Wallpaper and a Box

Ahhh!  I’m so behind over here.  The thing is, I have been flying through projects in this little house in the past few weeks but, since I’ve been spending all of my free time painting and patching and hammering, there’s been no time leftover to fill you in in writing on the blog.  Bear with me.  I WILL get you all caught up.

(Pssst, the One Room Challenge starts in a little over a week and guess what?  Yep.  Yours truly signed up to do that whole, crazy six weeks again.  Needless to say, there will never be a lack of content on Bean In Love.)

Last post we left off with a multi-purpose room reveal.  You might’ve noticed the spots on the recessed wall.  1) They are all part of this great stuff I’ve come to know and love called removable wallpaper.  2) The entire accent wall only cost me about 20 beans!

Long story short, one day I walked into our local Target, which is going through a pretty major renovation, and saw an entire end cap full of clearance wallpaper!  I snagged two of these rolls of Devine wallpaper*…

The Multi-Purpose Room Reveal

It’s always awkward for me to take something from my heart, write it down, and hit publish…and then go on to post about something in a whole ‘nother arena, say superficial decorating, next time.  I feel like there needs to be a better transition but I don’t know how swing that so in we jump from heart to home again.  :)

I’ve actually spent almost every moment of free-time the last two days concocting a whole entire post on the multi-purpose room but last night, when I had reached 3000 words detailing only one half of the room, I made the intelligent decision to close my laptop and start anew this morning.  I’d lost myself just reading through what I’d written and I have no doubt I’d have lost you too in the absurd amount of details in that novel.  Sometimes I get carried away.  So, I’ll keep this short and come back later with more.

“Wait, back up.”

“What the heck is a multi-purpose room?”  Good question.  Did I make that kind of a room up?  Maybe.  I haven’t googled it to see if it’s a real thing yet.  I’ve talked about this before but this little house has two living rooms.  One, I suppose is more of a formal living room and one is more of a den.  Well, we don’t need two living rooms – we only have one television and one couch and they both fit great in one room.  But, we do need an office space, a sewing space, and a homeschool/kids’ coloring space.  So, we’ve spun the formal living room on it’s side to create, you’ve got it, a multi-purpose room.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Here’s what that space looked like before we moved in:

From 1:00 pm on it’s the brightest room in the house and, therefore, had lots of potential to be something fun and happy.  Since we spend a good amount of time in this room on the daily, that fun and happy status was really important. 

Find the Good

A couple of weeks ago I was scrolling through Instagram while I waited for the kids to fall asleep.  I started following the news station near my sister’s place last year during hurricane season just to see the damage pictures they posted and haven’t unfollowed yet for no reason other than I haven’t thought about it.  Well, usually I’d just scroll right past a post like this on that news station’s feed but something made me stop.  And usually I’d remind myself not to read comments on things like this because there are bound to be some negative Nancy’s in the crowd, but I did.  And it was horrifying and eye-opening.

Dresser + Runner

I’m popping in here quick-like to ask you a quick question.  Do you own a dresser that’s not looking so hot on top?  Maybe one-to-many perspiring drinks have been set atop it or maybe your kid forgot they’re only supposed to color on paper or maybe you bought it as a project piece (my hand goes up) and then life gotcha?  That all happens and someday you’ll get around to making things right but today is not that day, right?

Well, that project piece of mine has been painted a thousand ways, brought back to her old glory, and sits gleaming in our living room…in my brain.  In reality though…

Whomever dropped this off at the thrift store, I’m going to assume, had cookies and milk every night before bed.  Why?  Isn’t it obvious?  While they ate their cookies right next to their dresser, their glistening cup of milk sat on that dresser, was emptied and still sat ‘til morning when it was carried to the sink and readied for the next night.  We all have our routines, right?

Where We Eat

Rooms are starting to flow a whole lot better around here and I feel like it’s just added a greater sense of (superficial) peace when we’re constantly moving from room to room…which we do A LOT.  Of course that sounds ridiculous and you can’t really gleen peace from a house, right?  Or maybe you can?  Who knows.  Either way, I might be crazy but here’s the old view into the dining room from the “new” kitchen:

It’s like there was an invisible line at the doorway in which all the fun stopped and all the boring started.

But now, NOW it’s one continuous space where decor harmony flows in, out, and all around:

White walls did the dining room good.  I painted them the same Pure White (Sherwin Williams) as the walls in the kitchen which was key in getting this pretty choppy room layout to feel, well, not quite so choppy.  Maybe cohesive is the word I’m looking for…

Here’s a better view of the whole dining room taken before we moved in:

Old, heavy curtains, tan walls, and all.

And here’s what we’re currently working with: