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The Year of the House

I have all the usual resolutions that people make around this time of year – lose weight, exercise, eat whole grains, get out of debt, get child to stop pinching me AND to stop making that annoying slurping sound between sentences which for some reason she's copying from her friend across the street – but most of my 2007 goals center around my home, which is desperately in need of improvement. In fact I spent a few hours this holiday weekend scraping wallpaper in the kids’ bathroom, and whilst I did so – IS there a more tedious job than scraping wallpaper? – I envisioned a plan for the rest of the house.

The wallpaper in the kids’ bathroom has to go due to an unfortunate incident with the towel bar – but it needed to go anyway. Like all the wallpaper in the house, it’s dingy and out of fashion and in colors that I don’t much like. So all the wallpaper is going away, and all the walls in the house will be freshly painted by the end of this year. The kids’ bathroom will be the same blue as their bedrooms (because we have just enough paint left over). Our bedroom/bathroom will be that lovely aqua/chocolate brown/pink color scheme that’s all the rage right now. (In fact there’s a beautiful comforter at Target that I have my eye on – it would be perfect -- but I can’t quite bring myself to buy it yet.) I haven’t decided about the kitchen yet, but it’ll be something bright and cheery (because no one wants a somber and gloomy kitchen, do they?). And we’ll find something neutral but not beige for the entry way/hallway. Oh, and I must get rid of the ugly pink blinds in the downstairs bathroom AND figure out something to do with our kitchen window, which looks into our garage. (The garage was a late addition to the house.) I would like to put a shelf or something useful there but haven’t quite figured out how.

Also, I vow to reduce the overwhelming clutter in the house. And to buy a lot of baskets. My visit to Aimee’s house really opened my eyes as to the usefulness of baskets. Did you know that if you have a basket on your bathroom counter, and put all your deodorants and toothpastes and potions and salves into the basket, when it comes time to wipe down the counter, you just have to lift up the basket and voila, it is clean! No more moving around the 57 individual bottles and jars of things! It’s ingenious, is what it is, and yeah, I’m almost 35 and just now figured that out.

So that’s that. I’ll keep you posted because I’m sure you’re all oh so interested.




Chris and I went out to dinner Saturday night, leaving the kids with the in-laws. When we dropped her off Mallory said, “But why can’t I come?”

“Because we’re going on a date,” I said.

She laughed. “But you’re already married,” she said.

Then when we came home, she asked, “Did you do good on your date?” I said yes, and she asked, “Did you hug and kiss?”

“Maybe a little bit,” I said.

Her eyes got big and she said, “Was there dancing?” And was disappointed when I said no, there was no dancing. (In fact we went out to eat and then went to Target. Yes, we live large.)




Phoebe has started to yell, “Hey!” at Mallory when she is poked, prodded, or otherwise messed with, and then will command rather darkly, “Nice.” It’s good to see her learning to defend herself.

Comments

aimee said…
Thanks for saying I'm a genius--that is what you meant, right? :) Ha! Ha!

I will be excited to see your house when it is all finished! Sounds like you have big plans and will stay busy. If you ever need help, just let me know. I love painting!
Anonymous said…
Wow, Krista. That is a big job! Good luck on finding colors that you love and everything else that goes with the colors.

Mom
H Noble said…
Here's my idea of bright and cheery (and I hate wallpaper!): my kitchen is eggplant, but since its primarily cabinets, there's not so much wallspace that the purple is overwhelming. Then I accented it with veggie decorations- eggplants, tomatoes, carrots, peas... Its quite cheery!

My bathroom is terra cotta (ok, although it pains me to say so, its leaning a bit towards UT orange), but its pretty with plants and greenery and such.

The laundry room is bright sky blue with a laundry line border.

And the office is offensive blue with bright yellow 2" horizontal stripes. Justin's idea of modern. But its his room, and I did do a good job on it.

So that was long, but perhaps some inspiration for you.

Happy decorating!
Holly
Krista said…
Holly, your kitchen sounds really cute! I will definitely keep that in mind -- thanks for the ideas!

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