Hello friends! Taran is sleeping in this morning so I'm taking this quiet time to do my post. I didn't mean to be long for so long. Taran's been sick. We had a fun little snow storm and very frigid temps! 3rd this winter. We have snow up to our eyeballs. Kellon had 3 snow days from school. He finally went back to school yesterday to a full school week in a very long time, it seems. Kellon started swimming lessons last night...another challenge for us.
As I mentioned in my Blog TITLE...I got the bug. The organizing bug, that is! I don't know if it's the new year or the NEW "want to be" SIMPLIFY MY LIFE me? But I've been feeling really good lately. So I tackled the dreaded craft room supplies. I'm not a very good organizer...well I should say in the past. When I see chaos, then I get so overwhelmed and just give up! Well I'm happy to say the craft room is CLEAN! Besides the many projects waiting on me. But at least my supplies are in order and my work benches are clear! My goal is to PUT THINGS AWAY WHEN I'M DONE WITH THEM!!! Sounds simple, huh? But when I'm looking after 2 little boys, it's easy to drop what I'm doing and let things BE and then the piles easy accumulate very fast!
I went head first into my office closet and everything that has overflowed on the floor. PAPERS! Another nightmare. It took me 2 days but everything is filed! Things have been thrown away, shredded, has a new home. I totally feel refreshed and ready to keep this up!
Next up are the decorations I have packed up. Things need to be purged and reorganized into a better system. I have a big thing about sentimental value to things I don't really care for. I hang on to them and they stay in a box. What's the point of having them if they are hiding in boxes? So this will be a hard process for me. I just need to learn to LET GO of a few things and let someone else enjoy them more than I will/would. The STUFF feels like it's suffocating me and REALLY I need to SIMPLIFY. :)
Any new year's resolutions you've been working on? I'm treating this as a NEW START instead of a resolution because really I don't stick with them. LOL I told hubby I was going to be obsessed with organizing as much as I am with finances/budgeting. He's going with the flow and said he would work with me on this. Now if I would only get this excited about working out? :)
Along with purging, I've been tweaking. I got the wall decor in the living/dining room rearranged. That's fun for a different "look"! Remember my Christmas wreath/frame I got from Leslie? Well I took the Christmas sign off and then flipped the wreath and the frame (to accommodate the current nail holes). I think it looks great! And now I can enjoy it a little longer.
Here's a few other things that have been moved.
Remember my project with drop cloths that I mentioned in my last post?
I love our house! It's spacious. I love the layout. I love our edge of town lot. But like any house that you didn't design yourself, there are a few things that I would like to change or are challenges...Like my kitchen. I love it since we did a makeover on it but I wish it was a little bigger. Our big bathroom needs major updating. And another challenge is this HUGE window in our living room!! This baby is floor to ceiling! 18 feet wide and over 6 feet tall!
We bought this house from the grandson of the original owners. His grandparents wanted a BIG window to sit their 2 chairs in front of and watch the action, I guess. I would of personally put this HUGE window to the back of the house for the view. The grandparents didn't use curtains we heard. The old homeowners used vertical blinds. YUK. They were torn down as soon as we moved in. We replaced the 1960's woodwork with primitive looking 1x4's with red paint. YUM! Another dilemma with this wall/window is the 2 heating/AC vents at the base of the wall. So full length curtains couldn't be put there or you'll block the vents. The old homeowners cut a section of the blinds out where the vents were. LOL
So for 3 years, I've been playing around with treatments on this darn window. Nothing has worked on a BUDGET. Sure it would be easy to put treatments on this baby with the CUSTOM PRICE! I couldn't imagine what the price of that would be???!! I know outrageous! Even buying simple panels to go all way across would cost a lot! Then I would have to get them all shortened because of the vents.
Here's a pic of the dilemma. I couldn't even get all the window in my shot! Oh and Kellon says hi. :)
Last year I saw a blog that shared an idea for using drop cloths for curtains! They are already hemmed and ready for hanging! Not painting. :) She used them "vertical" on her tall ceilings/window. It hit me with the idea to use them "horizontal" on my 18 feet of windows. So with 2 drop cloths at about $10 a piece at Home Depot, FINALLY I found the cure to our window curse! I had to buy 2 rods and some curtain clips also. But I found those also at a good price at Target.
A closer look at my "curtains". The material is really nice and thick! The weave reminds me of a good quality muslin.
I thought I would go one one more step with the curtains and dress them up a bit. I had some red homespun material already, so it was ripped to length and clipped to the top. It adds just the right primitive punch to our room. 
I was also happy not to cover up the woodwork we worked so hard on. As you can see we had to stop at the bottom of the window to work around the vents. The drop cloths come in different sizes, so maybe you can find a window to "treat" on a budget! :)
I can't tell you how unbelievable the privacy feels for us! We felt like we were in a fish bowl and everyone was looking in when out for walks and driving by. SO Finally some privacy! Because we spend a lot of time in this room.
**Note: I did feel bad taking a picture of our neighbor's car, but I just had to show you what I had to look at all day out this huge window!!** Isn't that the ugliest thing?! This is the house right across the street from us that a landlord KING of our town bought. The renters in our town can be quite "characters". A 30 something year old guy drives this thing...sorry to offend anyone that is reading this and loves flames on sides of your car. :) Even my 6 year old thinks this is funny!
Now on to my BLUE makeover! I work at an assisted living facility. In December they had a silent auction on items that deceased/moved away residents left behind. The proceeds go to buying presents for needy families at Christmas. The auction brought about $500! So not bad for left over junk/items! There was a lot of outdated things but one thing did catch my eye! A big cabinet, that needed a makeover! I won it for $35! I was so excited and probably could of got it for less but it was a silent auction, so I wanted to make sure I won. There was only 2 other bids. Plus the $ went to a good cause.
So like a bad girl, I forgot to take a BEFORE picture! I can't believe it! I was just too excited to start on it that I forgot! I did take a quick picture of the inside shelf. As you can tell, it's just generic looking. It looked like it was from the 1980's.
When I got it home, I saw it was actually from 1975 and it was homemade. A little homemade plaque was put on the back by it's maker. :) Maybe the resident's husband?
That made it even more special and was happy to bring it back to life! I had visions of BLUE since seeing Rondell's cabinet last year. I'm not a blue person but I just kept thinking about her cabinet. :) So I took the leap and first painted it black, then I used left over blue paint for Kellon's room color. Then applied stain and spray sealer. I LOVE IT!!
The floor. Ignore it. Please :) I intend to paint the floor this winter. I went ahead and painted the craft side of the "door wall" red also!
I wanted different storage for my craft room...so this inspired me to CLEAN UP in there! I found baskets and paper mache boxes (need painted) around the house for storage. There's plenty of room for the boys' art supplies also. So much better than the metal storage shelf I was using!
So that's everything that's been keeping me busy in a nut shell. :) I have another cabinet that needs a makover. This one is very old so it will take a little longer. Sales tax papers are waiting for me...YUK! And I need to finish staining the red "wall door". Plus Taran and Kellon time. Busy, Busy...but finally feeling very productive!
Thanks for stopping by. Have a Wonderful Day!
Primitive Blessings, Kindra
On Saturday we were going to head back home, but we were finding out that the highways were much worse and some were even closing. So we stayed at my parent's til' Sunday. This Christmas was sure out of the ordinary but we sure enjoyed ourselves!
What a week! We literally have been cooped up...our snow storm gave 
Poor Mr. 
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