Office deets and show off yours!

Hello all! Welcome to the first Show Us Your House party! I can’t wait to see the rooms for this month – your craft spaces and offices!

I had intentions of getting this first house party up last night, but we had a bit of a family crisis that was my priority. Around ten last night we noticed one of our kitties was looking just…not right. Her sweet face didn’t look like her and right away I knew something was wrong. I picked her up and took her to her food and water and tried to get her to eat something, and that’s when I noticed she could barely stand up. She couldn’t eat, drink, or walk without struggling.

I kept an eye on her for a few minutes, then noticed blood around her mouth and we knew immediately that the night was not going to end well. We took her to the ER doc at midnight and as the minutes ticked by she got considerably worse – I’ve never seen anything like it. I still can’t believe how fast it happened.

We found out she was suffering from kidney failure and it was taking her incredibly fast. The night before she was her old self…cuddling up with my on our bed (the fact that she could still jump up on our tall bed at 18 years old was crazy), “talking” to me before bed like she always does.

She went from her old self to horrible health in 24 hours. We only had about an hour to wrap our heads around it and then there we were saying goodbye to her. When they brought her back into the room so we could hold her, she was pretty much comatose. Her beautiful bright eyes just were not there anymore.

We held her and said goodbye and cried and cried. It was heart wrenching. I’ve had this baby girl since the day she was born…our kitty gave birth to a litter and she was one of them.

I haven’t had time to find recent pics of her, but you can see she was a stunner. :)

I love this one because you can see her “smile”:

She was the sweetest, best girl in the world. I miss her terribly. We’ve been moping around the house all day today…still kind of in shock. This is the second cat in about six months that we’ve lost. We’ve gone from four animals to two in a very short time. Our last cat is so sad today…it’s just awful. My heart hurts. I’ve had that sweet girl for half of my life.

So, it’s been a sucky few days…hubby has been sick with pneumonia and now this. (He’s doing much better but still feeling yucky.)

Anyway, that’s my very long story for the reason I didn’t get this up last night. I couldn’t help but show off our sweet kitty to you all before we got going with the post. :) Thanks for letting me share her with you.

Sooo…it’s time to move on to some details on my office reveal from earlier this week. First of all, I just want to say THANK you for all of the wonderful comments. I truly appreciate them and appreciate that you take the time to comment. It makes my day!

There’s a lot I want to share, so bear with me!

First, more about the layout. This room was tough for me because it’s like every other room on our main floor…very few full walls. The space is only about 11 by 11 feet, two walls have windows (which I LOVE), and two are cut off a bit by the angled doorway. 

You might remember that for a long time, I had the desk and light on the left side of the room. First it was facing the doorway, then I changed it to face the wall.

It just felt weird to me though…awkward. So in the end, it was moved over by the windows:

For a while I had it angled in the corner facing out, but that was awkward too. In order to get around it to sit down, the table had to be too far out into the room.

One day recently I was cleaning the floors and moved the desk over a bit. I realized it worked great!:

I love it! And it only took forever to figure it out. :)

This way if I ever want a different view, I can just turn it the other way, and I’ve still got all that natural light!

Speaking of the desk, this was my third option for the room. It was EXACTLY what I wanted – a “real” vintage farmhouse table. I totally lucked out when a friend of a friend was selling it.

Unfortunately it was covered with lead paint. :) I had it professionally stripped down and then I painted it a very light blue. (Paint colors coming at the end of the post!):

I also changed the orientation of the desk so the legs went with the width. It is a HUGE surface and perfect for crafting or sorting mail.

Speaking of mail, I showed you how I figured out a process for controlling the paper that comes in the house here. All of my office supplies are organized in the Craigslist dresser (that I LOVE).

The mail and stuff that I need to go through goes in the box on top, then the papers that need to be filed in the basement go in the top drawer:

The binders hold everyday stuff I want close at hand – house stuff, inspiration files and manuals for games and toys. This way I don’t have to run to the basement for every day things I need.

The other drawers hold lots ‘o stuff. Before I put a drop of paint on the walls a long long time ago, I did a serious purge of my office supplies. Did I really need four rolls of tape? Did I need ten packs of post its? Did I have to have 45 random pens and pencils?

No. :)

One drawer holds what office supplies I do use in pretty holders from HomeGoods:

The drawers are REALLY wide but very shallow, so these work great! I can fit a ton of stuff in there!

The next drawer holds my Silhouette machine, and all the fun stuff that I use with that, as well as my “junk drawer in a drawer” –  it holds my go-to stuff like address labels, stamps, envelopes, my label maker and just STUFF:

When I sit down and go through mail, I pull this out and put it on the desk so I have stuff at hand.

The bottom drawer is dedicated to the kiddo – three more bins corral all of his goodies:

But most of his stuff is in the caddy to the left of the dresser:

And his sticker books, magazines, coloring books and Lego magazines have a spot in the book bin:

It was a Goodwill find years ago and used to sit in his nursery:

I put some castors on the bottom ($4 for four at Lowe’s) because it’s SUPER heavy and this makes it easier to move around the room.

The basket to the right of the cabinet used to house our little shredder and the cords:

We’ve since moved the shredder out to the garage, so now this holds bulky stuff like my tripod, camera case and laptop case:

Everything I need on a daily basis is organized in this room and I love it! I mentioned that I moved some of the bulky stuff to the basement (like the filing cabinet) and I’m so thrilled! (We already had one down filing cabinet down there so this way everything is in one spot.)

The printer/scanner is also in hubby’s basement office. This works great for us because he uses it WAY more than I do. It’s also wireless, so I can print from anywhere in the house, then file items right away.

At first I hid the modem and router under the dresser (you couldn’t even see them – YAHOO!), but when I moved the dresser I didn’t have access to the cable jack. So instead, I moved them to a spot in the house that has a free cable jack -- the guest room. :)

That room is hardly used, so it’s worked perfectly! (We have no problems accessing internet from anywhere in the house.)

OK, onto some pretties. :) The gallery walls around the room are probably my favorite part of the room, but they also took the longest. OH EM GEE.

If you can believe it, I already had every frame, but that’s because I had been collecting them at Goodwill for about a year. They were all different colored frames, which I liked initially, but it got to be too busy. And I wanted the art to shine!

So I sprayed them all white, which took FOREVER. I had to take the art/photos/glass out of each one, clean them off, prime them twice and then spray them satin white twice.

FOR.EV.ER.

And hate me, but I didn’t cut out paper the size of each frame (like I’ve seen in mags) to figure out where I wanted each one on the walls. I just piled the frames in the room, started at one end of each wall, then picked different sizes that worked here and there.

Yes, I had to move a few along the way, but it’s just holes people. Itty bitty holes. You can’t even see them, can you?:

;)

Most of the art is the Bub’s or my photos. Here’s the lowdown on the art and other stuff on this wall, left to right: 

Art by stepdaughter (of the Bub)
Angel by Bub
Circle art by Bub
Statue of Liberty shot
”S” from old sign – Midland Antiques Indy
Blue/yellow art by Bub
Bub by me
Bouquet art by Bub

Left to right:

Hubby and I photo
DIY printable
Photo of Bub and Daddy
Photo of Hubs and I on the first flight he took me on.
Sweet stepdaughter
Art by Bub (Christmas tree but it’s staying up – I love it)
Poster I cut up to fit into frame (You can see more of that art here.)
Target mirror I spray painted metallic color

(Still looking for something tall and skinny to put over to the left!)

Left to right:

My little pirate at Halloween (arrrgh)
Vintage sign from late father-in-laws business
Art from this post (LOVE)
Cherry blossom photography
Family photo
Photo of Skyscraper Lunch sculpture from Ground Zero, January 2002
School photo of my late brother-in-law (beautiful frame was from fil’s house)

Left to right:

Clock from Garden Ridge
Goodwill oval frame
DIY silhouette in GW frame
Sunflower photo that used to be here  
Photography from here (Gorgeous! Matches the room PERFECTLY.)
Butterfly photo
Photo of the kids in NYC
Flower photo

I wanted to have something on each wall that wasn’t art and wasn’t white, so that’s where the clock, industrial “S,” mirror and the Modern Bird art (absolutely LOVE it) come in.

I couldn’t be more thrilled with how it all came together. :)

That cutie little aqua table above started out as a table I found at my late father-in-law’s house. It was rickety and in bad shape – I took it apart, cleaned it up, tightened it up:

Because it was round, it stuck out into the room quite a bit:

So I used my jigsaw to cut it down, then reattached that piece with “L” brackets so it looks like a drop leaf table:

It saves us about six inches of space right there, and I’m all about that!

Whew!! Almost done!! :)

The drapes are a Waverly fabric I found from Joann’s forever ago. It is still there though. :) The striped fabric on the DIY memo board goes with it perfectly, and they were the very first picks for this room. The whole space was designed around them!

I made the drapes myself – lined and everything. ;) They aren’t sewn perfectly, but you can’t tell, right?:

Now I wish I would have picked a different fabric for the pendant light, but that was one of the first projects I finished, and I had planned on it hanging on the other side of the room away from the drapes. Oh well…I’m not touching anything in here for awhile, so it’s good. ;)

Here’s a rundown of a few ton more details…

Paint colors

Desk: True Value, Soft Hearted
Kid table: Valspar, Pond
Memo board frame: Dutch Boy, Purify
Walls:  Ralph Lauren, Sisal, lightened 25 percent
Ceiling: Dutch Boy, Purify

Sources:

Lamps, large basket: Target
Organizational items on and in dresser, chair and pillow: HomeGoods
Binders: Nakedbinder.com
Fabrics: Joann's
Dresser: Craigslist
Knobs on dresser: Hobby Lobby
Frames: Goodwill
Rug on chair back: IKEA

And here are links to the long list of projects that made this room happen!

Desk redo
Priming the formerly dark room
Painting the walls
Installing crown (I later chunked it up a bit by adding a piece of molding two inches down, then painting in between.)
DIY memo board (made from insulation board and a GW frame)
Board and batten how-to
Organizing the paper
Desk chair redo (from a pleather parson’s chair to a no-sew covered chair)
Spraying the board and batten
Pottery Barn art caddy redo
How to make your own printables tutorial

(Live Writer is hating me again, so those links are not highlighted right.)

And if you missed it, the full reveal is here!!

Dang, I’m tired!!!

So let’s see YOUR spaces! I still don’t have a button for this shindig, but I would appreciate it if you would link back here in your post! Thanks so much!

 

Winners and Holiday Home!

Well hello there! Hope you had a lovely weekend!!

I need to announce a few lucky winners!

The winner of the Black and Decker Steam Mop is Natalie at The Bibler Family!

The two winners of The Rusted Chain giveaway are Lori at Itsy Bitsy Stitches and Veronika at Love Tuvster!

Congrats ladies! Please send me an email at thriftydecorchick (at) gmail (dot) com and I’ll get you connected with your goodies!

I also wanted to announce that my gal pals and I are baaaack with the Holiday Home Link Parties!:

I think I speak for all of us when I say this holiday series has become our favorite!!

I can’t wait to see what you all come up with!

Layla will kick it off with table decor ideas, Rhoda is up next with mantels, then Kate with holiday crafts and we’ll wrap it up with my annual Christmas tree partay!

Can’t WAIT!

For now, I’ll be back later this evening with the November Before and After Party!:

See you then!

Fall Outdoor Spaces Party!

Hey there! It’s here! The final fall linky party in our Fall Extravaganza:

Layla, Rhoda and Kate and I have such a blast throwing these shindigs! I hope you have found some inspiration (and new visitors!) throughout the past couple of weeks.

My outdoor space started with a big change  -- yes, I painted our front door! I have to admit -- it was nerve-racking. I had been thinking of painting our door red for months, but was soooo sceered. I even mentioned it on Twitter one day and I tell you what, you all are a bunch of enablers.

And I love it! ;)

You were all, DO IT! You’ll love it!! Crack under our peer pressure!

And that I did. It just took me a while.

Our door was actually a greyish brown – but it always photographed blue:

Many of you have asked the paint color of my “blue” door! ;) The color matched our shutters and I’ve always loved it…I was just ready for a change.

I think your front door should make a statement, and I knew if I got the right color, a red door would look fantastic!

Well. It was definitely a lesson in picking out REDS. GoodNESS. It took three different colors. I wanted brick red – and the first “brick” color was orange. The second was pink.

But just like Goldilocks, the third was just right. :)

This is the color what I think of when I think of brick. Maybe it’s just me. ;) The color is called  Chocolate Cosmos and it’s from the Martha Stewart line at Home Depot.

(Although now it photographs purple – so I can’t win for losing!)

I changed out the hardware as well – our old set was seven years old and was showing it’s age. It was brass – which I actually didn’t mind because it wasn’t so shiny anymore. ;) But it was in sad, sad shape.

The ORB set is so sharp against the red!:

I took down the light fixture and cleaned up the glass, then sprayed it in an oil rubbed bronze:

It’s AMAZING what some cleaning and spray paint does for…well, anything. :) You can go here to see how I transformed our coach lights the same way last year.

The red door is actually more of a reddish brown, which works PERFECTLY with our other brown accents:

Because I cleaned up the front a few weeks ago, I was able to add a hay bale next to the porch for the first time ever:

I’ve always wanted one – I was so giddy about that silly bale of hay! ;) Now that the landscaping bricks aren’t there anymore, it just fits.

We’ve been picking up pumpkins here and there over the past few weeks, and I piled them all on the hay. Most will go inside eventually, but I LOVE the big cluster of them, snuggled up with the mums.

I LOVE FALL!!!

(Have I mentioned that?)

I was going to put the mums in the pots, but I found Cinderella pumpkins for a steal at a local pumpkin patch. I’ve seen these for as much as $12 each this year! Craziness!!

I stacked them three high and they are so fun:

I love how the front has changed this fall – the landscaping, the door, the hay. ;)

Of course it isn’t fall around here without my corn stalks – I love how they cozy up our small front porch:

(This pic is the true color of the door.)

Now I just need to decide if I’m putting the “Welcome” vinyl back! For now I like it simple – but we all know that could change fast.

The new color works perfectly with the colors in the window boxes:

I would like to say I planned that, but no. It took three tries, remember? ;)

See that sweet smushy-face in the window? My heart!

I’ll show you more about installing the hardware and a how-to on painting the door in an upcoming post! One was way easier than I thought and one was way harder. (Five hundred points to the person who guesses the three-different-reds-door.)

Now I can’t wait to see your lovely outdoor spaces all decked out for fall! I know many of you may have shared your doors and porches at Rhoda’s door decor party last week, but feel free to link up again!

I would love it if you would copy and paste this cutie button into your post, or link back to this post in yours:

Thank you and have fun!!

September Before and After: A New Light

Well HEY! Hope you had a great weekend! We did a lot of bumming around and being productive – a little of both extremes. :)

Tonight’s before and after is brought to you by the continued science fair that is our kitchen. I showed you the mess the water damage has created, and last Friday, the madness continued.

We had noticed a few weeks ago that the framing around our back door was rotting away. We thought it would be a quick fix, and our handyman did too. That is until he started removing trim and found massive amounts of water damage – separate from the mess in the rest of the kitchen:

That’s a hole in our kitchen floor. For a brief moment in time we had a fabulous source of natural light in the basement. ;) I try to look at the bright side.

I told him to just tear out the floors cause they were going anyway -- thank GOODNESS we discovered this before replacing the floors!! (And no, there’s still no movement on that – hopefully this week.)

The folks who built our deck made it too high – so for six years the water has been flowing into the door frame every time it rained. That eventually ate away at the trim, the subfloor and the threshold.

Anyhoo, our awesome handyman worked from 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. and got it fixed up and did a few little changes that will keep this from happening again. LOVE HIM.

So…there’s been a little change I’ve been wanting to make to the kitchen for a while now, and this weekend I decided to do it. Because I needed to do something to the space that would make me feel in control again.

Or maybe I just wanted a pretty new light. Who knows. ;)

Recently something has been bugging me about light over the kitchen table:

I love it! But it felt too light…I don’t know, just not substantial enough. Once I realized what it was that was buggin’ me, I couldn’t get it out of my head. I just wanted something that was a bit more dramatic to fill that “space” in the room.

Enter the Portfolio light from Lowes:

I think it was $140? It was LUUURVE at first sight. I think I gasped just a bit when I saw it in the store, cause I knew it would look so good over our table.

I installed it the other night (with very little daylight to spare – I forget the sun sets so much earlier already!) and I couldn’t be happier with it:

It adds a little contemporary flare to the space:

I love it combined with our antique claw foot table. :)

I think what I love most is that it sends all of the light down to the table – it is SO much brighter under there now:

And of course I have it on a dimmer switch so it looks fab down low or up high. I love it!!

I thought about spraying it black for about two hot seconds, but I think we have enough black going on. (And at night it looks black anyway.) I’m working on some ways to bring some more color into this side of the kitchen, but for now, I love how this has changed it up a bit:

And look how calm our kitchen looks from this side (although you can see where I covered the torn out flooring by the door with the rug).

This side tells the real story of the past week:

This is what happens when your pile spot (your island) is in the office. ;)

So here’s my before and after for this month –- the previous chandelier on the left, the new pendant on the right:

Typically your fixture should hang about 28 to 32 inches above your table and I always end up cutting my wires too short when I install. ALWAYS.  This one hangs 32 above the table, which I’m now happy about because any lower would have been directly in the eye line (for me anyway). As it is we can see under it well.

I found an old photo of the light after I installed it last year and it’s fun to see the changes since then:

Including the addition of a cute (rascally) dog. ;) And the removal of a floor. Gah.

So let’s see your projects! Link them UP!

I’d appreciate it GREATLY if you could link back to this post or at least my blog in your post. You can use this button if you’d like: