Another weekend spent vegging in front of HGTV

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Ok, I’m going to quit promising photos because I seem to be completely unable to remember to take them.

I managed to get the garbage dumped by letting 16 drive the van to the dumpster and dump it without me going along. She only has her permit, but it wasn’t really on a road, it was inside the park which is technically private property. I also got 12 and 10 to clean up the rest of the yard by taking the big resin toys over to the shed area to store them. The summer is over and 6 never really plays with them anyway. The bench is handy for the summer yard toys like badminton rackets etc, but she never really even looks at her kitchen set. It’s a shame really. I’d have killed to have something like that as a kid. They just don’t appreciate things in this day and age. Maybe she needs to watch reruns of Mr. Rogers…

I LOVE watching HGTV. There are very few shows on there I don’t like. My Parents House is one I don’t like. However, I LOVE House Hunters and Colorsplash and Designed to Sell. I have learned so much from watching the staging shows and the redecorating shows. The new Rate My Space is awesome too. I know from watching all of them, that my style (and my husband’s) is Eclectic. I love to decorate with emotion. I want things that I love around me even if they don’t really go together. I still like to color coordinate as much as I can, and currently the living room is all golds and browns and red. Really pretty. There is some black too, like the ottoman and the Chinese cabinet and the huge TV. We have Egyptian art alongside Japanese prints and Indian wood carvings. (India the country – DH’s dad lived there til he was 19), plus dragons and gargoyles and even a Buddah. Plus all my Mom’s china which is on a cherry bookshelf kind of between the kitchen and living room.  To me, it all works. In fact, I am finally happy with the room (other than the floor- next phase is hardwood floors).

I had a smile moment this evening. For some reason 6 invited the new boys that moved in a couple doors down to come look in our front door. I noticed they were there and was about tell Zoe it was time for them to go home and she needed to come eat dinner, when the boys went “Wow! This looks really nice!” big grin Yeah I guess it does look pretty good. I’m proud of how the living room has come together.

One thing in the living room that was really bugging me was the Chinese lacquer cabinet we have by the front door where we are supposed to put keys and DH’s wallet etc. You literally could not see the top of the cabinet from all the stuff on it. It had two baskets on it overflowing with papers and all kinds of junk. One of the baskets looks really good there since it has a curled wrought iron handle and the clock above it has the same curly wrought iron accents. So, the basket is good for holding the keys and wallet and pens and change etc without it laying all over the cabinet top. But the other basket had to go. So after getting rid of the clutter (half filled a trash bag!) and the extra basket, I washed the cabinet top, and placed the good basket back on it alone with a couple of DH’s dragons that he collects. They looks really nice with the Chinese theme going on there. So, I had this other basket, and it occurred to me that it was the perfect size for DVDs, and there was a perfect place in the floor by the coffeetable-that-is-now-the-TV-stand. It looks really nice there. I put a gold painted basket that has been floating around with no real purpose, on top of the TV and DVD player to hold more DVDs (like current rentals), and then I put a red lacquer Chinese tray DH had before we got married and has been sitting around gathering dust – in the center of the new black ottoman. Some glasses with narrow bases cannot really sit on the soft ottoman top, so the tray is a perfect place to set a glass, and it’s colorful and pretty.  I would actually prefer to have a nice big red-stained wooden tray to set of the ottoman instead.  I saw one on HGTV tonight I loved and would be perfect. So, sometime when I’ve got extra spending money, I’m gonna take a trip to Pier1 and grab one. I can almost 100% guarantee they’ll have one. (gold will work too if red isn’t avail.)

The kitchen table and one chair are still piled with stuff that had been hiding in the old entertainment center cabinet. I know it’s a pain and I hate looking at it when my living room looks so nice now (the kitchen is connected to the living room). But until I can get that other bookshelf, it’s how it has to be.  I have decided though that since a lot of the stuff piled up isn’t really something I want to look at on a book shelf (old kids’ school papers, files, etc) that I’ll just take all our books out of the Chinese cabinet and put that unsightly stuff in it, then put all the books on the bookshelf. Who knows, maybe we’ll start reading them again!

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Filed under Home and family, Kids, Life, My Messy House

Tags: cleaning, decorating, dumping garbage, family room, HGTV, kids chores, organization