January 2013 – Page 2

Jarring

Published on January 24, 2013January 24, 2013 by Our Humble Abode23 Comments

After yesterday’s lighting post, I looked at the sad, nearly empty nook shelf. See it in the background? Just a few lonely items stashed there.

I pulled some of my favorite items, jars filled with vacation artifacts, off the guest room bookshelf and set ’em up.

A step back and all I saw was clutter. Clutter on the shelf competing with the frames on the mantel. Sure the patched walls and unpainted walls don’t help. Oh, now that I’ve painted the two smaller frames, I’m loving the mixture of frames.

Perhaps pairing down the jars would help?

Yep, that helped, but I still wasn’t smitten with the lack of books on a book shelf.

Knowing I didn’t want to detract from the mantel art, I pulled out white books, my new horse head bookends, and a wood sculpture.

Now we’re cookin’. But the dark frame and sculpture attracted too much attention. For a little color and height, I added a tall apothecary jar of shells (picked up on beach vacations).

Spray paint can cure any ugly/bad/wrong color. Crisp flat white on the frame, (which makes the cream mat look dingy) blends in with the rest of the arrangement.

So far, this is the least cluttered looking group I’ve come up with. Not completely sure I love it.

What do you think? Any suggestions for the shelf? Do you prefer it with the jars or books?

Keep a Low Profile

Published on January 23, 2013March 26, 2013 by Our Humble Abode8 Comments

Slowly but surely, we’re chugging along on our family room. I’m trying to keep Ben focused on one room instead of jumping around. Fingers crossed we’ll start on (and finish) the trim this week or weekend. Then patching a small crack in the ceiling, then comes paint, and a complete-ish room. But we have to discuss the lighting, too. Specifically the oddly placed, too traditional faux candle sconces by the back door.

Unfortunately we can’t nix these entirely for lack of a better option. Sure, we could install outlets in the floor for lamps. But I’m not a fan of cutting permanent holes in hardwood floors when the furniture arrangement might change. Recessed cans could work, but we’d like to avoid a Swiss cheese looking ceiling. When it comes down to it, we realized we don’t hate the sconce idea, just the sconces we now have. Mostly, how far they stick out (this is a walk way), the style, and the harsh light from an exposed bulb.

Which easily narrowed down our search criteria. Must have the lowest profile possible, a shaded light, and something that looks good. Thanks to my friend Photoshop, we get to see the top four options in action. Simple ORB lights from Home Depot are okay, but not my favorite.

Same goes for these from Lowe’s.

Even this set of cut out sconces from Lamps Plus wasn’t doing it for me. That’s when I realized I didn’t like the half round sconce style.

And when I laid my eyes on these pretties, also from Lamps Plus, I knew they had to be mine. Pretty, filtered light, and low profile. Even better, they come in four different metal finishes. Hello satin nickel. Come to mama.

Now, let’s light the fire to get this all done. I’m seriously craving a nearly finished room; some tangible progress. This will be the first one in this house!

What’s your favorite sconce? Have you had to search for an item with very specific requirements? How’d it go for you?

Rod, Meet My Friend, Rod

Published on January 22, 2013January 22, 2013 by Our Humble Abode16 Comments

For me, January is the month to organize. The house is a mess from the holidays and I’m ready to purge, clean, and organize as shown by yesterday’s office post. Of course my attention span doesn’t last long, so we moved into the boys’ closet to give it some help. Before we had two shelves at the top with one hanging rod.

Games, extra bedding, and other randoms fit well on the shelves, but the boys’ clothes were crammed on the rods. Because they are growing boys, they go through clothes quickly.

To make sure larger clothes aren’t forgotten, never to be worn, I like to keep the next size clothes hanging, too. So we added a second closet rod.

Now we have Ev’s clothes on the top rod, and V’s on the bottom where he can get to them to get dressed. Which leaves the right side open for larger clothes. That I still pull from the bin on the floor and dig out of the stair storage. Maybe that should be the next organization area?

I’m a firm believer in double rods. How about you? Do you have a closet organizing trick to share? Or an old stand by you’ve used for a while?

The Office {Organization}

Published on January 21, 2013January 21, 2013 by Our Humble Abode6 Comments

Hello and happy Monday! You know the snowball effect? That happened to me recently. While working on orders, I decided to add labels to magazine files I use as paper storage.

Washi tape to the rescue. Now I know which is card stock and printer paper without pulling the file out.

Those labels set the organization ball in motion, and I knew another office space that needed some help. The dreaded file drawer. Organizing like items in files and receipts in large envelopes corralled the mess, but more washi tape (color coded!) labels everything.

After that, I moved up a drawer where I keep packing and mailing supplies for orders.

Above that drawer is basically an office junk drawer. Some office supplies, some craft supplies, and chargers. A quick purge and straighten out.

Over to my main drawer where I keep essentials. Scissors, paint brushes, utility knives, tape, pens, paper clips, chapstick, post its, everything.

An acrylic kitchen utensil caddy keeps large items together, but smaller items just don’t work well. But a cheap shelf turned drawer divider from the Dollar Tree works. Now I can separate large and small binder clips, rubber bands, and paper clips from my memory cards, stamps, and flash drive.

With most of the drawers done, I cleared out the mail slots.

A black box holds note cards with addresses, seriously the best address book for us. Envelopes and our address stamp make mailing easy. And a cute little elephant bank to corral change.

I keep extra-large envelopes and packing supplies in the white boxes. Markers, paint brushes, and extra pens are contained yet accessible in the vases on the top shelf.

A bouquet of pretty Sharpies in a candle holder on my desk add a pop of color to both my desk and mail. If only I had the energy to sort through my craft supplies, the boys’ art supplies, and other oddities in the other half of my office. I’m feeling overwhelmed by the amount of junk I seem to own. In the office and other areas of the house.

How was your weekend? Did you tackle a much-needed organizational project? Or realize you also have an insane amount of stuff?

Thrifty Finds

Published on January 18, 2013January 18, 2013 by Our Humble Abode6 Comments

Happy Friday, friends! Hope you all have had a great week. Ben’s brother, sister-in-law, and niece visited this week. We hadn’t seen them in over a year. Long overdue. When us girls get together, we like to do some shopping. Mostly at thrift stores, and there’s a great consignment shop in town that her family owns. Of course we had to go. Twice. So many great things, so little time to see everything. So here are my favorites and a few items that I brought home.

Look at this cool vintage chess set. 79 bucks, but so pretty and detailed.

And a beautiful giant jug. Seriously giant, about 18 inches in diameter at the largest point.

Or these cool horse heads. The kids obsessed over them almost as much as I did.

I’ve never seen this style champagne flute. Brass bottom and stainless top.

Speaking of brass, how about a brass cowboy boot and horse?

Ben even found something. A denim cowboy hat. Luckily he didn’t go home with it.

But a few pretties came home with me. A set of marble horse head bookends for 8 bucks and a brass squirrel nutcracker for $6.

I’ve seen similar sets of bookends for $20 or more. They’re not an exact match, but I like that.

We don’t have a nutcracker, so I had to pop, American Picker style, on this one.

Brass, vintage, squirrel, and useful.

We had a great time visiting, laughing (a lot), eating (a lot!), shopping, and hanging out. Too bad it couldn’t last longer. Now we’re back to our same old routine and ready for the weekend. And maybe get some projects done. What are your weekend plans? Found anything great at a thrift store recently?

P.S. We saw a familiar face on American Idol last night. Ben’s adorable, sweet, and talented (!) cousin Isabelle. She and Keith Urban sang Baby, It’s Cold Outside. We’re so happy for her!