Garage of Doom

I cannot recall if I ever discussed our travel plans.  Our belongings are currently on a truck wending its way across America, which will take two weeks.  Because that means I have no furniture in New Jersey, and no furniture in California, we are currently staying with my in-laws in New Jersey for two weeks.  We will fly out to California on the 14th, and our belongings are scheduled to arrive at the new place on the 15th.  Its a few days before I get to start decorating yet.

When we found out we were moving, the Mister and I knew that we would have to tackle the garage.  The garage has been crammed full of furniture and bins of stuff since the day we moved in.  The use of space was not very efficient.  I do not have a true "before" picture, which is a shame--the furniture literally came up to the garage door and in the middle of the garage, with a tiny, narrow corridor to get to all the bins arranged on the right side.

Here it is after we started shifting some of the furniture out.

A few weekends ago my family came up for dinner, and my sister's awesome husband helped the Mister play a game of furniture Tetris to rearrange the garage.

We gave these bookshelves to my mother.  My sister took a brass headboard and a campaign nightstand, a stroller, and a bunch of clothes for Denise. My other sister took the two bright turquoise chairs, which I recovered on the spot in some Robert Allen Kiki Pinata fabric for her.  Sadly I didn't take any pictures of this.

I went through every single one of the bins on the side of the garage.  They contain mostly boy's clothing in sizes from 3T to 7, off-season adult clothing, and other household items.  I consolidated, donated, and purged.  I finally found the bin that contained my sweatpants, now that I bought replacements a few weeks ago.

Many, many, many things went to Goodwill:

True story:  this trip to Goodwill took a very long time because the road to Goodwill was shut down in both directions for Whitney Houston's burial.  We took the long way around.

After the furniture tetris, the garage looked like this:

When I was notified that the moving estimate was over the weight limit, I decided to leave behind some furniture.  I planned to leave the big black bookshelf and the china cabinet, because I had no place for them in the new house, and the campaign furniture, because it weighs a gazillion pounds.  I discussed this with the movers when they showed up, and they moved the china cabinet into the garage for me.  My sister was going to take the china cabinet and the campaign dresser.

Yesterday she asked for the measurements, so I went out to the garage to take them, and realized....the movers had taken the campaign furniture and put it on the truck.  Oops.  (We made it under the weight limit anyways.)  Sister is only getting the china cabinet.  The black Ikea bookshelf was finally given to someone off craigslist yesterday afternoon.  I gave it to them for free in return for getting it out of my garage.

And now the garage looks like this:

My sister will be picking up the china cabinet on Saturday, and then I am finally done with this house. (That chair belongs to the landlord.)

Over the course of the past week I have cleaned up, patched all the holes in the house, primed over all the crayon on the walls, and painted over all the dings and scratches.  This should have been a post in itself, but I was sort of busy and did not take any pictures.

Onwards and upwards!  The next house is lacking the basement we had here, so all of the stuff that lived in the basement will be in the garage, plus all the stuff that was in the garage here...so....I think its safe to say that there will be a William Morris organizing project or two in the garage of the next house.

I'm linking up this post to Pancakes and French Fries William Morris Project.  

dining room banquette

This is the only picture I have of the dining room end of the bonus room/dining room off the kitchen.  If you look closely you can see the light fixture peeking out from either side of the column in the middle of the doorway.  There is a set of windows in the back that you can see in this picture, and another set of windows plus a sliding door on the right side wall.

Its not the biggest space, and around that corner to the left is the playroom space.  I think the best possible use of space would be to make that far corner a banquette.  We have a round dining table we could use, or our long rectangular table.  

The challenge is to do it inexpensively and non-permanently.  There are lots of diy tutorials about building banquettes out of kitchen cabinets.  However, I need a non-permanent option, as this is a rental and I don't want to hang cabinets that will have to be removed in a year.

The average seat height is 18-20 inches, and the average seat depth is 16-18 inches.  What if I used two single Ikea Expedit shelf units, one along each wall?  The Expedit measures 17 inches high by 15 inches deep.  If I built a base for the bottom, that would raise it to over 18 inches.  I could do the same for the back to extend the depth.  Then I just need cushions. I think this could be done fairly inexpensively, and its not permanently affixed to the wall, so that when we move again it would just lift right out.

Here's some banquette inspiration:

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Two things I notice about my inspiration pictures--one, many of these banquettes have shelves with pictures above them (love that! must have been why I pinned them), and two, nearly all of the round table banquettes only fit two chairs around the rest of the table.  

Does anyone have a banquette and care to share how they like it/dislike it?  

Over the fireplace

I have a fireplace in the new living room.  I also have realllllllly high ceilings.  This means I have an enormous space over the fireplace that needs an enormous something to fill it.

I love large, fancy mirrors over a fireplace.  My peacock mirror, however, is not quite big enough for the space. I've been looking on craigslist and the interwebs for other possibilities.

I saw this pagoda mirror at ZGallerie (aside: squee, I will finally be living within driving distance of a ZGallerie!).  I luuuuuurrrve this mirror.  I had plans to put it in my bedroom, but at 54 x 32 it might be big enough for the fireplace?  I'd probably paint it red if I put it in the living room.

This Louis Phillipe knockoff from Ikea is 77 inches tall and 36 inches wide, so it definitely has a nice scale.  I'd spray paint it gold.

Another ZGallerie option is this ornate Angelique mirror:

I'd love to find something like the Angelique mirror on craigslist for cheaper, but I haven't seen anything so far at a price I'm willing to pay.

I could also put up some vintage art--I am particularly partial to vintage travel and advertising posters:

Aside from the Ikea mirror, however, none of these options are terribly economical.  I am debating attempting an abstract art myself.  However, the canvas in the size I need is itself over $100, and there is a reason good abstract art is expensive---its harder than it looks.  Plus the moving company did not move our paint supplies, so I'd have to buy paint as well, making the DIY option just as expensive as most of the mirrors on the list. 

Decisions, decisions.  I will probably keep hunting craistlist. 

Comedy of Errors

Who's got two thumbs and will never again agree to move across the country on seventy-two hours notice?

THIS GIRL!

Who decided not to stress out and try to get everything done in 24 hours and accomplished packing only what she and the kids needed for traveling in a leisurely fashion, until she received an email the night before the movers showed up notifying her that her belongings were estimated at 525 lbs over the weight limit and thus she owed an astronomical sum of money to the movers, and had less than 12 (nighttime) hours before the movers showed up to get rid of stuff?

This girl!

Who dropped her keys in her mother in law's car, thus necessitating a two hour trip to go get them while the car shipping guy twiddled his thumbs in her driveway waiting for her to return with the keys?

This girl!

Who sent all her food to Grandma's house the night before in a stroke of brilliance, and discovered the morning of the move she had three children, two baby yogurt cups and one spoon?

This girl.

This girl is tired, yo.

This girl has Project Patch All The Holes and Project Paint Over All the Crayon On the Walls to accomplish, but today I am going to hang out with my girls for a last hurrah. Onwards and upwards, peeps.

Shiz just got REAL

I have been informed that the moving company will be here to pack on Thursday.  As in, approximately thirty hours from now.

(picture me running in circles, eating many, many brownies, fanning myself, and generally having a nervous breakdown.)

*pant pant pant*

Friends of the interwebs, I am waving the white flag of surrender.  I had hoped to get more stuff organized and purged and sorted before moving.....but it is not going to happen in the next 30 hours.

The relocation company will be here to pack all of my stuff Thursday morning.  This is fabulous, in that I don't have to pack it.  So why am I having a nervous breakdown?

I'm just not ready to uproot my entire life yet.   Life will be fabulous in California, I'm sure.  But life here was kind of fabulous too, blog title notwithstanding.  I already miss my family and my friends.  I miss my sisters.  The movers coming on Thursday means that this is really happening. I am really moving three thousand miles from everyone we know.

I'm just not ready.

I encouraged the Mister to apply for this job.  I believe that this is a good move for our family. Its going to be good.  But its also the end of an era. I've lived in New Jersey my entire adult life, and most of my childhood.  Its what I know, its what I'm familiar with.  My encyclopedic knowledge of New Jersey highways and ability to find my way home from any exit off the NJ Turnpike will be useless in California.

The movers will load the truck on Friday, along with my car, and then the kids and I are camping out at Grandma's for two weeks while our belongings wend their way to our new home.  They will be delivered on March 15th.  Greg will continue to go to his old school in NJ during those two weeks.

Tomorrow I am going to focus on packing two large suitcases with enough clothes for two weeks in NJ, and a few days of warmer weather clothes for when we get to California.  I will clean out the fridge, as it will be going on the moving truck.  I have a number of other small errands, like picking up the kids' medical records, and I have to make a number of phone calls, like enrolling Greg in a new school.  And that is all I am going to do before the movers get here.

I will try to remember to put aside some spackle and paint and painting supplies and cleaning supplies so that I can patch and clean after the house is empty.

I should probably go pull all the medicines and the passports.  (I am aware that California is not a foreign country; I just don't want to leave our passports on a truck in someone elses's possession for two weeks.)

For now I am going to have a caramel brownie.  Or five.  And read some blogs.

curtain possibilities for the new living room

For the most part, I plan on using what I have for the new house.  I don't see any major changes to the decor, but there are a few things that are different.

For one, the living room will need massively long curtains.  There are four sets of windows that run along two walls of the living room.  They are 11.5 feet high.  (It looks like there are five sets of windows, but the very last set  all the way to the far left are actually cut-outs in the wall into the dining room, and you can see the window in the dining room through it.  There are only four sets of top and bottom windows that need curtains..)

I could attempt to break them up by doing shades in the top windows and curtains on the bottom, but....no.  The room does get a lot of sun in the afternoon, and I will want to be able to cover the windows.  I see two feasible and reasonably inexpensive DIY options here.

Option #1
Use the Audrey drapes I already have, and simply lengthen them with a contrasting or solid fabric at the bottom, like I already did in our current living room. This is the cheapest option, as I have found a few fabrics I like around $5 per yard, and I'd need about 7 yards.

There are two problem with this:
 a) I have four Audrey curtain panels, but they are 2 different size pairs (one is 84 inch, one is 96 inch). This means I have to somehow adjust the 96 inch pair to 84 inches, but not permanently, and then add the extra material.  Not impossible, but a bit of work. (Also, my sewing skills are limited to hemming tape.)
b) I only have four panels, and I have four windows to cover.  I prefer a panel on either side of the window, which means I need 8 panels.  This pattern is discontinued at Pottery Barn and sell for a fortune on ebay, if you can find them, so buying four more panels is out of the question. I would only be able to have one panel per window.

Option #2
Make simple unlined 140 inch panels from this Ikea Gullan Blom fabric:

This is not super-cheap, but its fairly inexpensive, considering I'd be making eight 140 inch curtain panels.  I'd need about 32 yards of fabric, and its $6 a yard.

I will admit that I am leaning towards the Ikea fabric.  It has the same reds and blues as my living room chairs, the scale is really large, and its just so fresh and graphic.  I totally dig it.

For tomorrow's design discussion, lets discuss what the hell I am supposed to put in that 10 feet space above the fireplace.  I assure you that I do not have a piece of art on that scale.  I have an idea or two, but I would love to hear your thoughts.  

The new house (house #10)

So! We found a house to rent. We will not be homeless in California.

We ended up going with our second choice.  Option #1's rental agent seemed impervious to our excellent credit rating and pressing need to find something this weekend. She said she'd possibly let us know sometime next week.  So....we went with the property that was not managed by a crazy person.

The new house is a Spanish-ish style house, with terra cotta tiled roof and peach exterior, and looks exactly like the other 500 houses in the tract. Better not come home drunk, I guess.

On the plus side, it has 2.5 baths (YAY THREE POTTIES), a decent size yard, and TWO large closets in the master bedroom, and lots of closets everywhere.  The kitchen is...hmm...lets politely call it "dated," with peachy-lime-washed cabinets with dark blue tile counters, but there are plenty of cabinets, so that's a step up from the kitchen here where I had to install my own cabinets in order to put away pots and pans.

It has a large room off the kitchen that is advertised as a dining room/bonus room, so I intend to use it as a dining room/playroom space.

There are tons of windows in the house.  In the living room, the windows are 11.5 feet tall, so....what to do about curtains?  That room gets a ton of light, enough that I'll want something to cover both top and bottom windows.  But, I don't plan on staying here for more than a year or two, so it has to be extremely cheap.  Any ideas on where to find 140 inch curtains for $10?

The bedrooms essentially look the same as the rest of the house...lots of high-pile beige carpet and white walls.

We take possession on March 15th....two weeks from now.

ACK.  SO MUCH TO DO.  Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit amphetamines.