Sister Update

My baby sister moved in with me back in May and I only had about a month to put her room together. {Check that out here.} It worked out okay by using what I had and organizing some things as quickly as possible, but since she's lived in there we've found we have a couple areas we ought to improve on.  

Mostly: storage. and personality.

The sad thing about a manufactured home? They don't come with it "naturally." So here's her room right now:

I still love that desk I redid {here} but the rest of that area seems a waste of space. So I have a few ideas to take out that shelf and the star on the wall and instead do some sort of storage. Here's the area now:

I'm thinking to do this idea I found on Pinterest. They use inexpensive towel bars to hold scarves. My sister has an impressive collection (as you can see above) but also likes to have them displayed. Plus the shelf is pulling out of the walls because there is no stud at the right distance. It might be easier to make something like this for her:

Another problem is that she needs a taller dresser in her closet area for her clothes. I am going to try and find one at a thrift store to redo for her using the same fun coral color on her desk.

It would be nice to get her some more personalized art and a headboard.

So far I think this one is my favorite, and something that I can build on my own. Thank goodness my Dad left me some tools and saw horses! Plus I like the price. Click the {source} button underneath for all her directions. They're pretty great. I'm pretty excited about it. I might make one for my room also!

{source}

It would also be nice to find her some sassier curtains and paint all of these walls and the trim. Hopefully we can get some of this accomplished during our 2 week Spring Break coming up at the end of March. Girl is going to have to pick out some paint that she likes though! It's sort of a big deal for me to let her do that, I'm a bit of a control freak about my house, especially after having roommates who could totally care less. I've been trying to integrate her style into the house more.

So here's a newly updated list of the things we'd like to accomplish in her room:

• Paint all walls one color
• Paint out all trim
• Make new scarf storage
• Larger dresser
• headboard
• personalized art/wall decor
• new lamps/accessories
• New lined curtains
• Replace bulky TV (recycling place has refurbs for cheap!)

The Master Bedroom Fiasco

****If you are seeing this content on http://manufacturedhomefacts.com/ please be advised it is there without permission!thismessybusiness.com is the OFFICIAL and only site I publish on!***

Every so often I start to get really bored with my house. Just in general and I've been really looking into the financial aspect of what I need to do to consider moving in the nearish future. You know somewhere with a garage... fenced in backyard... space between neighbors... closets.... those things. Our real estate market is starting to pick back up which could really be a good sign. Until that moment however, I am going to start working on the rooms in my house that I am most bored with, to see if that staves off the "I want a new house" feelings for awhile.

One such location is my master bedroom. Here's of course the love and appealing before photos when we first bought the house:

So certainly the most recent look is leagues better:

Gotta love that my furbabies bomb every photo. However since I've moved the computer desk and equipment to the office as you saw in a more recent post {here}.

That means now I have a real mess. Be warned. These following photos are not awesome.

I have taken most of the wall art down because I was bored with it and have moved it to either the living room or the office so now the walls are a little bare:

Presently I only have one nighstand because I put the old ones in my sister's room to give her storage. Now my one solo stand is laden with books, journals, more books, and more books. What? I'm an English teacher.

I've rearranged the book case and turned the old wine rack into a shoe holder. But its still not quite right. Maybe it's the blank wall on the left?

Or perhaps is the gigantic old TV that I have to sell and get rid of that is taking up one entire side of the room. My parents got me a new, smaller, and more energy efficient model for Christmas. They know my enthusiasm for gigantor TVs is a bit limited.

Check out my rigged nightstand. DIY at its absolute finest! My box of home repair materials and a laundry basket on top! Beautiful. Convenient. Awesome.

Then of course there is space being consumed by dog kennels. It's cold enough here in Colorado that we have to have them covered up with a blankey. Part of the reason it looks so messy.

And to top it off, I recently had to throw out my shag rug that was in there. It was a victim to the animals. I was saddened. 

Not going to lie. I feel as though this bedroom is cringe worthy. That rug really needs to be replaced. It's stained and dirty. I love how high pile rugs feel but not their functionality. The whole space really lacks romance and appeal that's for sure.

 I have a few ideas of how to make this prettier, it could take me a few months since I'm going to try and get some new things but here's what I've got so far as a list:

Master Bedroom Update:

• find a second short dresser as a nightstand- paint it white
• get a new rug situation
• make/find a new headboard
• update the shams and bedding
• new wall art
• patch and repaint sections
• replace door
• organize dog kennel area 
• clear clutter/donate unworn clothes

Golly. If you think of anything else that might help this situation please let me know! Or send me pictures on Pinterest I love that place.

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Office Progress

****If you are seeing this content on http://manufacturedhomefacts.com/ please be advised it is there without permission! thismessybusiness.com is the OFFICIAL and only site I publish on!***

Wow! It has been awhile since I have posted any updates! My deepest apologies. Teaching is a marvelous profession but it is also time consuming, strenuous, and hectic. But holy crap I love my job! I feel like I have found the profession to which my heart belongs and I have extremely grateful for it.

 However I am still in the process of figuring out the balance between the demands of a personal life, and the demands of a burgeoning career. Unfortunately that means blogging and DIY has fallen down the list with sleep and work rising above the rest. Have I mentioned though that I love my job?

Anyways!

Since a couple of months ago I haven't had any roommates except for my sister, which I don't really know counts. So I've been working on turning the third bedroom into an office/guest room space. 

Here's what we've got so far:

I freshened up the stripes and repainted quite a few of them. With my Dad's assistance we were able to replace some of the damaged trim and drywall pieces, years of roommates  had caused a few to be sacrificed along the way.

Eventually I am hoping my desk will go along this side wall. I'm still stuck between moving the one from my room in there or building one.

Yeah. I know. Remarkably unimpressive. Here's another one of those doors that I want to finish off and make prettier before the holiday season. I want to paint the inside of the door white to match all the trim and make it lovely. This is one of the only doors that the previous owners did not cover with shelf-lining contact paper. So it will probably be the only one easy enough to paint.

I'm also going to upgrade all the door handles when I get to doing the doors. These rooms came with keyed entry handles. But no keys. It's been a real problem before. Plus some of them are busted, again from hard use with roommates. 

The Guest Room/Office To-Do List:

• paint the door
• replace the handle
• finish painting the trim
• get a bed frame 
• buy more pillows 
• move/build desk for computer and grading
• organize random crap
• hang some desperately needed wall art. 

It is an Office-al Start.

****If you are seeing this content on http://manufacturedhomefacts.com/ please be advised it is there without permission! thismessybusiness.com is the OFFICIAL and only site I publish on!***

I've officially been teaching about a month now, which is very exciting! I love my job and my school, plus I've got some great students that always rise to the occasion. I told everyone a couple months back that I was going to be working on creating an office/guest room combination.

Check out my mad progress!

Okay so I haven't done anything but put a rug in there. Partly because I was looking closer at my lovely stripes and realized that they have been so thoroughly abused by roommates that I really can't save them (painting stripes is a crazy amount of work so I was contemplating not doing them but.. alas.) 

I am going to be doing stripes again and I've been contemplating a few different selections:

{source}

I love the bold white and grey colors. I think I may even have some grey that I could reuse from previous projects. And if not... I mean I do work at Lowe's after all!

{source}

I also like the greige tones of this one. I sort of wonder though if that would be too much like what is in the living room? I wouldn't want them to look that close. It's nice to have some difference in the rooms.

What we want to do (by "we" I mean my sister and I, but mostly me) is set up a double desk along the window side of the room. We're thinking maybe something that has a similar look as this:

We think using filing cabinets that are redone all pretty and some wood on top would look awesome. But we have to incorporate a bed somehow, so here's some ideas:

{source}

I really like that the bed is on the opposite wall, obviously the space is a bit different but I like what they did. I would have to have a queen size bed because my dad is 6'3" and my brother is 6'1" so there is no possible way they  would fit on an adorable day bed. 

Damn it.

If you follow me on Pinterest you may see that I've been pinning like crazy a bunch of different types of office and guest room ideas. Feel free to tell me how you decided to set up your space. What do guests even need in a guest room? Should I get a set of towels to keep exclusively in there? Toothbrushes? 

Here's one last look at the current room:

(omit the desk and tv stand, those aren't in there anymore, I sold the desk and moved the tv to Ally's room)

Hopefully I can make this a warm comfortable space for family and friends who come to visit!

Baby Sister Room Re-Do Reveal-ish

Well I have finally gotten my sister all moved in to the house. She did the long drive from South Dakota to Colorado all in one day. Crazy kid. She got in at about 5am. I feel like I am way to old for all that sort of stuff but she was glad to be home I think. However all the things on her bedroom to do list didn't quite get done but I think it still ended up looking pretty good.

Here's the mood board that we first started a few weeks ago when I announced that Ally would be moving in:

Sister's Room by megmcd on Polyvore

The original to-do list consisted of and what managed to get marked off:

• paint over grey and carry over into closet
• paint desk from Habitat coral
• buy cheap dresser (also paint, coral drawers, white outer)
• move full sized bed from striped room to Ally's room
• make/find headboard
• move side tables from my room to Ally's room
• put IKEA rug in room
• hang floating shelves on funky wall for storage
• hang hook rack
• full length mirror behind door
• accessorize!

I definitely ran out of time to get that much painting done. Working 70 hours a week puts a damper on painting time. I do still plan on fixing the trim and the closet but it won't be until later this summer, you know. When I have an entire day off from work.

Here's a few pictures of what I managed to get done in her room before she got here though! The only thing I bought was the dresser:

 

 

Looks so awesome in the space! The rest is fairly neutral but this adds a fun shock of color, which is a direct reflection of my sister's vibrant personality.

 

 

 

 

So far it has been pretty destroyed with all of her boxes and bags and such being brought in. We're working on getting it organized and functional for her soon. I am very glad to have her back! My parents are also back from New Mexico this week to help with the swamp cooler set up (it's starting to hit in the 80s around here).

Happy Monday!

 

Back from Black

Recently I have announced that there are going to be a lot of furniture switcheroos at the Mess. My bedroom is no exception! I have had these dinky night stands since I moved in back in 2008 and let's just say that do not have enough storage for my needs, plus they look teeny tiny compared to the bed and sofa at the end. 

So with the roommate moving around happening my sister is going to need furniture but the dresser in that room now is not going to be big enough and my other new roommate doesn't need a furnished room so I am going to empty it out. Here's the dressers that are going to replace the night stands in my room...

Obviously they are currently in use by my other roommates but since both roommates are going to be moving out by the end of April and my sister and friend Jenn will be moving in it is a perfect time to take them back and give them a new job. I know that one is black and is going to require a great deal of painting and patience, it's still something I don't have to buy and that is always super duper.

Once they are white they will match the rest of the furniture that is in my room plus they will store a lot more of my clothing, I'm single so my cash is spent on home projects, furbabies, food, and clothes. I love it.

I'm looking forward to this summer with two new roommates, new decorating, a good job, and my yard sale craziness. Wooo! 2013 is turning into a good year!

PS: Here's the heap of stuff I've already accumulated for my sister's room. lol

Baby Sister's Room To-Do:

I am obviously very excited to have my baby sister move in with me next month. I want to get her room all prettied up and ready to go for when she gets here! I am trying to use what I already have for her room to make it as magical as possible.

 I think having a cozy personalized room will make her feel more at home, especially since she went to college when my parents moved out of the house we grew up in and to New Mexico.

 Here's my inspiration for her room:

Sister's Room by megmcd on Polyvore

Now add teal in between the grey chevron stripes and put the mirror above the desk. The desk is going to get a coral fabulous face lift. I picked it up at Habitat for Humanity for the lovely price of $15.00! It is a laminate which requires a little bit more specific painting but then again, most of the cabinets in my kitchen were laminate so I'm an old hat at it nowadays. I'll do a full post on that lovely process soon.

It'll be fabulous! Just a reminder of what it looks like now:

Essentially my plan at this point is to buy a gallon of grey paint that is as close to the original color that's there now as possible and paint it into the closet. Then I am thinking to go ahead and do some chevron stripes over the single teal wall since that's where the head of the bed is going to go.

Imagine chevron.... beautiful!

Here's the desk that is a beast but I'm going to make super beautiful:

Here's what I imagine it will look like, or at least the color I want to use for both the desk and dresser I will get for my sister:

{source}

So now for the overall to-do list for Ally's room to be done by the first of May:

• paint over grey and carry over into closet
• paint desk from Habitat coral
• buy cheap dresser (also paint, coral drawers, white outer)
• move full sized bed from striped room to Ally's room
• make/find headboard
• move side tables from my room to Ally's room
• put IKEA rug in room
• hang floating shelves on funky wall for storage
• hang hook rack
• full length mirror behind door
• accessorize!