make my home beautiful

Our progress over the past few months has been slow but steady… We managed to make a beautiful garden place in the front, complete with stunningly beautiful flowers… We painted some cardboard boxes where we now keep our CD/ DVD collection… it’s kinda quirky and cute… and our big winner is our accent wall… So we painted this one wall in teh living room in this technique called ragging… It’s pretty simple… The two shades tht we used are Tibetan Orange and REd Pepper from Behr… With the fall leaves outside in similar colours, my living room now has a personality of its own… Tell me how you like it…

My husband bought this really big house sometime before we got married and it has everything tht we need, but the walls are empty and the house can definitely use some colour. So, a few months ago, we bought four paintings and hung them around the house and wow…. they do add a lot of colour… but tht’s it for now… we’ve decided to stop with buying art… now whatever goes up on our walls will be made by the two of us… maybe photographs tht we clicked, or art tht we created… our home will be who we are…

pssst: but i still love those four paintings… :)

Paco and I did a massive cleanup in the garage. Took a truck load of stuff to Goodwill including a huge old tv (still works). Took a truck load off stuff to the dump including an the old, old fridge. Got three new metal storage shelves and Paco organized his mountain of car-stuff (spark plugs, bottles of oil, tools etc). One shelf is still almost empty so this week I’m getting more plastic storage boxes and can un-clutter the house more!

to the donation drop-off in Factoria; the books are sold at fairs and the money raised goes to local schools and Children’s Hospital. Took this great picture Max made last year of an octopus underwater to the framer! It should be done in 2 weeks! The bookshelves in the living room are less cluttered but still a ways to go…

I’m working on clearing away the clutter, organizating systems, and home decor.

Took two big boxes of stuff to Goodwill a few weeks back. Planted some clumping bamboo (fargesia rufa) to create a screen that hides the garbage and recycle bins at the side of the house. The bamboo is about 3-1/2’ high right now but might grow another foot or two this year!

I planted some flowers. I like looking outside, and seeing the flowers growing.

We popped out today to get everything we need for our balcony. We bought lots of beautiful colourful flowering plants, repotted them, some herbs a barbaque and a table and chair set.

We got some great bargains so I feel loads better about going out & spending all of that cash. So now we have a balcony, SUmmer ready and just everything I hoped for.

It’s inspired me to change some little things in the lounge and dining room. It all looks so lovely.

Now I’m going to focus on framing some pictures of family and friends. So I’m going to look for some small picture frames that i can use for the job.

This is getting to be fun.

Next month, a sleeper couch for the guest room/study.

Yeah!

My living room is much better now. I invested in a couple of pretty rugs to cover the tile floor and it feels so much warmer now. I also moved the furniture around to accommodate a small dining area. Its only big enough for two people but that’s just fine. I need to work on my art studio area now, since it is really in public view anytime anyone comes over.

For me, making our home beautiful also means decluttering the things that we don’t value or don’t use, and keeping the beautiful, meaningful and useful things. We have so many storage boxes of things that I know we don’t use, and haven’t missed, but the job of deciding, sorting, re-homing and/or ditching is daunting. For now I want to record this as a goal, along with a desire to simplify and beautify our home. No concrete plans as yet, just taking the first step and adding it to my list.