Upon Being Busy

Well, the wedding is just a week away and I am not stressed out. In fact, I am completely on top of things. I hope I didn't just jinx myself.

That's not to say I haven't been busy. I've been crazy busy---because, I'm never willing to give up anything fun. As a result, I have continued with my normal life and just squeezed the wedding stuff in. Plus, I added several---non wedding related things---like 4 doctor's appointments (colonoscopy tomorrow---might as well get it over with),  an appointment with my orthopedic doc (he gave me the "all clear" on both feet), a trip out to the airport to apply for the TSA-precheck and a 3 hour long hair appointment---that's supposed to be today, I hope she doesn't cancel due to weather---then I'll be up a creek---she already canceled me last week. 

Wedding related outings include---two trips to Sam's, picking up things for the wedding here and there, two fittings for my outfit, dropping something off for the cake, visiting the chapel with the officiant, going to Mindy's dress fitting (we have one more on Friday) and visiting the Nashville City Club downtown to check out the reception set-up. I've followed up with all the vendors, made the seating chart, filled the gift bags (Connie helped), created and printed many items and I've paid a kazillion bills. 

I've squeezed in repair men---Ashbusters---twice for the chimney (that's a full 'nother story), twice for my sound system guru, the bug man and I've got Good Will coming next week. I'm still handling beach business, doing "Movie Monday" and stitching Tuesdays with my friends. I've done my AYM layout, round robin assignment and put together February's AYM kits. 

Then my uncle passed and my brother asked me to handle sending something from our family and letting them all know what they owe. Not a huge deal, but you know what they say: "if you want something done, ask a busy person."

All of this in just the past three weeks. Okay, so I didn't cook much---maybe once or twice a week---which is about how much I cook anyway.

But the main purpose of this post is the most exciting thing I've done over the last three weeks---DECORATE Morgan and Jordan's rooms. The girls both have apartments at college. Stephanie had a really good idea to get them to clean out their rooms. She said that "if they didn't want something in their apartments now while they were in college, they were never going to want it later." Why didn't I think of that! Since I didn't, I'm still dealing with this:

Mindy's closet is a huge walk-in. I liked to joke that her college dorm room was smaller than her closet!

Right now we have wedding presents coming in. Her condo is really small with not so great storage. Of course, a good clean-out there would help the situation. 

Okay, back to Steph and her project. Besides just a few things in the closet, I was given a clean slate to work with. And a budget. A "decorating on a dime" kind of budget. Well, okay, a "decorating on 10,000 dimes, budget."  Yep, she gave me $1000 to work with. She had already purchased the furniture and had the rooms painted. Jordan's room had an accent wallpaper added to one wall. 

So here we go. The rooms before:

This is Morgan's room. My direction here was that she wanted the room to be "old Hollywood glam." Colors: silver, black and mint green.

I do not know what that thing on the bed is. It wasn't there when I began putting this room together. 

This is Jordan's room before:

 On the left is a big mirror that's going on the wall.

That bedding is old and was not going to stay. My direction for this room was that she wanted "Mad Men modern." The colors were beige, brown and black. Sometimes I wish she'd call me in at the beginning of the project so I could offer some guidance in color selection. But, I work with what I'm given.

The $1000 was for both rooms and had to include all bedding, window treatments and rods as well as lamps and accessories. She even wanted a nightstand and shelf of some sort for Jordan's room. So that meant adding a little furniture to the budget. 

So, along with everything else I've done in the past three weeks, I added shopping at all of my favorite places: Hobby Lobby (the best for inexpensive home decor items, lamps and mirrors---they run their stuff half price all the time), Target, SteinMart, Home Goods and Marshalls. My favorite online place for inexpensive "stuff" is Wayfair. I got all of the bedding, window treatments and furniture there.

Here's the "after" for Morgan's room:

 Entering her room.

 I went with silver, shimmery bedding. The throw is a very light mint. That scrolly thing over the bed is black with giant rhinestones from Hobby Lobby. The shades on the lamps are silvery also. The drapes are silver, but the bright light made them look purple in the pictures.

I found the lighted marquis "M" at Target. It works on batteries and has a timer so it shuts off by itself.

The clock was on clearance at Marshalls for $10.00. The little jeweled box also came from Marshall's for $2.50. The succulent---which looks so real--is from Target. The bowl of "balls" was another bargain---Hobby Lobby for $2.50---90% off of the remaining Christmas stuff. It was a huge container of silver and black, shiny and glittery ornaments. I bought a plastic bowl and silver charger-the whole thing under $10.00. 

I found the perfect mint pillow at Target. You can't really tell by the photo, but it is a PERFECT match. So you can tell what the wall color really looks like from the pillow.

Another succulent from Target on a jeweled mirror tray from Hobby Lobby. Lamps all from Hobby Lobby. On the left is a re-purposed soap dish from my house. I had always pictured using it to hold jewelry. Steph pulled a few things from her collection.

So you might be thinking, the room looks good, but is it practical? Since they are still the girls rooms, and the girls aren't home much, they are guest rooms. Stephanie and Nicky don't have guests---ever---so they are nice rooms to look at! Agree?

On to Jordan's room:

Her room definitely needed some color. So, I went with "paprika." The drapes didn't photo well in here either---since there was too much light. I brought the pillows from my house as I have tons of them--I could spare a few. The artwork came from Hobby Lobby. I still want to get a throw for the bed to add a bit more color, but haven't found the perfect thing just yet.

 I loved these weird feathery things from Hobby Lobby and just stuck them in a tall skinny vase also from HL. The nightstand is from Wayfair.

I should have taken a close up of the nightstand as the clock is really cool. I got it on clearance at Marshall's for $7.50---or maybe it was even $5.00. 

 The shelf came from Wayfair. I thought it had a funky, contemporary vibe to it.

I made the floral arrangement with flowers and vase from HL.

When it was all said and done, I overshot the budget by $25.00. Stephanie was okay with that. I don't know what I would have done if I didn't have Butch and Nicky's "free labor."

And there it is---what I do with my time! I'm definitely busy, but it's all fun!

Oh, and I managed to write a few blog posts!