House Updates

Apparently my midlife crisis is manifesting itself in breaking free from my "function over form, plain Jane, I can't do anything artistic anyway" mindset. I have completely redone or replaced almost every piece of furniture and decorative item in the new house. We even replaced brand new, practical & fully functional low maintenance light fixtures with sparkling chandeliers that I don't even want to think about cleaning. We added a porch and replaced a deck that was barely 2 years old. After going crazy throwing paint and new stain on solid sentimental old furniture, we spent the past two weeks throwing new colors and lots of glitter (yes, glitter) on walls that were freshly painted only two years ago. For our next transformation, we will trade our paint and glitter for some big rocks & dirt and throw those around instead. I may be going crazy with transformations around here, but I'm reminded that only God can transform us from the inside. And when He completely renews our hearts and minds, major transformations will be evident on the outside, too. ‪#‎Transformations‬ ‪#‎MidLifeCrisis‬ ‪#‎BreakingFree‬ ‪#‎SpringBling‬ ‪#‎InterventionNeeded‬

My Office

Since I recently returned to my original career (albeit on a very limited, part-time, consultative basis so I can still teach), I decided to redecorate my office to make it feel more professional (and inspire me to actually use it instead of doing all my work on the kitchen island). I started as you might expect for a frugal, frumpy, function-over-form gal with a plain, solid oak, executive desk and gray lateral file cabinet. But then I discovered glitter paint, a box of romantic photos, and a new obsession with refinishing old furniture, and now the office I had planned to make look more professional looks more like a scene from cheesy romantic chick flick wrapped in a box of glitter.

Man Cave 

My husband has been slowly but surely working on the room over the garage. Last year, we hired a carpenter to build a closet into the room for storage, but there was still so many boxes left. So my husband has been purging for months, and he found plenty of my own boxes of stuff in there I have been purging as well.

I was impressed by the built-in bookcases he built all by himself for one of the corners to create mini library. The trim work looks almost professionally done. I need to find a new sofa, so he can take the one his cat scratched up in our family room and move it to his room to create a mini theater out of the other half of his office.  I have a feeling the TV screen and the price tag will both be much bigger than I could even imagine.

In this house, instead of keeping everything plain and neutral, we decided to decorate our own offices however we wanted to best reflect our own tastes.  The vast differences between our two offices amuse me.  The only thing at all that is remotely similar would be our color schemes.

Wall Paint

• Mine: "Voyage" (a light grayish blue) with heavy glitter to make the  room sparkle and shimmer at night (Painting work was outsourced.)
• His: "Imperial Fleet" (very dark navy blue) and definitely no glitter  (He painted it all himself.)

His color is quite suitable for a former submariner and dark enough for the theater half coming soon. 

Hanging on the Walls

• Mine:  Images of him and me sharing romantic moments, favorite photos I have taken from our travels together, and lake sunsets taken during bike rides or runs which have all been stretched onto wall canvases and inspirational Bible verses in a swirly script 
• His: Three poster-sized, thickly framed Civil War maps, diplomas, sub pics and plaques from his navy days, Independence Day movie poster, and a comprehensive chart of all cosmic exploration

Window Treatments

• Mine:  Sparkling silver curtain rod with finials that look like disco balls and sheer scrollwork curtain panels to soften the sunlight as it diffuses into the room
• His: An ornery gray and white cat named Orwell

Office Desks

• Mine: Traditional solid oak executive desk refinished and stained dark walnut on top and painted on the sides to make it unique and to coordinate with the rug and bookcase
• His: Standard, metal, modern L-shape from one of the office supply stores

File Cabinets

• Mine:   Distressed rolling cabinets painted in a chevron pattern with soft colors and antiqued  loop handles – all coordinating with the desk
•  His:  Plain, standard black metal lateral file cabinets

Bookcases

• Mine: An assortment of solid white and/or inky blue shelves in various and sizes refinished and repainted, one with mirrored quatrefoil doors and sides to match the lamp and rug.
• His:  Custom built white bookcases he built himself and trimmed out nicely in executive library style and a gorgeous solid antique unit we are storing for missionaries indefinitely. 

I’ll stop there, but the biggest differences are in what we put on our desk and shelves.

  

Master Bathroom

I have wanted to replace the tile since they day they put it in, but since that's too costly, I went with adding glitz and bling for a unique, pampered, fancy look.  After decorating the room in aqua and brown, it just seemed to plain for me, so I bought a water fall chandelier last year for the tub.  My husband was still recovering from shoulder surgery, so he could not lift his arms enough to install it until this past February.  It was a beast and took him all day plus trips to the home improvement store for retrofit kits to make it work with a recessed can light.  In our last house, I wanted to replace all our boring light fixtures with recessed lighting, yet here I tend to be replacing recessed lighting with high maintenance chandeliers.

Once the chandelier was up, I knew we needed some more bling because the crystals looked totally out of place in such a terracotta style casual bath.  So  I bought towels and curtains with lots of sequins, new bathmats to match (less the sequins which would be practical), new jeweled soap dispenser and toothbrush holder, matching sequin curtains and crystal and chrome curtain rods to carry out the bling theme.

I bought a white storage cabinet with a gray slate top which works well with all the new gray accent decor, and then we added aqua glitter paint to the walls.  After the bathroom became more glitzy, the closet looks more cluttered.  So I added new sweater and shoe storage systems, some shelves we had moved out of the bonus room, and thoroughly purged and reorganized it.

Bonus Room 

The bonus room has taken the most time to decorate.  It's a massive room (30' x 19') not counting the study nook area behind the stairs or the two mini hallways leading to each bedroom & bathroom area.  We added a large charcoal sectional and ottoman initially to separate the TV/media area from the game area. 

This room also serves as a playroom so we initially stored all the kids' toys in several toy boxes and open shelves, but it always looked messy and chaotic to me that keeping it tidy was so frustrating for me that I just stopped going upstairs at all.

After a massive purging of the kids' toys when they were not around, I greatly reduced the quantity of toys and moved several shelves out of the room and into closets for storage there.  But what remained still looked messy, so now all our board games are tucked away in the drawers of the refinished credenza shown below. I like this solution for hiding clutter much better than built-in bookcases and cabinets, and it was much cheaper, too.

 

We took the glass doors off of an old entertainment center and painted it the same color as the credenza shown above.

We moved out the kids' toy box to the garage for storing pet supplies and brought in an old hope chest instead.  It's been in the family for many generations, but it desperately needed some restoration and a fresh look before passing it on to our daughter.

For several years, I've been wanting to do a clock collage that would reflect our family timeline from our wedding day to the present. It was a lot of work and a little depressing to put together as the pictures are a tangible reminder of how fleeting our life is on this earth, but I pray we will choose instead to see it as a positive reminder to cherish every moment spent with loved ones and give God thanks for the wonderful blessing of a loving family.

We painted the entire room a grayish brown color, "Rocky Bluffs", and hung up several other picture collages and framed photography prints. The print over the credenza is one of my favorites.  We took that photo on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea at Antalya, Turkey, a strategic location for Paul's missionary travels. 

Game Area in Bonus Room

Landscaping

We currently have a number of landscaping projects underway which we have outsourced given our past failures at all things botanical.  I'll give a sneak peak of what's going on around here and then provide an update when it is finished.  But first, let me tell you a true story.

Imagine coming home to an empty driveway and an empty house, scooping up your bunny, and taking her out to the porch where you lie on the couch to relax and snuggle against her silky soft fur while talking aloud in a ridiculous baby talk voice to that rascally rabbit as if she understands a word of your gibberish. Then while enjoying the stillness and the spring weather, you hear a loud thud and then scraping noises. You think you hear men talking to each other...planning their next move, preparing to attack...the voices sound like they are right there in the porch with you. Afraid to look, but unable to bear the unknown a moment longer, you jump to your feet to find three strange man digging a trench underneath the porch. Scenes from The Great Escape flash through your mind.

That's when you remember that your landscaper mentioned that his crew may start the French drain you had requested this week. The doorbell rings, and the landscaper you actually know is back after fetching supplies for his crew who he dropped off before you had returned home. All is well, but twilight zone music plays in your mind as you realize those strange men know the hidden truth about you. So you bring out cookies and beverage, hoping they'll remember the refreshments instead of the ‪#‎CrazyBunnyLady‬. ‪#‎mylife‬

Documenting the crime scene