More Office Accessories

A few more pieces have been redone to accessorize my transforming office.  I found a few knick-knacks around the house to turn orange and then painted two more Birchboxes to go with my first two.

I also painted the mirror that originally was supposed to connect to the back of my free dresser turned sideboard in the dining room.

Nothing has been moved in to the office yet.  I need to paint my desk first and foremost and then once it's in place I can start thinking about where things will go.  Making progress!

The Office Walls are Done!

Sunday night I finished the entire first coat and then last night I finally finished the second coat and a few touchups.


One Coat



Second Coat

The second coat does not look smooth in the picture above but that is just light coming in from the windows and the ceiling fan.  I had to do much of the second coat with the lights off in the room so that the shadows didn't throw me off.

 

Now that the walls are done, I just need to paint my doors and my desk and filing cabinet.  Back to the white paint!  I'm excited to get some of the accessories I painted in the room so that everything can start coming together.  Here's an idea of the orange accents.

Hopefully in the next month this room will be done for the most part.  Aside from the decorating, there is still a bunch of cleaning and organizing to be done.  You should see the closets!  Not pretty.  Baby steps.

Pablo's New Nest

It all started at Target this weekend.  I saw this awesome lamp at Target while shopping with my friend Elsa.  I think she thought I was crazy for loving it.

But it is so awesome!  Ok, I don't really need a $60 french bulldog lamp.  Especially since I already have Milo at the front door.

Monday night I was back at Target, this time doing my grocery shopping and saw the lamp again.  I told myself I did not need it but I did look around at the other items in this "Best In Show" collection Target was selling.  I might not need a lamp but I totally needed a blanket!

At a third of the cost of the lamp, it was a steal.  See I have been on my continued mission to rid Pablo of his Christmas blanket and make him use something that matches the living room a little better.

This dog blanket would be perfect.  It is so soft!  It feels like fur, soft and slinky, and it's grey on ones side and dog covered on the other.

I really think Pablo likes it!  He burrowed down into it and went right to sleep.  He's happy with his new nest and I'm happy with the color coordination.  The Christmas blanket will still be around.  I'm going to use it as my blanket on the couch, but quickly put it away any time I have company.  Win-win.

Office Progress

I am proud to report that I finished painting my ceiling last week!  After painting all the trim I thought I was burnt out on white paint.

I made myself go in and at least start the ceiling after work one night.  Next thing I knew I was half way through.

At that point I decided to keep on going.  I finished all but the edging in one night and ended up completely finishing the next day.

This task doesn't seem so hard but you have not seen my working conditions.  I was so excited to get started on this room back when I began the trim that I never really "emptied" the room.  I merely shoved things in the middle of the room.  This worked great for trim but posed a few difficulties as I was working on the ceiling.

I had people coming over a couple of weekends ago so I didn't want to clutter up additional rooms but once that passed, I finally took a moment to clear some of the stuff out of there and stick it in the guest room.  That made things a wee bit easier.  Last Friday I bought my blue paint or shall I say Nocturnal Sea paint and I allowed myself to start cutting in.  Here's a sneak peak of what's to come!

I should be all done with painting the walls this week and ready to starting putting it back together!  I still have to paint the 3 doors in the room but that should be easy.

End of Summer Garden Update

Well summer is on it's way out but with temps still in the 80s and 90s my garden is still growing.  I know you've all probably been on the edge of your seats wondering what was going on with the garden.  It went through a bit of a rough spell and I lost several boxes.

 The weather was so hard on my peppers they were turning bright red but only growing to the size of a gumball.  The peak of August heat caused my tomatoes to quit producing and many branches of the plants to brown.

September's cooler temperatures and rain gave many of my veggies a whole new life.  Just look how much they've grown!  I have tons of peppers coming in and growing to normal sizes.  And the okra is doing great as well.

My tomatoes are still pretty sad.  They seem to be growing outward, escaping the box.  They are starting to flower so who knows, maybe I'll get a few more tomatoes out of them.

My baby carrots were a huge flop.  I finally just pulled them all out.  They look fine...until you realize just how tiny they are, about the size of the first joint of your fingertip.

I will definitely be doing more peppers and tomatoes next year.  I might do okra again as well as squash, but I look forward to coming up with some new flavors to add next spring.  If the weather cooperates, my peppers may still be coming in for a few months!  I still haven't researched what I can plant in the winter months but I'll let you know as soon as I have it all figured out!  My first growing season has encouraged me to keep it up!

More Backyard Landscaping

I'm slowly coming up with a plan about my backyard.  I started out with just a blank, semi-grassy rectangle and I'm trying to make it a bit more attractive.

I started out giving 2 Double KnockOut rose bushes a shot with hopes of adding more if they worked out.

Aside from suffering a little bit of dog pee damage, they are still going strong and have just about doubled in size.  My mom recently added some to her backyard and while buying them discovered the Black Diamond Crape Myrtle she thought would be great for my backyard.  It's a crape myrtle that only grows to about 10 feet tall so I don't have to worry about the power lines that run along my back fence.

Calloway's ended up running a sale last week on the Black Diamonds and they had KnockOuts for 30% off.  I took it as a sign and grabbed some plants after work Thursday.  Unfortunately we had too much rain this weekend and I wasn't able to get them planted until last night.  I also wasn't able to mow so please excuse the messy yard (and out of control weed vine sneaking in from the alley).

I dug two new holes next to my original roses and added weed block to all four.  Again, ignore the weeds in my yard.  I promise to work on that this weekend.

Next I planted the crape myrtle a little further over.  My goal was for it to mature in such a location that it blocks the view of the house across the alley.

Here is the back fence now with all the new additions.  I may need one more rose bush but other than that I think I'm getting close to having full coverage...once everything matures.

My next step will be to turn the stones to the right and have them come in front of that tacky gas meter thing and then all down in front of the roses.  This will become one big bed.  I'm monitoring Home Depot and Lowe's for them to run a sale on the stone I need.  They are normally about $1.70 a stone but I'd like to get them for a little less since I need quite a few!

Orange Accents

 My office transformation is coming along.  I finished painting all the trim white and am now dreading painting my ceiling.  Hopefully I will get it all done this week.  I'm not letting myself buy the blue paint until I'm done.

In an act of procrastination, I started working on some of my orange accents for the room.  I basically just searched around for old decorative items in my house that I wasn't currently using anywhere.  I bought a can of orange spray paint and also picked up a $2 can of Oops Paint Orange. 

The first items I painted were these brown cardboard boxes.  I subscribe to Birchbox gifts and receive a box full of beauty product samples each month.  The boxes are nice and sturdy so I've been saving them thinking I'd eventually come up with a use for them.

They turned out great and are going to be awesome organizational boxes for my desk.  I think I'm going to spray paint a couple more since I have a few.

I turned some little candles orange along with an old shabby chic style bird house.  The bright color turns everything into modern little accents.  The orange frame was picked up at IKEA, already orange, for $1.99! Now that I have a few inspiration pieces in orange and white, I should probably get back to addressing my ceilings.  Rats.

White Bookshelf

I've made some real progress on my office trim paint.  Painting this room isn't as fun because I have no TV in this room but at the same time the quietness has been a nice stress reliever this week after very hectic days at the office.  I'm thinking I might even tackle the ceiling before going to buy my Navy wall color.  While I contemplate things, I have been bringing smaller projects into the living room and painting them in front of the TV at night.  My first item to tackle was a book shelf from my office.

This is a hand-me-down bookshelf from my parents.  I believe it and it's twin were brown when I first got them and then I painted them black some years ago.

 I decided the weather was to muggy and hot for spraypaint so I've been using Rust-Oleum's paint line to get projects done inside the house.

 It definitely did the trick brightening up this little shelf.  I only did one because I don't think I reallly have room to keep both of them in this room.  I haven't come up with a plan for the other one yet.  And don't even get me started on my ridiculously big chair and if I'm going to recover it or just get rid of it.

 Next up, I plan on painting this free mirror white.  First I have to figure out how to remove the wood support pieces attached to the back from the days it hung over a dresser.

And I really think I want to take my simple Target desk and file cabinet white as well.  Painting my wood furniture doesn't bother me seeing that all of this is basically wood veneer over MDF.

I think the light pieces will look great against the dark walls and be a great showcase for my orange accents!  Making progress!