Tidy Brown Wren, bringing order to your nest

Our home is a work in progress.  Actually, my whole life is a work in progress! Ha! Big projects in the house aren't in the works right now since work on the greenhouse is still continuing.  Here it is in it's half painted stage.  Yes, it really is green!  Anyway, as I was saying.  . .  Small projects are all we can handle in the house right now.  One of those projects was tackling the lack of towel bars in our main bathroom.  We haven't done much in the bathroom except pull out the dropped ceiling and add a few lights.   For a temporary fix, I added a quilt rack to hold our towels. I felt like it was always getting in the way and tended to be top heavy when holding wet towels. I picked up some hooks from Hobby Lobby (when they were 50% off) and hubs attached them to some leftover 1 by 4s.  Then the wood was attached to the wall studs for stability.  The wood was already stained to protect it - but ...

Most of the time, when I'm called in to help stage or organize a home, I encounter an overstuffed master bedroom. What I mean by overstuffed is too much furniture, too many clothes, and too many items that don't belong in a bedroom. A lot of people, including myself, tend to put stuff in the bedroom that doesn't belong because we don't know what else to do with it. It becomes a staging area for projects, laundry, exercise equipment, and "stuff". So how do we get from ransacked to restful? I thought you'd never ask! Here are some questions to ask yourself: 1. What do I want this room to feel like? Restful retreat, romantic getaway, or an inspired haven? 2. What pieces of furniture could be gotten rid of? Bookshelves, dressers, chairs, exercise equipment? 3. What items end up in your bedroom that don't belong there? Toys, paperwork, laundry? 4. Are there any repairs that need to be made? Loose handles, broken curtain rods, stuck doo...

So, if you're following along with me in the process of organizing and cleaning your entire house this year, we'll be working on the bathroom in February together.  Well, not really together.  I mean you work on your bathroom and I'll work on mine. I thought I would use some photos of bathrooms I've staged for my clients over the past year or two.   One of the things you will notice about all of these bathrooms is that I use all white linens and light colored accessories.   You'll want to work on only one bathroom in your home at a time.   As usual, you'll want to check out each bathroom and do an assessment.    Check out this post for the details. Staged bathroom in a home for sale. After you've done an assessment of the bathroom it's time to roll up your sleeves and get to work.    1. Remove everything from the cabinet or drawer. Wipe out the cabinet/drawer and line with contact paper if desired. ...

I almost forgot how to blog.  It's true - it's been so long since I wrote a blog post that I had to putter around to find my way again.   In reality, I've been blogging in my head.  I really have.  I've been talking to you and showing you things around The Wren.  Projects we've worked on. . . food I've cooked. . . crafts I've made. . . and of course, the grandchildren that won't stop growing.  But of course, if I don't put my fingers to the keyboard and download some photos, then you have no idea what's going on.   During the past year, my jobs have taken up a lot of my time and attention.  Most of my attention, actually.  The problem?  I had too many jobs.  I was teaching preschool, running the preschool ministry at our church, staging homes for Realtors, and helping clients with organizing their homes.   Something had to give.  I felt the Lord was telling me it was time to give up teaching.  I a...

I love looking back on the past year and being reminded of what I accomplished during the past 12 months.  Getting back most of the feeling and function in my right leg was a big help in getting projects done.  Yay for physical therapy! Guest Room Redo : Right after Christmas last year, I started working on the guest room on the 3rd floor our our home.  This bedroom with a sitting area and 3 piece bathroom is perfect for guests.  I was able to finish the room inexpensively by using things I already owned.  I only spent money on paint and a new set of sheets.  Goat Feed Bag Grocery Sack: I finally made use of the goat and chicken feed bags that had been accumulating in our barn.  I turned a few of them into grocery sacks.  I'm still making them and selling them in my Etsy shop, but they quickly sell out and I've had a lot of local customers buying them.  I hope to add a few more into the shop soon. Rocking Chair Int...

  I'm not ready to put away the Christmas decorations yet, but the Christmas wrappings were driving me nuts and I had to do something - and fast.   My studio had become the dumping ground for gifts and wrappings and it was a total mess.  Fortunately, I have a system, so it only took about 15 minutes to put everything away.   First, I gathered all of the bags, ribbons, wrapping paper, tags, and tissue paper together.  Then I sorted it by type on the floor.  I discarded anything that was damaged.   After everything was sorted I started to put each category of wrapping in it's storage place.   The tall rolls of wrapping, large bags, and collapsed boxes were filed into the bottom of the Rubbermaid wrapping container.  It's extra tall to accommodate the tall rolls of paper.   I always use a recycled gift bag that I don't want to use again and store the folded tissue paper and small gift bags in. Ribbo...

    I'm not usually afraid of many things.  I used to be afraid of the dark, but I got over that. (I'll admit I'm deathly afraid of frogs, but that has nothing to do with furniture).   What does scare me is buying new things - especially new, expensive, investment kind of things.   Like cars, and houses, and furniture.    When we moved into this house, our furniture didn't quite fit.  Our sofa (a large, plaid, hide-a-bed), had to sit at an angle in the living area.  Here it is with it's new neutral cover.  The window seat is to the right and the open stairwell is to the left.  The door behind the sofa is a closet that houses our HVAC unit.      The only large wall was covered up by a wall unit from our old house.  It housed our TV, books, games, candles, vases, stereo, and various odds and ends. Here it is with other furniture removed so I could polish the floors.  The dinin...

Here's our last month of Monday Motivations for 2012.  If you've been following for the whole year, you would have cleaned and organized every room in your home and even your car.  That's quite an accomplishment and deserves a prize - I'm grabbing some chocolate!  You know how this works. . . below is a collection of posts from December 2011 for you to read at your leisure.  Just be sure your leisurely reading doesn't get in the way of getting some work done.     Analyzing Your Dining Room: How did your dining room function for you during the Thanksgiving holiday? Does it need to be organized before Christmas? For the month of December we'll check out how to organize and spruce up the dining room. This week we'll do some brain storming about the purpose of the room Next week we'll get our hands dirty with purging and rearranging. The following week we'll look at storage solutions. Our last week will cover deco...