Back in September, I started this little ol’ blog as a way to chronicle the various homes and projects I’ve lived in, decorated, and made throughout our years as a traveling military family. Since then, I have shown you not only our last two homes in Okinawa, Japan and San Diego, CA, but also the the few rooms in our current house that I’ve “spruced up” for our short 10 months living here!
They include…
(top center) our living room
(middle center) our dining room
(bottom left) my laundry/craft room
(bottom middle) our master bedroom
(bottom right) and our baby’s nursery
However, there are several other spaces in this house that I haven’t shown you yet…and the reason I haven’t shown them to you is because I never got to them…so they aren’t very pretty.
BUT…
Since the packers are coming in a very short time AND this blog is just as much for posterity’s sake as it is for showing off cute and fun projects…I am going to show you all my other nooks and crannies…all of it….every last bit…and that includes:
EEEK!
Whether you or I like it (lol), today, I am kicking off a 3-part series, where I am going to show you the rest of my current home…everything that escaped my DIY touch….
YOWZA…
Okay, here we go!  To start on a positive note, we are going to begin with the rooms that aren’t SO bad…and I’ve coined them “the good!”

 

As any military family or perpetual renter knows, sometimes a lot of the time, you just have to get moved and settled in as fast as you can so you can achieve sort of normal, operating life again! Decorating and organizing, if you’re lucky, come after the fact! That’s pretty much the reality for these spaces. I had to get the kitchen, bathroom, and closets in working order as soon as we moved in. By the time I got around to giving them some decor love, we found out we were moving again!  These spaces became livable, but boy did I have ideas and plans for each space! Oh well!

 

Here’s our standard, boring kitchen! Although it’s a far cry from my dream kitchen, it had wonderful counter and cabinet space (which was really lacking in our last home!) and I loved how it is positioned literally in the center of our home!

 

I tried to give it some personality for our short time here…

 

(top left) bright dish towels from Crate & Barrel
(trop right) tin basket from Target to corral cooking supplies
(bottom left) my Magnetic Menu Board
(bottom right) fresh fruit always on display

 

Another favorite was how I stored my gorgeous collection of copper pots and pans!
Funny enough, when we moved in, there were these evenly spaced nails already nailed right into the bar — the previous family must have hung Christmas stockings or holiday lights, or pots and pans! When we couldn’t determine where to store our cookware, this became a perfect and logical solution. Not only was it perfect storage, but also served as a gorgeous display!

 

Another space that isn’t too much of an eye sore was the guest bathroom. I pulled this space together in one day that included trips to IKEA, Target, and my own stash of decor items!

 

I already had the fabric adorned white towels (bottom right) from our last apartment. I then found the striped shower curtain (with all the same matching colors as my towels!) at Target!

 

(top left) matching blue orbs pulled from my stash were loaded into a plain glass hurricane for some visual interest
(top right) turquoise (and brown, not pictured) wash cloths and hand towels from IKEA highlighted my color scheme
(bottom middle) I made these etsy-inspired prints for the wall, featuring coordinating colors! (I’m going to post these downloadable files for you tomorrow!)
In the end, it isn’t the most luxurious of bathrooms, but it was enough for me not to be embarrassed when my guests used it!
Finally, the last of my “good” spaces are all the closets in my house! This house has some serious closets, and I have been super spooled with space and shelves to make everything visible and orderly.

 

The  master bedroom closet is enormous – enough space for both my husband and I to share…hanging baskets, additional cubbies, and plastic shoe boxes keep it from being messy and disorderly!

 

Our linen closet is literally the hugest closet I have ever seen! I have plenty of shelves to organize all of our extra bedding, cloth napkins, table cloths, curtains, pillow covers, and other household items! I am so sad to say goodbye to this closet – is that normal? 😉

 

Lastly, because all of our linens (and then some) fit in our ginormous closet, we had a spare closet in the hallway – it was the perfect size and location to store our sizable game collection! Score!! (hardy  har har!)
So there you have it! Not the prettiest, but plain ol’ life as it’s lived, I guess! Later this week, I’ll post my “bad” and “ugly” spaces for the world to see! Ayayayaya!
Last thing…I know I’ve nagged about it all last week (and the week before!), but today is the last day you can vote for my Monster of a First Birthday Party over at Project Nursery. Even if you already voted, you can vote again…HERE!
That’s all for today!  Have a great Monday!

Hello again!

I am back today with some more oh-so-wonderful shots (note heavy sarcasm) of my house! If you didn’t come ’round earlier this week and have no idea what I’m talking about, I started a three part series I am calling…

On Monday, I showed you “The Good,”spaces in my one that aren’t TOO terrible and received SOME DIY love over the past year.  Today, I am going to show you (gulp) “The Bad”!!
All those neglected, eye-soar spaces that I never got to!
 Let’s get it over with, shall we? 😉

First up, our front patio! It started out with some promise…we placed this ugly bench (we bought on a whim in Japan) along with some pots in an attempt to fill the space and say “Welcome” to our visitors.
Alas, the ugly bench never got painted (but it’s at the TOP of my priority list at our next home!) and the pots never got filled (probably a good thing because I kill everything I grow!). They sat like this, ugly and empty all.year.long.
I did get up a cute wreath when we first got here…the one shining star of our otherwise drab porch!

 

Next up (groooann, I can’t believe I am posting these pictures), is our oh-so-lovely patio and “lawn.” We had two lovely sets of french doors that looked onto this little (and somewhat useless) courtyard. We refinished that table there on the left when we first got here, thinking we would make this a quaint sitting area…we never got to it! (on the bright side, however, we learned A LOT about weatherproofing furniture!)

 

There’s our little patch of grass that we have to keep “mowed.” I don’t think a lawn mower would even fit in that patch – lol – we use a weed eater instead!

 

And there sit more lovely but empty pots. Must plant flowers next time!

 

Last, but not least…our garage…
The garage actually almost made it on ‘The Good” list. It is easily the hugest garage I have ever ever seen so we have not been wanting for storage space. And, I just spent a bunch of time sorting and organizing everything in it (if you can believe that from the pictures)…but alas, it is still far far away from how I would have liked it, so it landed here on “The Bad” list!

 

That’s all the lovely photos for today! Next time, I will show you the one truly terrible, over-cluttered, unorganized and undecorated room in our house. I bet you can’t wait 😉
Have a great weekend!
Happy Monday Friends!
Today is the last day of the three-part series I started last week called: Our House…the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly!
I know these haven’t been the most exciting posts to look at or read (trust me…it hasn’t been fun for me either!); but once I get all these “get real” photos out of the way, I have lots more super fun crafts and room makers to show you. I’ve been very busy these last few weeks, so don’t bail on me yet!
Let’s get down to it, shall we?  Last week I showed you the good and the bad of my current home. And today…I am showing you…

Oh man, oh man. Our home office. What do I even say? Where do I even begin?
When I show you pictures like these…
it’s pretty hard to believe it’s the same house, occupied by the same person, isn’t it?
Nonetheless, it’s true…this room is in the same house. It started out with a lot of promise! It’s a very large room, and was the perfect place to setup an office for both my husband and I to work in. Usually, all my husband’s work awards, frames, and other stuff are displayed at work. But since he was in school all this year, it had to stay home. We made a really big attempt to get this space in order when we first moved in! We bought a fancy new desk and a fancy new computer, which was a great start. And we hung everything on the walls, and organized our too-big book collection.

 

Like with every other space I’ve shown you over the past week, I had big plans for this space…I even went as far as picking out fabric for curtains, and brainstorming a decor plan. But (you’re heard this before)…I ran out of time, and so this room stayed cluttered, over-run with stuff, and just plain yuck.

 

 

To say the least, this room is number one priority when we move. We desperately need some organizing solutions for this space (mail, office supplies, books, paperwork) and I can’t wait to get cracking and make a home office that will be a pleasure to work in!
Okay…phew…it’s over. You’ve now seen every nook and crannie in my home…all the pretty spaces and all the not-so-pretty spaces!  If you’ve missed any of the rooms, you can see them all here!
Later on this week, I am going to share my bathroom art printables, and then next week I have some really really fun gift ideas to show you!
Come back and see me soon!
See You Soon!
Megan