Saturday, July 8, 2017

Our Playroom Renovation

We've lived in our house for nine years now and we've never once touched the playroom.  It was a dingy two-tone white/tan color and some of the paint was peeling off the stucco walls.  Even though we both wanted to give it a makeover we never attempted because it's such a large room and there's so. much. junk in it.  Now that the girls are older we are finally starting to clear out some of the toys and I woke up one day and thought, "Today's the day.  We're doing it."

It took me two weekends of cleaning, painting, and cleaning again but it's now so much brighter looking and we don't cringe every time we walk in.  It needs some decorations but I'm cheap so I'm just going to wait until I come across something on clearance or at a yard sale that I can't live without versus going out and spending a ton of money buying new things.  We also need to do another big toy purge but they did really well the first time so I don't want to push it just yet.

Here's a before/after of the main toy wall.


We got rid of boxes and boxes of junk and I moved some things around to make it easier for the girls to find what they wanted.  The bookcase on the left holds all their movies and games in one easy location instead of spread out in several rooms.  I also cleaned out the plastic storage box and emptied an entire drawer of toys.

The bookcase is my favorite part of the new room.  It was a loud blue color and I painted it white.  Now it matches the room and looks like a brand new piece of furniture.



"Kitty Area" is another thing I'm proud of.  We never use this main door and it the closet next to it made the whole area look dark and dirty so I decided to paint both doors white to brighten it up.  My husband was opposed to the idea at first but afterwards he agreed it was a huge difference.


I would like to find some large pieces of art and an oversized clock to hang on the walls eventually.  My kitchen is my next big reno project!

Monday, July 3, 2017

May 2017 Books

May was a GREAT reading month for me.  Even though I didn't read very many books I managed to finish off several large books this month.  I go through spurts of "Eh, why read when I can watch TV?" and "WHO CARES ABOUT TELEVISION LET'S GO TO THE LIBRARY!" and this was a definite library month.  Six of these books were from there and I just appreciate the heck out of our library for taking such good care of us.




I enjoyed so many of these books!  My favorite was The Host by Stephanie Meyer.  It's my second time reading this book and I loved it even more than the first.  Say what you will about Meyer's Twilight series, this one is nothing at all like it. 

I FINALLY finished Anna Karenina after I downloaded the audiobook and listened to it while I worked on painting my kitchen.  I didn't love it but I did enjoy it a lot more than I had expected.

Stephen King has a new short story out and Gwendy's Button Box was a quick but enjoyable read.  He should stick with short stories because for the most part they are better than his doorstop novels.  Not as much rambling and just enough to creep you out and then leave you.

Outlander was a spur of the moment book decision for me and I'm glad I made it.  I've had it for a couple years now but never picked it up.  It definitely could have used an editor to shorten it by a couple hundred pages but the action started to pick up about halfway through and was a little easier to take.  It almost read like a Scottish fanfic.  I started the second book in the series but I think I'm one and done with the Outlander universe. 

I hope the rest of the summer is as good of a reading month as this one!