Playroom Updates

As of two weeks ago, I officially became a work-from-home mom. Even though I haven't fully transitioned into the new part-time role I'll be performing, because I promised my boss I'd stay as full-time as possible until September to fully support my replacement, I've still managed to find small bits of time to handle a few of the household projects that have been bothering me for the past few months, while Steve and I have both tried to juggle full-time jobs and keeping the house from falling down around our ears. Since I don't have to be up at 4:30AM anymore to get into the office, it's amazing what I'm actually able to get done in the evenings after the girls go to bed...

Project 1: Organizing the playroom.

I wish I had taken before pictures of this process, so you could see just what I was dealing with in the playroom, but my first order of business was finding new storage units.

Enter the neighborhood Facebook page!

I got two of these cabinets for $50/each, but I didn't like the oak color, and I wanted something a little brighter for the room. So I made the incredibly stupid decision to paint them. I HATE PAINTING THINGS. Remind me of this next time I get some new dumb idea like this...

I really should have done one more coat of white paint on those cabinets, but after one (way too thin, it turns out) coat of primer, two coats of white paint, and three coats of pink paint on the backs of the shelves, I was done. DONE.

After the painting was done, I emptied and reorganized and refilled every bin in that room, threw out broken toys and smashed crayons and empty sticker sheets, and resorted approximately one and a half million puzzle pieces into their correct boxes. 

And now my children are never allowed to play in that room, again.

The end.

Best Laid Plans...

I am SUPPOSED to be at the beach right now.

But I am NOT at the beach right now, because Mother Nature is kind of a brat and decided to drop a tropical storm/hurricane across all parts of Florida and Mississippi and Louisiana that do not need or want said tropical storm/hurricane. And since my philosophy in life includes the words AVOID DRIVING INTO MAJOR STORMS and all, we've pushed our beach trip back a week, in hope that things will clear up in a few days.
So, to make myself feel better about the delay, I made Steve drag all of the Halloween decorations out of the basement so I could start my planning process. And now, I will postponed packing for the trip that we leave for on Saturday, to instead start decorating for a holiday that is two months away.

I take procrastination to whole new levels, my friends.

Whole. New. Levels.

Halloween, Part I: The Planning

Last night, I bribed Brigid into staying in bed by promising her a trip to Hobby Lobby. And today, I followed through on that bribe, even though it was so very, very tough for me to do so.

(No, it was not. It was not tough, at all. I LOVE HOBBY LOBBY!)

Anyway, I went to try to find a table runner (or, fabric for a table runner), some flowers for a Halloween centerpiece, and some black chargers for my Halloween table set.

I failed on the runner, but I did find some creepy red, battery-powered candles, to go with the flowers and the chargers. While I'm still working on ideas for the centerpiece, I am already pretty happy with my table setting layers.

Have I mentioned how much I love to decorate for Halloween?

Placemat: Kohl's $3/each (purchased last year, for my Christmas table)

Chargers: Hobby Lobby $1.50/each

Appetizer Plates: Pottery Barn $35/set of six