I made the decision to repaint all the areas of my home that had not been repainted since we moved in 8 years ago before Christmas. I dreaded tackling the job. My dining room, kitchen, breakfast area, back entry and living room are a continuous wall. There’s no stopping point so I knew I’d be doing all those rooms. I also wanted to do the entry and my office, possibly even the hallway. I decided on white pretty early even though several people tried to talk me out of it and everyone I told said, “White?” in a horrified tone.

You wouldn’t believe how difficult it was to make a decision on what shade of white. I assumed it would be easy. I was wrong. I went in and chose a color, came home and painted my dining room and hated it. It has a blue undertone and was wrong, wrong, wrong. I chose again, Roman Column from Sherwin Williams and it was right, right, right.

I had three helpers on Saturday and we got three rooms finished. I have lots left to do, but I’ve made a good start.

The red chairs are new (overstocks.com). I wanted something petite so we could squeeze more people around the table. I have three tables in my house and they are all full, overflowing and people eating on the living room chairs every Sunday. Also, I hated my wooden chairs that came with the table after I painted them white. However, I moved them in the living room (bottom picture) and now I like them again.

Ignore the guinea pig cage in the corner. My house will never look like a magazine cover because there will always be messes, pets, and piles of clutter.

I love the way my turquoise dresser looks against the white wall and also the children’s art (and one of Sara Mincy’s paintings) above it.

This is the living room with the Blonde paint that was everywhere. I don’t hate this color, but if I was going to repaint, I wanted a change. This room, hopefully, will soon be white too.

Before we built this house we lived in a rent house that had an office. It was actually a dining room converted into an office, but we loved having that space for the computer and stuff. The space, in that house, was pretty large and it ended up being a catch-all for furniture, junk and more junk.

I decided when we built this house we would still have an office but it would be small. That way, I reasoned, the space would be managed better. It wouldn’t collect so much junk.

Enter exhibit A, the bookshelves in the office. It is the smallest room in the house and it still manages to collect the most junk. Everything from photo albums, to boxes to user’s manuals end up here in the office.

Today, I decided to repaint it. On a whim. With leftover paint. I mixed two colors from two leftover paint cans. A light blue and a light green.

The office was brown before. In the first picture you can see a bit of the brown above the junk on the shelves. Which, by the way, it still is since I ran out of leftover paint.

My point is, exhibit B, even in a smaller space, you still need to be super organized and work at maintaining control of the chaos. Something I am, in fact, terrible at.

While I was painting I tried to think of ways to better organize this space. I asked myself what absolutely had to be in here and what we used this room for.

The answers were: my photography equipment, paying bills, working on Sunday school lessons, computer use and file storage.

With those answers in mind, I worked on the shelves. I removed all the cds and DVDs and I’m making progress. I’ve still got a ways go to and paint to get matched and bought since I ran out.

Oh, and I found my old Speedlite from my film camera days. I’ve always been a Canon girl.

It was taped up because it broke years ago. But it works on my digital camera.

I took these next pictures using it.

You can see my desk is a disaster as I empty the shelves. I put my black and white photos back up for now because I hated the empty space, but I’m going to update those with more current photos and maybe repaint the frames or change the mats.

You can see that the rest of my house suffered as a result of my office clean out. I don’t know how to avoid this kind of collateral damage.

Before we left for church camp, I finally got around to painting the girls’ room. Everything was ready. The window treatment was made, the quilts bought, the duvet cover was put together, all that was needed was the room to be pulled together.

I wanted to show you what their room looked like before. I know I’ve posted pictures on this site somewhere, but I could not find one. I also took pictures before I painted and cannot find those anywhere. So, I guess it was not meant to be.

Before, the room was pink with a shelf running about a foot from the ceiling. Under the shelf pink flowers with green leaves were hand painted. The handmade (by my uncle) wooden headboards were stained a dark finish. The bedding was a second hand pottery barn duvet in white and light pink.

This makeover has been in the works for a while. First, we found two stripe twin sized quilts. After that, everything came together one piece at a time.

About a month ago I agonized over the color of the walls. The girls were pushing for a brighter green, but I wanted just a soft hint of green, almost white, because I knew how much other color there would be in the end. I’m glad I stuck with the soft green called Springtime.

When we got back from camp my uncle had sprayed the dark green on the headboards, my mother had bought them new white sheets and my aunts had dressed the beds and hung the curtain.

It was like the room makeovers had been here while we were gone.

A while ago we found this brightly colored king sized duvet cover that went well with the striped quilts we picked out. My aunt cut the duvet covers in half and added a back piece made out of a green sheet. She had enough fabric leftover to do the curtain.

The girls and I found the lamps at Hobby Lobby a while ago. I liked this one best, but Emeline had to have the one with purple accents (shown in the top photo). I gave in on that because she had little choice in any of the other room colors.

Sometimes it’s hard making a room work for two.

They still need a rug and something to go over each bed. I was thinking a large wooden initial or some personal art work. I’m not sure yet.

I love the way it turned out. We’ve moved away from all pink and girly and into some fun, new colors for my growing girls.

Too bad it still doesn’t look the way it did that first day.

Little sister rubbing her hands in delight because she found her sister’s room door open and many treasures await destruction.

A couple of weeks ago I woke up one morning and decided I couldn’t possibly live with a piano in my entry way for one more minute. Though it had been there for at least four years, having it there for one more day was suddenly impossible to endure.

During Tess’s nap time I moved everything around in my living room. I first tried the piano on this wall.

Under the chalkboard and photos. I lived with it there for one week. The problem was the loveseat had to go in front of the French doors and the table behind it went in front of the fireplace. Both bugged me in this awkward new place.

I woke up from a nap one evening about a week later, very grouchy, and could not live with the living room that way one more minute. Apparently irritability drives me to rearrange.

The loveseat went back to its happy place over by the chalkboard and the piano went here, beside the French doors. I didn’t try it here earlier because if you walk in front of the piano

<——————–this way, you’ll exit down a short hallway to the carport. I thought the piano would block the entry just as annoyingly as it did in the front entry.

It did not.

In fact, I kind of liked it there.

I liked the way that it didn’t interfere with the rest of the furniture placement. We could still have our ratty old recliner positioned in the perfect place for watching television.

I still had room for one of my favorite chairs right next to it.

And, best of all, my entry way was free to welcome people without having to shove the bench under the piano before you opened the door.

Sometimes you just have to push some things around to find out what works.

A while ago Edie from Life on Grace (You don’t read her? Well you should, you’re missing out.) did this wall of frames in her living room. I loved it. So I started collecting frames so I could copy Edie. She always has good ideas.

I wanted my arrangement to be full of things that I loved, things that made me happy when I looked at them.

I loved the idea, also, of having words on the wall. So, I carried these ideas around in my head for a few weeks, gathering frames and photos that I wanted to use.

I had an old chalkboard that had become too slick to write on with chalk. So I painted words from Philippians 4 right on it in my own messy handwriting.

A few of my favorite candid shots went into the frames.

I included a favorite piece of art work from my daughter.

Then, I found these bird prints on Etsy and I knew I had to have them too.

It all began to come together. It might not be someone else’s idea of good decorating, but I love it and it makes me happy when I walk in and look at this gathering of faces and things that I love.