my diy get-up.

it is another challenge for our ffa club.

(no, I would not put you through this special kind of torture if it weren’t for this blasted club..)

hurry.

run.

hide the men-folk.

I am lookin’ hawt.

(many thanks to my 7 year-old amateur photog.)

(she did some pretty amazing work.)

(and dudes, I totally trusted her with my camera!!)

see.  secksy, right?

let’s break this down, all fashion-show style, yo.

A- the pants.

they have been kickin’ it round these parts for the better part of 4 years, almost 5.  they lived through one pregnancy, one post-partum recovery, many lake powell trips, and multiple room paint jobs.

I am sure that if I were in need of matching a paint color, there would be a sample that someone could scan, somewhere on these bad boys, to get a new gallon or two.

(but that might be highly inappropriate.  maybe?)

2- the shirt.  it is a lucky shirt.  look at it, it even has a horse shoe.  it asks if you are feeling lucky, and what’s more?  it’s green.  like, the luckiest of colors.

and wouldn’t you also know, it must be pretty darn lucky cause it has fared much better than the pants.  I mean, it hasn’t been around as long, but I only has one tiny smudge of grayish paint above the right boob area.

see, pretty lucky!

III-  the feet must always be bare.  no matter the season, they must be bare.  well, except for when I am behind the mower.  and that would be where my zig-zag tan lines come into play…

(do you spot them?  they are awesome.)

d- the hair. 

it’s always up.  if I am painting a ceiling, you can count on me wearing a hoodie, maybe even glasses.  I look much like the unabomber.  minus the thick and luscious stache.

and if the above picture didn’t exactly “do it” for you, here’s an outtake:

another challenge: the scary thrift store.

so, for ffa, we have another challenge.

we actually got it a couple of weeks ago, but now I am finally getting around to it.

the challenge:

(quoted from the fingertips of miss mandi herself.)

“buy a piece of furniture for your house that freaks you out just a little.  Not like “This is the ugliest thing I have ever seen but Mandi says I should push myself.” kind of freaky, more like “This is cool…but I will put it back because I don’t know if I could pull it off…but it might look really cool painted _________…no its freakin me out a little…..ok ok I will do it.”  kind of freaky.”

now, lemme tell you, I didn’t really do this challenge the way it was supposed to be done, but I guess that would just be the rebel in me and so forth.

so, I bought something I loved, something that I have been looking for for about..  hmmm..  5ish years?  so I really wasn’t freaked-out about it, persay.  I was freaking excited about it.

(and the story of how we met is pretty awesome.)

I was freaked-out about where I bought it.  the store where this miracle item was finally found is a spot that I stop at, maybe once a month, whenever I find myself in the immediate area.  it scares me, and it always has.  thus, it is appropriately called (named by myself):

“the scary thrift store”

I brought my youngest, risked her life and my own going to “the scary thrift store”, to find something “freaktastic”.  as we walked around, her always (very obediently) staying right by my side, I found a pretty freaktastic chair that was olive green and yellow striped.  it was in pretty great condition, and it thought for a sec, “this could be re-upholstered and it would be pretty freaking awesome for my most ugly master bedroom re-do.”

then I was afraid of re-upholstering it.

like, maybe I would make it uglier than it already was?  and it was pretty ugly, but not the kind that induces vomiting, but the kind of ugly, that makes it pretty cute, you know?

so at 34 bucks and change, I was seriously considering it.

and then we walked around, with little one staying right with me, because the place is pretty freaky, yo.

so as I was looking at an old sewing table, starting to consider that as a re-doable piece, but telling myself it wasn’t freaktastic enough, I looked up, and locked eyes on the beauty I have been hunting for for so long…

wouldn’t you know, I walked right past it when I entered the area where furniture is kept in that scary thrift store?  right there, against the wall, right inside the doorway it was.  I didn’t care how much it was, it was going to be mine.

I checked it out, and it was perfect in all of it’s scary thrift store glory.

the price tag read $49.

not bad.

I have been dreaming of this for 5ish years!!

I went to the cashier, immediately, and did not hide my happiness or my excitement, and she saw.

she wasn’t so scary in that moment.

we walked to it together to check it out, and I still didn’t hide my excitement as we walked back to the register.  and wouldn’t you know it, she knocked off $15!!

it still smells scary.

it is in the process of being made semi-amazing.

it will be black.

and I say that with less excitement than the rest of this story is told with.  I wanted something fun, like turquoise, or mossy green, or bright yellow…  the dude I cohabitate with, is not so much about these fun colors.  he is all about “blaaaack”.  (and to say that the way it is meant to be said, one needs to say it in their best drawn-out monotone.)

credit goes to my mother-in-law (the mom to the dude I cohabitate with) who seconds me strongly on the turquoise.

we shall see my friends.  we shall see.

and the sad part of this whole story, if I had had room, I might just have bought that scary chair, that really met the requirements of this here challenge.  I would have bought it thinking that I could do anything exciting and perfect with it, you know, being high and all with the find of my dreamy buffet.

sadly, they couldn’t both fit in my suv, so one had to stay behind. 

maybe I will return one day…

so I totally think that this qualifies for our challenge, not so scary piece of freaktastic furniture purchased at a pretty freaky store?

(afters laters?)

here’s your warning: it’s ugly.

so we have a challenge for ffa, which has nothing to do with animals or growing edible stuff, but has everything to do with helping you find your style and implement it.

so the only reason why I do this, is because mandi told me to, and I like her, like, a lot, so I will do it for her.

before I go on, before you do as well, please take into account that this room of mine is not cute.  you might want to grab a bucket or a garbage can, a large bowl perhaps?  you might vomit at the sheer ugliness of this here room.

I was hoping that it would not come to this, but really, you have to see the before to appreciate the after.

(hopefully coming soon.)

ready?

are you sure?

do you have your container with which to catch vomit?

wait, before I go on, let me say that this is how much I care about these pictures:

- they are sooc (straight out of camera).

- the white balance hasn’t even been corrected.

- I am not watermarking them.  I don’t want anyone to be able to prove that this room belongs to me.

- I am now considering blurring the face of the child in these pictures, just so the authorities don’t come and take her out of a home that is obviously so bland and boring.

- they are so awful, I tagged and labeled them “ugly room”.

(but really!!  it’s just the one room..  I will prove that I have cuteness in this house!!)

oh, and I didn’t really bother to “straighten up” because, really, like anything can help this?

here goes..

I know, I apologize.  this is not what you needed to see today.

I hope you didn’t get any vomit on your keyboard.

(those are difficult to clean.)

so here’s the rundown:

- paint.  maybe if I tell the guy I am married to that that is all I want for mother’s day, then I can get it soon-ish?  I mean, I was putting it off, what with the water heater/sprinkling system/pirate-eyed daughter fiasco going down.  I am still debating on stenciling one wall.  not sure.  not sure at all about that.

- see that drab, plain, ugly curtain?  (if that is what you want to call it.)  it is thumbtacked to the wall.  it is also a necessity in this here sleep-space.  this window is south-facing, so we get lots ‘o light in here, we don’t want it.  it also helps to muffle the neighbor’s annoying dog.  I want to punch either the owner, or the dog in the face most days.  so basically, I need to get some attractive fabric (and that can’t be that hard to improve upon this situation) to make into curtains, with blackout liner of course.

- stuff for my walls.  you know, to make them look attractive and accessorized and junk.

- new headboard, and stat!!  I have had my eye on a few options of diy upholstered headboards.  this one, the one in that picture you don’t want to look at again, is a bookcase headboard.  while my husband loves it, and while I am thankful we have had it for 12 years, and while I am looking for some positivity, I am thankful for my thoughtful mother-in-law who gifted us this whole bedroom set as a wedding gift, it reminds me of my grandparents.  they always had a bookcase headboard.  I feel like I should have a gigantic bottle of excedrin hiding in one of the cubbies.

- new bedding.  that should be obvious.

- re-paint the dresser?

- I would love new nightstands.  one that is more “him” and one that is more “her”?

- heck, while I am dreaming, how’s about a king sized bed?

- then there’s the area against the wall in the top picture, you know, the one you started dry-heaving when you saw it?  yeah, that is a desk.  it really didn’t have a home anywhere else in the house, so it got stuck in our huge room. “we have the room for it…”  biggest mistake of my life.  it has turned into a catch all.  I need storage for my books, cause I kinda love to read.  oh, and that chair?  (the object that has the husband’s clothing piled-up on?  yeah, it’s under there…)  I just want to get rid of it so merrill will have to buck up and put his crap away.

(that sounded mean…  but it’s really just these pictures are putting me in a bad mood, I swear.)

- the light.  I loathe that light.  it’s too fancy?  I just don’t like it.

I could go on, but that would be like, a lot of stuff.

so we’ll just start here.

please forgive me, again, for the vomit on your computer and all.

style quiz.

 

this is challenge #2 for our ffa club, and I was excited to dive right in.

I went to Homegoods site to take their quiz, totally doubtful that they could put my style in a description that makes sense.

after answering a few easy questions, they gave me my results:

mindy, you are an Earthy Casual

You're interested in creating a welcoming home where people feel comfortable and happiness flourishes. You appreciate the warmth and individuality of natural materials and handcrafted things and are inspired by colors and forms from nature. You love mixing up different textures and are sensitive to the tactile qualities of objects. Your style is grounded and solid, not flighty or frilly. And you are never taken in by the trend of the moment.

You value order. You feel happiest if your home is well organized. You understand that when your house is in order, your mind feels clearer. Rather than a lot of meaningless objects or overly-designed items, you are happier with a few well-placed things. Your home is your respite from a busy life. Try to avoid letting things into your home that you don't really love.

holy moses.

that would be me.

there are so many points that are spot on, I was kind of astonished that there really isn’t anything that isn’t me in that description. 

- yes, I want my home to be welcoming and comfortable!  I want people to feel how happy we are here.

- I am not flighty or frilly.  I hate trends (usually).  I will be the last person to hop on the color blocking trend, I was (and still am) avoiding trends like the plague.

- and what’s not to say about organized?  that is how I NEED my home to be.

(and pretty sure that is how I described my own style in my first ffa post.) 

the only thing that I can say I don’t say “ahhhh..  yes!” to, are my “happy home colors”.

given, I did purposefully paint my dining room (at the old house) in a rusty orange color called “spiced cider”, and I loved it.  up until just a few months ago, I had a wall in our family room a similar orange.  I really do love the color, and I still have accents in that color, but I just can’t have it on my walls.  as petty as it may sound, it clashed with my christmas tree.

so I started thinking about this a little further, and decided that merrill needed to take this quiz.  you know, so we could make our bedroom “our” bedroom.

(I could use the excuse that I am at home more than he is, and therefore my style should trump his, but I really do want him to feel like our home is his too..  like I want him to want to be here and such..)

giving him the quiz was kind of comical, what with some of the questions and all, but his results are pretty darn accurate.

merrill’s results:

merrill, you are an Elegant Classic

You have a refined sensibility with an appreciation for history and tradition in your furniture and your rooms. You value beauty, things that are well crafted, and family heirlooms. You are visually sensitive and understand how symmetry and a formal layout give order to a room, and hence your home is refined and calming. You are not taken in by the trends of the moment. You go for things with a timeless appeal, and appreciate old-fashioned virtues like manners and handwritten notes and making a home that is welcoming for others.

You value serenity. While there are probably a lot of interesting things in your home, they are joined by your taste or a certain palette that keeps them in harmony. You appreciate the beauty in simple forms. Whether fancy or plain, you appreciate things that are well made and function as well as they look. You also have a strong respect for the environment and craftsmanship. You care about how things are made, and how they are used.

and that would be merrill, my friends.

in an expanded part of this description, it mentions that he also doesn’t live in trends.

so we can get along.

and I love his “happy home colors”:

so maybe that is where we can get along, on our “happy home colors”?

true story:

it once took us nearly 6 months to come to an agreement on carpet.

6  months.

here’s to hoping that our bedroom can come together faster than that.

my newfound membership in the “ffa”.

are you singing “the dixie chicks” song, “goodbye earl” in your head now?

no?

I know I have been.

so let me explain somethings to you.

1) “ffa” doesn’t stand for what you think it stands for.  it stands for “fearlessly finding awesome”.

b) it’s a club of sorts.

III.) I am hoping it will help me to un-funkify my bedroom.

(as well as other areas in my home.)

there is this blog, that I have happened to love for quite a while now.  I just love this chick’s attitude.  her personality rocks, and what’s best is that she is real.  she shares her incredible talents and gained knowledge (don’t you love it when people don’t keep cool ideas to themselves?) but she also shares bits of her real life.  I think that is what has attached her to me in a very irreversible way.

well, that and her sense of humor.

so usually you join a club because the club is based on something you enjoy doing or something you want to enjoy doing, or learn more about, or if you just need help in that particular area.  the latter is the reason I joined.

now our first assignment is “catch a dream”, we are to put into words what we want our home to feel like.

- organized.

- fun.

- peaceful.

I guess that the first thing listed totally describes me.

but in no way do I want my home to be a stack of blocky shelves stacked with boxes all labeled very uniformly with a label maker.

dude, I said I wanted it to be fun.

I attempted to hunt around the interwebs (mostly the pinterest) to find pictures that would define how I want things to be around these parts and for real, I started to get waaaaay ahead of myself.

baby steps.

for real.

so for now, no pix.

and for now, I will focus on my bedroom.

thing is, I want my bedroom to embody all the aforementioned traits, but I want it to be secksy as well.

it is so not any of those things right now.

(I could show you, but that would just be beyond comical.)

I am not sure I would even post a picture if it was assigned to us in one of our club meetings.

it’s that bad.

thing is, at our old house (as in the place we lived about three years ago) everything had an order to it, everything had it’s place.  we had worked our butts off and made that little home OUR home, and I loved every area in it. (well, except for two of the bathrooms.  they still needed an intervention.)  our bedroom was shoved to the last item on the list to be re-habilitated and that kind of sucked, but I was able to narrow down the vast list of what I thought I wanted, to what I really wanted by the time we got to that room.  and I got it all put together.  it was a space that we loved.

and then, we moved.

everything got shuffled and re-organized.

don’t get me wrong, it was a lot of fun.  I love our house.  it just isn’t ours.  yet.  I mean, it is “ours” it just doesn’t feel like “us”.

I am slowly trying to get things to a point where they function for me (uh..  I mean us.) to where life just kind of flows and things make sense.

so I guess that is where the organization being #1 comes in.

I could give  quite the descriptive list of things that I would change in/about my house now, but that would be lengthy, and merrill would roll his eyes and then he might roll them too much or too far back that he might fall over and lose consciousness.

that could be scary.

(he’s that enamored with my dreams for this place.)

so I won’t.

and that is also why I have decided to start with our bedroom, put all the other stuff that will likely not happen for a very long time, on the back-burner and get to this space that drives me batty.

I deserve a pretty place to lay my head, don’t i?

so I lied about the picture bit, because I do have some inspiration for this area of mine (and merrill’s)…

art:

I love this!

and I have been dreaming of this headboard ever since we saw this movie..

(the change-up)

I want my base colors to be neutral (thinking “revere pewter” for the walls), but want some pops of color.  I just want to make it easy for when I need to change things up a bit.

and I love this technique on the wall.

 

the used an eggshell for the majority of the wall, and a high gloss for the stenciled part.  I love the way it looks.

and then there is this….

like my husband is going to go for a big bunch of ruffles on his bed?

yeah, I didn’t think so.

if you would like to jump out of your comfort zone/beautify your home/be inspired/join the ffa, click on my friends!

hopefully, someday sooner rather than later, my bedroom will not be blah.