Not the dining room

The other day, I asked you to guess what room I was painting and some of you guessed the dining room, because I said it was a mess.

Wrong! ;)

I was working on my office/sewing room.

And this was the dining room, while I was painting.

Oops! Sorry about Mini's butt under the table ;)

Here's the before that I showed in this post.

And here's the after:

It took me four very long messy days, but it's finally done.

The dining room, not so much, but I'm working on it.

More on that later ;)

Anyway, the first picture in this post shows the colors pretty true to real life, but for whatever reason, the yellow looks super bright in most of them.

(You'll see what I mean when we take a look at the opposite side of the room.)

Here's the little built in desk area, where I write letters and do calligraphy:

I'm looking for another chair, but this one will do for now.

All my reference books, paperbacks and some biographies are on this side.

Most family pictures were grouped together on the top middle shelf.

On the other side, I have my childhood books...

two of my favorite horse show trophies and the ribbons that came with them (I used to compete in Hunter/jumper and dressage) ...

I also brought out all my photo albums, so that they were easily accessible and I grouped together all the school projects that my kids gave me over the years, when they were little.

My shelves are not really "decorated", as you can see.

Instead they are working shelves that also hold precious memories.

Since you can see this room from other places in my home, I did try to make them look as nice as I can, but without making it impossible to get anything off of a shelf and it's organized, so I know where everything is :)

Here's the before of the other side:

And the after:

Wow, that looks bright! lol

I swear it's not though.

I took a few pictures so that you could get a better look at my desk, that some of you had asked for.

And here's the reality:

Well, kind of....

I took the papers and bills off the desk ;)

So that's it.

I wanted a cozy, cheerful, but kind of serious room and I think I achieved it.

It might not be everyone's cup of tea, but I like it ;)

See what I mean about the colors in the picture below?

That's pretty true to what it looks like in person, as well.

Weird, huh?

I think I've said this before, but the drapes in my house always seem to look grey in pictures and they're sage green.

Oh well, I never claimed to be a great (or even good) photographer :p

Anywho...

If you look at that picture again, you can kind of see a little bit of yellow next to the spoon rack.

I'm testing out another yellow in there, that's a shade lighter, but it seems kind of bright, so we'll see.

What I want is the rooms to flow from one to the next, but not be all the exact same colors, just variations, if that makes sense.

Wish me luck!

xo

rue

PS 

Just in case anyone wants to know, the colors are Behr's English Custard and Olivine.

Decisions

I've showed this view of my sewing room/office/library many times.

Do you know why you never see the other parts of this room?

Because it's scary!

It's a place where things are put, until I can either get rid of them or find a place for them to go, and it's become a mess.

I was thinking that if I show you this horror, that maybe it'll motivate me to do something about it.

So, here we go...

The desk where I blog from and pay bills:

Not your typical "Where Bloggers Create" space, huh? ;)

You can see that I need to paint the walls towards the ceiling, but moving that desk will not be easy. I've been told it's either German or English and from the early 1800s, but all I know for sure is that it's a beast to move, because it's so heavy.

The reason for the weird paint is that I had shelves (not original to the house) removed, to fit it on that wall, since it's the only place in my house that it would work. 

And I wasn't going to get rid of it. 

No siree Bob! 

I love that old desk, heavy or not :)

Oh and that white thing next to my chair?

The only air-conditioner on the main level, besides the one in Annie's room. It's an ugly necessity during the Summer, because as I've mentioned before...

I don't have central air.

Now you know why I want Fall to get here. 

For all those that said they didn't want that... I'll be happy to send my 90 degree and above heatwave your way, but you have to turn off your central air first :p 

Moving on to the other side of the room:

This is the bane of my existence.

See all those book and pictures?

I'll have to take all of that stuff down in order to paint the shelves.

A daunting task.

And I would know since I'm the one that unpacked the boxes and put it all up there.

Also, imagine the mess it'll create in the rest of my house.

Ugh.

So now that you know what the rest of the room looks like, here's my inspiration pictures.

Remember, it's more the colors and the feel than anything else.

The green shelf inspiration...

I'm leaning toward these colors...

The black shelf inspiration...

And finally, 1929 inspiration...

All these images can be found on my pinterest. 

I can't make up my mind.

I want the room to feel warm, cozy and somewhat dark, but not too dark, if that makes sense. 

The problem is that you can see it from the dining room, which will probably have yellow walls eventually...

and also from the kitchen, which you can kind of see here...

So I don't want it look odd.

My guess is the green shelves would be best, with either a soft yellow or a lighter green on the walls than on the shelves or the drapes, which for some reason always look grey in pictures, but in fact they're sage green.

Decisions, decisions...

I'm curious, what would you do?

Not that I'll listen ;)

xo

rue

My view

This is the view I have right now, while I type out this post.

I love the canopy of tree branches :)

Anyway, I just thought I'd check in, so you don't think I've jumped ship.

I'm in the process of doing laundry, cleaning, painting, planting, gardening, catching up on my pinterest and answering a few blogging questions and emails, and haven't had time to do anything besides that except take this single photograph.

I promise I'll post again soon.

Forgive me?

xo

rue

Migrating birdies

The other day, when I was dusting, I did some rearranging of my shelves in the living room.

Four hours later..... 

What?! It takes time!

Okay, I'm kind of OCD, so shoot me :p

Anyway, I realized that I needed a new place for quite a few things.

You see, my mom decided she didn't want a lot of her glass animals, when she moved, and so she gave them to me. Not really knowing what to do with them at the time, I kind of just shoved them on shelves until I decided what I wanted to do.

One of the groups came from my aunt, that gave her a bird a year for six years, and because I felt so bad for cooping them up for so long, I gave them a new place to live, with a view.

I figured that even if they couldn't fly, at least they could enjoy the outdoors from a window ;)

So I migrated them to my office.

They seem pretty happy up there.

Of course my favorite is the green one, but don't tell the others ;)

xo

rue

Up close

It's amazing what you see, when you get up close to things.

I think there's beauty in the details.

Take a closer look around your world today and hopefully you'll be amazed too ;)

xo

rue