Spring Cleaning Anyone?!?

Over the next few weeks I’m going to do a segment called, “The 20 Days of Spring Cleaning”.  By the time spring is here most of the dreaded items will be off of the list, and the end result will be an organized, and clean home just in time for spring!

  

Since today is a Friday, I decided on something on the lighter side to be done today.  Coffee, sofa and end tables in the living room is where I’d like to start.  I think having tidy areas in the room we spend the most time in is essential. 

 

Our messy end table

My goal for the coffee, sofa and end tables is to have them cleared of all the unnecessary clutter and dusted.

I have a decent size pile of magazines from the past few months that need to be disposed of and brought to the recycling center.  I always say I will go thru them to ‘save’ certain pages but most times I never refer back to those pages I have saved.  

Pile to be recycled

 

Streamline the collection of books. We own lots…LOTS of books. We have books all over the place and just have a 'small' collection thru the living room.  I like use books to decorate with as well.

 

Dusting…dust every nook and cranny possible!  Also wipe down the lamps, they have a lot more dust than you may realize.  I use an old washcloth for when I’m dusting.  I feel it is better than using many paper towels.

I always tend to work in piles while cleaning.  Seems to make me think that I accomplished a lot more than I probably did (ha)!  Notice the decent size pile of hair ties; I guess you can tell there are lots of girls in the house!  :)

Putting everything back together is the fun part.  For my sofa table behind the couch, I like to display seasonal as well as sentimental items.  As you can see on our sofa table before photo, I still had a good amount of holiday decor out.  

Sofa Table After

Sofa Table Before

On our coffee table, personally I feel it looks nicer streamlined with nothing on it.  The end tables house lots of different books, and I utilize some of the books to place the lamps on top of.  

End Table Next to Loveseat- After

End Table Next to Couch- After

I decided to do a 'quick over' on my tv stand.  As you can see I still have to put some of the movies away that are on the floor!

 

TV stand mid-way thru

Check back tomorrow for my next posting on cleaning the couches and to see the rest of the living room!

Happy Friday!

Hope you enjoy!!!

Springtime and Birdcages!

As we are approaching March, I'm slowly but surely getting out my spring decorations. This past year we found a way to utilize the birdcage we had from our wedding in a very unique way!  It makes me happy that it's not in storage anymore…just sitting and collecting dust!

 

As you can see this is how we had it decorated for winter:

We like to keep things just a bit simple, just a snow covered wreath on the bottom of the cage with an antique jar holding flowers.

  

For springtime with Easter in mind, I decided to put our family nest into the birdcage, and add some eggs all around.  At the bottom of the cage is crafting moss!  

Such a quick and simple update for our sofa table!  Here is the before and after:

 

Hope you enjoy!!!

Exra Fun Weekend!

One can get really used to these extra-long weekends!  This weekend I didn’t have much time to get any of my personal crafting done.  We decided to take the kids to the local bounce place for a few hours, which helped them to expel their ‘bottled up energy’.  

I made a really long list of things that needed to be done and cleaned this weekend, and I’m proud to say that I’ve accomplished at least 70% of the tasks! I still need to give the counters in the kitchen a good cleaning, but the bathroom and the kids rooms are each cleaned to perfection!!!  

Part of my household resolution for this year was to cook more.  A few weeks ago I decided to make a Menu Board for on our refrigerator.  I have seen so many of them on Pinterest and they seemed like a great idea to get me to plan out exactly what I will be cooking for dinner each night.  Currently I don’t have anything in for Friday, but since it is Lent we go to the local Fish Fry.  I may make a tag for that to place on the board!

Hope you enjoy!!!

Wine Bottle Fun!

On Valentine’s Day my husband finally finished a bottle of his wine, so now I can do what I had anticipated on doing for months on end…decorate a wine bottle!!! 

 

The first step was to take the labels off of the bottle.  Thanks to my trusty ‘Goo Gone’ it didn’t take too much time.  I advise letting the bottle soak in hot water before trying to remove any of the labels to make it very easy. 

I know there is a cork rolling around in there but *sigh* I guess that happens sometimes…

I chose this aqua color because that is one of the colors we decorate heavily with in our kitchen!  I painted a decent first coat on just to make sure everything was covered, and then let it dry for the day.

Once I gave it the second coat, it really started to look nice!

To top it off I made a quick rosette burlap flower and tied it on with a ribbon!

I am still tossing the idea around to perhaps sand it in different areas to give it a rustic look.  We shall see!

 

This is going to look awesome on the window sill, especially if we stick a single flower in there.  Hopefully I can get my hands on some more wine bottles...I guess I will have to encourage my husband to have more wine (I don't drink since I'm not fond of the taste).  All in all this was a quick, fun, and inexpensive DIY craft!

Hope you enjoy!!!