She demands, He demos: What I do when Matt is out of town

Sooo, for the past week Matt has been working in Milwaukee on a project that the Milwaukee shop needed help with. And when he isn't home, I suddenly get super motivated and start cleaning and organizing all over the house. Case in point. On Tuesday night I decided that the guest room needed to be cleaned out and rearranged. For no particular reason at all. Granted, my mom is coming to visit next weekend (yay!) and the room will for sure be ready for her by then, but I figured there was no time like the present. Wednesday night I got sucked into a book for the whole evening and stayed up way too late in order to finish it (you remember I am a dorky English major, right?). And then last night (for whatever reason) I decided that our living room needed to be moved around.

This is a very old picture, but I'll explain the differences between then (2009) and early last night (since I was too impulsive to take a picture before starting....hmmm wasn't I supposed to be working on that?...):

Ok, so this was from December 2009. The Christmas tree is obviously gone now. The purple curtains have been replaced with white ones. The coffee table is now the TV stand (next to the 1/2 wall on the right hand side of the picture). The photos on the wall are different now (and being changed again soon). The green chair on the left was moved into the office and the old couch from Matt's parents (right side of top picture) has replaced it. Oh, and the window wall, half wall, and the wall behind the green chair are blue.....ok, wrap your head around all of that. :)

Annnnyway, I walked in the door last night, and those crazy wheels in my head started turning. After walking the puppies, I dove into rearranging head first. Our living room is long and narrow (maybe only 10-12 feet wide, by about 20 feet long) so creating a "conversation area" has always been a challenge. With the couches in their current places, the old couch couldn't have any part of the coffee table (well, bench) and we were always dragging the new couch forward 5 feet so we could both eat off of the coffee table (we're classy like that). Soooo, I moved the old couch to the opposite wall, in front of the windows and then pushed the new couch over towards the dining room about 3 feet. Now the couches made an "L" shape, perfect for conversation.

The side tables had always been a bit too small for our couch size, so I tucked them into the office and grabbed a spare side table my grandma had given me (that had been in the guest room looking awkward) and stuck that into the corner with a lamp on it.

Then I decided that the writing desk (from Matt's Grandma Dottie) which had been in the entry way since we got it (I wasn't sure where it would go in the house yet and didn't want to be moving it all over the place until a spot was found) and realized it would work nicely in the living room, on the wall where the old couch had been. So I verrry carefully carried it upstairs into the living room (I'm a nut like that...I never wait to move furniture when Matt can help. I beast it up and carry it myself), placed the 2nd lamp and some books on it. The decor will change at some point, but I was running out of creative steam at this point.

Ok, here's a couple photos I snapped on my way out the door this morning. First order of things....get a bigger area rug (this weekend probably) and scavenge Craigslist for a circle coffee table (which I will probably paint), hang different wall art, and search Etsy for throw pillows...Also painting the whole room grey.

Ok, so a quick explanation. Ty Cobb (It's his 3rd birthday today!) has a bad habit of digging in the old couch (or the bed, or the backseat of the car) when he gets frustrated...so one side of each of the couch cushions have huge rips in them from him. And of course the sides with rips in them are on opposite sides, so there will always be one showing, even when we flip and switch them around. : / Sooo, that is why there is a sheet on the couch until we get a cover for it...or a new couch. And how awkward does that bench/coffee table look? :) My search for a new one begins today. Here's the writing desk:

The table decor definately needs some work, but it will do for now. I tucked that little bench underneath for an extra seat for company. But how gorgeous is that desk?! I love the diamond detail on the front of it. The diamond panel actually opens up and half of the top folds open with lots of cubbies and storage inside it. I'll show it off another time. :)

So anyway, that was my Thursday night. Oh, I also moved the dining room table around and did about 4 loads of laundry......I need a hobby. Tonight will be better spent...It's my littl guy's birthday, so K9 custard (ice cream) and new puppie toys are in order for the dogs....and Matt just called to let me know he'll be home tonight....Dilly Bars for the humans!! :) Yeah, we get pretty crazy in the Kendall household.