November | 2013 | Operation Home

Before we put our last house on the market, we engaged in full house decluttering. This process included renting a storage unit and storing every item that we didn’t absolutely need in an effort to make our closets appear more spacious. Several weeks ago (almost a year and a half later), we finally got around to unloading our storage unit and bidding it adios.

I’ll tell ya, sifting through things that you forgot you had is pretty fun. And I say that literally. Its like shopping out of your own stuff for free. Among the old Lucas baby paraphernalia and random college textbooks we found a few gems worthy of sharing.

First is this neat, hand-carved whistle that Joey’s had since he was young…

It sounds like a train whistle when you blow into it. The picture of the train is burned on. And check this out…

I wonder if his patent ever went through. Next, we have this awesome ink drawing of St. John’s Bridge in Oregon….

Then, I found a box of memorabilia from our wedding. It was only five and a half years ago, but I have to wonder why I boxed some of this stuff up. For example, our cake topper…

I had searched high and low for a cake topper with a bride and groom on a bicycle, only to find one cartoony (read: ugly) one, so Joeys parents graciously offered to make us one. It was drawn by my mother-in-law and cut out in wood by my father-in-law. And it turned out awesome. Grossly enough, it still had frosting on it when I pulled it out of the box. I’m wondering why I packed it like that. Ick.

And just for fun, because it’s difficult to describe the travesty that were my bangs as a child….

They seriously went back to the middle of my head. Heehee! Ah, memories! Growing them out was interesting (and not in a fun way).

After tossing these items around in my head for a while, I decided to use most of them (Ie: not my bang pic) in a casual photo collage wall. I know… Another collage wall? Oh yes. You bet. But I wanted this one to feel more organic and natural. Less uniform and organized than our living room photo collage.

I decided to extend upon this wall in our foyer….

You can see I was already experimenting with placement of the ink drawing. I decided to start by creating some easy art with our cake topper. Here are my materials…

The shadow box is from Ikea and the fabric remnant was 99 cents from Walmart. I simply cut out a small swatch of the fabric and taped it onto the back of the mat with scotch tape…

Then, I used a spare Command strip from a package of utensil hooks to adhere the cake topper within the shadow box. I cut small pieces to fit behind the cake topper like so….

And Command-stuck it to the matting. Ta-Dah!!

Easy peasy lemon squeezy. Then, I took the whistle and tied a piece of twine around it….

And hung it with a finishing nail on the wall between the two existing pictures. I left the twine long so that I could adjust the length if needed once hung.

I hung the shadow box next to the whistle and added a double black frame from Ikea that I also found in storage. I filled it with a piece of striped fabric layered with a scrap of wrapping paper…

Then, I stepped back and observed…

But the arrangement felt a little lost on the wall and slightly off balance. I adjusted the length of the twine on the whistle to lower it some and added a few more frames up top (that were also found in storage. Seriously, shopping in your old stuff rocks.)….

Much better. Ill probably tweak the arrangement a smidge as time goes on, just because that’s what I do, but I’m really satisfied with it for now.

I didn’t use any techniques to plan out frame placement with this one. I just winged it and hung the frames where I felt like it. I’m really liking the different styles of frames and the mix of black, white, silver and wood tones. It might be fun to extend this one from floor to ceiling. Hmmm…. Oh the possibilities.

Here are a few close-ups….

It feels good to have gotten started on this wall, for sure. It stared at me for far to long just begging for some pizazz. So, anyways that’s my story of forgotten treasures and frame walls! I hope everyone has a happy Wednesday!! 🙂

I’m happy to say that I finally got around to taking pictures of our foyer and hallway. Many changes will be happening decor-wise in these areas as time goes on, so consider these pics a starting point.

Shortly after we moved in, we painted the once beige walls in the hallway, foyer, living room and kitchen. The paint is called Dolphin Fin by Behr and its a soft, pale grey with mild green undertones. I’ve come to learn that this paint color is very difficult to photograph accurately. It appears beige and/or washed out in many of the pics. Just know that in person it’s a nice, soft grey.

With that said, let’s begin the tour, shall we? Here is our entry…

For now, we’ve squeezed the side units from our previous entertainment center together to form a hutch of sorts for storage. It’s working out well functionality-wise, but we’d like something with a bit more character in this spot eventually. Maybe a mid-century console or sleek hutch. We’ll see what the shopping gods bestow upon us.

Looking out from our tri-functional room which is next to the front door…

… we have a mirror that previously resided over the couch in our old house. It was a bronze color and I spray-painted it grey. Again, this is a placeholder. It’s fine. Just not great. Once our master bedroom plan goes into effect (stay tuned for that), we’d like to hang the large, chunky Ikea mirror that’s leaning against our bedroom wall in this spot. It’ll provide much more of a modern presence and fill the space better. I’d like to also configure some kind of non-obtrusive drop-zone on this wall for guests to leave coats and purses. Something that looks decent when not in use, but adds function when needed. Research is definitely required in this area. Boy, I love this kind of research. May the Pinterest eye-candy commence!

I’d also love to do some kind of paint treatment on these walls like stripes or stenciling, but I’ll admit that I’m a little intimidated by these prospects as our walls are textured. Again, research time! I’m sure somebody somewhere at some point has given it a go.

Moving towards the back of the house from the front door…

… we have an entry to the kitchen to the right. To the far left is a small hallway to the non-master bedrooms/guest bath and the hallway in between leads to the living room.

In the middle hallway on the right-hand wall, we have an awesome art piece created by my mother-in-law….

We get to gaze upon it any time we leave our small hallway which is nice.

Looking back the way we came…

…we have an art niche housing a fake orchid and one of the wooden “S”s that Joeys parents created for the centerpieces at our wedding. There’s a coat closet across the hall . And as for the large safety pin, I found it at Hobby Lobby for 50% off and had to buy it.

Back down the middle hall, I still have this blank wall across from my mother-in-law’s painting to contend with….

I have an idea for it, but have yet to come across the supplies I need to make my plan come to fruition. Eventually it’ll happen, though. No doubt.

And the view of the hallway towards the front of the house from the living room…

And lastly, the teeny hallway that leads to the guest bath and non-master bedrooms (the paint color looks right-on in this pic!)…

We have a small linen closet, the guest bath in the middle and one bedroom on either side of the hallway. Within the hallway, one wall boasts a metal wall hanging with votive candle holders…

The other side holds a fun jazz print that I purchased in the French Quarter of New Orleans when I was going to school in Louisiana….

Changes are definitely abrewin’ in these areas shortly. Hopefully, I’ll get ’em done and posted about soon.

And eventually Ill get to posting about the last unseen spot in our house…. Our master bath. Once all rooms of our house are photographed, I plan to create a house tour page with “before” and “current” pics. Oh my gosh, I’m so excited about that. So many ideas that get me all geeked out about this blog, I tell ya… 🙂

Anyways, have a terrific weekend! I’ll be busy writing Mondays post (which I’m uber excited about, FYI). 😉