during and after, & how to do a gallery wall

Okay, so, having new livingroom furniture and making our basement space liveable (credit for which goes 100% to Chris, who spent his last two saturdays making those two things happen) meant two things. 1) The TV went downstairs. We are a one-tv household (granted, Nicole has her little portable DVD player) and that TV is preferably not the focus of our main living area. That is what the internet is for. 2) I needed to do a bit of rearranging so the furniture didn’t look like it was all turned towards an empty corner where the TV used to be.

So, there was some serious rearranging to do. What started as rearranging the couches to find a more attractive solution turned into rearranging, well, the entire house. I maybe went a bit overboard. How uncharacteristic of me! Firstly, you will be pleased to note that my house is a Hot Mess when I am rearranging things. I’ve watched The Nester rearrange her house time and time again with, at worst, an armoire sitting in an unusual place. While I sit around and wait for The Nester to adopt me, I will sigh with resignation over the fact that when I rearrange, clutter vomits all over every available surface. Including the floor. Isn’t it lovely that it only takes two weeks for The Stuff That Hides Under Your Couch to move in? One big problem with this space was that our open concept plan, achieved by ripping out a wall, was a little TOO open. We plan to eventually have a wraparound counter top when we renovate the kitchen, but for now the space was screaming for a solution. So I rotated the microwave hutch! Brilliant! Okay, so this was never meant to be used in this way. Have no fear, creative thinking will save the day! Speaking of creative thinking, Nicole was doing some creative thinking of her own while I was hauling furniture around. You know, Crayola’s Tadoodles paint thingies seem like a brilliant idea, but let me assure you, every one we have owned has wound up like this. After a brief pause to threaten death or dismemberment while cleaning Nicole off (which she appeared to pay no attention to whatsoever, but then pulled out “mommy’s mad” and the hypersad-uberdejectedface when Chris came home hours later. Girl knows how to work it.) I got back to business, with my ‘assistant’ helping things along. I emptied a bookshelf in the office, one that was full of craft supplies, so imagine how beautiful my office is right now. Then I scooch-hauled it out to the livingroom and placed it back-to-back with the hutch. I decided to pull down the little decorative shelves that were on the wall with the couch and make a photo collage. First I gathered up some frames from around the house (and a small car, apparently) and filled them with pictures I enjoyed. I wish I could tell you that squirrel had a deep and/or cute meaning to my family, but actually I just didn’t have enough pictures I liked for the large frames and I wanted to use something fun. Then I cut papers the size of the frames, using the filler pictures from the big frames and flyers for the rest, to not be wasteful. Then I turned all the frames over and marked on the papers where the nail should go to be in the best place for that frame’s hanger. I taped the papers to the wall and decided I was pretty happy with the layout. Then I pulled out the level. Now, Chris likes to make sure I have a level available in the house. This is because he and I disagree over how good I am at eyeing things up to hang on the wall. “things” includes shelves, pictures, curtain rods, etc. Don’t let anyone tell you I never admit to being wrong. Also don’t ever let me hang anything on a wall for you without a level. I am absofreakinglutely amazing at eyeballing it, UNLESS I am hanging things on a wall. As you may note, over the course of a mere TWO FEET I managed to become several inches off. Chris could tell you a few more stories that he thinks are pretty funny. Too bad Chris doesn’t have a blog. ;) BIG REVEAL….. !!!! Doesn’t this look like I just scanned in part of a magazine page? Here I am, living proof, this is all me! I do not wear makeup or do my hair when rearranging my house. At least I’m wearing clothes. You’re welcome. And here is a picture of my little visual room divider. It’s amazing what a difference this makes in the space. I can’t wait to get my new coffee table and table + chairs so I can “finish” this space and share it! SO EXCITED! I also can’t wait for the painting and trimwork which will ACTUALLY finish the space, or at least finish it until we can reno the kitchen. (basement first! right now it’s insulated+poly’d, plus framed up and carpet on the floor in the tv + play area, but it needs drywall/paint/etc!) Also featured in this picture is my loverly cat daughter chilling out how she likes to do.

To fill the bookshelf, I ‘shopped the house’. lovely!