Tea For Today 3/04/09

Today: Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Outside My Window: sunny, windy
Today's Goal: Exercise and drink more water
Today's Plan: School; install the new side view mirror on the van; take the kids for a play date and dinner at Debbie's house.
Today's Tea: Cinnamon Delight Rooibos. This is so good hot or iced! It's one of my favorites for hot summer days.
Today's Tidbits: The Master bedroom is starting to look nice again - I moved my writing desk against a different wall and Ian hung a fabric wall pocket I made on the wall above it so I can keep clutter off the desk. I can now reach the curtains to open and close them.

Room Transformations III: Girls' Bedroom

Our next Project is cleaning up the former Master Bedroom to make it into the new Girls' Room!

This is what it looks like right now because we put everything from the former "Back Room" into it to paint the other rooms. Once we empty this room, we'll paint it "Olive Grove" on the bottom and "Budding Green" on top, with a "White Light" chair rail between.

This is where the girls live now. You can see that it's a little tight for four of them, and soon Maria will be joining them, so they need a bit more space.
This room will become the new "Back Room," but it won't have a bed in it. It'll be a play room for the kids. We plan on removing the carpet and installing Pergo or some type of hard floor so they can build things with Lego or blocks, and have a place to roll their trucks besides the kitchen when I am making dinner. We hope to line the walls with book cases and cabinets so everything can be put away out of sight and still be found when needed. I'll post pictures in the years to come as we accomplish these things.

Room Transformations II: Master Bedroom

Next, we changed the boys' old room into the Master Bedroom.

This is what it looked like when Andrew & Peter occupied it.

Ian painted it in one day ("Spring Fawn").

We moved in that evening.

Forget the Poinsettias this Christmas!

I recently came across this post over at O Night Divine. It seems that 70% of the nation's poinsettias, those beautiful red plants used to decorate our homes and churches throughout December, are provided by the Ecke family in California. Sounds great - support a family business and decorate to celebrate the birth of our Savior!

BUT this family, unfortunately, uses the money they get from the sales of these poinsettias to renovate abortion mills and support Planned Parenthood's agenda of more abortions!

So, can anyone think of a better alternative to buying poinsettias this year? Get the word out to your pastors about this!

Musings from A Catholic Bookstore has more on this.

Please post any church and home decorating ideas!

Home Decorating: Hall Bath

This room is between the girls' & boys' rooms, and the space between the three doors is fondly referred to as "the hall" (it measures about 4 X5 feet). The walls of the bathroom are currently white, but I would like to paint them a shade of tan to go with the various other tan rooms. I would like to put a frame around the mirror which is glued to the wall (so we can't replace it easily). There are 5 bright "vanity globe lights" above the mirror. There is a toilet, and tub with a green/ burgundy/ gold plaid curtain around it. I might like to replace it with something like this. The counter which holds the sink has 3 cabinet doors under it, and lots of storage room. There's also an attached linen cabinet between the door and the sink. I would like to put a framed picture over the towel rack across from the toilet. The one that's there is a hand-painted water color of the cathedral in Florence. Ian & I bought it from a street vendor on our honeymoon. It may stay there. I like it. Maybe add a nice bath set.

Home Decorating: Guest/Play Room

This room is white, but I'd like to paint it green or tan. I wish that it could be strictly a guest bedroom, but we don't have any other room for sewing supplies, toys with small parts that would be dangerous for the little kids to find, or boxes of things I need to go through and get rid of or find a home for. Eventually, if we don't sell our house, this will have to become a bedroom, probably for girls. Right now, it would be best to make it a play room/sewing/seasonal storage room. So, I need to go through those boxes of things that didn't sell on eBay and give them away. Next, go through the shelves holding school things and see what can be thrown or given away. Put the kids' toys on the shelves in bins so they can find what they want without everything falling off the shelves. Move the coffee table in here so they have a place to build their creations. Take the things stuffed into the closet out and go through them. Acquire some cabinets with doors so I can bring in the boxes of fabric & patterns that we took out to the garage "because we won't need them before we move in a month or so" almost two years ago. Maybe I can move the folding table from my bedroom in here so I can sew. Guests can sleep on the floor on an air mattress. Maybe we can make room for their clothes in the closet.

Home Decorating: Boys' Room

This room is currently white, and one boy & one girl sleep in here. There is one small dresser that holds the boy's clothes (but he's getting bigger and his clothes are too). The toy box is also in here, along with a couple of larger toy vehicles. I would like to move the girl into the girls' room and the baby into this room. The walls I would paint two shades of blue: one above a chair rail, the other below. I would put the older boy's bed along another wall where it would not be in the way of the closet door, and I would put the crib where the bed is now, eventually replacing it with the toddler bed that one of the girls is using (and later just one set of bunk beds and no toddler bed). I'd like to put up shelves in here too, for some special collectibles or boy memorabilia.

Of course, if the baby I am now carrying turns out to be a girl, we might be in trouble. If he's boy, we'll just add another bed or set of bunks to the boys' room.

Home Decorating: Girls' Room

As I mentioned, I painted a mural on 3 walls in here. It is unfinished and I doubt that I'll ever finish it. I am thinking of painting the walls two shades of pink - one above a chair rail and one below. We currently have four girls, three of whom sleep in this room. We have one set of bunk beds in here, and a toddler bed. I would like to bring in another set of bunks and get all four girls in here. If I do that, I will need to figure out where to store all their clothes. Currently we have two dressers, two closets, and two very big drawers under the lower bunk holding all of their clothes, but I may need to remove one of the dressers to fit the other bunks in here. I'd like to put shelves on the walls to hold special things away from the reach of the littlest ones. This room will basically be only for sleeping and dressing, as there will be no room for desks or lamps, unless the lamps are wall-mounted next to the beds. The biggest problem I foresee is that both younger girls will be in the same room at nap time, which is not a good idea.

Home Decorating: Master Bedroom

This is a big room. We have a Queen size bed, a side table with drawers, a tall chest of drawers, a Jacobean table that is in use as a computer table for when Ian works from home, a folding table with my sewing machine on it, and a large, green recliner that I sleep on in the last trimester of my pregnancies. We recently moved the furniture around in here and it actually doesn't look too bad (except that the folding table is old and the top is torn and stained, and I have boxes and piles of books and things to "get to" one of these days around the recliner and by the windows - ok it looks pretty bad). The walls are currently white. I have been wanting to paint them a deep red, but with the red already so prominent in the kitchen and dining room, I may want to choose a more soothing color in here. I found a picture in a magazine once (which I kept - maybe I can scan it in sometime) that showed a very nice bedroom. The walls were a cool, light teal, and the bedding was a mix of pale teal with peach and soft gold, I think. I'll have to find it again. I actually bought some upholstery remnants with the colors so I could make some pillow shams if I painted the walls that color.

If I could, I would replace the Jacobean table with a roll-top or some other kind of desk that would hide any trace of technology (Ian's computer, etc). It would take up less room than the table, and could be put in the corner. I would then replace the card table with the Jacobean for my sewing (and while I was at it I would replace my Brother sewing machine with a new Bernina heehee - I might as well dream big! If I REALLY dream big I will dream up a sewing room with a clean, neat place for all the supplies I need. I want and get it out of my bedroom altogether - but that will be another post). I would like to get the big green recliner out too, but there isn't another place to put it, and it seems to be the only place I can sleep (or at least rest) during those last months. I wish I could at least replace it with something smaller and more feminine (but just as comfortable). Next to it I have a small side table with attached lamp. It doesn't really "go" but I need light when I work on hand sewing, reading etc. It is in a "country" style, so maybe with a new coat of paint it would work somewhere else in the house.

Home Decorating: Master Bath

The walls, as I mentioned, are dark blue with metallic swirls hand-painted ALL OVER them. This is a very big room, for a bathroom. To give you an idea, there is enough room to place a twin bed or two in the middle of it. It has a big tub in one corner (I can put 5 of my kids in for a bath - although it is getting a bit tight now), and a shower in another corner. the third corner has the toilet, and the fourth has an attached linen cabinet. Between the cabinet and the tub is a counter with mirrored medicine cabinets above. Between the tub and the toilet is another counter with a sink and mirrored medicine cabinets above it. Between the shower and the linen cabinet is the door to the Master bedroom, and between the shower and the toilet, the wall juts out with a coat closet and the door to the mud room. Next to the shower is a space big enough to place a vanity and chair, but we currently have a changing table with a shelf above it for diapers & supplies. Whew! I am sure that is confusing, but there it is. The original white walls made this room look very big and cold. I think I should cover the gold swirls, but a dark blue might work in here if it coordinates with the red in the kitchen and the cashew in the mudroom, which are both just outside the door. But maybe a more subdued sage green would work, too, and make this a more restful place, especially as it connects to the Master Bedroom, which should be a place of rest. I'd like to run a chain across the ceiling and hang a lamp above the changing table. You'd think the 5 bright, hot vanity bulbs above both counters and the fan light in the ceiling would light up every corner of the room, but they don't. I would like to also keep these counters clear of anything except for a pretty liquid soap dispenser and a hand towel holder by the sink, and maybe some candles or a tart burner on the other counter. I would like to eventually have a vanity where I could keep my makeup and do my face with good light, but diaper changing days are not over yet, and they won't be for a while. A new toilet brush and plunger would be good, too. 10 years is probably long enough to use the same ones.

Home Decorating: Living Room

This room faces southwest, and has a gorgeous view of Pikes Peak from the windows. The walls, as mentioned earlier, are painted a warm "Roasted Cashew" which I love. There is a wood burning fireplace in one corner near the windows, and on the other side of the windows is the "front" door (which leads to the back yard) and the door to the coat closet. The opposite side of the room opens to the kitchen, with a pass-through between the two rooms. It is a long, narrow room, which I find difficult to decorate to my satisfaction. There aren't any "corners" that can be used for furniture placement. One corner has the fireplace in it, one has the door and the closet, one is open and leads to the kitchen and dining room, and the last has a door to the Master bedroom in it.

We currently have two large sofas, a love seat (that matches one of the sofas - both quite faded), a coffee table, a matching side table that has at least one broken leg, a hand-me-down piano that is badly in need of tuning on the inside and refinishing on the outside, a sofa table that is in use as an altar, and an old fiberboard cabinet with a TV on it. The kids keep all their kitchen toys in it and "cook" and have picnics in the living room. The doors do not close all the way & I am always afraid the very heavy TV is gong to fall on the baby, who likes to climb!

What I would like to do is throw everything out and start over. However, I don't think that's going to happen. I like having enough comfortable seating for everyone, but I just can't get it to look nice, even with sofa covers, and I don't find this room a peaceful place to be. There's just too much in it and none of it seems to "go" with anything else. I really want to get a nice TV armoire so that I can hide the TV away when it's not in use. I would put it in front of the wall between the closet door and the opening to the dining/kitchen area, perhaps flanked by matching (or at least coordinating) book cases. On the book cases I would put potted plants, a matching buffet lamp on each one, and nothing else. I don't think I would put anything on the wall above them. I'd throw away the old fiberboard cabinet, and find another place for the kitchen toys.

If I could, I would get rid of all of the seating and get one pretty love seat and two upholstered chairs to go in the middle of the room, centered around the windows. I'd like one of those small coffee tables with a glass-topped cabinet for display in it so I could put some decorative items in it without danger of little hands breaking them (things like Russian lacquer boxes, silver bouquet holders, little porcelain figurines, the displays changed with the seasons). As it is, I don't have the budget to do this, and will probably just give away one of the sofas and save up to buy some nicer slip covers for the matching sofa & love seat. I would like to move the coffee table to the guest room (which is a play room for the older kids to play with things that the littler ones might swallow). It is the perfect height for the kids to build things on with Lego.

The upright piano I would like to have fixed and restained one color (it currently has brown on most of the body and orangish paint streaked on the lid and front. I don't know how it ended up this way). I do not know where I would put it at the moment besides its current location between the fireplace and the door to the Master bedroom. I would not put anything on it, but on the wall above it I would put a framed picture (I don't know what yet). The cover on the bench I would replace with something other than brown velveteen with orange flowers on it. It isn't hideous, but it doesn't "go." Above the fireplace I would like to hang a large framed mirror, (or one like this) with nothing but a couple of seasonal items on the mantel (pillar candles for winter, white tapers in tall silver or crystal candlesticks (or these) for summer, a couple of ball topiaries for spring, etc.)

The altar I would like to put in a place where it is prominent and usable, but I really don't know where. It is currently against the wall between the Master bedroom door and the opening to the kitchen. I wish I could center it on the wall opposite the windows, but there is no wall there - just the open space to the kitchen with the pass-through in it. Even if there were no other furniture in this room, there would be no prominent place to put it. maybe it can be transfered to the buffet in the dining room. The Guadalupe picture will already be there. I don't know where we would put our Sacred Heart wall statue (He's 3 -dimensional, except that his back is flat, to hang on a wall). I'll try to post pictures later so you can give me ideas.

Home Decorating: Dining Room

This room is open to the kitchen, so I think the same color walls would be good. It is a very large room. We have a huge conference table as our dining table in here, and wooden chairs with broken rush seats and folding chairs, some with booster seats on them for the kids. I love the table. We have a large family & everyone fits when my In-Laws come over. I found some table cloths online that were on sale, so I can cover the whole thing (it's about 20 feet long, I am guessing) and make it look quite elegant. When not in use as a dining table, it is excellent for school work and art, as it is not wood and wipes clean easily. I would like to replace the seats on the wooden chairs with pads or solid wood seats, but I am not sure how. I know I can figure it out; just haven't had time to think about it. I would like to upholster them with something that will coordinate with the living room furniture, so we can take chairs in there for additional seating. The folding chairs keep losing screws, but they have not fallen apart yet and aren't stained or torn, so we'll keep them until we don't need them for the booster seats. Ideally, I would replace the carpet in here with wood or nice-looking laminate (along with the kitchen & mudroom, which are all the same room). But then kids' running and shouting would be a lot louder and the winter would be colder. Sigh. Maybe a runner along the side of the room that leads from the kids' rooms towards the kitchen & living room would be a good remedy.

In this room there is also a metal cabinet that holds school supplies, my computer desk and chair, and a buffet. My desk's horizontal surface ends up looking pretty bad because if the kids break a toy or draw a picture for me, or if they don't know where something goes, guess where they put it? I do this too, so I am partly to blame. It has a hutch, where I used to keep my cookbooks (when the desk was in the kitchen), but it was put in the garage when we first put the house on the market because we expected to move right away. If I had my 'druthers I would replace this desk with a roll top or something to hide my computer from view unless I were using it. I would get an attractive (not metal) file cabinet to file away beautiful artwork and broken toys until I could get to them. I would also replace the metal cabinet with something attractive (wood would be nice). The buffet is nice, but it needs to be cleaned and polished (and dusted regularly). I have a beautiful framed picture of Our Lady of Guadalupe which I would love to hang above the buffet, flanked with metal candle sconces or lamps of some sort. I would also like to replace the ceiling fixture with something more attractive than the flush-mount glass bowl with the "energy saver" bulb in it. A chandelier like this would be nice, and keep with the "country" feel of the place. I would probably put little lamp shades on it. I don't know if there would be a way to center it above the table (or put two in), as the light fixture is not currently centered above the room). There is one long wall in here which I would like to turn into a family photo gallery. I have portraits of our family and I want to frame them and get them on the walls where they can be enjoyed. If we do paint the walls barn red, I think the pictures would look good in black frames with white mats.

Home Decorating: Kitchen

This is the sponge-painted room I mentioned above. The color clashes slightly with the mudroom & living room walls (which both open to the kitchen), so I am thinking of repainting. I like the barn red of the dining area in the article I linked to above, but I need to find a shade that will go well with the Roasted Cashew of the two adjoining rooms. I don't think that will be hard to find.

I also want to add a little color to the floor in the form of a rug near the sink, and a pot-hanger above the sink where I could hang plants in front of the window. I would love to add lighting to the counters, but I am not sure how to do this (nor do I have the budget). I have some appliances on the counters, and I would like to keep them in the cabinets until I use them. Clutter accumulates on any horizontal surface & it is a constant battle for me, as I don't have a place (or this) to put a lot of the stuff that ends up there (my purse, receipts, cookbooks, notebooks, etc). I know I have a lot in the cabinets that I never use, so I am going to get rid of a lot of that so I can make room for my appliances and maybe have a special place where I can put the phone book and other things that are needed but don't have a home. I'd also like to have some sort of box I can hang that will have holes on the bottom and a door on the front, where I can "hide" my cell phone while it charges. I don't like the "look" of technology and would rather hide as much of it as possible. If I could have clear counters all the time (except for when I am actually preparing and serving a meal) I think I would be happy with my kitchen. I would love to only have a vase of fresh flowers on the island counter, and possibly some decorative item, like a rooster statue (or this one) or pretty lamp on the pass-through, and a fruit basket. A galley slave to clean up after me would be nice, while I am dreaming.

There's a big blank wall between the mud room and the living room, where we recently placed a chest freezer. There's still lots of room, so I would like to put a "family center" here -I have a magnetic dry erase board here but would like to replace it with a magnetic blackboard and a shelf for chalk, eraser, extra magnets to "keep it country" - I think the white dry erase board says "technology" don't you? Maybe I'd top it with some wall decor - a clock perhaps, even though there is a digital clock on the microwave and the stove. How are my kids ever going to learn how to tell time if there are no "real" clocks in the house? I'd also like to move our family calendar here. It is currently on the side of the refrigerator, but it's not easy to access because of the counter.

Home Decoration: Entrance/Mudroom

This is actually the back of the house, but we had the builders put it on our property facing the front, so that we'd have someplace easy to clean where people would be coming in from the outside. The actual front door opens onto the living room, which is carpeted. I am so glad we did this! We've had some very muddy winters & springs out here. It's getting better as grass grows in and we landscape a bit, but still I like the idea of being able to mop instead of cleaning a carpet all the time. Anyway, the walls are currently "Roasted Cashew" which is very nice & warm. I have a picture of the "Polish Madonna" (Mary hanging clothes on a line with Baby Jesus sitting on the ground playing next to her) which would look great in here, especially as this is also the laundry room. A Holy Water font would be good to have in here by the door. I hung a curtain made of solid burgundy sheets from the ceiling in front of the washer & dryer to make this room more welcoming. I hope to hang a large mirror on one wall, and add a bench and a short cabinet with doors and shelves inside for shoe storage. Maybe some hooks on a wall for hats & coats. We currently have a tall fiberboard cabinet in here which holds kitchen towels. I would like to move the cabinet to the garage for use there, and find another place for the towels (some of the wash cloths need replacing too).

Home Decorating

I have been itching for a number of years to redecorate our manufactured home. It is a big house, and it had a lot of big white walls when we moved in 7 years ago. That first summer, while I was pregnant with my second child, I painted the kitchen with a sponge roller, using a honey-hued paint mixed with glaze over solid cream paint.

The next time I was pregnant, I painted the Master Bath "Neptune Blue" (dark) and added metallic gold swirls freehand all over. I like it, but it definitely does not look professional. I am considering covering it and painting something else that might be less scary to potential buyers.

Then, during another pregnancy, my Sister-In-Law came over and watched the kids while I painted a fairytale mural in the girls' room. I should say I STARTED the mural. I painted the background land color and sky on three walls, and added a castle on a hill, a big tree in a corner, a lake by the hill, flowers, and clouds in the sky. I meant to paint the wall surrounding the closet doors to look like a wooden wardrobe, but I never got that far.

Another time my Mother-In-Law and I painted the living room and mudroom a beautiful color called "Roasted Cashew." I got paint chips back then in shades of tan and rose that coordinate with that color, which I have wanted to add to the walls of the dining room, hall & Master Bedroom. More recently I found paint chips in blues and greens that also coordinated with those colors for the boys' room and the guest room/storage room/ whatever else room and hall bath.

Instead, though, right after I gave birth to my 14 month old, I invited a family with teenage and pre-teen boys over to help me paint the boys' room and the dining room white, because I thought that would be more appealing to potential buyers. Well, no one made an offer on the house in the 18 moths that it was on the market (perhaps due to the "scary" Master Bath, but no one ever said anything), so now I am looking for a more colorful way to express "home" that would still be appealing to potential buyers.

I just found this over at Starry Sky Ranch.

This country look would work well in our home. We live in the country (on 5 acres), and most of the year we have cool if not cold winds blowing. I think cozy colors would make this house, with its large white walls, more inviting. I don't necessarily like the "shabby" look of the used furniture with the scraped paint job or ladder used as a decoration, but I think the wall colors used here (warm barn red in the dining area paired with the black furniture, and the warm honey walls of the family room with new upholstered chairs) are charming. The light fixtures and other "country" decorations add the finishing touch.

I have been too afraid to put much on our walls. I know I probably have plenty of things that would look nice on display, but I lack the confidence in painting & putting up shelves or even putting a nail in the wall.

I am pregnant now, and the weather will hopefully be getting warmer soon, so it is the perfect time to do SOMETHING! I tend to have the creativity, energy & will to do that kind of work when I am pregnant, if you hadn't noticed.

I have decided to put each of the rooms in a different post for easier reading. This post was getting way too long. I hope I am not boring anyone. These home decor posts are basically so I can put my thoughts into words and decide what I can do and what I cannot do to make my house run more smoothly and be more peaceful.