Nestling: plans

Now that we finally have our kitchen under control, I have been redirecting my attention to the Family Room.

You may remember our complete redo of the space here. I left you with it looking like this:

The built in desks have been working better than I could have imagined, with the kids pumping out art work like it's their job:

The only problem? Their desks tend to look like this more often than not:

{and I'm not even showing you the really bad stuff!}

The main thing I want to address in this room is really organizing their art supplies and desktops. Now that we have had this layout for a few months I have really been able to see what is working and what is not.

The next thing I had planned on changing was the gallery wall. Although I loved it in theory, having it up with all the other elements in the room always seemed too busy to me.

Then something happened. In a recent complete-house rearranging marathon (what? you don't move stuff around constantly?!), we switched the sofa from our living room and placed it in the family room. The space now currently looks like this:

I don't know if it's the gray of the sofa, or the fact that there aren't as many pillows being seen, but I sorta fell back in love with the gallery wall! I do, however, want to switch out some of the art (maybe even add more??).

Other projects I have on the brain for this room:

curtains for the smaller window

redo a book rack I found at goodwill

update the magnetic wall where their artwork goes

do something to fill up the empty space above the shelves

recover the bean bags (this one really scares me & I'm not sure if it's really in my sewing capabilities!)

Figure out a solution to the jacket/shoe issue we have at the back door

Honestly, all the projects I have planned should be pretty simple - it's mostly organizing one of the most used rooms in our house.

I am excited to take over this project a little differently than I have in the past - by sharing with you what I do as I do them, one project at a time. I think a lot of times I get caught up with the big "reveal" that I leave out a lot of the smaller details that go into making it happen because I think that no one would want to read about them. But you know what? Some of the blog posts that I enjoy reading the most are just that - the little things.

Thanks for reading :)

xo,

Rachel

I'm not really sure if I would call them resolutions, but I certainly have plenty of plans and thoughts on what I would like to accomplish this next year....especially when it comes to this little happy place of mine and our crazy, out of control house. {as in how in the world did we come to own so much stuff??}. I have broken down my plans into some smaller goals.

I want to try to live more simply, but with more beauty. I want to make sure the items I am purchasing are things that I truly find beautiful and that hold a purpose. Sometimes I get so caught up in all the things I want to change in a certain space of ours, I lose sight of how sometimes, change can come in just the smallest of forms...like adding a small basket to house towels.

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We have now been in our new home for a little under a year. We have unpacked everything, arranged {and rearranged!} things, and we now desperately need to organize things. My plan is to tackle at least one area a week, working towards it a little bit each day. I'd love to show some of the before and afters on here, because I don't know about you, but I can never get enough of a good organization system :)

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Some organizational projects are going to take longer because of the size of them, like my new work area. Right before Christmas, I started to move all of my stuff into a section of our living room from our garage. Our house is currently an explosion of craft and party supplies, while I try to find room for everything in its new home. Right now I am currently dreaming of spaces like these:

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Since I want to focus more on adding smaller touches to our home, that means cutting out some of the bigger projects. My hope is to focus on one larger project at a time. (instead of starting a bunch of projects at once)

This first major one that I want to tackle is the boy's room, which is in an insane amount of need for love. It's a hot mess....when we moved in here, I got rid of a lot of the things from their previous room because they just weren't interested in it anymore, so now their room is just bare, bare, bare. {and plenty ugly}. Totally inspired by these spaces:

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There is also a little section off of our master bathroom that is a vanity area, that I would just love to fix up a little. I'm thinking beautiful girly things like these:

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Also, our powder room downstairs {the one that all our guests see} is crying out for some help.

Wouldn't something like this be beautiful??

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Also, I want to be more bold in my design choices for our home. I am a girl who loves grays and whites with lots of textures, and our house is in need of some FUN.

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I love pattern, but surprisingly don't use a whole lot in our house.

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And of course, there are a couple of past projects that I would like to revisit and "tweak" a bit.

I am just dying to fix the skirt of the bottom of our banquette with a little detail, maybe like this one:

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I also, want to switch up the art in our Family Room. Although I love the gallery wall, once we got it up on the wall, I just knew it was wrong for the space. It just seems too busy for a room already full of pattern and activity. I am thinking a larger, abstract piece that really ties together all the colors in the space.

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This one has to do with my blog and my Etsy store front. I kind of just started both on a whim last year, and haven't dedicated nearly the amount of time I would like to to either of them. I am so excited to nail down a look this year, and to expand on the parties and other items I have in my store. On top of party printables, I am really looking forward to offering printed versions of many of the items I have in the shop. I have already started dreaming about the branding.