Seven on Sunday...

Feeling like I'm trapped in one of those puzzles with the sliding pieces where just one piece is missing and you have to shuffle all the others around constantly to try to get the picture right...(yup, still moving boxes to and fro about the house, lol)...meanwhile:

1. Posted a new Good Grief Blog challenge yesterday. Check it out!

2. Watched this pretty cool show about how the introduction of coffee (and caffeine) into society may have contributed to the Industrial Revolution and the information age, given that prior to that everyone pretty much drank alcohol all the time. Definitely food for thought. ;) (It was a Modern Marvels episode, if anyone's interested...Noah loves those!)

3. Heartbroken over the story of this friend's little girl. Please keep her in your prayers.

4. Someone asked about how to remove the background to create those silhouettes in Photoshop. I'm not a technical guru (and tend to just do what works for me, knowing there's probably a better way), but basically use whatever "select" tool works for you (the magic wand and lasso are usually my tools of choice) to select all of either the background or the person. If you selected the person, use "select -- inverse" so that all of the background is selected instead. Then, just delete it. Clear as mud?

5. You may have noticed that pole in the basement pictures...the one haphazardly wrapped with duct tape and blue yoga mats from the dollar spot at Target, LOL! We're looking at finding some pipe insulation foam to actually go there and make that safer (have only been able to find the right diameter online and it's a bit spendy)...have also considered finding some carpet pad and remnant to wrap there. Any other ideas I'm missing? Anyone happen to have some playground padding laying around unused? Trust me, we've had enough kids (and adults) run into it that it really needs to be covered. ;)

6. If you're local, I'm teaching a mini-album class called Lists of Me at the Treasure Box next Saturday, January 23 at 1:00 pm. If you're interested, call and sign up pronto so I can plan supply counts, okay? 

7. I'm having decorating issues. Amid all this basement stuff, I'm still trying to finish up the family room (primarily finding stuff to put on the mantle and bookcases and one remaining wall). I'm finding, though, that home decor for me is greatly like my scrapbooking. I have no problems with the bigger aspects of design...picking colors, maybe one cool element and the like. But. Embellishing is apparently just not me. Having now realized that, I'm trying to embrace and accept that my own personal style might mean that I need to approach this "decorating" thing differently. :) Do you find that your home reflects your scrapbooking style (if you scrapbook, of course, lol)? Just curious.

Okay, off to move boxes from my office to the storage room...now that I spent the other day clearing the storage room...so that we can finish the computer swap going on in my office. Meanwhile, Nathan will be painting the rec room today and I'm hoping to start sorting the boxes in the front room. We'll see... ;)

Overrun with boxes...

Remember that basement project I mentioned? Figured I'd give you a peek at what that really means so that you'll better understand why I'm not online much right now...

Here was the basement rec room at the start of the year:

 
Yeah. It was a mess. :) In all fairness, it's normally only horrid like that behind those curtains, where we'd been storing things since we moved in more than five years ago. The remaining open space had been just that...open, for the boys to let off steam. But, with the rearranging of the family room before Christmas and then the whole Christmas decorations dealio, the basement became a bit of a dumping ground. Oy. (To clarify, our basement has basically two rooms...this bigger "L" shaped one that we'd been using as two separate spaces and the guest bedroom. Right now, we're focusing on the bigger room. Hopefully the guest bedroom will be a breeze after this.) 

So. Back to my story. In our attempts to create a more usable rec room (since the boys are getting bigger and need more space to burn energy when they can't go outdoors), we've emptied the entire space out and installed new lighting. Like so:

 
But. Here's our front room now:

Lovely, right? And sadly, this is only about 2/3 of the stuff out of that basement rec room (well, the picture here doesn't even show the full 2/3). The rest is stashed in the guest bedroom for the moment. 

So. We're sorting and purging...starting with all the other areas in the house that can possibly hold this stuff, since we'll not be putting it back in the basement. Yeah. A whole house kind of project. ;) Simultaneously, painting the basement. And. Because we're crazy like that, we recently decided that rather than just clean and paint the space and leave it open, we'd also build a fort down there for the boys. Trying to keep our plans manageable but hopeful that it will be well worth it. But. That'll add weeks to the project of course. ;) Sigh.

Anyhow. That's what I'm up to. Man there's gonna be a good garage sale when spring comes around...if I can stomach having a room or two full of that stuff until the weather warms up, lol! Wish me luck!

Go see!

In the midst of reorganizing and painting the basement, so if I go missing this month, please come find me...I'm probably trapped under a pile of boxes. ;) The boys, of course, think being buried is great fun and have already constructed "forts" out of the mess of stuff, lol. They even came up with their own secret code for communicating with each other using a series of light flashes. (They got new flashlights for Christmas.) 

Anyhow. Just wanted to share that my layouts are up for the Good Grief Blog challenge right now. And, even though I missed the right day, go check out my layout for the Prism blog this month as well. ;) Thanks!

In response...

...just a few quick things...

1. Meant to mention that the inspiration behind the silhouettes on the walls came indirectly from Kaitlin. I was admiring her tree and trying to decide what type of tree I wanted to paint when indecision struck (couldn't decide what season I wanted the tree to be in)...leading me to going with the silhouettes instead, lol. Thanks, Kaitlin!

2. I got the awesome vintage digi frames from Designer Digitals. Katie Pertiet has scads of fabulous choices!

3. I should have asked Santa for a snow blower (having just spent another portion of my life shoveling the driveway and sidewalk). In all fairness, though, Noah did half. Need to get more shovels so more than one boy can help at a time. :) Warming up now before heading back out in the snow to take Micah to indoor soccer...

Home.

Yikes. Six days into the new year already, eh? 'Bout time I shared my word of the year, then. :) For the past few years, inspired by Ali Edwards, I've been picking a word of the year. This year, it will be HOME:

(Yes, I envision using these photos of the boys as letters to spell out many words...get used to it, lol!)

Speaking of home...here are the promised before and after pictures of our family room project. A bit over a month ago, we decided finally to *do* something about making our house more a home. We opted to approach it one room at a time and started with our family room, which had become a bit of an extended play area for the boys. The only furniture in the room was hand-me-down such that the boys had no qualms about jumping on it all and really nothing matched. Here are some of the pictures:

 This first set of pictures shows three things...1) we painted that high wall...it's a lovely green color that goes yellow during the day and reminded us just how much difference a simple coat of paint can make, 2) we added a big mirror over the fireplace (when we first viewed the house before buying back in 2004, the previous owners had a nice big mirror there and we've always intended to get one also...just took us awhile, lol), and 3) we mounted a new 52" flatscreen tv (Sony Bravia or something like that...sorry, I only know it was a smokin' good deal) where the fireplace is (we've never used the fireplace and had always joked that putting a big tv there would be the best use of the space). (Sorry, I should have had the boys turn the tv off while I took pictures, but oh well.)

This next set really just shows the well worn loveseat that was really the only furniture in the room before. (Yes, it's in an odd location. Let's just leave it at boys tend to climb, shall we?) Over on the far left was the old tv (which we acquired in trade when one of Nathan's coworkers moved and didn't want to haul his 30-something inch tv up three flights of stairs...can't blame him...it was *heavy*). Feeling rather happy that we were able to find new homes for both the loveseat and the tv with families who appreciate them. 

Oh, you'll also notice the new area rug in the "after" pictures. We ultimately intend to redo the flooring on the whole main level. But, as that was a bit bigger project than we felt we could undertake just now, we opted for an area rug in the meantime to cover up the hideously ugly and stained grey carpet that's been in the house forever. :) Also added two new matching bookcases on either side of the fireplace...have yet to properly fill those up, though.

Yup, got a new couch. Well, it's a sectional really and is fabulous. After years of sitting on the floor for the most part and constant fighting over who got to sit in a loveseat, this is fabulous. (Made us feel like grown ups to buy actual furniture, too, LOL!) We snagged a few coordinating throw pillows (intentionally referred to as "couch pillows" rather than "throw" pillows in front of the boys, LOL) and blankets, too. Changed out the curtains (the new ones look very red during the day but are really a coppery orange...chameleon curtains to go with our chameleon wall, lol) and moved that bookcase, too. Still need to find some artwork or a big clock for that wall space, though.

And this last set of pictures shows my very favorite part of the new look! We moved the mess of games to the basement, gave away the tv and stand and painted that wall!! After serious debates and discussions about what artwork to put there, we decided on silhouettes of the boys (since it is the *family* room after all (all five of us didn't fit as well though)) and couldn't be happier. For those wanting to know how...

1. Take pictures of boys jumping one at a time. (makes things easier if you make sure they all do it from the same distance from the camera)
2. Use Photoshop to delete the background and be left with a fun little silhouette.
3. Arrange all three silhouettes in the same file.
4. Borrow a projector from your husband's office and use that to project the Photoshop file onto the wall. Use a pencil to draw around the edges.
5. While watching football or some such thing on a lazy Sunday, hand-paint the entire thing.
6. Voila! Stand back and enjoy your handiwork! 

Because I just think it's cool, here's another look at it:

We're thinking we might go back and paint the white parts green, too. Can you tell which boy is which? :) And here's one last picture to try to show the whole room better (sorry I don't have a before picture from this angle...hard to photograph this particular room it would seem):

And, that's that. Our plan for 2010 is to tackle one room/project a month and see how things go. For January, we're working on clearing out a bunch of "schtuff" (that we've been moving around with us for ages) out of the basement and converting that area to an open rec room for our growing and active boys. We're feeling a bit overwhelmed by the sorting and purging necessary (glad to be doing it, just overwhelmed by the volume, lol) but are hoping that the results are well worth it. Wish us luck!

So, do you have a word for 2010? Do share!