Welcome to Adulting, which is me being an adult. You would think that because I am a 34-year-old woman with a mortgage and four children I might already be an adult. That’s possible, I guess. Technically I am an adult. But I am also someone who never puts away laundry, always has dishes in the sink, hides messes instead of dealing with them, and ignores all possible hard things as long as possible. In my mind, those are all things adults don’t do. Those are things trash people do when they are in college and live in crappy shared apartments.

My goal for 2017 is to stop being a trash person and start being an adult. I need to get my junk under control – all kinds of junk, both physical and mental. One of the ways I’ve started doing that is by fixing and changing things in our house that do not bring me joy. (If that phrasing sounds familiar, it’s because I’m reading The Life-Changing Art of Tidying Up, although I’m not ready to commit to it as an actual lifestyle.) I’ve hated our kitchen faucet since the day we moved in, but I’ve never done anything about it. Now we have a new faucet and I am 100% more likely to do the dishes and wipe them with fresh flour sack towels.

The first room I decided to make more joyful is our downstairs powder room. It is a teeny, tiny little bathroom and I had a budget of approximately $50 so it isn’t as dramatic as a real bathroom makeover. I would love to replace the tile on the sink and the floor eventually. But there is plenty I can fix right now. And I did!

Here are the befores:

It really is teeny tiny. And whoever put in the tile used brown grout. I hate them.

I found that painting at a garage sale in our neighborhood years ago and plan to keep it forever.

This was a very misguided attempt at making the cheap plywood vanity look nicer. I messed it up and never fixed it.

At least the huge mirrors on this wall make the room feel a little bigger.

And here are the afters:

The wall color looks different in EVERY single picture. It’s a medium-dark green, not quite kelly green and not quite hunter green. I was going for emerald and it makes me very happy. It’s called Tournament Field and it’s Behr semi-gloss.

We have to have full coverage on that window because it looks right into our neighbor’s yard. But the curtain felt messy and the mini-blinds were always dirty, so this nice solid shade is a huge improvement. The kids still need their stool, but with the small trash can on the other side I can move the stool out of the way for grown ups.

The painting stays.

I painted the vanity the same color as the walls, so it looks more built in.

This container can hold my mascara, face lotion and wipes, a few bandages and other tiny things that used to just sit on the counter.

Tiny fake succulent from TJMaxx because I would kill a real plant but the green looks so nice in here.

This seemed like a good reminder to see several times every day.

Nice matching hand towels. I still need one more set so I can rotate when they’re in the wash, but the embroidered Christmas ones had to go ASAP.

Isn’t that color so much happier? I am definitely 110% less embarrassed to let people use my bathroom than I have been for the last decade.

Oh hai, want to see where I live? I’m wicked nosy when it comes to houses (I became a real estate agent for a while pretty much just so I could see the insides of more homes) and I figure some of you guys are too. I was going to make this a linky hop party but I’m not organized enough to get one set up – but if you have a home or room tour (old or new) PLEASE leave me a link in the comments!!

I lot has changed since my last home tour in April 2010, and although I’ve documented most of our renovations step by step I thought it would be fun to show you the whole house at once. (Although the original tour has a lot more good pictures of my collections and furniture.) I’ll try to include links to the updates so you can see some of the “before” type pictures, or check out my Home & Garden category for a whole roundup. For the record, I’d like to state that although I love my house I am not an interior designer, professional painter, a home photographer or even a very good DIY-er so don’t judge me too harshly, OK?

Tiny bit of history: the house was built in 1913 by Mr. Church, who ran a funeral home here in town. His funeral home business actually still exists, and is just a couple streets over. My house is turning 100 next year and I think I’m going to throw it a birthday party.

Our property goes from that hedge on the left to the driveway on the right, although technically the lines fall closer to half-way through the house on the left and 3 feet into our yard on the right. I suspect we’ll have to have a survey done if (when) we sell.

Front steps

Flowers

More Flowers

Front door

This is going to be a REALLY long, REALLY picture heavy post, so if you’re on the home page you can click though to see the rest… (more…)

Is there anything better than Ikea?

This is just the tip of the giant Swedish iceberg

I bought a yard of Ikea fabric while in Minneapolis to use as “inspiration” for the new nursery/playroom but I’m already changing my mind about it. It’s very…yellow. And the green is sort of a split-pea-avocado shade that may be too modern for me. It does have adorable birds and a fantastic amount of orange so I’m hesitant to trash it, but it may end up as a single throw pillow instead of the main color scheme.

I’m sort of shocked at my total NON-desire to do Baby Sandy’s nursery in pink and purple and crystals and ruffles and flowers. I want primary colors and clean lines and shapes and animals and have no plans to paint the almost-white walls and beige-yellow moldings. (And not just because I hate painting, especially trim.) My taste in nursery decor has pulled a total 180 in the past year and a half. Maybe I’ve been looking at too many nursery tours on Ohdeedoh. Or spending too much time stalking Morgan at The 818.

For example, if I had had a girl the first time I think I would have gone TOTALLY overboard with the nursery theme.

Like this. Only PINKER. With a giant chandelier.

Or this one. Only SPARKLIER.

OR THIS ONE. Which I will admit is pretty cool. Really cool. I kind of want to go to there.

I think it’s good I came to my senses for Baby #2, don’t you? (My husband may have just pulled a muscle from nodding too hard.)

So here’s my question: BESIDES Ikea, where should I be shopping for nursery stuff? Pottery Barn Kids is…boring. I get the CB2 catalog but none of it is very baby-friendly. Same with West Elm (and holy over-priced end tables Batman!) Should I just start stalking Craigslist with a passion?

P.S. So we actually WENT to Ikea Sunday and I bought…none of the above. I did buy this:

EDLAND dresser

It is MUCH paler gray in person and will match both the yellow & beige walls & carpet and that fabric I’m growing to like more and more every time I look at it. Plus, it’s huge. I’m going to put it in Baby Evan’s room for now (to solve our current NO DRESSER problem) and move it into the new nursery once we get our renovations done.

I also bought the easel I’ve seen approximately fourteen different people blog about this month, with a chalkboard on one side and a white board on the other PLUS  giant roll of paper you can pull over it for crayons. Baby Evan is a little young for it still (did you know chalk will write on almost any surface, including your own face? BABY EVAN DOES) but I mentioned it at least forty times as we walked through the store and E wanted me to shut the hell up likes buying me things I want.

Next time, I’m going to mention the moose rocker.