Over the River and Through the Woods

Over Spring break I went with my Dad and brother to visit my Grandpa, and I never really saw the unique pieces my Grandma had put into the decor of their basement until this past visit. I felt inspired, and decided to take pictures of some of my favorite things. Sorry for the bad quality... morning darkness, wood paneling, and bad lighting don't really go together that well. :)

-Rachel :)

Fresh Coat

This here is a project I did months ago, but have procrastinated on posting about. It's taken me WAY too long to share this project that I'm super proud of, so here it is:

Over 4 years ago, on a wonderful trip to Ikea, I decided to pick up one of these little drawer systems (the one in the middle). It was only fifth grade, and I decided it would be best used as drawers for my Build-A-Bear clothes (I had a whole area in my room set up for my build-a-bears; I was setting up room designs pretty early...even if it were for bears...). I felt like it needed to be painted to match the decor of the bear's room, so I decided on a purple. What purple may you ask?... BARNEY PURPLE. I know, not one of my proudest moments. After switching bedrooms and updating my room decor, this sucker stuck out like a sour thumb (no pun intended). Looking at this darn thing was really starting to bug me. So I had a master plan...FINALLY PAINT IT!

I wanted to do a cool design on it to make it a little more hip so I decided to do tree branches stretching across it. My first plan was to sketch it all out and get a feel for what I wanted it to look like. Then I went right to painting!

When painting, I sorta tried to follow the sketch I had made, but after a while, I sorta did it free handed. I first painted the fronts of the drawers with a coat of black paint, then did the branches in white. After that, I went and painted the base of the drawers black. I'm not the best painter in the world, but I'm super proud of the results. It has a natural look to it that I like and it shows that it was done by hand. So here's the official before & after picture...

I have to say, I absolutely love the turn out of it. Now, I have re-invented the function of it as well. For a while it was used as a jewelry/make-up system, but I switched that stuff out for my school journals, random papers, mail, and old receipts. It now sits on my bookcase and I love the way it looks sitting there.

So there you have it: that's my little project I completed a while back. Hopefully I will be repainting something again soon...so much fun!

-Rachel :)

Crossing it Off

Yeah.... it's definitely been a while. My life has been so busy lately, and I've gotten practically no time at home to myself! Between work, the spring musical, endless amounts of school work, and being on vacation, it's nice to just have a lazy day at home for once.

Anyways, it's time to update the ole to-do list.

There have been several things that I've got to cross of my list lately, including: organize my closet, get rid of my stereo and karaoke machine, organize my papers, wires, cables, bookshelves, financial papers, CDs, and movies, get a headboard, paint my walls gray, find room for hoodies and blankets, get rid of stuffed animals, get a new comforter, find a color scheme (more details soon), and organize my crafts. Whew. That's a lot. However, there are still quite a few things that I need to tackle....

I've had my guitars for quite a while, and haven't used them for quite a while. They pretty much just sit there and collect dust, and fill in that small corner in my room. I think it's time to say goodbye to these guys...



I know, it's gross. That's the surface of my desk. Between pencil markings and ice cream spots, my desk tops have become a sloppy mess. I will definitely be taking care of them today!

Well, getting new curtains was on my list of things to do, but I realized that I want to keep the ones I already have. What I did was I unknotted them so that they're more long and puddle at the bottom. However, they are extremely long and puddle too much, so I think I will be hemming/shortening them in the near future.

Alas. The left overs from "getting rid of junk". This is the junk that still sits in my room after clearing out my closet and junk drawers. Half the stuff I don't even know what to do with! I will be taking the day to go through all of it and put things where they truly belong. The boxes have been sitting in my room (and my sisters room for a while) forever, and it's time I finally deal with them. It's driving me nuts!

And there we have it. Stuff I have yet accomplished. I'm really determined to get my room to finally be complete, and look the way I want it to look. I'll be sure to get start cracking today.

-Rachel :)

New Headboard

It finally happened. I got a headboard. Picking out a headboard was one of my birthday presents, along with painting my walls and getting a new mattress, so of course I went crazy over it. The two I was deciding between were both from Ikea, and neither of them really seemed to be the perfect match for me. Without losing hope, my mom continued to search Craigslist to find one. And alas, one morning, I came downstairs to make my breakfast and there it was, a picture printed out of this baby. I couldn't have been happier. It has such a unique pattern to it and was the perfect "inbetween" choice of the two from Ikea. So my mom and brother went and got it for me the following weekend right in time for my birthday. Then they brought it home. The seller on Craigslist had listed it as a full sized bed frame, but it certainly was made for a queen. The headboard stuck out about 3 inches more than it should have! Bummer, right? Actually, not really. :) The headboard had come along with a bed frame and a footboard which were queen sized as well, but the headboard was the only thing I could save. Now, it sits tucked behind my bed and I couldn't be happier. The last thing left to do is paint it black. As you can see from the photo, its a brownish rustic color- not exactly what I was hoping for. Also, there are several nicks and rust spots on the frame so we got special paint that will eliminate the rust and cover over the nicks to end up with the perfect color. It's still the same color for now, but once we have a free weekend (for once) and the weather is beautiful, we'll be sure to grab out the paint and paintbrushes.

(p.s.: see the new wall color? I'm lovin' it... queue the McDonald's commercial.)

-Rachel :)

And The Winner Is...

PLUM SMOKE! :)

I don't have much explaining for this choice... just that it's awesome! We did this a while ago (March 6th), so sorry for the delay :/. But here are some pictures of the process:

My two best friends came over to help me start painting. This is what happens when you give us paint brushes. :)

See how well it matches my black and white photos?! My Mom was super happy with that because that's the exact color in the photo she wanted me to go with.

After peelin' off all the tape.

So yeah, those were pretty much "in progress" photos. My room has been such a mess lately and I've had so much going on that I haven't really finished yet, but I"ll be posting more soon!

-Rachel :)

The Great Debate

Picking a paint color is harder than I thought. I decided to take advantage of the beautiful day last Sunday and go with my Dad to pick up some paint samples and make my final decision. I knew coming in that I wanted to get Porpoise because I basically fell in love with the color swatch, but I wasn't sure if it would be too dark, so I got the next brighter shade as well.



My Dad also insisted on getting tape, so I (unevenly) taped up boxes on my walls and got going on the paint.

I mainly wanted to do it on two seperate walls was to get the feel for the colors. I put them next to my black and white picture to see how it would look, and then next to the flower picture to see how the color would look with all of the colors. And this is the final product:

So... there were some unagreements. First off, my Mom kept saying it would make the room to dreary. Then I started thinking about it and realize she was a little right. Plus, the grays were too light- it would too WAY too bright and in your face with all of my white furniture. So, off we went to find a purpley gray color. I already had a paint chip of Behr's Plum Smoke and I thought that it went well with the colors in my room, and was dark enough to keep the room warm. My sister took me this time to get the paint samples, and while we were there, we also decided to grab a darker color that caught our eye. And this is what it looks like on my wall:

Plum Smoke (the lighter one) looks taupey/brown, right? Yeah, not what I was going for. At first I was a little dissapointed, but after a while, the paint sorta grew on me. I thought to myself "maybe this is the type of color I need, maybe gray would be too cold, maybe this will warm up my room"... just a bunch of maybes. When it's daylight, it looks gray, but when I have my lights on, it looks brown. I also decided to see if my fabrics would go well with it, and they do!

It's close to the color, without being too matchy matchy. And, if you look at the color long enough, it looks a little purple...right? Well we'll just have to see how this all turns out...

-Rachel :)

Well, here's my closet's before.

I can't look at it!! It's so disorganized, between the things thrown into the bins on the shelf to the miscellaneous things just dropped on the ground!

So, I took the 4 day weekend that I had off from school to cross off the first item on my list and completely transform my whole closet.

And here it is now! (notice my superior editing skills...not)

My main goal was to really get rid of everything that didn't belong in my closet and free up space to make it feel soothing. By looking at the before photo, you can tell I had a lot on my hands. There was a lot I had to clear out, including the bin in the bottom left corner, those shelves, and a lot of those bins on the top closet shelf. The first day I started, I pulled everything I wanted out and brought them all into our storage room. Then, I had to go through each of the boxes and see what I can eliminate to clear up space for other items.

However, a lot of the things I had shoved into my closet were things that have to stay. For instance, we have my hot pink suitcase; this is the only place where I can put it since my bed is too short to ft it. Then we have my shoes, accessories, crafts, electrical cords, bags, etc. And most importantly, my CLOTHES! I was originally thinking about clearing out clothes that I don't wear, but in all reality, I mean, come on! I'm too...shall we say "attached" to all of my clothes that I might regret ever getting rid of them. Try searching in the closet for that certain piece of clothing only to find that I don't have it any more! Too scary for me... But luckily I keep my shirts color coordinated so that everything is easy to find.

Before organizing, I originally had all of my accessories and beauty products stored on the little white shelves in the purple drawers. But I realized I need those drawers to organize my papers, so I decided to buy this little organizer to store these items, which has been really working so far!

And here we have these lovely closet organizers to store my shoes and sweatshirts. The sweatshirts were originally sitting in a pile next to my bed, waiting for a space to be put away. And I finally have one for them! There were also a few shelves left so I decided to put my hair ribbons, bandannas, hair towels, and sunglasses in these little boxes so that they're easier to get to when I want to wear them.

Ahh, the infamous blue bins. I don't know if you can tell from the before picture (I can!), but these bins were a disaster area. Soo...I emptied them all out and reorganized them with everything I really needed in my room.

The first one is used for all of my cables and chargers for my old and new electronics. What I did was go through all of them and sort them into Ziploc baggies depending on what device they're for and how often I use them. Thus, I have no stress when it comes to finding my chargers and USB cords for my phone and camera! The second bin is being used for decor items that I have had before in my room, but have outgrown them. Now, I have a place to actually put them, rather than just setting them on the closet floor. And the third bin is that one bin that is for all of the items that I have no clue where to put- I have to have at least one of them!

And lastly, I bought these baskets to organize the bags, scarves, belts, and whatnot...aka that huge pile of crap on the floor of my closet. I originally had some of those blue bins to sort them out, but honestly, they just weren't big enough. Now with the baskets, I'm able to get to them quicker and keep them from overflowing. Plus, they tie my room together really well!


I also have those picture boxes on the top shelves that I've used to store my crafts, old cards, pictures, and swim team ribbons. I originally had 6 picture boxes in colors that matched my old room (the ones on the small white shelves). But now, after buying two more black boxes and two eggplant, I have 6 boxes that go together and tie together with my color scheme. I also decided to put in labels in the front of them so that I know what box I'm getting since there are multiples of the same color.

And there you have it. My new and improved closet. I obviously had to buy new storage items to really maximize the space in my closet...ooh that phrase makes me feel so fancy. Hah. So here are the prices for everything:

~Baskets- Michael's : $6.99 (x2)

~10 shoe shelves- Target : $5.99

~6 linen shelves- Target : $5.99

~Photo Box- Target : $4.99 (x4)

~Accessory Organizer- HomeGoods : $7.99 ... but FREE with a gift card!

Grand Total: $45.92 (not including tax)

I must say, this took me a while to finally complete, but it was totally worth it. No more messy closet for me!

-Rachel :)