House built of Walls: Productivity Strikes + We're back to House Renos!

Today J's dad came and put a door on the "new cat room". Yay! Ummm it's the door closest to the front of the photo. The other one is just a door leaning in that room. But! Now there is a door that closes so that the room doesn't empty directly into the garage. And look at that absolute disastrous mess in that room right now! Next weekend's to-do includes cleaning this up. But there's a door and after a quick trip to the Home Depot thanks to grandma's christmas gift card, we scored a new lock and deadbolt too. It's the little things.....

We plan to straighten this room up, vacuum really well, and then create another layer of floor with some carpet peel & stick tiles, organize the office things (they are currently in those boxes shoved on the shelves) with Ikea white storage boxes, and put some cat beds, food, etc in here. Plus I'd love to stick another Ikea storage shelf for shoes in here. We always end up throwing our sneakers on the floor in this room so might as well make real space for them!

Remember the out of place looking brown bookshelf in the baby's room filled with text books and business management books? I do. It was ugly. It was also terribly unorganized and housed books from year one of grad school, my engagement ring insurance papers, my address book, and a US Airways giftcard (undetermined if it was already used). ~~Treasures~~. Junk.

After piling any books we don't need into a "donation" box (and being out of breathe!) I decided to relocate this fine bookshelf downstairs to our man cave. However, since that man cave post we've actually updated and gone the whole blue and green route. Anyway, this fit perfectly (because it's narrow) along the wall between the stairs down and the bathroom. And after ditching all the pages of lovely literature we didn't need, we ended up with this.

I took all the sleeves off the books and they actually look much more grown up. You can see there are some books with white covers-- just used some leftover Christmas paper inside out and made some old school book covers. They were ugly colors and just didn't fit in here. I'd like to get rid of all the books on that bottom shelf and give them the boot to the "cat room" shelves after that's finished. Then the bottom shelf can be used for a cute display of photos or other decorative items.

Ahhhh so much nicer! And I guess we were busy bees today, because I also hung the new curtains J's mom made for us (loooove) in the baby room and cleared out a few more things as well. Now it is starting to shape up!!

I am obsessed with these curtains because they have so many different color shades in them, greys, yellows, whites, off whites. The goal of this room was yellow and grey with soft other tones (pinks, whites, off whites) and it is slowly coming together! This corner of the room below is going to be the book corner. There is just not enough room for a book shelf right now and I adore this white basket with the yellow lining. I have "shelves" i have been working on this weekend too, currently sitting in the garage letting the paint dry, and above them we will hang the silver ribbon board and the shower "leaf" your thumbprint tree! Can't wait to get this stuff up!

Oh also I took out the pottery barn kids book end birds. They are not staying in this spot permanently, they are going on another piece of furniture (hopefully that will go in this week or this coming weekend). And we ordered the changing table. That should also come this week or next week. it is going under the window where the car seat and basket currently live. Here's what she looks like. I am going to purchase light grey or white wicker baskets for the top, so we can store the stuff we need to get to quickly. But I am loving how it will fit into the room!

Next on the agenda- finishing that "cat" room. I actually think it will be nice to have some storage space for craft and office supplies! And then hopefully we will hang baby chandlier in her room.