Laundry rooms

creative commons picture

Well, Christina bravely showed her scary laundry room, which really didn't look that scary to me, so today I thought it'd be neat to show mine (NOT - mine would actually be scary!). Anyway, I thought it'd be fun to take a look at a few laundry rooms that are actually decorated and places you would want to do laundry. :)

I think of my sister in law who has to walk through her laundry every day on the way out to the garage so she decorated her laundry room right away after moving into her house. I will have to beg pictures from her to post as it is an adorable room!

This is one of Christina's inspirations for redoing her laundry room (especially the lamp picture). If you haven't checked out Tracey's site before you must do it now. She comes up with some of the most fabulous makeovers ever. She is also an inspiration if you read about any of her personal trials.

I came across Carrie's site this morning and thought her laundry room was so clean, calm and soothing (love the wall colors).

Rhoda at Southern Hospitality has a beautiful laundry room as well. I love the black accents against the green walls!

So maybe this will inspire you, and me, to make our laundry rooms a little more homey and somewhere we would actually want to do laundry. Oh ok, I doubt we'll ever WANT to do laundry but you know what I mean!

Collecting things for the Laundry room makeover

Trying to use what I have for this little makeover.


Will redo these this lamp and plaque. The lamp base is rusted brass and the plaque has a few chips, so I'll try to work some magic with spray paint.







It will probably take me a few days, because obviously the fun part is the decorating, not the cleaning of the floor, all the junk fallen and stored beside the dryer and all of the junk on the shelves. And for full disclosure, I'm not looking to do anything spectacular here. I don't have time to clean everything else in my house, so I don't want to do so much as to be overwhelmed. Actually doing some laundry and cleaning bathrooms would really benefit my family more, so this will done in between all of that.


{Christina}

Projects with words and something scary

Use Wordle:
Look at this great wordle idea over at Just A Girl. Actually, her whole post is full of great ideas!
Here is an idea that I had for wordle using your last name. I did make one of these for my family picture wall, but wasn't sure if I wanted to post my last name for all of the world to see, so below I'm using the word Sample. Hope you understand.
Type your last name into wordle. Use a combination of small and capital letters, like this:

You will end up with something like this:

You can play around with it, changing font, colors and the orientation of the words, until you like the results.

Chalk it up:


Write on black card stock (or in this case the black cardboard that came with the picture frame) with chalk. Add a picture and hang.

Here I took a stained fruit picture that was in a greenish antiqued picture frame and painted it all black. This was long before blogging, so I have no before picture. I then place it on the piano, with some loving words written in chalk.



I am working hard on motivating my son to practice piano. He has a talent, but he is also almost twelve. He really doesn't give me a hard time, but motivation is key.

The Scary:
Ok ladies, please do not abandon our blog after you see this picture. I am working on having a better looking laundry room. The shelves are just catch-alls for all types of things with no rhyme or reason. My dryer is never cleaned off. Just a few days ago, I had a pile of laundry a mile high on top. Over the weekend, I whittled it down to this. There is also some dirty laundry on the floor, but I decided this picture was painful enough. Stay tuned. I want a prettier laundry room. There is a pretty chair and a piece of art or two that belong here, but I'll wait to show you those once the other part is brought out of the uglies.




{Christina}

Playroom window mistreatment

Long, long time ago my sis and I bought some fabric for my playroom windows. I kept meaning for my sewing sis Beth to make me curtains but with all the busyness of life (both mine and hers), playroom curtains weren't that important.

After seeing the Nester's mistreatment's and all her talk of tearing fabric, glue guns, upholstery tacks and rings I decided one afternoon to try my own mistreatment. Surprisingly it was all over in about 3o minutes and voila, I had playroom curtains!

Yep, they would look better with some trim but that will happen in another year or so. For now I'm just glad the fabric is no longer languishing in the basement. ;)

~Victoria~

Doors

As I mentioned at the end of my last post I loved Linda's line from her blog which reads "My red door is always open". It really started me thinking about my own door and if to other people my home is a place that is "always open" to them.

I was talking to someone the other day and she mentioned that she did not feel welcome at a particular home. I then wondered if she feels welcome in my home? Do other people feel welcome in my home? Honestly, I grew up in a home where chaos reigned (with 6 kids how could it be anything else) and our door was not always open because we had to clean up first! I find that this has continued into my own home to a certain degree. More than likely if you show up on my doorstep unannounced it will take me several min to make it to the door, mainly because I won't have a bra on, but also because I need to straighten rooms, shove things into the first available closet and close the doors on the messy rooms.

I want my home to be a place where the door is always open regardless of whether or not things are "perfect" or even clean. Recently we had Bible study at our house and I stressed big time over the house and whether or not it was clean enough. I almost passed on the opportunity to host it because I was so caught up in myself and how I wanted others to view my home. I am so glad I didn't let the opportunity slip by because it was a blessing and I really enjoyed myself.

More than others thinking I have a perfect house, I want them to think I have a hospitable home and to feel welcome in my home and life.

~Victoria~

Fall give away

Head on over to see Linda at Behind My Red Door for a chance to win her fabulous fall give away! Fall is my favorite time of year (maybe it is due to the fact that I'm a Sept baby)! I love pretty much everything about the time period from Sept through Dec. Such a cozy time of year...

Anyway, Linda's give away will get your fall started off on the right track...

~Victoria~

PS I love Linda's tag line..."My red door is always open"

Potpourri

Ok, so my computer table crashed to the floor yesterday. Thankfully my flat screen monitor was ok. So, today my post will be random and probably make no sense, as I'm sitting on the floor, which makes it hard to type.

Here is a corner of my home. Well actually,my computer desk wall before the crash. I was computing one night late last week and the glow of the computer and lamp were so cozy that it made me get out my camera.


A little project from a couple of years ago using some corrugated cardboard from a packing box, cheap frames and some computer fonts.


Some vegetable barley soup bubbling on the stove. A squeeze of fresh lemon juice after the heat is turned off will finish it.


So, for the next random picture, here is a "green" smoothie. Not green you say? Well, that is because the blackberries, raspberries and blueberries hide the green color that the spinach gives it. Yikes, you say? Nope. You can't even tell.

Try it. My daughter made these for lunch today.




2 large handfuls of spinach leaves
2 frozen bananas
frozen mixed berries
stoneyfield vanilla yogurt(approx. 1 cup)
water to consistency you want

You can leave out the yogurt and just add more berries, bananas and water. Without the yogurt you may want to add add a squeeze of honey or agave nectar to taste. Really this is something you just play with until you find what you love. My favorite is just strawberries vs. the mixed berries. Try any frozen fruit or combo of frozen and non-frozen fruit that floats your boat.

{Christina}