Ding-dong - Dining room done!

I know it's not a lot but staining and polying the table, painting the chairs, and adding shades to the chandelier did give our dining room look a subtle shift to ... well, more craftsman, I want to say, but that's not really true. It's not one of those UH-MAY-ZING blog make-overs. No magazine shoot here either. Maybe that makes it more real?

At the end of the day it looks cozier now which what with the temperatures dropping and Thanksgiving and Christmas just around the corner feels just right.

Sometime these days I'll get started on hanging picture rails and finalizing mural plans. Yes, mural. I want to handpaint a frieze mural. I know I'm crazy.
In any case it will have to wait until the New Year. Right now we're already running around like chicken with their heads cut off. No need to speed up - it's a wild enough ride already!

Little Man's Cave Make-Over

What?
A make-over already?

Fear not! Little Man's Cave remains mostly untouched. He still loves his grassy green walls and navy and white stripe accent wall but for some reason the layout wasn't working.

At all.

And just like that, the room failed and began to accumulate stuff and clutter while Little Man evaded the mess by bringing his toys downstairs rather than putting his room to good use. Kind of like the problem we had with our front porch (read about it here). Speaking of the porch, I'm happy to proclaim it's as tidy as on its first day!

Back to the Little Man Cave: the large desk made it feel crowded, he couldn't reach some of the cubbies underneath and it went downhill from there. One night - I was curled up on the couch with a kitty and a cup of tea - I ended up doodling on a piece of paper trying to figure out how to solve the problem.

[Design doodle: not to scale]

Little Man needed to be able to easily access all of the cubbies of the larger IKEA shelf and the smaller book shelves. So I moved them to the opposite wall and lined them up alongside. They fit EXACTLY! With maybe an inch on either side to spare! His bed, I decided, needed to move back against the wall without a window and for the moment, I set the desk aside and decided it'd be better if he just had a large space in the center of his room (with a rug) to play and romp around. Little Man does his homework at the dining room table with me sitting across from him, so he doesn't really need a desk in his room.

I'll spare you the "Before". It was an awful mess and it took us from start to finish about four hours to move furniture, to sort out and to sort in, and to put everything back in place.

So - much - better!

Little Man declared he liked it and the fact that he's actually using his room and spending time in it rather than hauling his toys downstairs is proof of that. As for me? I'm able to breathe now and don't break into panic attacks when setting foot into this part of the house ... heh.

This concludes Phase 1 of the Little Man Cave shuffle. I have more plans for window treatments, open shelving and art so expect to see more of Little Man's Green Cave here soon.