9/1/11

It Looked Better In My Head

If I ever had a design/organization blog - and this is EXTREMELY unlikely, as you are about to see - it would be named "It Looked Better In My Head".

Example A: My corner cabinet/Lazy Susan.

I carefully chose contact paper I liked! With nice colors! To cover the hideous old rusted shelves in this cabinet!


And with it's mismatched edges and ripples, it looks kinda WORSE!


Mistake #2: My bedroom.

When we bought the house, the walls of the master bedroom were bright mustard yellow, the curtains were dark brown. I wanted a serene space with gray-blue walls and a lot of light.... except when I sleep when it must be PITCH BLACK.

We had a bunch of the rooms in the house painted while we moved, so we randomly chose a gray blue while in a new-baby-while-moving-across-the-country haze. It's a tad more baby blue than I wanted but when we arrived, all I cared about was it wasn't mustard yellow.

When we moved in, we kept the previous owners' plastic-y dark brown curtains up because we didn't have other options. I grew quite fond of them for the sole reason that they kept the light out pretty well and with a three month old, having sleep possible at all hours is paramount. Also I think I like dark brown and light blue together (In my head it's so restful!) so I convinced CG that we should spend a serious chunk of our decorating budget on buying nice, new curtains. That are ALSO POOP BROWN.


(I don't know what I was thinking.)

(I was thinking I liked sleep.)

(Every time CG closes the curtains, he mutters "I hate these curtains".)

On the third hand: Our bathroom sink

Our bathroom has one tiny medicine cabinet that fits basically nothing and two cavernous under-sink cabinets that become toiletry black holes so we wind up putting most of our every day toiletries on the counter in a messy disorganized heap.

So. I went to Target and bought a slew of clear (makes the space look bigger!) plastic (easy to clean!) bathroom organizers (buying "organizers" instantly makes me more organized!).

Now, behold the beauty of:

Same clutter: now in little plastic boxes!!



Next up: help me title my cooking blog.

a. The Accident Prone Chef
b. Cooking with Jenna, and a Hazmat Crew
c. Your Flesh Might Burn But Your Cookies Will Be DELISH


I have a gift for burning the inside of my arm.

Look! It's a match set! (And these are just from this week! Every week it's something new broken, burned, shattered, cracked, melted, or accidentally set on fire. Lots of content!)

7 comments:

Ann Wyse said...

I'm giggling, except about the burns; cringing on those.

I feel this way about design projects, too, even with 7 years of design training.

As you are pointing out, this design stuff is so often about spin: rearrange the props on your lazy susan and the contact paper will look 'fun!' Talk about the romantic tension/contrast between curtain and sheers and wall: it's 'perfect for a master bedroom', And the plastic organizers. Hmm. That hits too close to home for me to find a good spin: I've got the pile-of-stuff-on-the-bathroom-countertop problem, too.

Gina said...

Laughing out loud...

Also, I have that same pattern contact paper and tried to make big blocks for the boys by covering old cereal boxes, etc. with it. Great idea, but bad implementation. I don't know how to get those damned wrinkles out of contact paper. The blocks ended up in the recycling and the contact paper is sitting up in a cabinet and hasn't been touched since.

If it makes you feel any better the executive pastry chef that I take classes from has arms that are COVERED in burns and scars - but she makes the most phenomenal desserts ever. As long as you saved the cookies, it's all good.

Sarah said...

For what it's worth, *I* like the curtains. Very much, in fact. And I totally get wanting your bedroom to be dark whenever you should desire. Just this week I was deep-cleaning our bedroom, washing windows and washing curtains and all that, and it occurred to me, while the curtains were in the dryer, that it kind of looked lighter and airier without any curtains, just the Roman blinds. But hideous though they may be, those wine colored curtains, when pulled, make the room close-to-nightfall dark whenever I may need, so I put them back up.

Nik-Nak said...

Ugh, I burn myself just like that at least twice a week! And I love your backsplash behind the oven...so cute.

GratefulTwinMom said...

I also love brown and light blue together, but I'm completely clueless on window coverings. All our windows have shades, blinds and shutters. Too many fabric options would make curtains so hard.....

I have a MILLION of those forearm scars. *sorry*

Funny.

Bronwen said...

I have the exact same burn on my arm. It's from baking muffins for my first visit to Andy's parents. And one on my hand. It's from making lasagna for Mir when Lylah was born. I find that if you remember when you got them they're more like souvenirs. Perhaps next time I see you we can compare burns..."That's nothing. I got THIS one in the Great Casserole Disaster of 2011..."

Michelle said...

We had to repaint the living room and hallway because of colors that looked better in my head.

I don't think your curtains look bad at all. Of course I have one brown wall in our bedroom that the husband calls brownie mix brown.

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