Around Here

The boys and I have been keeping marginally busy around here so far.  I wouldn’t say we are exactly staying active, but we are managing.  We are at the library once or twice a week, both for the books and for the programs.  We go to parks, see the free movies at the movie theatre and play a lot in the backyard.

Since I have been home more I decided to do some very small changes around here.  Nothing dramatic or time consuming but it is rather fun.

I had these two little tables which while absolutely not fashionable are quiet functional.  They had this sponge painted pink/lilac/lavender paint finish on them from about 10 years ago that really just didn’t fit our current decor.  I had thought about painting them black, however I wasn’t sure I wanted them to be that stark.  While perusing the spray paint aisle I found this fantastic black paint with little copper flecks in it (it was even on sale).  Silver would have been more my style, but for some reason this paint grabbed my attention.

       

I have to say, that while still not fashionable or particularly beautiful, I’m happy with the way they turned out.  It is hard to see it in the photos but they have this lovely little black/brown sheen on them that I like.  It was almost like having new furniture.

   

My other favorite item is a wire paper rack that I purchased from a scrapbook store that was going out of business.  My original intention was to use it to hold my scrapbook paper (I am determined to get a handle on my paper fetish.  You would think it would be as simple as “stop buying paper”, but that is madness).  Instead of using it for my paper, I decided to use it for all the paper the kids use.  I was getting sick of finding paper on the floor because the color they wanted was on the bottom of the stack in the drawer and they didn’t notice the one or two extra sheets of paper that fluttered out when they got theirs.

I have to say it is working very well.  They can see what colors they have and since the white paper is just my printer paper it doubles as storage for that too.  If you are wondering, the top rows of white paper are actually three different sizes.  I will fill them in with additional colors as the two odd sizes are used.

One thing I did do to this rack was to paint it.  It was the normal white wire when I purchased it and that was definitely not working for me.  I wanted to paint it black, but we didn’t have any black spray paint (this was pre-table projects) so I used  a dark hunter green that I had.  I really like the way it looks with that darker color.  It blends in better with my house then that stark white does.

I’ve also painted the hallway a color that I thought was light gray but which looks distinctly bright white on my walls.  I’m not sure it is my favorite color, however it really brightens up my hallway which no longer looks dank, dirty and dingy so it works for now.  I am trying to decided on another wall to use it on since my kitchen/living room/dining room/family room is basically one big space.  It think I will use it on the main walls and then add some color along a few accent walls.  I guess I’ll just see how it goes.  This is of course assuming I can decide on a color for the accent walls.  That should only take me 5 or 6 months since I don’t even have an idea of which color range to start.