House Improvements

The bedroom was repainted and rearranged this weekend. I painted it, but Brian did most of the work: all the blue-taping and all of the furniture moving! Thank goodness for big strong husbands!

The walls are now a mid-dark sage green [Behr: Olivine], which is what I meant to paint them the first time (about 3 years ago). Last time I used the color two shades lighter [Behr: Spring Hill] thinking it would look like it looks now, but it ended up looking like mint ice cream. I'm so glad it was finally time to fix it.

The bed is now in the "back" part of the room, with walking spaces on both sides, which we didn't have before. The bed area is a lot more spacious than it used to be.

We also keep two desks and two computers in the master bedroom, which is why arranging the room is so tricky. Now, after the change, we have both desks along walls, leaving the large space behind them open for movement and kids.
Plus, the pictures, curtains, desks, and everything looks better with the darker paint color!

Here's the view from a few steps in the door.

Brian's area, though he hasn't had a chance to put everything away just yet.

As we started painting the darker green color, I had a little fun with the boys...
Here you can see the first color, a much lighter green.

And here's the other one.

Here's a picture from last year, showing the prior arrangement and paint color.

And other one showing the different desk arrangement. We thought this would work, having the desks facing each other, but it really just compartmentalized the room, and made moving around very difficult.

Painting, in progress. You can also see a little bit of the remaining really-dark-green color that we also considered.

Brian upgraded the kitchen last month. We didn't really have time or money for regular upgrades, such as redoing the floor, cabinets, countertops, or adding cabinets or countertops. But, we did need more space, so we got the restaurant-style shelving units [Metro] from The Container Store. There are two here, flanking the window blinds in the center of the picture.

By moving items here, we made them more accessible. More importantly, we doubled our available cabinet/storage space by moving half of what was in there, to here.
The countertops are also much less cluttered because the microwave and other counter-top tools and appliances were moved to these shelves -- giving more counter room for food preparation, which we were very low on before.

The second shelving unit also includes a homeschooling shelf. Now the homeschooling workbooks, paper, pencils, and much of the other equipment can be kept near the kitchen table for convenient use. The shelf below that has a metal mesh basket for shoes. Now the shoes and jackets are close to the garage door, which helps with organization and with things not getting lost.

Having the dishes out is surprisingly nice. It's made setting the table much easier.

It's also nice not needing to bend down to lower cabinets to get bowels, towels, and other small appliances so often.

A view of half of the kitchen, from the dining room. Note how the small amount of counter space that we have is less cluttered and more usable. :-)