Home Tour (Part 7) : The Family Room

  Wow, it's been several months since I shared the next instalment in my Home Tour. It's about time I showed you another room! 

  I must admit to you that the reason I haven't showed you this room is because I'm not in love with some of the furniture. We are hoping to be able to replace some of it soon, but for now it is what it is. 

  So here's the family room as of last week...

  Sorry about the bad lighting. This room is hard to photograph since it's in our basement & there's no natural light.

Here's what this room looked like when we bought the house. 

Pretty much a blank, boring, & somewhat dirty slate.

(And look how little my daughter is! That was almost 5 years ago now...)

 
  So, as you can see, we ripped up the old, dirty carpet & laid laminate flooring. We painted the walls & trim (No more periwinkle door!) and we updated the lighting.

My Ikea Expedit Bookshelf which I love!

Here are my ideas of how to spruce up the space while we wait for some new furniture:

• New artwork above the couch (I'm in the middle of working on this one & should be able to show it to you next week.)
• New artwork for T.V. wall
• Makeover the little table my map lamp sits on
• Paint the dress-up box (to the right of the couch)

And because we all enjoy before & after shots...

Ta-da!

So, be sure to come back next week for the art project I'm working on for this room.

Here's a little sneak peek:

Haha! Can you guess what it is?? :)

Have a great weekend! See you next week!

Mission: Kid's Toy Organization

As a part of our Easter break & spring cleaning, our kids & I had a mission:

To sort & purge all their toys, games, puzzles, books, & other loot.

Look at the mess that had been going on all winter...

Audrey's room:

Ponies, Princesses, & Pet Shops, oh my!

Messes scattered everywhere because all the storage space was full!

We came to this conclusion: they just had TOO MUCH STUFF! 

So, before we started, I explained to the kids what we were going to do & that they would have to make some choices as to what they wanted to keep & what they were willing to let go. 

As an added perk, I told them that if there were toys & other items in good condition that they no longer wanted, we could try to sell them on Kijiji & they could use whatever money they made for spending money on our vacation this summer.

I must say that the kids totally surprised me in the amount of toys & stuff they were willing to let go!

They did SO well!

Here are my daughter's bins after we sorted & purged...

I also googled & found pictures of the toys she wanted to keep. I printed off those pictures & used packing tape to label the bins so she can see what goes in each bin, since she can't yet read.

In the middle of the job, I ran out of tape, so that's why the top photo doesn't show them all complete. :) 

Off to the store for more packing tape!

Labels for her bins:

Purses

My Little Ponies

Littlest Pet Shops

Crowns & jewelry

Strawberry Shortcake

Balls

Doll accessories (bottles & clothes)

Tea set

I left a few bins un-labeled just because the toys that she had left really didn't fit into a "category". 

Those toys I leave up to her as to which unmarked bin she wants to put them in. 

Parker's room:

His toy bin was pretty full so the top of these drawers was always a dumping ground... 

hence the housecoat, gas mask, parrot, & play back pack... 

only in a boy's room would you find such a random assortment of items in any one place.

  After organizing all the books, toys, games he wanted to keep, throwing away all the broken toys, & making a pile of toys & books to sell or give away, here is my son's closet. 

Even though he can read, he was happy to have the picture labels on his toy drawers too.

Labels for his drawers:

Top - games

Middle - electronics

Bottom - colouring books, activity books, & markers

The rest of his toys go in the big bin on the left. He has a smaller, separate bin just for his lego as well.

All the other places that were dumping grounds are much neater. 

They are finding that it's a lot easier to keep things tidy when everything has a home that isn't overflowing. :)

Look at the huge amount of toys, books, games, & puzzles that the kids gave away or sold!

And because we all like before & after shots...

So much better!

And another thing I can cross off my spring cleaning list!

Enjoy your day!

Check out these great parties I link up to!

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subscribe by email, or follow along on Facebook, Pinterest, or Twitter. 

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Spray Paint & the Frog

Do you remember this guy?

No? Then let me refresh your memory. :)

I purchased this ceramic golden toad on a thrifty adventure last fall. 

At first, my kids informed me that it was a poison dart frog, but after some more research, 

we discovered that an orange frog is actually called a golden toad. 

You needed to know that, right? ;)

I finally got around to giving this chap a few coats of black spray paint...

He now holds a place of honour in my kitchen with his pot scrubber at the ready. 

He sure adds a touch of whimsy to the kitchen. And a touch of nostalgia as well. 

I remember my mom having something similar next to the kitchen sink when I was a kid.

Good memories. :)

Another successful mini makeover!

Enjoy your day!

Check out these great parties I link up to!

Thanks for reading. If you like what you see here on Silver Boxes, feel free to become a follower, 

subscribe by email, or follow along on Facebook, Pinterest, or Twitter. 

And please leave a comment when you do so I know who my new friends are! :)

Lamp Revamp

   In these cold winter months, one thing that gets me through the dreary days is the expectation of Spring, Summer, & fun things to come. Right now, we're planning a big road trip for this coming summer and we've started talking about a trip next winter... somewhere warm. :) 

  Last week I posted some ideas using maps. With all this talk of traveling & maps, I was itching to get to this project I've been planning since last fall. I present to you my latest makeover, the travelling lamp!

It started out with this 80's brass lamp with a dusty rose little highlight in the middle. It would have gone perfectly in my bedroom when I was 12 years old. I'm not sure about you, but I'm so over that colour scheme. :) 

I paid $4 for it at a local thrift store. 

I also paid $4 for the lamp shade, which wasn't so bad to begin with. It was just a bit dirty. 

I got out my favourite glossy white spray paint...

Then I wrapped the cord & the light socket with aluminum foil before starting to spray.

I gave the base 3 light coats of spray paint. The first two I was able to do outside in the garage because we were enjoying unseasonably warm temperatures. Then it got cold & I had to bring it inside to do the last coat. 

The house smelled for days! Ya, not one of my most brilliant moments. :)

After cutting the map into sections, I used Mod Podge to decoupage the map to the lamp shade, 

being careful to push out the bubbles with my fingers. 

After it had dried, I trimmed the edges & hot glued some white grosgrain ribbon to the edges to finish it off. 

Oh, by the way, I paid $2 for 2 vintage maps at an antique store here in town. 

The colours are slightly more muted than a brand new map.

We're enjoying our new lamp in our family room & it reminds me of our fun travels to come. 

I would like to thank all of you, my wonderful readers, for stopping by. 

In these last several months, I've been so excited to see Silver Boxes grow & see my friend count rise bit by bit. 

I really appreciate all of my new friends in the blogosphere. Thank you for your kind words & support.

I hope you stop in again soon. And don't forget to join the party on facebook! :) See you there!

Enjoy your day!

I'm amazed by all these features! WOW! Thank you!

This project featured at:

Office/Craft room/Guest Room Makeover

  Before I start today's post I have to tell you that I'm so excited to be able to add a new "I was featured on" button to my small collection. Yesterday, my Christmas Banner was featured on Mommy By Day...Crafter By Night. I totally did a happy dance when I found out! I feel like Sally Field - "You like me! You really like me!" (I have to be honest though. I didn't actually know who said that until I googled it.)

  Anyway, onto today's topic - our office/guest room.

  When we moved into this house, this room (in the basement) was actually divided into 2 smaller rooms, but you had to go through one room to get into the next one. Also, the wall connecting the two rooms was just a temporary wall. So we took down the wall to open up the space. The side that is now the office was decorated as an 80's diner or something. Kinda fun, but so not my thing.

  If you've looked through my Home Tour page, you know that I love colour on the walls! I am not afraid to paint... like, at all. I guess growing up in a decorator's home, some of my mom's courage rubbed off on me.

  My colour inspiration came from the turquoise chair. I love the colour turquoise & wanted to incorporate it into the house somewhere.

  I chose a scrapbook paper line that I loved that had turquoise, pink, & brown in it. It was the Urban Prairie line from Basic Grey. Those were the colours I matched my paint up with.

My craft table

    This table is made of two small book shelves & a glass table top we found in the as-is section at Ikea. It has a small chip out of one corner & didn't have a base. It works perfectly & even has a bit of an aqua tinge to the glass.

  A few weeks ago, my mom (an interior decorator) came over & helped me reconfigure the furniture in this space. I love how it looks now! 

  After mom & I reconfigured the furniture, I set to work cleaning up my desk a bit. I added some decorative scrapbook papers to my pen jars & the front if my little box of drawers. I'm so happy with the results!

What do you think? I'm loving crafting in this space. It's my happy place. And hopefully a pleasant place for our guests to stay.

Oh, before I go, I want to keep things real & show you the pile of stuff I had to remove from the office before I took the photos. Just so you know that my office is not always never that neat & tidy. 

I almost always have some projects on the go on the desk.

Enjoy your day!

Linkin' Up:

Let Birds Fly

Turquoise Lovin'

Update

This was featured on: