Before and After

My Week in the Library


You probably have one of those places in your house, too. A messy catch-all where you throw stuff when you don't know where else to put it.
I won't tell you the whole long story, but last week I finally tunneled into "the cold room" and turned it into a tiny library. My boys will probably still call it the cold room, though.
Anyway, as you can probably guess, it was a lot of work. The boys helped a little, carrying books and throwing things away when I asked. I did the painting, though I'm not very good at it.
It took me over a week, I was exhausted at the end of every day, there are still a few things to do, and it was worth it all. Every sore muscle, every scraped knuckle, every wobble of the stepladder that momentarily convinced this very afraid-of-heights girl that she was going to fall to her death was worth the end result.
I bought "oops paint" at the hardware store and I love the colors. I got a set of chairs and matching ottoman at Karen's Treasures, and we have been enjoying our little reading room.
Last night my boys and I snuggled into our new-to-us chairs and I introduced them to Junie B. Jones.
The pictures don't really do it justice. Probably because I took them on my little pink, digital Sanyo. When my photographer friend comes to visit, maybe she'll take some better ones and I'll update you.

before

during

after

 Isn't it lovely? Last night after the boys went to bed, Keith and I sat in our little library and we decided it's the coziest room in the  house.

I'm planning on moving the clock to a different spot because I think it looks weird there, We still need to sort through the desk you can't really see here and we could use a little table to set a cup of tea, but it's mostly done. There is for sure room for more books!

But this is all for now. I will likely have more to say about it later. For now let's just enjoy the fun of before and after. 

Progress?

Just a quick one today. I wanted to update you on the dubious progress we're making on cleaning up the bedroom we've been using for storage.You can read the first post here. I took a picture, but I'm too embarrassed to show you until I have an "after" picture to put next to it. I realize this means I might never show it to anyone because, like I said before, it might never happen.
This is one of those things where it gets worse before it gets better. We've made progress,but you can't tell by looking at the room. (I can tell by how wiped out I am) I still don't know what I'm going to do with all the stuff that's in there and I'm reaching a point where I'm not going to be able to do it all on my own.
Sounds like a lot of things in life, doesn't it? Sometimes progress is almost invisible, we don't know how things will turn out and asking for help is a big key to overcoming challenges.
You might be thinking about how dumb all of this sounds but I bet there are a few who get it. And I guess there's another parallel here. The end result is really important to me so I'm willing to put in the effort it takes to achieve it.
Stay tuned! I hope to have something happy to share before too long.