costume closet hack

Our play costumes have a new home in the playroom.

When we moved here, I set up the playroom with all of our cube units from our previous house, and just set them up in a row along the back wall.

At first, we kept our costumes in an open toy chest in the playroom area.  That was kind of a mess, and the toy chest took up a lot of room.

Then I transferred all the costumes to a plastic bin that I stored underneath the sofa.  This was much neater, but since the kids couldn't see the costumes, they didn't play with them nearly as much.

A few weeks ago one of the kids used the cube storage as a ladder and broke the interior shelves.

 I decided that this would be a good excuse to turn the cube unit into a costume closet. I have wanted one ever since seeing this one at Rambling Renovators.

I took out the interior of the cube unit.  This cube unit was a cheap one from Home Depot, and all I did was unscrew the top and loosen the screws on one side, enabling me to just wiggle the posts out and remove the interior. Then I tightened everything back up so it was reassembled. As a side note, we nailed the pegboard to the back of the unit to give it more structural support; the unit didn't come with that on the back.

I screwed a closet rod socket in the top sides of the unit. These are about $2 at Lowes or your local hardware store; you put the rod in the closed side and then slide the other end in the open side.  I discovered these last year when our tension shower rod kept falling down.

I actually used a 24 - 48 inch shower curtain rod for $7 as the closet rod.  Using a wooden dowel would have been about $2 cheaper, but the saw at Lowes was broken and thus I went with the expedient route.  (Yes, you could just use the tension rod, but my kids will rip that down in a hot second, so I went with the additional reinforcement of a closet rod socket.)

I lined the back with fabric I had in my stash.

And voila, a costume closet for $9.

The playroom has been gone through a serious purge.  With the costume closet, we lost 9 bin spots, and I moved another 6-bin cube from the other end up to the Princess's room.  The blank spot on the end is to make room for a new play kitchen that should be arriving this week.

Its working; our neighborhood has seen an invasion of terrifying pirate clowns complete with hook hands and cutlasses.

If you have kids, how do you store your play costumes?

Princess's room: full or queen?

The Princess's room is getting an overhaul.  I didn't do much with her room when we moved in, just threw together what was in her room in the last house.  It was adequate and functional but not exactly inspiring.

We already moved the bookshelves out of the Princess's room and into the upstairs landing.  My budget for this room, with the exception of one item, is non-existent.  Nearly everything will be reused or repurposed from somewhere else in the house.  I only plan on buying one thing: a big girl bed.

Princess is currently in a crib, and her room is not very big.  However, we have frequent house-guests, and when we do, we have to rearrange all the furniture and take the rocking chair out of her room in order to use the air mattress.  Rather than buy Princess a twin bed, and still have to do all the rearranging when guests come, we are buying Princess a bigger bed.  That way, guests can sleep in Princess's bed when they are here, and Princess will sleep with her brothers.

We have been debating a full bed, or a queen.  We taped it out on the floor to get a sense for size.

Obviously the full would fit better in the room.  However, our decision came down to "what's better in this room for the next year versus what will be better in the next house for the next ten years?"  We decided to take the long view--we know that we are going to be in California for a long time, that we are buying a bigger house next year, that we will have frequent family visits, and we want our guests to be comfortable. Since neither this house nor the next house will have a dedicated guest room, that meant a queen bed in our toddler's room.

Nearly all the toys in our house are kept in the playroom, so the lack of floor space in Princess's bedroom is not a huge concern for us.  She only sleeps and gets dressed in here.  I feel silly admitting that my three year old is sleeping on a queen bed---I didn't have a queen bed till I bought my own in my late twenties---but her room is the only place we have for guests, and it would be sillier to make my guests uncomfortable because of a perceived notion that a child doesn't need/deserve a queen bed.

We are having guests for Thanksgiving, so I hope to have this room mostly finished by then.

Anyone else have a kid sleeping on a queen bed so that guests have a place to stay? 

100 of you!, Flowers in the Attic, new reading nook

Holy cannoli, invisible internet friends, I have reached the mythical ONE HUNDRED FOLLOWERS status. Thank you for joining me on this fun-filled ride, and watch out for the invisible confetti.

Honestly, I am really flattered that 100 of you tune in to read my ramblings and poorly lit pictures of my living room.

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Reader Reema informed me that Gary and Elaine are actually brother and sister:

"So, just for funsies, did you know that your busts are copies of the Apollo Belvedere and the Diana (Artemis) of Versailles? If so, Gary and Elaine are twins. Your tale of star-crossed lovers just became soap-opera worthy :)."

YIKES. I had no idea we were getting all Flowers In The Attic up in here.

Gary is still in the living room in front of the fireplace, refusing to look at Elaine, who is steadfastly refusing to look at him too.  Eventually he may be relocated to my bedroom, but currently my dresser is covered in laundry so it may be a while.  Bring on the arsenic donuts.

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This past weekend I began the Moving Around of Furniture.  One of the spots that was reassessed was the upstairs landing.  Previously, I had stored the filing cabinet and Greg's homework table there. It was crowded and cramped and too big for the space.  It was also a clutter magnet.

I was attempting to have somewhere quiet where Greg could do his homework.  It didn't really work, as Peter and Princess would simply play in the hallway while we did homework.  Now we all do homework at the dining table together--Greg does his actual homework, and I give Peter and Princess either coloring or tracing words and numbers to do as their "homework". (Peter is getting really good at spelling "Ninjago" and "high-tech Batman Bat Cave".)

This weekend I pulled the table and chairs out and put them in a storage unit. (Oh yes, I am serious about rearranging the furniture.) The filing cabinet went out to the garage, now that more garage crap has gone to the storage unit.

Using the bookshelves that were previously in the Princess's bedroom, I turned the landing into a reading nook:

We've had the two travel posters for nearly ten years; they were from Target and graced our bedroom five houses ago.  The bookshelves are from Ikea.  The pillows were a present from the Mister a few years ago.

We are all enjoying the new nook.

Paint a Rug party: reveal

Ta DA!  My painted rug revealed:

Sorry for the yellowy lighting, its an interior room with a teeny window in the shower and thus the light is not that great.

As you saw last week, I tried fabric spraypaint, which was crunchy underfoot and too expensive to do an entire rug, and fabric dye, which looked good and wasn't crunchy, but did not dry even after four days and kept rubbing off when I touched it, which is not a great quality in a rug.

I could not find textile medium at any of the craft stores here, and finally ordered it from Amazon.  After taping off the rug, I mixed it with plain black Valspar paint from Lowes, and used a rough rag roller to paint it on. I only had enough textile medium for one coat, but luckily there was enough coverage that it didn't need two.

Then I dragged it out of the garage and onto the driveway to bake in the sun, since I couldn't run it through the dryer to heat set it. (Yes, the neighbors do think I am weird.)  I could have ironed the rug, but that seemed like a lot of effort.

After a few hours in the sun, I dragged it back in and ripped off the tape.  And voila, striped rug!

This was a really easy project; I don't know why I procrastinated so long.  The taping was easy, as was the painting.  However, to be completely honest, despite the addition of textile medium, the rug is still a wee bit crunchy underfoot.  I would be okay with this in a foyer or mudroom, or a place where I don't spend a lot of time in bare feet.  Unfortunately, my master bathroom is a place where I do spend lots of time without shoes, and thus I don't think this rug is going to stay in this room.  I'll have to find another place for it, because I think it looks pretty good.

You can see my inspiration for this rug here, and the process of making the rug here.

Check out what everyone else did with their rugs:

Chinoiserie Chic
Design du Monde

Design Post Interiors

The Junk House

Little Black Door

My Best Friend Craig

My Crafty Home Life

Pawleys Island Posh

The Pink Pagoda

Room Rx

Seekers Bazaar

Simple Details

wedding outfit and thievery

Your comments to yesterday's Gary and Elaine post made me laugh. You all are too funny.  

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I am attending a wedding at the end of October in DC, and I will admit that my selection of fancy-wear in my post-childbearing years is...um..I have nothing that fits.  I asked Mel from I Pick Pretty to help me figure out a nice outfit to wear, because she is excellent at that sort of thing.  She came up with a beautiful ensemble, which I have ordered.  Thank you Mel! I will post pictures once the outfit gets here.  

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I am not that great with cash.  If its in my wallet, I spend it.  Knowing this about myself, I rarely carry cash.  I almost always use a debit card, because then I can easily track my spending.  

I take out cash for specific purposes at the beginning of the week.  If I know that I will have a sitter on Wednesday, or that I need to give a donation for a maternity gift for a teacher, or that I need to pay the swim teacher, then I take out exactly that much money and usually keep it in a designated basket in a cupboard. 

Over the past few months I have felt like I have spent more cash than I could account for--I thought I had more cash than this? I thought I had forty dollars in here, not twenty?  But, as I said, I know that I am not that great with cash and figured I spent it on something.  Although yesterday I could have sworn that I had taken out $80 for various things, and I couldn't find that $80--it wasn't in my purse, and it wasn't in the basket, and that's pretty much the sum total of places I keep money.  And I might not notice if I spent $10, but I assure you I would notice if I spent $80 or a series of small purchases that added up to $80.  

So, after not being able to find that money, I went to the bank and took out $400 because I was on my way to go buy something off craigslist.  I ended up not buying the piece I went for because it was bigger than I thought.  I bought some cupcakes and Auntie Anne pretzels at the mall, and I left the remaining $390 in my wallet.  

Tonight I went out, and upon arriving home, pulled out my wallet to pay the sitter, and the $390 was gone.  Okay, I may not be great with cash, BUT I DID NOT SPEND $390 SINCE LAST NIGHT and "forget" where I spent it.  Also, if someone stole $390 out of my purse, why did they leave me $12 and all my credit cards??

A quick Spanish Inquisition of the childrens revealed that one of my children had, in fact, helped themselves to $390.  Kindly go get that money and bring it here, child.  Child brought the box in which said child had been hiding the goodies, and we proceeded to count all the money that said child had been hoarding.

To the tune of $700.  And my nice gold watch.  

SEVEN HUNDRED DOLLARS.  

(Granted, $470 was accumulated in a twenty-four hour period, but SEVEN HUNDRED DOLLARS!!!!)

If you are a family member who has stayed in my house in the past few months and want to put in a claim, line forms on the left.  

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Tomorrow is my painted rug reveal!

I must, I must, I must increase my bust.

If you saw yesterday's post, then you probably figured out that I bought a pair of busts over the weekend.  I have been searching for a white grecian style bust for about two years, and lo and behold, craigslist gives me not one but two in one weekend.    

Meet Gary and Elaine, star-crossed lovers forever separated at opposite ends of the mantelpiece.  

Gary was evicted when his owner moved in with his girlfriend and the girlfriend, quote, "is forcing me to sell all my stuff on craigslist."  I'm sure that relationship will last.  Gary also came with a valuable and architecturally interesting column, but I drove a hard bargain to not take the column. 

Elaine came from a broken home in Santa Ana.  Remarkably, Gary and Elaine are nearly the same size and are the same finish, which is a lovely coincidence. 

Gary and Elaine are a bit too big for the mantelpiece.  They rendezvous in front of the fire, instead.  

Elaine gets in a tiff; they stare coldly in the opposite direction.  

Elaine storms off to live on the dresser in the foyer.  

Gary gazes forlornly into the distance by himself.  

I am not running a home for wayward grecian busts; is two busts in one space too many?

Elaine looks pretty awesome in the foyer and I plan to leave her there.  I like Gary in front of the fireplace, but am willing to move him to my bedroom.  

Advise, invisible internet friends!

craigslist victory

I have a list of things that I search for on Craigslist on a regular basis.  One of them (a pair of them!) finally showed up this weekend. Any guesses as to what I was looking for?

via Elle Decor

via Southern Living 

via Green Street

Designer Ryan Korban

via Tom Scheerer

Now I just have to figure out where to put them.