The giraffe gets all comfy cozy (staging the nursery for resale sans crib) (it’s all about the angles)
So remember the last time we chatted about our second bedroom, the someday-maybe-to-be nursery? Here! Let me refresh your memory. It looked like this…
Well, when we started gearing up to sell, we realized it needed to be cleared out. A LOT. Which lead to a massive purge. Which lead to the room looking like this…
But then I realized (now that all the visual clutter was gone) that the baseboards were in rather awful shape. Like, really really bad shape. They looked like this…
So out came the painter’s tape (heaven forbid I should mar a cute little elephant while painting trim!) and the baseboards got freshened up a wee bit…
And then I decided that we’d better make the room look sorta nursery-ish for our listing photos. So I grabbed my beloved brown rocking chair (which, a long time ago, belonged to my grandparents, and which I hope to one day have reupholstered and use in my for real someday-nursery), some spare drapes, added a throw and a cushion, and poof! Instant quasi-nursery…
…well, sorta. It’s not entirely convincing, but it’s not bad. If I had a spare area rug kicking around, that’d make the room way cozier. And, of course, if I had a crib that’d be even better. And the drapes are a tad (ok, a lot) long and they cover up the sweet little elephant more than I’d like, but you can still see him peeking out a wee bit. For now, it’ll do.
So long as the house listing doesn’t actually show that there’s no crib in the room, we’re good. It’s all about perspective. :)
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My ongoing staging attempts (you win some, you lose some… but all that really matters in the end is that you got a kickass bee canister)
After Ms Stager’s visit the other day, I headed out to HomeSense, my favourite home-stuff store. Have I ever mentioned how much I adore HomeSense? I probably have. I’d put a big flashing promotional HomeSense sign on my front lawn if I could (but I won’t – that’d likely be bad for resale.) (Although, good HomeSense people, I’d seriously consider it if the price was right? Just saying…)
Anyhow, Ms Stager mentioned that we should probably get a new shower curtain. I’ll be honest – I knew this suggestion was coming long before she stepped through our bathroom door. And I totally agreed with her – while I’ve loved the practicality of our little PVC (ack – I know) shower curtain, and its pretty little dots (oh how I adore my pretty little polka-dotted shower curtain!), I knew that something a little more… grown-up (and a little less college dorm-ish) would likely be advisable.
While out merrily meandering around HomeSense, I found THIS…
…and I swooned. So pretty! And here’s that same shower curtain in our tiny bathroom…
I feel very grown up indeed. And I’m completely enamoured. I’ll occasionally wander into our little loo and just stand there for a few seconds staring at the shower curtain. It’s weird, I know, but I’m a little obsessed.
(I’m also hoping the wrinkles fall out of the curtain soon. Why pull out the iron when I can let steam do all the work for me, right?)
The second thing Ms Stager asked us to do: declutter and make things visually less cluttery. In particular she zeroed in on the clear canister (well, it’s actually a vase) (fancy eh?) of ladles and spatulas and spoons and such that we had sitting out on our countertop.
She asked us to put all of it away entirely. Instead, I went to HomeSense and found THIS…
TWELVE bucks. Twelve! That’s a whole lot of cuteness for very few buckeroonies, if you ask me. And now it holds my pared-down utensils very nicely (and with way less clutter-ish-ness) next to the stove.
Adorable, non? I’d buy this house JUST based on that. And then I’d ask the home owner to throw in that sweet little bee canister. Because it’s lovely.
The third thing Ms Stager requested? All new luxurious bedding for our bed. I almost had a meltdown. For the record, we will not be getting all new bedding – hell, our duvet cover is only two weeks old! However, while out on my HomeSense mission, and as a compromise, I found new red pillowcases that coordinate rather nicely with our pretty Alvine Orter duvet cover.
And here they are all coordinate-y-ish on our bed…
Wait… Don’t see them? That’s because they’re not there. They were very… red. Too red. And not nearly as serene as I wanted. (I’m not sure what I was thinking – red isn’t a particularly soothing colour.) Instead, I dug out the Alvine Orter matchy-matchy shams that came with the duvet (I normally just ignore the shams that come with Ikea’s duvet covers, but in the name of staging, I bravely pulled them out of the linen closet) and grabbed a spare throw cushion and tada! This was the result.
I’m definitely not going to win any bed-staging awards, but it will do. :)
So those were my little moments of staging fun over the past couple of days. It’s been a fantastic procrastinating tactic – I really hate packing. And moving. And applying for jobs. And whatnot. I just keep reminding myself that wherever we end up next will be even better, right?
And besides, I was running out of rooms, here, to paint. :)
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Lions and zebras and giraffes (oh my!) (it’s a bit like a Toto song in here…)
Have I ever mentioned that we have not one, but TWO bedrooms in this house? Shocking, I know! The second bedroom sits directly across the tiny little hallway from our master-ish bedroom (“master-ish” because at about 10×10′ it’s hardly grandiose.) And this second bedroom is where we hide stuff. (True story.) A desk, our filing cabinet, a couple of storage chests, random boxes that we still haven’t emptied since the move (um, like, 2+ years ago…) I leave the door closed 95% of the time because I can’t handle looking at the mess. Why don’t we use this bedroom for something substantial (like an office or a guest room or some sort of similarly dignified purpose?) Afterall, our house IS rather tiny, so you’d think we’d put the room to good, functional use, right?
Look…
Yup. Lookout Tarzan, we’ve entered a happy little jungle!
The people who owned this house before us used this room as their nursery (obviously.) And, truth be told, I’m hoping that one day it might possibly be our nursery too. And, because of that, I can’t bear to paint over the rather cheery-looking animals that someone carefully and lovingly painted on the walls.
Are jungle animals my thing? Um, no. And even when this does become our nursery some day, the animals will likely get traded in for a far more subdued colour palette (since it’s rather glaringly bright in this room, and I’m more of a muted grays kinda gal.) But, until then, I don’t have the heart to ruthlessly paint over those happy little faces.
Especially the giraffe. He makes me smile. :)
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Have an Etsy Etsy Christmas (my first ever Exceptional Etsy Gift Review) (plus a little 80′s nostalgia thrown in for good measure)
Get it? Etsy Etsy? Funky Funky? New Kids on the Block? No? K. Just to prove that I’m not completely insane (and to solidify the fact that I’m a major nerd – this is some rather awful NKOTB tune-age, but… I kinda like it) here’s the Funky Funky Christmas Youtube proof, c/o Arsenio Hall (yep! We’re going waaay back in time here!)
Admittedly, there are some really bad dance moves going on in this video (I can almost hear the choreographer: “Oooh! Running man! Yes – we most definitely need more running man!”) And I have no idea why Jon is missing from this performance. Maybe he was having a bad hair day? I wouldn’t show up for Arsenio Hall on a bad hair day either. You think they’d mention it though, no?
Strange.
Then again, Jon was never really my favourite. If Joe had been missing? Chaos and woe. Jon? Meh. He never really did that much for me, truth be told. And Jon eventually left the group anyway, right? I think? I might be a little bit behind (by, like, 20 years perhaps) in my NKOTB gossip.
All that aside (although I could ramble on about New Kids for quite a while if you’d like) (Joe? Now HE had good hair) (so dreamy… swoon!), this post is obviously a little late (since we’re now two weeks post-the-big-red-and-green holiday) but I wanted to show off a couple of my favourite Etsy Christmas purchases (which then became my favourite Etsy Christmas gifts!)
Awesome Etsy Christmas gift #1: Kitty Candles from Kitty Baby Love
I fell in love (at first sight, in fact) with these little chubby cat-shaped crayons. So cute! So friendly looking! And when they arrived, smiling at me happily from their little egg carton container, I seriously wanted to break out my colouring book.
(The little yellow one in the bottom right is my fave. “Pick me! Pick me!” he says.) (And yes, I just assigned a personality to a crayon… Weird? Probably.)
I think my niece liked them too. Well, rather, she liked the wrapping paper I wrapped them in. (She’s only one, so she hasn’t quite gotten the hang of that whole the-gift-is-the-thing-that’s-wrapped-IN-the paper-not-the-paper/packaging-itself concept.) And while she’s not yet actually at the colouring stage, she will be soon! So excited to see what lovely scribbles these happy little balls of kitty-shaped awesomeness will produce. :)
Awesome Etsy Christmas gift #2: T-shirts for Sweetie from Quasi Science Apparel
I have only three words to describe my transaction with the folk over at Quasi Science Apparel: fastest shipping ever. Ev-ver. Seriously. I purchased three t-shirts on a Monday, and by Wednesday (as in, two – TWO! – days later) they arrived. I was flabbergasted! (And thrilled!) Albeit, Quasi Science Apparel is based out of Canada (like me!), so there were no customs-hoops to jump through or anything like that. But still? Two days? That’s pretty darn amazing if you ask me.
And the t-shirts are fantastic too! For Sweetie, I bought…
…the Tesla t-shirt (since, well, he is an electrician afterall):
…the “Geek” written in binary t (since, um, he’s also kind of a geek) (which is precisely why I love him):
…and, my absolute favourite (and Sweetie’s too, I think): the SCLF (Schrodinger’s Cat Liberation Front) t-shirt:
The best part? The back…
Totally makes me smile. :)
For the record, and in case you were also wondering, I’m not really sure who Tesla is either. I know he did something important, probably involving electricity? And he was in an 80′s hair band too, I think. Does anyone else out there remember (nervously/sweatily) dancing with some (equally nervous/sweaty) boy at some random school dance to Love Song?
Sigh. Oh, 1980′s… you were tacky, but you kinda rocked.
So there you go! My post-Christmas (and rather tardy) Exceptional Etsy Gift Review. Plus a lot of 80′s nostalgia. Because there’s nothing like a well-choreographed boy band, and a little power ballad-ness too, to perk up even the gloomiest January day. :)
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Merry Christmas! (and some very important reminders about sheep and stuff)
It’s Christmas Eve today (yay!), which means today is the day that Sweetie and I head home to spend Christmas with my family. Can’t wait! My family is a family full of traditions, especially Christmas traditions, and our annual Christmas Eve arrival (followed by Christmas Eve pizza – of course! – and, most importantly, my dad’s reading of a very special story) is something I look forward to every year.
The cats will be alone on Christmas Day, but they’re not overly concerned – we had our own pre-Christmas celebration here at the house this morning and over the weekend. There were tiny little reindeer antlers. There were gifts to unwrap and catnip mice. And they even snuggled up with us for a bit to watch White Christmas (my absolute favourite Christmas movie ever.)
And, on that note, and in case you’ve never seen White Christmas, I wanted to sign off for the holidays with the lyrics from one of the songs from that movie. In all honesty, 2012 has been a bit of a bear. While there have been some really amazing and wonderful moments this year, it’s also been a really hard year for a few of my friends (and, well, for us too at times.) I think this song is really good advice for us all…
Count Your Blessings (Instead of Sheep)
When I’m worried and I can’t sleep
I count my blessings instead of sheep
And I fall asleep
Counting my blessings
When my bankroll is getting small
I think of when I had none at all
And I fall asleep
Counting my blessings
I think about a nursery and I picture curly heads
And one by one I count them as they slumber in their beds
If you’re worried and you can’t sleep
Just count your blessings instead of sheep
And you’ll fall asleep
Counting your blessings
That Irving Berlin guy was pretty amazing eh?
Sending so much love out to my friends and family over the holidays. I hope the next couple of days are filled with good food, the lively and familiar company of family and friends, and lots of lovely surprises.
Merry Christmas all! :)
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