Crap. It's Almost Summer. or What Cheap Decor Really Looks Like

I have a bone to pick with you décor bloggers. When I'm sitting here, sipping my coffee and drooling over beautiful room makeovers and one of you prefaces your recent remodel with "Check out this nearly free room re-do!" I'm totally hooked. I drool a little. And then I click on through and read that the new doors cost $600 and you got a steal on the new rug for only $350, and the sofa was a mindboggling steal at $800 but those custom curtains cost just about that much.

Dude. That's like mega-millions in my world. That is the farthest thing in the world from nearly free.

Here's what a "nearly free" room makeover looks like for me, and my other poor frugal friends. Steal curtains from the next bedroom over. Dig through boxes in the garage and come up with a few trinkets. Spray paint them to match the look you're going for. Bust out some scrapbook paper, craft paint, canvases, and exacto knives for wall art, or just paint over some thrift store ugly that you discovered. If you're really lucky, dig around in the bargain bins at Big Box Discount Store for a new comforter. Nevermind that it feels like sleeping on cellophane. Drool over adorable baskets and bins, but balk at the $30 a pop you'd have to shell out for them and instead opt for gift-wrap and cardboard boxes for a custom look. Super glue the wheel-tracks back on the dresser that is falling apart (that should buy you another year with the thing) and replace the knobs with the ones you found for $1 a the thrift store.

{That little trinket was free, just for you. You're welcome.}

One of these days I'll get around to hosting that virtual open house I've been promising…the one where I show you my real life, totally imperfect, thrift-store decorated abode and you laugh hysterically at me. Hopefully soon, since decorating is back on the brain.

I am lacking adventure in my life at this particular moment. Whenever I lack adventure, decorating takes stage front and center. It's bad when decorating takes over my brain, especially in the state of financial affairs known affectionately as broke as a joke or too broke to pay attention. Honestly though, I find this the best time to revamp a room or liven up the place a bit. When money's not in the picture, decorating requires a serious level of creative problem solving and it feels like a challenge. You can't just run to the store and buy what you like—you have to figure out more interesting ways to get the look you're after. I'm all about the challenge.

Our adventure-less life won't last for long, though. Tomorrow we get our foster care certification and our out-of-state adoption is moving right along at the same time. In the next few months, we'll probably have anywhere from 4-6 kiddos living in our (did I mention humble?) little one-story house with three bedrooms, including ours. I am excited. I am also sweating with nervousness. Oh, did I mention my 15-year-old brother-in-law is also coming to stay the month while my in-laws renew their vows in Israel? And he's a drummer?

{Take that noisy neighbors who just acquired pet roosters!}

The three kids I already have are on top of each other every single second and sibling rivalry is beginning to come up against homelessness and starvation in my mind as one of the world's most insurmountable obstacles. Okay, not really, but you get the point. The 4-year-old is in the 12-year-old's stuff constantly. The 9-year-old is a total slob  organizationally challenged. The walls are closing in and this house is beginning to feel very small…and we're not even full up yet. Eek. This is particularly distressing because summer is just around the bend, which means 4 to 6 7 kids, age 4-15 in each other's space 24 hours a day and I'm starting to wonder… Oh crap. What in the world am I going to do to keep these kids from killing each other every day? (Especially on those days I'm tempted to let them).

What are your favorite keep-em-busy summer activities to maintain peace in your home? Restrictions include budget and time (I work full-time from home), and the challenge of activities that appeal to the various ages. We are blessed with plenty of outdoor space (2 acres) and a flexible schedule, though. Lay it on me—I'm desperate, and there are only so many $2 movies a mommy can take!

Fun With Numbers

Hey friends.  I haven't been around much the last few days, thanks to what the doctors call "acute asthmatic bronchitis with moderate toxicity and severe dehydration".  Yuck.  I'm still coughing up a lung, but I ended up at the ER yesterday and got dosed up with fluids, antibiotics, and some breathing treatments that have me a lot more functional today.  I'm still hanging out mostly on the couch and trying to take it easy, but I didn't want my creative blitz to get too far behind, so I managed to pull myself together for a bit and hop on my Cricut for a few projects.  The first, which I'll show you today, was part of my long-in-the-works master bedroom makeover.  Because it's hard for me to find time to work in there, I'm giving myself until the end of the month to have that whole room completed, but I'm trying to work on things here and there.  I'm usually more of a whirlwind re-decorator -- throwing together a new room in a day or a weekend, but this is going to require more patience and methodical work.

For those of you that don't know, I live and work at a Christian children's home as a housemom.  This means that we live in a big house on campus with lots of kids (at the moment, we have 8 boys + our 3 kids, for a total of 13 people living in this house).  Since we live in provided housing with most of the furniture already existing here, my decorating freedom is limited by 1) not being able to do anything permanent like paint, upgrade furniture, take out the ugly carpet, etc., 2) working with a vocational ministry budget (funds are always tight, as is space around here), and 3) having to work in the few pieces of furniture we brought with us into this place and make it look alright with the outdated donated furniture that fills up most of the space.  Anyway, there is always a design challenge to work around here, which is both fun and frustrating, at times.  Vinyl is proving to be a great medium for me to dress things up, since it is both long-lasting and also easily removable.  Here, I used my Cricut to make Vinyl cutouts to dress up this ugly dresser.
 

Before:

After.  Well... kinda.  More like, in process.  

I still have to replace the knobs on this bad boy before it's truly finished. 

 

Isn't it fun?  Since the carpet is a not-so-wonderful greenish-turquoise color, I'm going for neutrals in the rest of the space.  I thought the black vinyl on the wooden dresser made a cute touch for the look I'm going for.  Can't wait to finish the room and show you when its done!

Whatchu working on out there?
Whatever it is, Have Fun and Get Smitten!

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My $2.34 laundry room makeover

Sew, I loved my new 'sew' sign sew much (see below) that I decided I sew had to have another one.  ;)

Only this one says 'Wash', to go above the washer/dryer.  While I was at it, I figured I might as well take this whole creativity blitz a step further and just makeover the whole darn laundry/sewing room while I was in there.  I needed some cheeriness, and that turned out to be just what the doctor ordered.  Without further ado (and, with apologies for the sub-par photo quality)...

First, the awful(ly embarrassing) BEFORE shots:

Aaaannnndddd.... the AFTER: 

 

 This room truly is a multipurpose room.  Our back door is the one with the red curtains, and it gets a pretty fair share of foot traffic.  This is not only our laundry and ironing room, but our mudroom, sewing room, storage room, kitchen extension (our 2nd fridge is in here), coat room, and bottled water central (we can't drink the water on campus -- it's horrifically icky, so we go through a LOT of bottled water). 

  

The bones of this room are terrible -- ugly wood cupboards, 80's linoleum, and busted, yellowing walls with crooked switch plates.  My decorating challenge is (always) that I can't paint the walls or anything attached (like, the awful cupboards), or change the flooring or do anything remotely permanent.

The photos don't show it but I hung bulletin boards down the side of the refrigerator in there, and hung vintage prints of 50's housewives giving laundry tips on them for another touch of cuteness.  Best of all, the only thing I bought for this room was the $2.34 tension rod that I hung the brown curtain across (it's peeking just to the left of the "s-e-w" signs and hides a massive shelving area which stores my fabric and sewing supplies and other house miscellany).  The red polka dot containers in the sewing area house my sewing notions (and were made from used-up coffee cans and wrapping paper).  I already had the shelving and stuff on hand.  Yay!

Ok, I know... waaaaaaay too excited about a laundry room, but a girl's gotta get excited about the little things, amiright? 

Weird lighting, I know... sorry.  The sign says 'sew'.  Every room in this house has fluorescent overhead lighting, including the bedroom (yuk!  Hellooooo migraines), so I compensated with a little table lamp.  Not so great for photo-taking, but much easier on my poor aching head.  Does anyone else get migraines from fluorescent lights?  No?  Just me then...

Well, that's it for my little laundry room.  Next is my the master bedroom (which I'm aiming to do for less than $20 and that's a MAJOR job... so wish me luck!).  So far, I've stuck to my "do something creative every day" project and its felt GREAT.  I think I underestimated the value of creative work in my daily life.  Good on the endorphins, methinks!

Thanks for stopping in!

Have fun and get smitten...