Brighten up a Hallway!

 Making a hallway be a bright place is hard to do!

 

Using bright white paint on the doors and trim and a hint of "Aqua" on the walls this hallway is much brighter!

The floors are an easy to clean and pet friendly Pergo Max.

 

Since there was just open shelves, I decided that a floor to ceiling curtain would hide all the stuff I wanted to put on the shelves. Just in case I forget to put the curtain back, the Gray made a nice accent color.

 

Just for fun I added a Peacock photo I got at Kirklands a few years ago. The whole frame used to be brown so I sponged the turquoise paint on the outer frame to give it a freash new look!

To make the hallway even brighter, I changed the light bulbs to a Daylight LED!

Un-Named Royal Albert Black and Cream Beauty

What a Beauty!

 Black and Cream with a Pink and Blue floral bouquet 

Love the intricate gold design and trim

 This set is in the Avon Shape Un-Named Royal Albert pattern from the 1930s

Also see our Pinterest "Black" Royal Albert Patterns
https://www.pinterest.com/RAPatterns/black-royal-albert-patterns/

Conner's Bedroom

How to make a 13 year old boys room fun and functional, in a small room!The closet... Everything had to fit in it, all of his clothes, hanging and drawer space. Plus storage for all the stuff he wanted to keep, but not display. I ordered a large custom closet system, by Rubbermaid from Wayfair. Even though this system is designed with no cutting and has fit in every other closet I put it in, not this closet! This house, the closet is its own size! So I had to get four custom cut ClosetMaid shelves! Yes you can mix and match! Its got two sets of drawers and hanging space, plus lots of storage!

Now on to the entertainment center!! The focal point in this room!

My son explained to me that TVs had to be on the same wall with the Xboxes. 2 TVs an Xbox one and Xbox 360...How do I fit it all on this thin wall between the door and closet?

So I used the left over pieces from the custom closet system, I was able to fit four shelves and I only had to mount one TV. The wire shelves were perfect for all the wires, I can even zip tie them to the shelves so nothing moves.

 

For more storage I bought 2 Better Homes and Gardens 4 cubed storage shelves from Walmart. I really like the weathered brown color, breaks up the all the black and gray. The storage boxes came from Shopko and they hold lots of skateboard parts. I mixed reds and browns and different sizes. 

On either side of the 54" tall window, I made "Me" sections, one for his awards and one his art work. The award shelf is from Amazon and was great for medals, ribbons, and trophies. But was not easy to hang up, I had to actually drill holes in the shelf as it came with out any mounting hardware.

 The prize display for his room is the skateboard shelf... My thought was "How do I keep all of the skateboards off the floor?". I found this shelf on Amazon too!

He has a shelf made from 2 skateboards in the closet, but it has a weird bracket... I will hopefully figure out how to hang it up...That will be a subject for another post!

 

Then my son has this "can" collection. I guess it's a boy thing, but he wanted it displayed! I painted a old shelf I got years ago at a yard sale!

 

His bed is really a futon sofa, but he likes it flat, with lot of cozy blankets which our cat decided she would try out! 

 

I am hoping this room gets him through high school! My son is lucky to have his own personal interior decorator... Mom.

Organizing my 9 year olds room

One of my first projects of this new year was to tackle my 9 year olds room.

I started it before Christmas, but then he got more "stuff" to add to his room!

As he gets older the question is what to keep and what to get rid of?

I find it best to start any organizing project when he is at school, if he forgot he had it, then he won't miss it when it's gone! If it's broken or missing pieces it goes! If I have not seen in laying in the floor for the last year then it goes! Four trash bags and two donation boxes, and a couple of hours, it's done.

Now onto the Organizing;

I started with buying some Better Homes and Gardens Cube Storage units from Walmart. These are easy to assemble, inexpensive, and come in several configurations. If you order enough of them, shipping is free, so I didn't have to go to the store to get them! I also ordered a desk version too, so everything matched.

The colorful storage boxes came from Shopko and Family Dollar. I mixed and matched the size and color of boxes depending on what I was trying to hide in them😀



In the above photo, I used 4 units, two "3" cubes and two "4" cubes, in the Expresso color.
The walls were green when we bought the house, and goes well enough with the blues and grays of the Star Wars bedding!

The space battle behind the bed was really fun for me to put up as I am kind of a SyFy nerd!

I used an empty tote as a nightstand... 

1.  it fit under the outlet 

2.  makes for a good charging station for the iPad, Beats, and iphone 

3.  Extra storage for new "stuff"

Our cat Gracie, loves the soft blanket found at Sam's Club.

 

The cube storage desk is also made by Better Homes and Gardens, but I have only seen it on WalMart.com and it fit perfectly! The TV is mounted up high so there was still plenty of room to use the desk. The 55inch 4K TV is perfect for gaming on the Xbox 360 and Xbox One. It's also a smart TV for streaming Netflix and Amazon Prime.

I even hooked the laptop up to the TV too, pretty high tech room for a nine year old.

Lastly I used one more cubed storage unit next to the desk for game and accessory storage.

 

My favorite find... the medal and trophy shelf, found it on Amazon. 

My kids swim and they love displaying their accomplishments!

 

Closets are the biggest "missed" storage opportunity! So I use Rubbermaid closet systems in every closet!

 To make sure I can use every bit of space I replace the doors with curtains. I am also not a fan of dressers, I build the closet to fit the dressers inside.

 This project it done!! I wonder how long he can keep it this organized....

 

 

Adding Royal Albert to your Decorating

Happy New Year!!

Over the holiday break I have been working on my living room. Teal is my favorite color right now, and Gray is my new White. I have a small living room and no fireplace, which means no mantel. So I created one! 

I also had to add a teacup or two! Royal Albert has made some very pretty Teal colored patterns that I could add to my new home made mantel over the TV! I try to add Royal Albert in my decorating everywhere I can!

Then a few Peacocks... love Peacocks!

The cabinets came from Target and were pretty easy to assemble. They hold lots of Royal Albert China! And the drawers are big enough to hold China boxes.

The accessories were fun to collect too. Cracker Barrel Country Store has a great selection of Peacock items, like the clock and the candle. Kirkland's is another fun store to get great decorative items,  like the light up Vase on the far side, which was a Christmas present. 

The silver "P" and peacock plate (matching coffee mugs not shown) came from TJMaxx.

I love to decorate on a budget!