Elfa Shelving

The Living Room Before:



And After:



This month is the Container Store's annual 30% off Elfa shelving sale. I planned out this space a few months ago so we'd be ready to order. We wanted something that would utilize all of the space without being crazy expensive. In the corner we have short shelves for our DVD, stereo, VCR, and DVR. The TV is not going to sit on that shelf permanently; it will eventually go above the fireplace when we get a wireless transmitter. So that shelf will become a desk to keep the laptop (and I'll put a cute fabric-covered bulletin board behind it on the wall. And since this won't always be the focal point, it shouldn't be as noticable when you walk in the room. The shelving on the left is for CDs and DVDs as well as magazines on the lower two shelves. (Stay tuned for an inexpensive magazine storage idea.) I also added a mail-sorting station. Every day we get tons of mail, and instead of having piles of it lay on every surface all over the kitchen and living room, I'm sorting it right away for us to take care of later.

Gift Wrap Station

Something that I had to have in my craft room is a gift wrap station. It is now complete. Sitting on the floor are two gift wrap containers. The one on the left holds Christmas wrap and the one on the right is everything else, like birthday, wedding, baby, and generic. The first shelf holds curling ribbon, tape, and goodie bags. The middle shelf is for boxes. On the top shelf I have a vertical file for mailing envelopes, gift bags, and tissue paper. Sitting to the right of that are gift labels. This doesn't take up a lot of room, so I think that it would be doable in a lot of spaces, like an office or even a closet. The vertical file made the items on the top shelf be well-organized.

Venting

I'm going to vent some here today. First of all, being a homeowner is hard. The dishwasher repair guy was supposed to come put a part in tomorrow. So for the fifth time, I couldn't schedule anything between 8 and 5. Last night Sears called me to ask me if I got the part. I haven't. So Heinz called tonight to have them check on where the part is, and oh yeah...it's on backorder! Thanks for letting us know!!

The Orkin guy came today because of critters in the house. When I called on Saturday, and when I talked to him this morning, I told him what the problem was. So he shows up in his own car, with no ladders. He's as tall as I am so our ladder wasn't tall enough for him to get into the attic. (Heinz was able to.) He's supposed to come back tomorrow but Heinz said he had his chance so I'm cancelling it.

So I was at Publix this afternoon, and I was walking along, minding my own business, and this big guy in his fifties passes me and says, "Hey, bitch." I know that I looked startled and he slightly smiled. (I imagine he was getting some kicks.) I was going to tell the manager, but the manager started talking to this guy! So I told the boy restocking the dairy, who told the manager, who asked me if I "heard right" because this guy is a "real teddy bear." It was all very upsetting. When Heinz got home, he was really mad, so he called the manager. Get this—this guy is the Coke deliver guy! (At the Vestavia Publix, by the way.) And the guy lied to him about what he said to me, of course. So we're calling Coke tomorrow to make a complaint. I know it's my word against his, and even if I'm the first one to make a complaint, perhaps it will help someone else. Because no one should be treated that way.

I think I need a karma necklace. At least Heinz is home safe from his trip this weekend.

Standing Rib Roast With Horseradish Goodness

I made my first standing rib roast this Christmas. It was delicious and quite impressive, if I do say so myself. I served it with Horseradish Butter and fresh Cranberry-Horseradish sauce, which is like regular cranberry sauce, except with horseradish. I took it out of the oven at 145, which was perfect for my family since the pieces on the end weren't pink but the ones in the center were.

Painting the Library Inspi(red)

The lighting isn't great in these photos, but hopefully you can get the idea. I ordered this rug from rugsusa.com, and then matched up Benjamin Moore's Classic Burgundy and painted around the bookcases. I eventually want to get some better lighting in there so the color is highlighted more; it tends to look a bit dark. And this is just phase one of decorating the library--furniture and accessories will be later.

Check Out Our First NYC Apartment!

Heinz was looking at websites where you can rent an apartment in Manhattan instead of staying in a hotel. The building where we first lived was sold, and Heinz found where you can rent it by the month. We're pretty sure that this is the living room of our exact apartment because it has the same view. You can stay there for $5,400 a month.

The Hogwarts Extravaganza

Here are pictures of the Harry Potter party, finally! I didn't get them up sooner because I have been recovering from the weekend. As usual, I got caught up in the moment and forgot to take pictures of everyone who came to the party. So if you have pictures of your costumes, please e-mail them to me so that I can do another post. I tried to show as many of the decorations as possible. Sorry the sound effects aren't included: Umbridge's office had a recording of a kitten meowing. I think it creeped a lot of people out, but that's Umbridge for you. Thanks to everyone who came to the party!

Craft Room UPDATE

I've had several people request to see the shelves that Heinz put up for me in the craft room. I have just about everything in there unpacked, but it's not all that neat right now.

Close to the bottom on the left is a shelf that Heinz made me before we got married for me to store my spices on. Now that I have a spice drawer, it's perfect for rubber stamps.



These are $2 plastic shoeboxes that I got from the Container Store for my yarn. I have individual projects in each box. Now I just have to label them.



More shelves, and lots of wrapping paper!



This is an old formica table that my dad gave me. I LOVE it. It's perfect for crafts. It's a really hard surface and it's really wide. And who cares if I get glue on it?



I got this floor lamp at Bed Bath & Beyond. I'm happy that I have one room that I can decorate with pink!

Crazy Halloween

We were warned ahead of time that the guy across the street from us attracted a lot of kids for Halloween. His whole front yard was covered in stuff, he had a maze in the back, and a 7-ft friend of his dressed up like Gene Simmons from KISS. So we bought a LOT of candy. The police shut off our street, and there were several hundred people walking up and down our street and standing in our yard and the street looking at this guy's house. We had 212 trick-or-treaters. And the weird thing was is that not everyone stopped by our house. A lot of them seemed to walk right past. It hurt my feelings a bit.

Would You Want to Stay in This Room?

I'm thinking about getting this bedding for the guest bedroom. I would probably paint the walls the light blue color that's barely in the duvet cover, and then put the red chair-and-a-half in there since it would match. Is this too bright? Or would you want to stay in a room that's more relaxing?

Games Closet

We have a whole closetful of games in our basement, and Layton had a really great time playing as many of them as he could while he was here.



Here Layton and Heinz put together my dad's old Mouse Trap game from the late 1950s. Not one piece is missing! I love the font on the game. So retro!



Then we attempted to play Don't Miss the Boat.



Then Heinz fixed the motor for Mr. Mouth. The box said that it was from 1976. It was originally my cousin's and then he gave it to me.



We also played Skittles (a really old-fashioned game), Yahtzee, Sequence, table tennis, and Memory.

Monkey Cupcakes for a Little Monkey

Yesterday was Julia and Ryan's son Liam's first birthday. I made monkey cupcakes using Magnolia's vanilla cupcake recipe with the chocolate buttercream. The face is a vanilla wafer, and then the ears are made of Nutter Butters. I wish I had a photo of the chocolate icing that Liam smeared all over his face!