office

Back when I had the Etsy shop, I had to store shipping supplies in my little office. To store those boxes and such, I hung 3 of IKEAs ($4!) metal napkin holders on the wall and put the supplies inside them. It worked very well, but since I’m no longer selling physical products, I didn’t need the boxes any more.

This week, I finally emptied them out and filled them with things that kept cluttering my shelf.

You can go back and read the original post for more details, but it’s pretty simple: level your napkin holder on the wall and screw it into a stud!

Ever since I cleared my desk of everything but a tiny tray and my lamp, I could never go back to having anything else on my desk. So these little wall shelves to hold my planner and papers are so helpful. Now I just need a few cute file folders (some black and white ones to match my day planner would be nice) and it’ll be perfect.

Simplifying (Another post with embarrassing photos)

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Homekeeping, Simplifying, The Victorian

I was hoping to have a design or decor project (or at least the attic office mood board) for you today to give you a break from all the miniatures talk. (By the way, go vote if you haven’t yet!)

But I don’t.

As much as I have been getting rid of lately, the more I look around, the more I see stuff we don’t use.

We have house guests coming soon. And once again, my office/guest room looks like this:

While our home is slowly getting more simple, and I’ve made a little progress with my scheduling, things are still too complicated, and it’s starting to drive me nuts.

Is it about a lack of organization? No. Is it about not having enough space? Definitely not. It’s not even about putting this away immediately after using them. It’s about having too much stuff.

So, I went back to The Minimalists for some inspiration. This post in particular. (I HIGHLY recommend reading it…go ahead, I can wait.) And spent the morning, not organizing but getting rid of stuff.

How much?

Bear in mind, my office/guest room is under 100 square feet. I can do better than that, and I plan on it, but that’s all I had time for this morning. The work will continue, in this and every other room until I can work in it and not have to spend an hour cleaning up after the work is done.

(I also priced things for the yard sale as I was tossing them in the basket to make actually having the yard sale that much easier.)

Of course, I like my rooms to have a little more warmth and personality than Joshua’s, but I think we often kid ourselves into thinking our clutter is what gives the room warmth and personality.

As I was cleaning out my pencil cup, I thought, “Well, I use the red and green pens pretty often, I’d like to have those within reach. And I probably use the paper clips several times a week, if not daily.” But do I really? No.

Besides, if I need them (probably once every couple weeks), all I have to do is turn around and grab the office supply basket off the shelf. They don’t need to be on my desk.

So, while my advice for today is not about pretty decor, I do have some. Go drastic. Cut back everything in any particular space for a week and see what you actually do need and what is actually adding clutter and causing distraction.

And in addition to the assignment, I’d love to hear from you crafters: how do you keep your creative work from overtaking your house? Do you have a system or ideas to help a girl out?

Office Update

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Interior Decorating, The Victorian

There have been a couple changes in my office since you’ve last seen it. I (okay, The Hubs) put up the invisible bookshelves I have been wanting for so long.

But, much bigger than that, I finally saved up enough to pick up the cowhide rug!

And here is how the office typically looks. Only add a little more mess…

I’m so happy with the rug. It really warmed the space up and grounded it with the organic element it adds. But as happy as I am, I think our buddy Roscoe might be even happier, he likes the fur rugs even more than the sofa now.

Easy shelf accessory: a painted toy

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Crafty, Decor, DIY, The Victorian

Unless it’s something literally hanging on the wall, I don’t have anything in the house that is not useful in addition to being decorative.

Except for two little cuties. Here is one of them.

Look at that little face. Irresistible even though he’s plastic.

They came from the dollar bins at Target, back when I was finishing up my office/guest room. I needed two things in there: decorative elements and pink. With the room being such a tiny space and so full of stuff, anything I added needed to be bold and minimal.

As cute as these little guys are, they aren’t bold and minimal or pink. So they were spray painted.

They look a little creepy from this angle with their eyes painted pink like that. Hmm…

Yes, the dog looked better in black and white, BUT, he would have gotten lost on the shelf. And getting lost on the shelf would have just ended up adding more clutter. This way, he stands out and gets attention and brings some bright balance to the room.

(The office has gotten a few updates since this photo, posts are being prepared to update you!)

Those two really do have an impact on the room. And they only cost a few dollars. Totally worth it.
Have you ever used toys as decor in your house?

Never buy a klutz a fountain pen

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Just a tip.

Even if it’s made of beautiful Italian glass like, say, this one:

And even if they have always wanted one. We klutz’ never grow out of our klutziness, no matter how much we try to convince ourselves and others that we do. Just don’t buy them one, because they will most likely end up with a problem like this:

That is the wonderful desk that I stole from The Hubs.

I decided to stop being stingy with the ink for my beautiful pen and use it in my planner this morning. Then I spilled it. And spilled it again as I was frantically trying to clean up the mess (with toilet paper, because it was the closest thing I could grab).

Thankfully, the desk top can be flipped over. But the other side already had a few dings and stains. Certainly nothing like this, though.

After more scrubbing, and magic eraser-ing, it looks like this:

And yes, this is the first The Hubs hearing about it. Love you, honey!! Thanks for taking the black desk so I could have the white one!

I’m just going to leave that pen in the pencil holder for looks and stick to ball-points, or better yet, pencils. I’m out of ink anyway.

Anyone have any magical tricks to get spilled ink off of laminate IKEA furniture?

The desk lamp is redone!

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Crafty, DIY, The Victorian

Thank you for all of your feedback on my vintage desk lamp redo! Either of the choices would have been cute, but I’m very happy with it being matte black. I love how the brass on the inside lights up when the lamp is on and casts a nice warm glow.

I really liked the ideas that some of you had to add a touch of turquoise too, so that’s what I did. Not only was it a great compromise, it let me fix the one flaw that was bothering me: the ugly brown cord. Usually, a cord wouldn’t bother me much, but this one will be in full view since the wall outlet that the lamp plugs into is is a good 4 feet away from my desk. So I wrapped it in yarn.

Unfortunately, it is not turquoise. It does have more green in it in person than in the pictures, but believe it or not, it’s the closest color Michael’s had to turquoise. 🙁 I made sure that the yarn would be wrapped in a way that it could be easily removed and re-wrapped when I do find a nice turquoise color.

The yarn wrapping is really simple to do. Just cut a piece about 6 feet long, and tie a basic knot around the cord, at the half-way (3 feet) point of your yarn. Slide the knot up to the top of the cord and start wrapping. I put a dab of hot glue on the cord about every 8 inches to help it to stay in place. About a foot before your yarn runs out, just cut a new piece like the first one, knot it on top of the current yarn and keep wrapping. For a while, you’ll be working with 4 pieces, which will make it go much faster. When you get to the end of a string, just hot glue it down and keep going with the rest.

It only took about 30 minutes to wrap the cord and about $2 for the yarn (there’s a ton left).

As for this powder room project of ours… I’ll give you just one example of how it is going so far:

I told you about our great plans to spend all of Sunday and Monday working on it. The first project was hanging the light fixture, but we forgot to buy a mounting box for it. First thing Sunday, we tried to go to the store to buy one, but when we got in our car, the gear shift broke. We messed with it for a while, but got nowhere, so we got in the other car, which started just fine but wouldn’t stay running. Instead of powder room remodeling, the Hubs spent the day fixing the cars and I caught up on housework. We did eventually get out of the driveway and manage to get the light hung, but that’s it so far. Hopefully this Sunday will be better.

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