{pretty, happy, funny real}: New Living Room!

{pretty}

Remember last week when I was lamenting that I had a less-than-pretty view when I opened my front door?  Well, it turned out that moving the homeschool shelf was the missing piece to my living room jigsaw!

Here's the before picture to refresh your memory:

Looking back at this, it's not exactly ugly, it's just that the first thing I noticed was the pile of papers on my desk.  :(

Here is what I've got now!

I'd like to improve the wall art, but this is so much better!!

{happy}

My desk is now (at least initially) hidden behind the door.  And actually, I love sitting over here by the windows with the breeze blowing around me.  The internet is a tad slow being this far from the modem, but we'll have to see what we can do about that....

I've had fabric meant to recover that chair for years.  Must. Acquire. Crowbar. And. Staple gun.

{funny}

What would a {phfr} post be without some photos of this guy?

I put out the ottoman for one of these shots... reminded me why I don't leave the ottoman out.  Not to mention the underside is all cracked and full of nails sticking out at odd places.  Nice for putting up feet, though!

I then put away the ottoman, but John protested so much I gave him the pillow.  He likes to "sleep" on small pillows like this.  Normally, he gets the right end on the pillow, though.

{real}

As in, we REALly need some storage back here.  I was hunting around on craigslist for something to put in the place of the homeschool shelf.  Good thing I didn't find anything I really liked, because that was where the TV needed to go to make this new arrangement work!  Now I'm hunting for some kind of long and low shelving or buffet or cabinetry to put back here under the windows.  I do love that it's open now, but we need the book storage space!  And I also like couches in front of bookshelves.  Makes it feel like a library.

Linking up...

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Our tree and front window with stockings hung by the windows (no chimney) with care.

A view from that window: Most definitely a white Christmas!

Our hodgepodge tree.  The kids and Dad decorated while I cooked the traditional Christmas coffee cake.  I don't think I have pictures of that, though!  Maybe on my phone?

[coffee cake photo here!!]

One of our Nativity scenes.  Baby Jesus has arrived!

Our Christmas card display. I know it sort of looks like a pile stuck to the wall, but this is where I display birthday and other seasonal or Thank You cards throughout the year, so I love to switch it over to Christmas at this time of year!  I used to dread Christmas cards because it reminded me that I never get around to sending them.  Thanks to my dear husband who now takes care of this, I can enjoy each card and know that we've reciprocated!  What would I do without you, My Dear?

My shy princess.

My boy.  With his new musical toy.

My not-so-shy-any-more princess.

There's that lovely smile.  :)

Finally, a use for the neglected Boppy pillow. (Opie is the orange kitty, and Faust is the Siamese or Himalayan or whatever he is.)

 

 

 

My first roast duck.  It was a success!

Some of the rest of the feast.

The girls at dinner—I think Maggie's going to eat that whole plate of potatoes.

Still sleeping, although they seem to have shifted positions.

A multi-generational Christmas trip downtown later in the week (included grandparents, kids, uncle, parents).  I think you can see my reflection taking the picture in the El window.

The Daley Plaza Christmas tree as seen through whatever that weird piece of Chicago art is.

Another view.  Some years they have piled many little trees, but this year it was a single giant tree!

Me and my boy in our favorite coat made to go around a baby in a carrier.  The monkey hat was a gift from his Aunt/godmamma.

This is the family photo where the average of the sum total of our expressions comes out at "fairly pleasant."  

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you and yours from all of us!

Sink Wall Love

Like Mother Like Daughter is having a linky party today.  We are beautifying the wall or windowsill or whatever it is that you have behind your kitchen sink.  I love it!

Mine used to look like this:

Boring, right?  I've wanted something up there for a while now—a specific something.  But I put it off because notice I use that space for drying large flat things like cutting boards and cookie sheets.  That pretty much covers up that little wall.

I haven't been using a dish drainer lately because I find that I empty it and put away the stuff even less frequently than I get rid of this pile.  At least when I get rid of this pile, I have the option of an extra square foot of counter space, which adds up in a Chicago apartment kitchen!

Notice the towel my stuff is drying on?  Go to this post on Kitchen Flow and scroll down a ways.  Leila does the same thing!   (I'm so validated!)

Mercifully, my iPhone camera is not high-enough quality to show how dirty the wall back there actually is.  And I'm not showing you the rest of the kitchen either.  I took some photos of it though... maybe I will show them to you when I have something clean to put with them!  Let's just say that since we added child three and homeschooling a kindergartener to the mix, I've been a little out of sync with my kitchen cleanliness.

I didn't have a chance to examine the "flow" in my kitchen.  It's a little odd since our dishes are stored in the dining room in the china cabinet to leave space in the kitchen cabinets for food since our pantry is our utility laundry closet.  (Whew!  That was a long sentence.)  And there's only one way the dishes can be stacked and flow which is not very efficient because of the placement of the stove and dishwasher.  But it's fine.  This is the most counter space I've ever had!  (Not showing you the rest of it, though, remember?)

I didn't even have a chance to clean the wall.  Shame on me, I suppose.

Instead, I made one change.  Just one!

 

 

OK.  Maybe that counts as two.  Although, I'm not sure that anyone else will put my cutting boards up there.  In fact, I think my husband actually moved one down from up there thinking it was probably an accident that someone balanced it up there and that it would fall if not moved.

The important change is that little framed Bible verse.  For a long time now, I've wanted to have various verses posted around my home that apply to the task at hand.  It's similar to what I've seen when our Orthodox priests vest.  For each piece they put on, a Bible verse (usually a Psalm verse) is prayed.  Naturally, the psalm that comes to mind when I am at the sink is this:

10 Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me. 11 Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me. 12 Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit.

~KJV, Psalm 51/50

I spent a little time reformatting a file I'd already made for another framed verse on the opposite wall.  I think I posted it here somewhere, but I can't find it, so I can't link to it (I think it's still in draft).

This is what I came up with:

(To save, click on the image to enlarge it, then either click and drag it into a document and print, or right-click and save the image and then insert into a document.)

I printed it, trimmed it, and framed it with an inexpensive black IKEA frame.  If you like it, feel free to follow the instructions above and use it!  I'd like to come up with a few more of these for other places in the house.  It's one way I can remind myself to pray throughout the day, especially during the less-than-exciting household tasks.

Thanks to Leila for the nudge to get this up there!  Go visit her post and see some more Sink Wall Love or join in yourself!

Rotating Art Wall

In searching for a way to display rotating icons, picture study subjects, and the kids' art, I have come across this nifty gadget.

I found it at IKEA for $5.99.  It may have even been cheaper than the website price--I can't remember.

I would really like to have something like the frames Mary uses in this post instead.  But I couldn't figure out how they would work if the art I wanted to display was going a different direction from the frame.  Could I rehang it?  Maybe I'm over-thinking it.  Anyway, this proved to be a little cheaper, if somewhat less elegant.

Relieves the fridge of some of its clutter.  It was very nice of IKEA to exactly match this product to our wall color.

Nesting

In my recent post on Simplicity, I mentioned my desire to create a space for myself, which I figured would also do nicely as a nursing nest once Baby makes his or her appearance. It came together in a fairly simple fashion--appropriate, don't you think? I only moved one small piece of furniture. (I'd had visions of relocating a medium-sized chest of basket drawers, but that proved unnecessary.)

The icon I choose is a favorite of mine that used to reside in my kitchen: She is the Mother of God, Nurturer of Life. I picked it up at St. Tikhon's bookstore during our stay in Pennsylvania last year while my husband was completing his seminary education there. If you look closely, you'll notice she's nursing Christ. My little ones really relate to this icon.

Within easy reaching distance, I placed a basket stocked with prayer books, a non-fiction (but gripping) mystery novel, a homeschooling title, and a favorite homemaking read. A bottle of air freshening spray was added to combat the effects of the unfortunately located catbox behind my chair. Our apartment is small, and I can't come up with a better place for it.

I relocated a plant to the window sill, figuring some greenery would be pleasant here, since I will undoubtedly spend countless hours in this chair.

As with my first two, I plan to do as little as possible outside of my home for the first six weeks (or thereabouts) after Baby is born. My doctor encourages this practice, but it also has root in the tradition of the Orthodox church. It is a beautiful time to bond with Baby, establish your nursing relationship, let your body heal, and let Baby begin to acclimate to life ex utero. It also gives the older ones some time to adjust to a new member of the family. Most of all, it encourages Mom to rest and regain her strength. The church blesses this time away and gives it a joyous end in the service of Churching the Mother and Child.

Lots of pillows, a coaster, and a footstool complete my nest. I've been using it daily already. While I had nursing in the back of my mind when I set to work on it, I didn't undertake the project with that solely in mind.

I have noticed that a busy homemaker often needs encouragement to sit down and rest--and to do so away from the computer--to recharge her batteries and actually enjoy the fruit of her labors in her home. Many of the living rooms I have cleaned for my family in the past few years rarely saw me taking advantage of their comforts. However, this spot has been calling my name since I completed it. That it will serve as an appealing and functional nursing nest for my little ones and myself is a nice side benefit.

Simplicity

I find myself drawn to the products of a simplified life. The beautiful photos of homes that are stocked with books, where odds and ends are stowed in baskets, the surfaces are clear, and the textiles rich and layered pull at my heartstrings. I find the idea of homeschooling from whole, living books; nature; the seasons of the secular and church years inspiring. I love the idea of organizing our schooling from a single bookshelf.

But notice that I used the phrase "the products of a simplified life." It is occurring to me that I'm not sure that I actually want to live a simplified life. My purse is huge--I want to be prepared to alleviate the discomforts of all sorts of uncomfortable situations that might arise. But to go with a smaller purse requires me to give a little forethought to the outing at hand--and decide what I can be unprepared for.

My "bathroom bag" for when I stay overnight somewhere is quite large: I carry a hairdryer, numerous hair products (and I don't even consider myself to be someone particularly obsessed with my looks), soaps, lotions, make up.... A smaller bag would necessitate some "making due" with whatever my hosts have available. Or doing without. Why am I unwilling to do that?

Do I like to lead a complicated life? Do really want to lead a simple life? I certainly like the effects of simplicity in other peoples' homes. In my quest to declutter my house, I'm beginning to realize that if I don't really lead a simple life, my home cannot begin to reflect that simplicity in a lack of clutter.

A line from a post on Simple Mom entitled Creating a Home Where the Living is Easy seems to clarify what can be meant by "simplicity":

Let’s face it, we all know life isn’t easy, but it can be easier. It has taken my family years of taking small steps to get to where we are now, and we are nowhere near where we hope to be even next year.

It's about making daily life easier, not necessarily throwing out anything that might be construed as clutter or making my home look like a magazine clipping.

It's also about taking small steps to make one part of my life at a time easier.

As I said above, I like the aesthetic effects that decluttering and simplicity produce in peoples' homes. So, to effectively declutter specific areas of my apartment, I'd have to be willing to actually simplify the portions of my life that correspond to that space in my home. To really declutter our video collection, for example, we'd have to be OK with living without the videos we get rid of.

I am mostly skeptical that I can really simplify anything. I mentioned how I do not lead a simple life in many ways. But then there are things I am trying to change in that department--not necessarily in the name of simplicity, but as a way to make my life easier and to allow more time for other things, like homeschooling our kids. My ongoing project of simplifying our menu into a set weekly one (changing by the season and liturgical year) has made it possible for me to really organize and simplify my freezer.

The Simple Mom post I quoted above has inspired me to take a small step in simplifying my life by making "both time and space for you" (emphasis mine). I can find bits of time, and I will have more of it when baby #3 arrives (if you count nursing time as "time for you"), but I do not have a good space to use that time. More practically, I will need a nursing station. I'm hoping to turn my papazan chair into that space. I'd like it stocked with prayer books, leisure reading, some kids books to dole out, possibly snacks (for all of us!) and a water bottle. It would be lovely if the computer fit into the picture too. I'm not sure what I will arrive at, but I have some ideas.

So, that is my next step in the direction of simplicity in my life and home. I am beginning to feel a little more fondly for the term than when I began this post--simplicity as a name for making my life easier. Who wouldn't want that?

Hanging File Creation

I needed a way to organize my papers: they were beginning to take over my desk. The basket under my desk wasn't working: it was essentially the same as the hotspot on top of my desk -- an unorganized pile of papers, notebooks, keepsakes, and unopened mail. I was fairly certain that the things I had opened or received in the last few weeks were there, but not quite confident enough to be able to declare that I really hadn't lost the generous-amounted gift card my husband had given me for Christmas (gulp!).

Yesterday, I was determined to tackle this problem. I had seen magazine-rack-type things that you hang on your wall. The first ones I imagined would have been made of some sort of metal, but I could conceive of one made of fabric, so I racked my brain. I didn't have the car, and I wanted a solution today! We're also trying to watch our spending, and besides, a home is more interesting when you are creative with storage and what you put on your walls.

I went looking for a pretty sheet. No luck: they were all white, and I'd gotten rid of most of the extras long ago. But I spotted some cream-colored (unbleached) cotton pillow cases from IKEA. They were 99 cents and when they touched your skin, you could tell. No Egyptian cotton here. I played around with folding them in a few different ways. Then I went searching for some ribbon. I found a few, but what I settled on were some pretty neck ties that Andy had given my a while ago for belts or to use in my hair. I don't know if they're exactly "feminine" but I like them and he (apparently) wasn't wearing them. Enter about a dozen safety pins (no sewing here... maybe some day) and here is what I came up with.

And here's a shot to put in perspective.

At first I was really excited about it, but as I looked at it, I couldn't decide if it was cool and "shabby/chic" or just looked like a couple of pillowcases full of papers attached to some ties. It made me giggle when I thought about it that way, and I was sure Andy would come home and burst out laughing. But when he saw it and asked if it just looked like junk, he said, "Oh, it looks like something you got from Kohl's or J.C. Penney's in the 'fake junk' section."

Yes! At least it looks like junk that someone might pay money to put on the wall!