Showing posts with label family room. Show all posts
Showing posts with label family room. Show all posts

Friday, August 24, 2012

The evolution of a craft cupboard {Before and Midway}

This will not be a fun "look at how pretty it is" kind of a post! It's going to show you the evolving "craft cupboard" that I've been working on. This is the before, not the after.



First, I'm showing you the WAY before. This picture is from right before we moved into our house, in 2006. This family room has come a LONG way in six years. The wood paneling, the swimming pool tile floor, the curtains, the windows - all are completely changed! Of course, the furniture also since this was the former owner's furnishings. And who puts a cabinet knob in the middle of a cabinet? Do you know how hard it is to open it like that?



You can see I painted the paneling a light blue and then my Hubby and Daddy put in hard wood floors {they float over the existing swimming pool tile} - and I painted the entire ceiling white! What a HUGE difference those things made in this room! You can see in the corner where the future craft cupboard will be. {The couch is from Costco, since many of you have asked}.



In 2010 we knocked down our kitchen wall and I had an extra table. So, I moved it into the corner back there and made it a game cupboard and table to play games at.



Here you can see that I painted all the cabinets in the family room white and put in new hardware {covering up those holes in the middle of the doors, too, where the knobs used to be}. The top of this built-in cupboard has all our family photo albums and yearbooks. I haven't been too fond of how it looked. Just looks cluttered to me!



Since the kids are playing less and less games and my daughter and I have been crafting more and more, I decided we needed a place to put all the craft supplies. I must admit that this is has been one of the hardest places for me to organize. I'm nearing completion on this thing, but this is what it looked like for weeks! It's rather sad, but I didn't want to rush to put everything back until I was sure how I wanted to organize it all - if you are Instagram you have seen me show bits and pieces of how I've been working on it. So, I hope to have it finished in a couple of weeks to show you the complete and organized craft cupboard! Whew! I've got a lot of labeling to do and I want to make it creative and fun, too! So, it will take me some time to get that accomplished. If you'd like to see more ideas that I've been using to organize this craft cupboard, go to my Craft Cupboard Pinterest Board.

Do you have a certain area of your house that has stumped you organizing wise? What area and what have you done? If you're still stumped, email me a picture and I might select you for OMF to the rescue to give you ideas of how to organize that area. I'm always looking for a challenge!

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Friday, December 9, 2011

It's Christmas Time!

I wanted to share my Christmas mantle and decor with you all...just because I realized that I never did last year! 



We set up three Christmas trees. The first one is our living room tree. I love this picture below: Dad on the laptop, kids decorating the tree, and Mom putting the hooks on the ornaments! A little funny, but they love it!



The second one is our family room tree. This one is not big - about five feet tall, but is JUST for all the kids homemade decorations and ornaments they've made.



The last tree is our deck tree. It has to withstand December winds {which, by the way, flattened the tree in a couple of hours with this year's crazy wind here in So. Cal.} and possible rain. So, there are all plastic ornaments on this one.



Our living room has this beautiful, long mantle - these old houses have amazing details and built-ins.




We display all my little village houses on there and the nativity. 



In the display cabinet, I've put small touches of Christmas.



Our deck really gets "decked" out for Christmas too! It gets glowing more then ever. It will get a lot of use at our four Christmas parties, too. We have several heaters and our outdoor fireplace to keep everyone nice and warm. 



It's really a wonderful thing to be able to enjoy company nearly year round outside. I am so thankful to live in Southern California for that.




That's about it for my Christmas decor tour...but, I'll have some more of our outdoor parties and how we do our decorating out there next week.



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Friday, November 25, 2011

Gallery Wall

Our family room, as I've told you before, is my favorite room in our home! 


It has evolved into a wonderful, comfortable space. My piano students and parents spend lots of time in there while waiting for the next lesson that I teach them and even they tell me how much they love being in there! 


So, my wall on one side of the family room looked a bit lonely for something personal...

As you can see, it needed a focal point. It needed something to warm up the space! We took some wonderful family portraits this summer so I wanted to BLOW UP our family portrait really large and put it on canvas. I did it online at Costco online and it was really not expensive and it turned out so nice! I just had to download the pictures, make the pictures how I wanted, and then had them shipped to the store and that was free!


I also printed up some collages online of the other great pictures we had taken.


 
The last thing I wanted for the wall was our last name initial "B". I wanted something large and unique. So, I went to Etsy and found a great shop that will make these in many different font choices AND you could choose the color you wanted. The shop is called Vintage Blue by Sophia and she was great to work with.

I wanted to get my pictures figured out for how I wanted them to look on the wall. I also had a couple of floating shelves I had bought at Target a few months ago that I never got around to using. So, I took a blanket and laid everything out.




Then, my hubby hung up all the pictures using my sample to help him.

He's a keeper, really. Those floating shelves were HARD to hang. Turns out that our paneled walls aren't exactly so perfect - they bow out and that made it pretty tough work with. We hadn't noticed before since we never hung shelves on those walls!


You can see that our ceiling also slopes down - it's a flat roof on that part of the house and is wonky, but you work with what you have! It still looks great, though!




Here it is up close. It makes me smile to see my little family all up there.


 

And to leave you with a before and after. I love it! More personality, too! Oh, and I already have a project in mind for that old piece that was up there before. Do you have a gallery wall in your home?



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Wednesday, September 28, 2011

How I organize: Kids computer/homework desk

OK...we took the last couple of months off from my regular Wednesday "how I organize" to do a lot of Back to School prepping and organizing. Now we'll dive back into my family room to show you some more areas that I've organized.  The family room is one of those places that everyone congregates in our house.  Our kitchen is actually in the front of our house and the family room is in the middle area.  We have a one-story L-shaped house {about 2400 square feet}. 





I want to show you an area I "created" a few years ago.  I found this great slim, adjustable desk at Overstock.com - it's got adjustable legs which I liked for the kids.  It can have two kids sit at once there.  Our kids' computer is here - out in the open, where everyone can see what they are doing {this is extremely important for parents NOT to have computer/TV in their rooms where you cannot monitor what they see}.  


We DO have them wear headphones cause their websites are not something we all need to hear! They also have a time limit on there, along with safety software {we use a program called Safe Eyes} so they can only go on websites with prior approval and access from the administrator {that would be ME!}.



I have a few dilemmas in this area. But, my main one was the cords! I really do hate cords dangling and a mess.  Isn't it just one of those things you can't stand but seem to have to put up with?



So, I took some of my hubby's cool velcro {remember I did that in our entry dresser?} and started to work on the cords.



Let me just say, cords are AWFUL! AWFUL, AWFUL, AWFUL!  It was one of the hardest things I've ever organized! They were all different lengths, widths, and wanted to go one way or another.  This table is great, but you can't just shove the cables somewhere to hide them!


My hubby does I.T. for a living, so I have DEEP appreciation for him now and for dealing with cords. I told him, too, that I just don't know how he does it! OK...so by the time I got those looking somewhat organized {and sort of pathetic}, then I took the large power strip and strapped it to the table leg. It was previously on the floor and the kids kept kicking it and it would turn off or scrape the wall, so this way seemed like a better idea!


My hubby recently bought the kids a Mini-Mac and so there is not a big box on the floor anymore! Yay! This is much less of a dust collector and just does a perfect job for them to work on. {Yes, Mini-Mac next to a Dell monitor!}


The other problem I had was there are no drawers in the desk to store things and so I bought this cart {years ago} from The Container Store when their Elfa systems were on sale. So, I have them labeled and more access for homework items - paper, pencils, rulers, etc.  


The little tray on top was a quick project I did - on the cheap! I bought the tray at the thrift store on "half-off" day for $1.15! Here is my Pinterest inspiration:


I spray painted it with black paint I had in my paint cupboard, then found some jars left over in my overflow pantry, and sorted out all the coloring pencils, pens and markers. 


Another dilemma I had previously was seating, so I bought these cute stools {at Kmart.com, but I don't think they make this low height anymore, so look at Ikea.com} since having chairs there took up too much space. The stools are fairly comfortable - but not something you'd want to sit on for hours {which is the point!} and slide under the table and out of the way. I can also slide them over to use elsewhere in the room, if needed. 


So there you have it! Our little computer desk area! I didn't do all this at once, but a little bit at a time to come up with the best solution as problems arose! Do you have a computer desk area in a public part of your house for you and/or your kids? What solutions have you come up with? Do you have time limits for them on the computer?
 

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Friday, September 23, 2011

Silhouettes

I see beautiful silhouettes all over blogland and Pinterest! And, I must admit, I LOVE them! I just think that they bring character and charm to a home.  Our family room is one room that I have tried to make very family minded - afterall, it IS a family room! I have been wanting them for our family room for awhile...


Source


We vacationed earlier this summer in Big Bear.  Let me tell you, it may be a small mountain town, but they have the BEST thrift stores! I seriously can't tell you how many great finds I got there! Good thing I had my van! Anyway...I found these silver trays for $1 a piece.  I am a sucker for trays - LOVE trays - and I use them all the time all over the place. I especially use them for entertaining the many we have over! So, I had no idea what I'd do with them but I figured for $1 a piece it was a great deal and I'd figure it out later. 

I stashed them in my office for a couple of months and completely forgot about them! My husband had piled some things on them and one day I was cleaning up I noticed them.  What does that have to do with silhouettes?


I realized I hadn't thought of anything and that I wanted some silhouettes of the kids on the walls.  So, I painted chalkboard paint on the inside of the tray, leaving the edges revealed.  It was SUPER easy - a couple of coats and I did it on my kitchen table!
 

Then, I took a couple of pictures of the kids' silhouettes and printed them up and cut them out. I grabbed a pencil and traced them and used my chalk ink to draw their silhouettes onto the trays.  Easy peesy!

I used some Command "damage-free" hanging strips and put on the backs of the trays - which are very lite-weight. 



I hung them amongst our gallery of pictures on the wall in our family room. It's so cute!  I love it.
  

And, I can always erase them and use for something else later on! Or not!


Do you have any silhouttes of yourself or kids in your home? Aren't they so fun?



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