A Plan and a Few Random Things

We caved in and called professional help from the Container Store for organizational advice. While we work back and forth with her on some ideas, we realized that our number one plan should be thinning out our own unneeded stuff and giving up that space to the kids. We have so many bookshelves and cabinets already that will work fairly well for hiding toys, but they are full of old binders, magazines, and other things. Between the added attic storage in our garage for things we don't want to throw out but rarely (if ever) need and a new sense of having to throw out things we will truly never need (is there really any reason to keep my notes from my high school AP Calculus class when it all looks like gibberish now? probably not) might give us at least some solution at no cost. Then at least we won't need quite so many additional shelves and drawers. So we will see how that goes.

In the meantime, we have made a few small adjustments to our home decor that I'm excited to share. After looking online for a Turkish lamp, I found this beauty at a local store and knew the price was not too high, so it came home with me immediately. I've wanted one for ages but just did not have a good place for it. Good thing we have a brand new room!

Here's some more eye candy of my lamp. It has a warm LED bulb in it so the glass stays cool to the touch and isn't using much energy. I just want to figure out a way to better hide the switch, which is down about one foot along the power cord. 

Isn't it gorgeous? At least now I have a nightlight for when I need to come downstairs with a screaming baby at 3am...(silver lining?):

We also changed up our hallway. It used to have pictures strung up with yarn to minimize holes in the wall (we don't have the white paint so we wouldn't be able to fill and touch up if necessary). Here's the before picture, from this post - which totally coincidentally was exactly 6 years ago from today.

Unlike what I said in my post about refreshing the pictures on a regular basis, they were the exact same last week as they were 6 years ago. So much for that.

We inherited a beautiful picture that a family member painted (two actually - one is waiting to be framed) and decided the hallway was a perfect place. I think it makes the place feel a little more grown up than the sort of "just out of college" look of the unframed pictures hanging on yarn, don't you?

And not a "decor" update exactly but this Thanksgiving we had a roaring fire in the fire place thanks to our old oak tree. It is aged and dry and we have lots of it for the winter. Gone but not forgotten:

Thanks and Giving

Been doing lots of small upgrades and decorating things around the house but every time I sit down to write, I realize I'm short a picture and the light isn't right (or I have a baby asleep on my lap - that's a pretty common excuse these days). So allow me a post of a slightly different nature and a question for you, my dear reader (as I assume there is just one of you).

I've been blogging as a "new" homeowner now for over 7 years, so I probably should remove the "new" from the moniker. But there is never really a stage where any homeowner feels like they know it all and don't need help or are *done* and don't need to continue to work on things. It just doesn't happen. I think that what starts to remove the newness of the thing (besides having lived somewhere along enough that the things you upgraded or replaced need upgrading or replacing again...) is that you build a team of people you can call when things get rough or when you need a little extra help. The plumber, the electrician, the roofer - these folks come and fix things that we can't, no matter how "experienced" we are. The chimneysweep and the energy company that comes to service our boiler annually - they keep everything running. We are grateful that in many cases, we know who we can call. Or, if we don't, our neighbors do. And don't even get me started on how incredibly grateful we are for our amazing neighbors.

This year we needed a little extra help, with a new baby and a messy toddler that takes up all our free time (because of course we'd much rather spend time with her than spend it cleaning, raking, etc.). So we hired regular help to clean our house and keep our yard looking good (ok, maybe not good, maybe just not embarrassing). And we are grateful they are there and we are grateful that, for the moment anyway, we can afford it.

So what should I do to express my gratitude? I'm always afraid that any extra money will be the wrong amount of money: maybe so little as to seem stingy. "Stuff" or cards or homemade gifts seems like it might be unwanted, just unwelcome junk or calories. Is it better to give something/anything extra that expresses how thankful I am to have their help? How do you put a price tag on "thank you"?

So many leaves - where would we be without help?!

And this is not to mention all the other non-home-related helpers in my life: massage therapists, financial planners, teachers, nurses, etc that sometimes go the extra mile.

So tell us your tipping/giving ideas. What has worked for you and what hasn't? What would you want to receive?

Blind Saga Resolved

We resolved our blinds saga by throwing a lot of money at the problem. By the time we decided the blinds.com blinds weren't working out, we were already fully using the room for baby number 2 (surprise, we have a new human "addition" as well as a new room addition). The bright sunlight needed filtering periodically during the day when it shone into the crib, and the street light needed blocking when one of us brought her down to sleep there in the middle of the night so that at least one parent could catch some precious zzzzzs. Without any willingness to shop around ourselves, we brought in a local decorating store that had recently advertised that they did house calls for window dressing.

And so they came with binders. Lots of little samples that could be un-velcroed and held up to the window to see the way they filtered the sunlight (thank goodness it was sunny that day).

We picked a lovely gray that complemented the wall color in a cellular blind that can be raised and lowered from the top and bottom. We decided not to pay extra to have them installed for us, despite the frustration from installing the set from blinds.com. Fortunately, as we expected and hoped, these were much simpler. D had them both up within 20 minutes or so, with minimal hardware.

I love that we can raise and lower them from both ends, so we can get full sunlight but privacy (bottom half covered only) or as much light filtering as we need. They are magnetic at the top, making it easy even for someone short like me to snap the top edge into place.

We couldn't be happier, though I doubt I would go this route again, given the price. We definitely would have shopped around and done it on our own if the first order hadn't taken so long and we hadn't been in a rush for blinds in there. It is a sign of how much we love the room though - we couldn't wait to be able to use it around the clock.