Hello all! How are ya?!

If you were anywhere in…well…the country a couple of weeks ago…you were most likely getting some wicked crazy weather. We certainly did. The temps here have been in the 40’s and high 50’s this week, and we STILL have three inches of ice on our lawn.

The first day or so, I was kinda digging being iced in…by the third day of not leaving (we couldn’t even get out to the mailbox), it was starting to make me twitch. Just a tad.

So I put the twitching to good use. :) We are SO lucky to have a ton of closet space in our house. We have a fantastic linen closet it our downstairs powder room that we use a TON.

Although my before pics are horrendous cell phone pics (bad blogger!), they don’t look too horribly messy, right?:

I didn’t think it was that bad either…till I actually started going through everything.

I plopped my booty on the floor and went bin by bin…and I GOT RID OF CRAP. :)

It’s quite amazing how much STUFF hides in those storage bins:

Seriously? This was the stuff I didn’t keep.

Ummm…I really hope the toilet was clean for the picture. Huh.

No really, seriously? That’s insane people! That’s all stuff we didn’t need or don’t use. Taking up lovely storage space. (In the closet and in my head.)

Well, except the potty step…that just got caught up in the mess. :)

You don’t even get the full effect with that picture since stuff is piled high. Here’s what I bagged up from the closet:

The little bag went to Goodwill. The donate bag was full of cleaning rags and supplies that we DON’T NEED FOR GOODNESS SAKES, and that went to a local shelter. The last bag was just trash.

And some of that pile went down to the basement. Crayzay!

After all of that, I actually got rid of one of the bins, and just reorganized the others.

Here’s the after with a real camera:

I know, the whole good camera thing helps the after pics a bit. :)

This helps too:

Smartie me didn’t have lights installed in our closets, and this one is especially dark. I’ve had this little dodad for years and haven’t really used it till now.

DUH. It works GREAT! I lost the back part that you attach to the wall, so I just nestled it into the wire shelves. See, wire shelves are good for something! :)

Let’s take a little tour, shall we?

The top shelf is just extras and our hand towels rolled up in a small bin:

The next one holds a bin for batteries and random toy parts. (I put broken pieces in here so when I find the match, I know where to look.) There’s also a bin for light bulbs:

LIGHT. BULB! Sorry, couldn’t resist the Despicable Me reference. :) Lurve.

This is one of the shelves that gives me little bitty hives cause a bin doesn’t match:

Just go with it Sarah. Breathe. Life will go on. You’ll survive this.

Anyhoo, that odd one there holds all floor care stuff, and the other holds all other cleaning supplies. You can see I only kept the stuff we USE and got rid of or stored the extra stuff that we didn’t.

On the next shelf, we have a bin for air fresheners (cause it is a bathroom) and my Bath and Body Works plug in jobbies that I’m obsessed with. I keep the supply for the house here:

The other bin is for dirty clothing and towels. I learned about two days after bringing the Bub home from the hospital that I needed a spot for dirty clothes downstairs. It works great for random socks and kitchen towels.

Down one more shelf (isn’t this SO EXCITING???) is a bin for the vacuum parts and one for rags:

I had an obscene amount of rags. I mean, it was positively ridiculous. Got rid of half of them.

I’ve always used the back of the door for storage, but I added a couple more hooks – one for covers for the floor broom (upper left), and one for the potty seat on the bottom:

This space is ALL about function over form. :) But I am thrilled that we now have a spot for that seat. Now when friends drop by, they’re not greeted with a bright yellow potty seat. You know what I’m sayin’.

The closet can now breathe again:

And the very best part? I was so excited to have it organized again, I finally got rid of the brassy knob and hinges on the door:

WHOO HOO! I’ve had them for a YEAR now…that’s how slow that process has gone. Almost done switching them all out – when I’m done I’ll tell you more about that DIY project. :)

So…have you been decrapifying? Organizing? Loving it? :) I hope so! If you haven’t, maybe a little shindig will get you in the mood:

This coming Monday, come one come all! :) Link up all of your decluttering or cleaning projects. Can’t wait to see your tips and tricks!

P.S. There is usually a child proof door handle on the knob to the closet. Because I had just changed it out it’s not on for the pictures. :)

Do you love Pottery Barn and Ballard Designs?
You’ll LOVE Knock Off Decor!

First of all, Happy Valentine’s Day my SQUEEZIES! :) Hope you had a great one.

I’ve been working on some changes in our living room over the last couple of weeks, and I’m nowhere near close to done, but I just couldn’t wait to show you! I am LOVING how it's turning out -- so excited.

I don’t know if it’s the three inches of ice that have finally melted off our driveway (for the first time in two weeks), or the warmer temps we’re getting this week that is giving us hope for spring, or maybe it’s because the cat peed on the drapes…any one of them could be the reason for my spur-of-the-moment decision to make some changes to our front room.

What’s that? Hmmmm? Oh yeah…I skipped over the pee cat thing. She was off her meds for two long and the inevitable happened. This time though…I’m GLAD. Because that’s actually what started this ball rolling. See – pee cats are good for something! (And she’s really sweet and loving and yada yada…)

Anyhoo, enough mentions of pee for one post. Onward! It started when I took a drape down to wash it, and it just spiraled out of control from there.

For the past year or so, I’ve been trying to add more color to our living room. It looked like this back in the day:

OK, well there’s been color – it’s just been one color. Red. :)

And then I made a few more changes and it looked like this for quite some time:

Notice the trend? DARK. A ton of dark peices and accessories, and red fabrics – ONLY red. You see, for the longest time I thought our wall color was hard to work with. It’s called Beechwood Grey from Porter, and I like it – but for a long time I just felt like I needed to match it, you know?

So red was the direction I went…and I liked it for a while. But my style…it is a changin’.  :)

And taking that one drape down kind of got my wheels turning. I noticed how much brighter it got in the room with just the one panel down. So I took another down…and another…and you get the picture.

The front of our house doesn’t get direct sunlight, but you wouldn’t have been able to tell – the room was positively glowing. And I was in luuurve.

That’s what started the ball started rolling – and the wheels in my head churning. First up was to trim out the windows like I showed you here. I’ve slowly but surely done this around the house, and I’m about half way through the windows now.

And then, since I was going to paint the sills and everything around the window, I went ahead and recaulked both of them:

I didn’t even keep it clean and pretty, because I knew I was painting over it all in white.

And that I did – the new trim and drywall around the windows was painted out in glossy white. See how this started with a little bitty thing and got HUGE? :)

Then another idea came to mind. I love love LOVE my free sewing cabinet and Ballard-esque cafe shelves between the windows, but they have seemed so HEAVY to me lately:

(The iron snowflakes hanging in the windows that I tried to convince myself didn’t look like snowflakes have been gone for a while. They are now packed away in the Christmas decor. Cause they are snowflakes.)

Anyway…I’ve always felt like I needed something more substantial between those windows.

So I took it all away:

(I had just wiped down the wall – hence the dark marks.)

I contemplated leaving those windows nekked by the way, just like in our kitchen. I was smitten, I tell you. 

But then…then, I found THIS:

I was perusing Calico Corners last week (I hadn’t been to the fabric store in forEVER), saw this and couldn’t get it out of my head. It had COLOR – so many beautiful colors. And I just thought the print was stunning.

I couldn’t resist it. And I’m so glad I didn’t. Cause now that dark room looks like this:

Now, I’m showing you in between pics here – keep that in mind. I like to show the process of things so I really wanted to show you the progress thus far.

I think it’s a dramatic change, yes?:

That dresser has made the rounds around our house. It was the Bub’s changing table forever, then it moved to the office, and then it was in the basement for a while.

I made hubs drag it up the stairs to see if it would work and I fell. in. love.

Do you see how differently the wall color photographs? It drives me a little batty. It’s looking way pink in these pics, when it really has more of a greyish tint like in the nekked window picture above.

I’ve mentioned before that we don’t use this as a formal living room – we use it constantly. So the dresser is going to be fantastic storage for puzzles and other activities we do out there:

I have a Goodwill lamp that’s almost ready for the left up on top there. The beautiful wood crate? HomeGoods baby! (For $16!) Doesn’t it looked like I plucked it out of an antique store? LOVE that color too.

One of the things I’d love to do, especially now, is to get a slipcover made for the chair and sofa:

But even without covers, I love them SO MUCH MORE in this room now. It’s just crazy – I don’t know why, but they don’t bother me nearly as much. (But I AM going to slipcover. Oh yes…I am.)

I have a plan for the wall above the dresser too – I already have everything I’ll need. Can’t wait to get it up there!:

And yes, there ARE about 50 holes in that wall from the various changes I’ve made to it. :) They’ll all be covered with my plan. I’m not even gonna fill them. Buwahahaha!!!  :)

I’m hoping to get the rest of the changes made to this part of the room by the end of this week, so I’ll show you as soon as I’m done. There’s some other stuff I’m working on elsewhere in the space too, but that is going to take a bit longer.

But for now…I simple cannot believe the difference a little editing and new drapes made…the before:

And after:

WHOO, swoon, ACK…Happy Valentine’s Day to ME…I am love! Ha! :)

Can’t wait to show you the rest! So far it’s turning out just like it looked in my head…just hope the rest of it does. (I love when that happens!)

P.S. I have not even hemmed the drapes yet…that’s how not completed this room is. Did I mention I have little to no patience?? :)

Like my version of the Ballard Designs cafe shelves?
You’ll LOVE Knock Off Decor!

Hello there! I’m back with another great giveaway this weekend, and it’s one of my favorites. My friend Beki of The Rusted Chain is not only funny, pretty and sahweeeet…but she’s also super talented.

I like her a lot. (Said like Lloyd Christmas.)  :)

She’s made a name for herself with her stamped jewelry, but has a beautiful selection of other pieces as well. I picked out a few of my favorites from her shop, all in a Valentine’s Day theme. Perfect for this weekend!

You know Honeysuckle is the Pantone color of the year, right? It’s a beautiful pink and I am smitten with it. I fell in LOVE with the touches of it in this necklace:

Isn’t that beautiful? A touch of unexpected fun mixed in with pretty and traditional. :)

And there are earrings to match:

Just lovely. Perfect for spring! (Sigh…spring…)

If you’re looking for a Valentine’s gift for just about…well…any female on the face of the earth, I’m betting she’d love any of the following:

Please feel free to forward this post to your significant other with the subject line “Any will do.” I think they appreciate the hints.  :)

Not only is this one perfect for V-Day, but it’s also a great gift idea for the newly engaged or married woman in your life:

Just precious! So sweet.

This one is my favorite with a “love” theme:

The sweet little heart and hugs and kisses put it over the top. LOVE.

And I have to mention my favorite of all of Beki’s pieces, because it’s the one I own:

I absolutely love it. It’s pretty and delicate and says it all in one word. It’s one of my favorite necklaces and I wear it constantly.

So those are some of my favorites – I know you’ll find plenty of your own. :)

Here’s the best part -- Beki has graciously offered a $25 gift certificate for TWO winners! Since most of her jewelry is under $30, you'll be sure to find something you’ll love.

Here’s the drill – leave a comment here for your first entry. For your second entry, go to Beki’s site here and pick out one of your favorite pieces. Come back here to leave a second comment letting us know what that is. That’s it!

**You can also take advantage of a 15 percent discount on any purchase through the end of the month by entering the code “TDC15.”

The giveaway will be open until Monday, Valentine’s Day at noon Eastern time.

Have a GREAT weekend! :)