, I should be able to recover all of my music.  I don't delete pictures off memory cards very often so I can hopefully find most of my pictures too.  Moral of the story is BACK UP YOUR COMPUTER. 

Anyways, just letting you know so you don't think I am slacking.  I will be back as soon as I can!

Lookin’ Spiffy

The blog that is.  Not me (I’m in my pjs).  I was looking to get the blog a new outfit and I found a website with some really cute designs and this one just jumped right out at me.  I hope you like it as well as I do.  Any who, so you just don’t get a boring post, here’s a travel pic for you.

Acropolis, Athens, Greece

Welcome to my Home

Hi friends.  I'm back and I think I might stick around for a while this time.  I'm not making any promises quite yet, but I have a bunch of fun stuff that I am working on and I'm pretty excited about it.  Also to (hopefully) jump start the creative juices, I wanted to share with you a little bit about our house. 

When I started law school, I moved into a cheap little apartment.  At first it really wasn't too bad, but three years later, there were a few too many things that we hated about it.  We found cute little house to rent and moved in just before Thanksgiving.  Our lease goes to the end of 2012 and we aren't sure yet if we will stay here beyond then or look at other options, but for now I have slowly been working on making it our home.  In my defense, we moved in and immediately were immersed in the holidays.  Then I started two solid months of bar prep.  Since then I have been transitioning back into civilian life.  And doing a little bit here and there.

I don't really know if I have a "style" at this point.  I like things to be functional.  Most of what we own is hand-me-downs.  And I have a tendency to switch things up when I get bored.  I like the color blue.  And I love photographs.  Nothing can be permanent and no painting the walls since we are renting.

Here is my attempt at showing you all a floor plan.  The top of the picture is what the house looks like if you were standing in the street.  And it is not really proportional (but I tried).  I'm thinking that I will go through room by room and share some of what I would love to have one day and what it looks like now.