Back to School Time

Well it is that time of year again for us here in Colorado! Back to school! This is my first week back, I get to meet all my great students next Monday for the start of the 2014-2015 school year. I anticipate it being a lot of fun, even with all the testing changes (cough: PARCC).

When I was teaching summer school I decided it was a great time to update my classroom and make it reflect more of my personality, remember when I first showed it to you in February?  Well it is still similar but I've added some awesome stripes!

Here's the tour this year:

The view from the front of my classroom:

Teacher corner (I still love my FREE desks):

My huge book collection and DIY magazine holders:

Painting the new stripes only took a couple of days after my summer school class was out. Which was awesome, I feel like they add some subtle character and my students will love them! I still want to find a slip cover for the couch that is functional but it is a work in progress!

When do you go back to school? I feel like we are just uncommonly early, but maybe not.

My Classroom: Set-Up & Organization

As many of you know I started my first "official" year of teaching this year, and I'm super excited about it. So I thought I'd share pictures of my classroom. Obviously it is a work in progress but it's at least a start. I teach high school English. 

Here's my desk arrangement, I don't like rows but this room doesn't allow for groupings, this allows for easy movement into groups and accessibility to students. Which is great, plus it is not traditional which works really well for me. 

Another teacher in the building gave me this beautiful couch for the room, I'm hoping to find a slip cover on sale somewhere for it, the kids love it though.  I of course have a gigantic Little Mermaid poster, she's my fav. I also got these two fancy desks for free from another teacher who switched schools and didn't want to take them. They are really nice!

Our school is really far out from any food places so I have mini-kitchen in my classroom, the students call it my "mini-bar." I love coffee! Plus I use the cabinets to store all my food, mostly soup and oatmeal. haha.

My Mom and I have been collecting books for as long as I can remember, roughly 5 years. So far there is about 400 books on this wall, I let students check them out and so far I have only lost one. They usually bring them back when I explain that my Mom and I used our money to buy them and not the school. They all have my name on them too. It's a lot of books:

For their projects they can choose to paint ceiling tiles, a box of them is $30.00 at Lowe's so I just buy a box and will switch em around at the end of the year and keep the really cool ones up.

I spray painted some random scrap 2"x4"s that were in my shed with gold and chalkboard paint so I could make some labels for my room. I try to be crafty, I have a big chalkboard "M" also. 

Teacher corner!

I'm starting a gallery wall. Theme: Little Mermaid and Colorado paintings. hehehehe.

Here's my angle from the teacher desk!

I have plans to use the school color (maroon, grey, white) grey to paint stripes around the room like those in my office. I think it will look cool and there's enough cabinets that it wouldn't take that much time. Plus it's different and quirky, like me! I tell my students that the reason I teach is because I LOVE it and because I'm too weird for any other job.

The Master Bedroom Fiasco

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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.

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Roommates Strike Out

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Some of you may remember a couple years ago when I painted the third bedroom in my house with stripes for a much desired office. Financially I couldn't support not having another roommate because I was still in college. Well 6 months after graduation and with having a full-time job I can finally do it. Plus another roommate would probably make me lose my marbles.

Not good.

My current roommate has the room set up like this:

After the age of 15 I feel like teddy bears on the bed is kinda weird. But hey, that's just me. I also noticed that she has all of her wall hangings hung up in a bizarre mishmash which means there is likely going to be a number of nail holes and tack holes in the walls....

Since I no longer have any more of the two colors that originally went into the stripes I have decided that they need to be redone anyway. Thankfully they are already started so it won't be nearly as hard as it was the first time. I am going to start looking at colors to get an idea of what I want to go with.

So Office/Guest Room To-Do List:

• Find a full-sized guest bed
• Build desk for under window 
• Repair walls/repaint stripes
• Create awesome storage solutions 
• Fix door/paint door/do something with the door
• DIY some wall decor

If you have any other tips or ideas for creating a good combination space in here please let me know! It will be a bit before I can get all the furniture and such that I want in there so I am open to suggestions!

Top 5 Messy Business Redos

I've owned my house for quite awhile now and feel like I've done a lot of upgrades. But sadly most of them I did before discovering the blogging world, so I didn't "do it as a I went" I thought it would be fun to highlight some of my big projects and some of my favorite projects. That might light my fire to pick up a paint brush again. or something.

1. Kitchen. The kitchen overhaul was my number one favorite favorite thing. (Besides installing wood floors rather than uglio carpet that was originally there.) This is what the kitchen looked like before. Clean. Dated. Nasty. Ew. 

The kitchen had everything from the handles spray painted... to the cabinets painted... to the walls painted... to the countertops. It got real painted all up in there.

Installing wallpaper backsplash from Lowe's was also an awesome money saving solution and made it actually look pretty.

Here's a comparison of the before... and after. Way better in my opinion!

Total cost: $300.00
Total time: 10 days

find all the details: painting the cabinets here, painting the countertops here, see how i added little details here, tile backsplash here, accessories here and here,

2. Guest Bathroom. My second favorite project I actually did quite awhile ago... almost two years I think... might be time for some switcheroos! But anyways. This guest bathroom has undergone at least three transformations. The most recent one being from a baby blue nursery with the same dated cabinets as the kitchen to an elegant, relaxing space.

Here's what it looked like back in 2008:

And in 2010-2011:

Everything in this room got a face lift. The countertop was replaced awhile back but I painted the cabinets a blue gray color and moved the shower curtain up to the ceiling and put in two panels which makes it feel bigger and allows light from the teeny tiny window to come through.

2011-2013:

New light fixture for super cheap from a WalMart clearance sale (I think it was only $20.00 or something)  and even added a storage component where the old towel bars used to be. That's the problem with a house like mine... no storage. At all.

Total Time: 1 week

Total Budget: $150.00

find all the details: how it got started here, some cabinet assembly info here, and the final product here.

3. Jewelry display built-in.

Total Time: 2 days

Total Budget: $35.00 (already had beadboard left over, bought trim and hooks)

find all the details: built in details and origination here, how the whole bathroom panned out here.

4. Laundry Room.

 This room was originally such a total nightmare we called it the "murder scene" when we first bought the house. (I say we because it was my parents and I.) Everything was basically wrong about this room and I've managed to correct most of it. The venting for the dryer was being pushed under the house, which is real bad bad for the insulation under there. So that was rerouted and new flooring was put in when we first did the overhaul on the place.

Here's what it looked like for the first couple years of living here (roughly 2008-2011):

My washer and dryer came from Habitat for Humanity. The dryer I actually got off a dude that was shopping that same day. For free! So they were okay for the first few years. They were super loud and sometimes you had to wash stuff twice and definitely not energy efficient.

                      
Gross. That's all I can say.

                                         

After the great flood of 2010 (when my entire house had to have the flooring replaced due to a slow leak from the water heater) I decided it was a good opportunity to redo the laundry room, though I feel the color is a bit too dark now.

We ended up tripling the amount of usable storage/work space in the laundry room. Which has been really great.

And this was the final reveal picture:


Total budget: $900.00 for the washer and dryer. Roughly $150.00 for wood, paint, and accessories.

Total time: 3 weeks

 find the details: starting the project here, making the awesome countertop here,  making the shelf here, finishing up the accessories here.

5. Free Furniture Painting.

I think free furniture is the best furniture. If you know exactly how to make it pretty anyways, otherwise it could get a little out of hand. 

One of the first things I painted was this park bench my Mom gave me. I don't recommend actually sitting on it but some spray paint and a little can of exterior paint can go a long way.

A previous roommate had left behind this old desk. It was sort of warped and funky but with a little engenuity it worked out well in the laundry room for the litter box and extra storage. That's my thing if you haven't noticed... creating storage.

Not to bad eh?

 I had another friend that was moving into an apartment from her townhome and didn't have any back yard space for a full 8 piece outdoor furniture set. They weren't awful but I thought they could use some more class...

9 cans of spray paint and 1 horribly sore thumb later I had an awesome, all matching patio set.

 

This chair was given to me by my Mom also. She found it at a thrift store for about three dollars. So it wasn't free exactly but pretty close. I think it came out of an office or something.

Some spray paint and cute fabric made it totally awesome. No more weird chair! Yay.

{see it all here}

 Before my parents moved away to New Mexico they found this buffet/cardenza thing on the side of the road that said "Free" they loaded it up in their mini van and brought it over! It cost me nothing to redo it because I used a bunch of paint I already had and reused the handles.



{see it here}



Not too bad ey?


I suppose when I stop to think about it I do have a lot of things accomplished in my little house. I also now think that I've got a few more ideas for other things to do. No more blogging slump! Hopefully anyways. lol. Let me know if you have any questions or suggestions on any of these. :)