Day 57: Help My House

Yes it is Friday. Yes I am writing about Tuesday. Yes, I forgot to label yesterday's (which was "Monday") project. That was project #8ish? Ok, I'll be honest, I lost count, but I'll fix it, and it's okay because I haven't stopped with the projects, just the counting.

So today (Tuesday) was a day for me. Well, more for my house then me, but what goes around comes around and helping my house helps me, so in the end it was for me. I spent my entire morning deep cleaning my house. You know, the bathrooms, all the little nooks where the clutter has built up where I never wanted clutter, that kind of stuff. I did all the general cleaning yesterday, so today was just for getting down in there. Why was I cleaning at such a thorough level? Because today was the day that I was having an interior consultant come over and help me help my house.

Since we moved in Shawn and I have been a little overwhelmed with choosing colors for our house. This would be so simple except for 3 reasons:

1- Our house has honey oak colored base boards. This is a terrible idea. I've never been a fan of wood base boards, well not in a cheap house. In a nice house, like my in laws, and even nicer homes, like the mansions on the mountain, wood trim looks great. Do you know why? Because they have awesomely beautiful wood doors and blinds to complete the look. We don't. Do you know how cheap cardboard wood doors look? They look like ghetto trash, that's what they look like, and they make you your wood trim look like ghetto trash too. I hate the honey oak wood trim, get it? So I've always hated it, but it turns out that there isn't a color in all the world that looks good with honey oak trim either. The honey oak makes everything look dull instead of popping against the white. We painted out room charcoal. Love the color, hate it against the wood trim. Lucy's yellow also looks terrible, and Jack's BYU blue and tan. All colors that would look AWESOME against white. It's in my future, or so I dream.

2- Our house was designed by an idiot. I love the floor plan, if I didn't I wouldn't have bought the house. But some moron architect decided it would be cool to slop a ceiling here, and put a railing there, and end a wall a foot short of the ceiling, and create a solid back wall with no bay windows or bumped out walls or anything. As a result there is NO architectural cut off for colors. We can't paint our family room one color and our kitchen and dining another because they are all connected. It's impossible to explain. You have to see it to know that I can't have fun with colors from one room to another.

3- Our couches, as much as I love them, they are all chameleons. Every color we have picked for our walls, our couches have turned the exact same color. It's really a frustrating predicament.

As a result we've had someone come to our home to tell us what the heck to do. She was SO helpful. Within 10 minutes she made Lucy's room (which is impossible with all the furniture that has to go in it now with Alivia) feel twice as big as it did the way I had it. Lucy was in tears because we moved her bed, but she got over it quick. She also gave me awesome furniture lay out advice for the living room and family room and dining room. She helped me with color choices, told me how to solve my architectural nightmare, and even worked around what I already have! I'm so excited about all her solutions, and I wish I had all the money I need to get to work. Really, her suggestions don't involve buying a lot, just paint, but I need money for that too as it turns out.

It was so fun to have her come and help me. I feel like I know where to go! Shawn came home and I yakked his ear off for an hour or so. Then we went and bought ourselves a new bed, hence the no money issue. Ours was a second hand piece that we got just after we were married. We were so grateful for it then, and still are today, but we have both been really hurting lately. I thought it was just because I was so pregnant before, but it's only getting worse now that I'm not. Shawn's back has been killing him, and ever since we got this bed we've been saying "We'll get a new bad in a couple more years." I don't know how long I would have gone on saying that. Seriously, I always would have pushed it off. So I'm glad Shawn put his foot down. Now we just have to pay for the thing.