remodeling this life

This time in my house though. I wasn’t feeling well for a few days last week. The fact that I couldn’t do much made my house a total dump come Sunday afternoon. Although I was still not feeling totally stellar, I couldn’t take it any longer. I cleaned up, moved around some furniture and decided to spruce up a wall in our dining area.

I bought a green shelf at goodwill a couple weeks ago for $2. We’d been to the beach earlier in the week where I collected seashells to put in a glass bowl from the dollar store. And I had a sea shell themed thingy that I got at a yard sale a few months ago during a final sale day “everything you can fit in this bag for $5″. I had hubby hang the shelf. He was so nice about it. I only had to glare, mumble, grumble and proclaim I’d do it myself before he finally jumped in to protect his beloved walls.

Since we’d been to the beach a few days earlier, I had fresh off my camera a bunch of family pics at the beach and decided that since it was beachy with the seashells theme I should print some of the photos and put them on the wall too. Off I went to CVS to print photos. Their buy 2 get 1 free special on printing 8x10s was over the week before. But some genius there didn’t take the sticker down off the printer. I printed 6 8x10s and some 4x6s and 5x7s and expected to pay about $20 for the who shebang. I got to checkout and was charged $57!!! Well, I made them give me the buy 2 get 1 free since the sticker was right there and all. And then we discovered that not only had I gotten charged for all of them, but I’d been charged $3 more per 8×10 than I should have. We got it all sorted out and I walked away a happy woman with my photos for the price they should’ve been. You know what is sad though? Not so long ago, I’d have just paid the $57 and assumed I was stupid and did something wrong. I was assertive and asked why the heck it costed so much and saved myself a bunch of cash. While it was all going on, my kids only terrorized the store a little bit.

Off we went to Marshalls for photo frames. I only needed a few since we had a handful at home already. Drew proceeded to terrorize Marshalls as well while I chose the frames.

Got home and did some more mumbling and grumbling to get the photos hung after I arranged them so nicely in their respective frames. And now I have a cute little personalized beachy wall in our dining area. So much better than before where we just had one big photograph of El Capitan in Yosemite. I mean, it’s really cool and all but a bit boring. You can see that in the sidebar to the left.

And now here is what I did to spiffy up our dining area.

Please try your hardest to ignore that there is stuff on my floor that I didn’t pick up before photographing. I am human afterall and have 2 small children who love to fling things around. And the dresser-as-buffet doesn’t have that stuff on it at the moment. I don’t even really bother to spend time arranging and decorating stuff in places the kids can reach because it never lasts. Right now there are a few bowls and golf balls up there. Every buffet needs golf balls!!

The kids and I spent most of the weekend at my parents’ house which is close enough for us to visit but not so close I want to strangle them. My parents just completed an addition on their home which included a new bedroom for my two cute kids. My mom went all out making it adorable and fabulous for them. Their favorite part, I think, is the super cozy area rug. It’s white and fluffy and sooooo soft I could curl up there and sleep on it all day if ever given the opportunity.

She went with a cottage beach theme. White twin beds with beaded board and matching bedside table and armoire. Seashell quilts with stripes to complement in the valances and bedskirts. Grandma provides bedskirts. My kids are so deprived of such joys here at home. And I love the seahorse nightlight above the armoire.

Oh egads, I cut the seahorse’s head off in the photo. (Why is it that words like egads seem so natural when typing but I’d never ever say that word outloud?) I am a horrific photographer. I was so busy trying to make sure I captured the child toy chaos in the corner I guess.

So there you have it. Their new room at Gigi and PopPop’s house. Mr. Eli approves!