Category: At Home

iPhone

Dear whoever looked at a ton of my posts and gave me 40+ views yesterday:
You rock!

Okay, on to business. For Christmas, Doug and I are buying everyone either fair trade or handmade goods, and by doing so supporting a skilled individual with a face and a name rather than a big corporation! Except…. well, for ourselves… we decided to make the upgrade and get iPhones. And Apple really doesn’t have a great labor track record. To assuage my guilt I’m using the phone for positive things like connecting with people I love, using the free2work app, and using Lose It! to keep my holiday indulgence in check.

Oh, and taking lots of cute pictures of my dog.

     
I had a most excellent time with my parents last weekend and that will be blogged about in due course. This week I’m preparing for the IHAL Christmas party this Saturday, including making a few things to eat (it will be potluck style so not all the pressure is on me) and making some decorations. I haven’t decided on what to make. Sweet, salty, savory? Got any suggestions?

Rolling Out the Red Carpet

…Or, at least the zebra carpet.

The guest room is finally ready for humans to inhabit!
(As opposed to piles of junk from when we first moved in).

This also means I can cross two things off my list!

  • Clean off the guest bed so it’s sleep-able
  • Generally make guest room ready for guests

I swapped the comforter from our bedroom onto the guest bed. I really, really like it in here. The comforter that was on the guest bed, even though it’s twin sized, seems bigger on the queen–possibly due to the addition of an extra blanket. I also think since it’s heavier it moves around less and there’s less fighting for it. It really is much cozier. Plus, the extra length on the twin bed in here hides our under-bed storage! It’s a win-win.

Here is the view of the room as you turn right. I plan on putting chicken wire in that frame at some point so I can collect magazine clippings and such on it.

And the door. On top of the dresser is a mirror I hope my dad volunteers helping us put up… here’s crossing my fingers! Also, you can sneak a peek of what we’re working on in the hallway!

Just for fun, here is the room while we were moving! You can see the sad, bent, directly-on-the-window curtain rod.

End of Day 1: Guest Room/Office

Full disclosure: I am not going tomake both parents sleep on the twin. I now have a borrowed mattress on the floor but wanted to take photos while the room was still pretty!

Five Days… With Pictures!!

Despite a really, really awful week at work last week, progress inside the house is getting made.

  • Put up the Christmas tree
  • Do “something else” with the fireplace (paint or replace items inside)
  • Purchase a rug pad for diamond jute rug in living room
  • Purchase a rug pad for zebra rug in guest room
  • Clean off the guest bed so it’s sleep-able
  • Generally make guest room ready for guests
  • Do a little more festive Christmas decorating
  • Decide yes or no on outdoor Christmas lights
  • Get a shower curtain (right now we just have a liner)
  • Curtain clips for the dining room
  • Hang higher curtain rod in guest room
  • Do a little kitchen re-organizing
  • Buy groceries (so they don’t starve while they’re here! Our fridge is usually a big cold empty box…)
  • Liven up the white wasteland that is the hallway (halfway there!)
  • Hang pictures in guest room and master bedroom
  • Frost window on kitchen door and in bathroom (I want to try this)
  • Paint front-door dresser and move cold-weather accessories into its drawers

This weekend saw a few minor updates, we are still working on digging out the guest bedroom… we’re quite close, actually and I’ll be able to post pictures sometime this week! I crossed off a few less-urgent items, even after all my prioritizing by making things bold last week. Isn’t that always how it goes? We picked up a couple of curtain rods for the guest room and hung them–they look magnificent :) Elsewhere in the house we have dark bronze but since the paint is so dark in the guestroom we decided to go with brushed nickel and I really love it.

My Christmas decorating is officially done, except for a project I have in the works to use for the I Heard A Lion Christmas party which will be at my house this year. I’m not going to start working on it until my parents have come and gone, though, so no more hints on that :) Here’s what I have so far…

We set the tree up the weekend before Thanksgiving (heresy, I know) since it was our last free weekend until the New Year, more or less. Busy busy!!

Saturday we swung by Hobby Lobby and got in a knock-down drag-out brawl (okay, not really) with the middle aged ladies in the faux greenery aisle but came out victorious with some more-or-less matching “pine branches” which were easily slipped behind the big photo frame and instantly gave the mantel the little “something” it had been missing.

Oh, and here are the curtain clips we bought a few weeks ago. I like the interest they give at the top–before the wall of curtains was a bit too “heavy,” I think. Since adding them, the curtains have the opposite problem than before (when they were too short), they drag on the ground a little more than I wanted them to. However, Doug suspects they’re helping avert a chilly draft so for now they’ll pool on the ground slightly. The nice thing about these rings is that it makes the curtains wayyyyy easier to open and close. Before they were getting hung up on the parts where the curtain rod joins together. Now they slide freely. So that’s good :)

So, looking at these photos gives me something else to add to my to-do list… steam curtains? Man they’re all really wrinkly!