Jumpstart

I blame Jason for my recent Apartment Therapy addiction. Well, and I should probably blame them as well... Between the beautiful photos and interesting ideas...plus all-day-long submissions from approximately three time zones...it's not hard to want to check out what's next!

They dubbed February as "Jump Start Month"...a time to get a head start on all those little house projects that have been piling up. I hadn't planned on participating, but a recent change of events in my life made house projects seem like a pretty good idea. Like the vignette in the living room, none of what I've done has been particularly remarkable (and certainly not anything worth submitting to them). It has, however, been a catalyst for thinking more about where I want the house to go and what I need to do to get it there.


I plan to turn the third bedroom on the main level (now, loosely, an "office") into a proper guest bedroom. The room is tiny, so making use of the vertical real estate is key...and now, thanks to some inexpensive shelving, I have storage for the office-y stuff. Since the computer is mostly used by the Monkey to play games on the websites of various brands of cereal, there's not much need for a larger "desk"...and the filing cabinet is performing its double duty nicely.

I bought a storage bed a few months ago for my room. It's currently an unfinished pine with black drawers (subtitled: ohgoditshideous). I will, possibly this spring, be staining it to match the armoire in the bedroom that my dad made me. I'm hoping also to find some interesting wood to replace the fugly black drawer fronts and then finish them in the same stain. Fugly to fabulous is the plan...but I didn't tackle that in February.

My bedroom is small, so a bed with drawers meant that a freestanding nightstand won't work -- you lose access to a drawer that way. I solved the problem with two corner shelves. They're a little wobblier than I'd like because the corners in the house aren't square, but they're level and serving their purpose nicely.


I've also got a work-in-progress going for a non-headboard headboard. I've had the Picasso print hanging above the bed for awhile now. I just found the shelf. We'll see where it goes...it's all kind of inspiration-based at this point. I should also point out that, with the addition of this little bedroom shelf, there are now two ornately-carved things in my house. I think this might mean I'm turning into a girl.

Ack!