Four to Fix and One I Like

Howdy! I thought I'd show you a few things that need some attention around here and one success. Good? Good.

First up, my crazy coat closet. There is virtually no point to having this closet. You can see in this picture that there is hardly any space between the front door and the closet. The closet is directly across from the front door in the picture.

Not much room to maneuver, but then, here's the real kicker, the door opens the wrong way! It opens into the flow of traffic so you can't get people in the door and hang up their coats. 

This leads to gathering guests' coats and tossing them in a bedroom, and, unfortunately, leads to a pile of coats on the floor in front of the closet when our family tries to all get in at once. Oh, who am I kidding. I throw my coat on the floor even if I'm the only one coming in.

It's not just a space issue on the outside; it's a space issue on the inside as well. Teeny tiny. Hanging space is okay, but because the ceiling to the downstairs steps is on the other side, it's shallow and there is only enough floor space for boots my size, not even my husband's size. 

(This is the best I can do on the pic without standing outside my front door, it's that tight of a space, and it's much too cold out right now.) 


I'm going to knock it out. I will turn the lower space into a bench, possibly with a lift up lid for storage and then add hooks. It won't help make the space any bigger, but it will look bigger and hooks are faster to use than hangers which should eliminate the whole pile of coats issue.

Here are my pillows. They are okay. 

I still like the colors, but these are just very tired (and don't look too closely, they're stained too). I've had them for about four years now. I have these beautiful orange curtains so I intend to keep the general color scheme, but I will be hitting up the fabric store soon to diy up some new cheery pillows. 

By the way, I love the bright days we are having, but the glare off the snow is making it difficult to give you guys decent pictures. Anyways, I'm keeping the orange and green and maybe tossing in some sky blue. I'll see what I find. I'm also planning to make them all different. They'll "go" together, but they won't match. Then I hopefully won't feel ocd about how the pillows need to be placed on the couch to "look right."

This wall has been in need of help since we moved in. 

I didn't have a piece of art big enough and so it remained bare. I also didn't want that movie stand there, but I had few options. After the built-ins are done downstairs, the movies will go away and the stand will be moved to the dining room and converted into a bar. Stay tuned for that.

I was happy to add color when we moved in, having lived with rental white for so long, but even after adding color, it still felt bare in here. I need texture! So, I'm not going to spill the whole story yet, but let's just say : burlap. I can't wait. 

Numero cuatro is the spice rack.

It has turned on me. It used to be tucked into a pantry and was so wonderful with it's deep shelves (it was really designed for a laundry room), but this tricky beast has been attacking me. Whilst picking up things from the floor I have concussed myself on this more than once and those wire shelves really dig in and keep the pain a-comin'! It has to go.

I want to punch into the wall and build shelves between the studs, then put a door on it. I can't really take any floor space in that area, so I think this is the best way to tuck all those spices away. Maybe some day I'll clean up all those coupons stuck to the side of the fridge too, but that may be dreaming too big. :)

So, that's a taste of some of the small-ish projects that I'm contemplating. One small project that I am in love with is this:

My chalkboard wall. I had this problem. I painted my living room this creamy yellow color and I loved it. It's bright and warm. I painted my kitchen a spring willowy green color. It's pale but not pastel and I'm in love with it too. (Did you know that the color you paint your kitchen will affect your appetite? Blue suppresses your appetite while warm colors enhance it. I pick green because green, in nature is pretty neutral.) The problem was when I looked at this short little wall where my green kitchen meets my yellow living room and groan! it looked like a gender neutral baby room. Blah!

I had to fix it. But I didn't want to give up either color. I decided the little wall had to be a different color so that the green and yellow weren't really next to each other. My mom was skeptical when I told her I was going to paint the wall black, floor to ceiling. But so far everyone likes it. It works perfectly to break things up. I hung a picture on that wall to break up the black, but it never really is just black anyway because the boys always have some drawings up there which is a happy thing.