"Design on a Dime" Meets "While You Were Out"

While my family has been out of town this week visiting my folks I've been busy (when not at work) doing some things around the house. Unfortunately, I have yet to get to ANY of the items on my to-do list like cleaning out the kid's toy box and closet, cleaning/re-organizing the office, cleaning our bedroom... I HAVE been doing a few little "While You Were Out" activities. Hopefully, my DH will love them so much he'll ignore the fact that I've not touched laundry or mending. I've still SO much to do and the family comes home on Saturday. I'm SO excited about having them come home but need more time to get things done. Oh well, I'll finish what I can.

What have I been up to, you ask? Well, even if you didn't ask, I'll tell you anyway. If you read my "Mama Mia" post you'll see what I was up to over most of the weekend. On the inside of the house I focused my attention to the living room and kitchen. With the sheetrock up on the one wall that has been bare studs for longer than I'm going to mention, I decided to hang some artwork. Granted, we still have to tape and float, prime and paint all the walls (in living room, dining and kitchen) but even without paint yet, they look great! Oh and I FINALLY decided on the paint color for these three rooms... Aged Amber. It goes so well with the furniture and accessories. I can't wait to get it painted...but I will..for a little longer, anyway.

So, I started out by painting the inside of the front door. When I post before/after pix at some point, you'll see why that was, as Martha Stewart says, "a good thing". I hung some art on a couple of walls, rearranged a couple pieces of furniture & decor, and purchased a TON of fabric for the panel drapes I'm going to sew for the living room window (hope DH doesn't mind I didn't get his input on the drape fabric). I am HOPING to get the drapes done before the family gets home. They are an olive color and are just divine! Even better was that I got the fabric 50% off!!! That is the ONLY way I could have done it and still much less expensive than buying pre-made.

In the kitchen, I cleaned out the cabinet we are using for our pantry and painted the interior white and also cleared the top of all the junk and put some decor up there. I cleaned out the junk drawer (after almost two years, it was past time cause it was junky), cleared the top of the fridge and was able to put some decor up there and I LOVE it! Moved some kitchen cabinet items around as well as some countertop appliances. DH won't be able to find anything for a few days. All that gave me much more workable counter space (and cabinet space).

I've still lots of cleaning to do but I'm very excited about the little progress I've made thus far. We'd been holding off doing things around here cause we bought this fixer-upper with the intention of doing quite a bit of remodeling. Unfortunately, the pocketbook hasn't allowed us to do what we want ... yet... so I'm making the best of things for the time being. With the exception of the drapery fabric (which was 50% off in case I didn't mention that yet. Hee hee) and a little craft paint, everything was stuff we already had stored away. Now THAT's "Design on a Dime".