OPAM August 2011 (putzing around the house)

This month I didn’t do one big project. Instead, I have been putzing around doing little things here and there.

I have what is basically the equivalent of a tiny thrift store in my garage. Furniture, frames, vases, baskets, pots, etc. All of the pretty little things I have curated over the last few years are stored there. The garage is a disaster, Jeff has great disdain for what I do to the garage, but it is certainly fun to go in there to find things I bought a year ago and had forgotten about! It is incredibly satisfying to complete the ideas that were rolling around in my head for so long. So even though I didn’t accomplish anything BIG – it still feels like I did when I glance around at some of the spots on our house.

That was my plan this month – to actually use some of the things I had purchased over the last year. We also hired a (fantastic) handyman who fixed a lot of small things around the house that have been broken and/or bugging us for years. So, it’s been nice. A nice little productive month.

I started with the main hang out room in our house, which is really the kid’s hang out. It is attached to the kitchen and has a big TV with all of their gaming devices attached. The table is usually covered with papers and markers, glasses and their “stuff”. I spiffed up the area surrounding the TV, mantle, and fireplace.

My For Like Ever poster is old and very loved. I saw it on the cover of ye old Domino magazine years ago and immediately went on a hunt to find it. Now it is all over the internet, but I still love it just as much as I did. Because, like, I will love these people, for like, EVER.

I thought it would be fun to fill in some of the white space on the poster with photos, so I printed a bunch of recent faves and slipped them between the glass and the frame. I added a few older photos too.

Most of this stuff was “found” in my garage so I don’t remember prices.

Those green metal flower frogs are easily found in thrifts and fleas. I love to slide photos into them.
The Polaroid magnet board & green frame were purchased at Urban Outfitters.
The vessels were thrifted.
The elephant was purchased in Thailand.

On the floor, below what is shown above, is a crappy fireplace that I hate with a passion. So I covered it up with frames and these adorable little stools I just found at the Long Beach Flea for $5 each. It was one of those flea market moments where you pretend you don’t really want them, because you are afraid if they see your deep desire and greed, they will raise the price. I placed the dresser that used to be at the top of the stairs next to it, to fill in some empty space, and added a metal crate filled with blankets and our vacation photo books to the top. Inside the dresser holds ‘kid storage’.

Metal crate: $8 Old Town Orange Flea
Crocheted blanket: $3 thrifted
Small iPhone photos serendipitously fit into an old Kraft box, perfect for flipping through.

The couch facing the TV is eleven years old. The cover is green corduroy, and soon we will probably have it re-upholstered. For now, it is a slouchy messy couch that is perfect for the kids to destroy because you can’t really tell. It is just a comfy slouchy mess.

The wooden window frames hanging above were placed there 3-4 years ago, but this wall will soon get an update. I have big family photo wall plans for this baby.

This month, I finally hung this sweet little fern, (doesn’t the word fern always make you think of Charlotte’s Web?) in this amazing Craigslist find of a macramé hanging flowerpot. Which I scored for $35. It did smell as if the person who owned it previously died holding it bathed in old lady perfume, so the time it spent in the garage was good airing out time.

This wooden plaque was hand made by my mother’s best friend in the 70’s or 80’s. It had a place in my childhood home for many years. When I had children, my mom handed it down to me. It was stored in the wooden dresser below the TV, and I found it again this month. When I found it I cried. And then hung it immediately in my kitchen. The last line should actually read: “I want to be a photographer, but first I’ll be a mother.”

This is a small hallway between our living and family rooms. I never know what to call which. Basically we have two large living spaces separated by this small hallway. One living space is mostly for the kids. One is for the grown-ups. The grown up room will be a future OPAM, because I have a few more things to do in there. For now, it stays under wraps. But in this hallway is our bathroom and art/school closet. On the door of the closet, I taped a few idea/dream/fix lists a few months ago. Just look at everything we crossed off this month!

The handyman:

Switched out three broken bathroom lights/fans
Fixed a broken kitchen drawer
Fixed the tracks of Mckenna’s closet
Fixed Mckenna’s curtain rod
Replaced a bathtub faucet
Reinforced our creaky wooden bed
Fixed two ceiling fans
Took measurements to add rolling pull out shelving to our pantry
Hung a cubby unit in Anna’s room

I realize I didn’t do the actual work, but I think just getting off my butt and calling someone was worth putting it into the OPAM for the month. I mean, I could have just kept putting this off!

This is in our downstairs bathroom. I found this funny/freaky painting of a little girl holding a doll. I loved the color of it and the frame it was in. I also loved that it might make people jump as they enter our bathroom. She was $3 at a local thrift shop. The painting above was done by Drew when he was very young.

This is the cubby unit the handyman hung in Anna’s room. Decorated 100% by her. Her paint color isn’t quite that apple green-I couldn’t get my white balance right. My mom purchased this from Pottery Barn and gave it to me for my birthday last year, in October. It was leaning against a wall in my bedroom all this time. Jeff is very happy it is out of our room. Anna is very happy I gave it to her. But how could I not? She is the queen of little treasures. This was perfect for her.

Three months in a row, I can hardly believe it.

xo
Tara