Still lent, right?

 I'm still trying to do a bit of organizing, but we've been a little busy around here.

This was a little project that started last summer already when we found a little medicine cabinet at a garage sale.  Laura and I had a vision for it, but had to wait for the room to be finished.

Now it is done and the smaller finishing touches can be worked on.

First we painted the old white with a metallic spray paint.  Leftover paint from the clawfoot tub project.

Tonight we added a little crystal knob.  I mention this because it's pretty.

And because it explains the fingerprints all over the mirror.

 It was really tough to open without the knob.

But it's the inside that qualifies this project as a lenten organization project.  

Laura has this hanging in her small walk-in closet and it keeps all of her earrings and necklaces organized.  I love it and think I might want one myself.

Beth's new room

I haven't done "the big reveal" post for either of the girls' rooms yet.  They've been moved in for a couple of months now and they are pretty much done.

This is Beth's room.


Both Laura and Beth have the same beds, and although they really looked forward to decorating in their own style, they've both chosen to wrap their headboards in fairy lights.

After Christmas I managed to snag a couple of boxes for $2 each, and they throw enough light to read by.  And I love the fact that they don't really heat up.  For daily use though, I must say that they are $2 quality too.  Laura already has a broken strand.  Oh well.  Nothing really lost.

Although I would have loved to put more trim on Beth's ceiling (like in Laura's), it scared me to not know exactly where the little plastic plumbing pipes were running.  The chances of puncturing one with the brad nailer was enough to make me hesitate.  She has a lot of pipes in her ceiling, being located between the bathroom and the hot water tank. 

I still love her ceiling and putting the trim on the ceiling saved mudding and taping where the ceiling met the walls.  I guess that would be true of crown molding too, but I really like this look.

I remember being allowed to pick my own ceiling light when I was about Beth's age as we moved into our new house.  We made a trek into Calgary to the big IKEA store and I came home with a paper light.  So did Beth.

And like my fixture, one wrong move while installing it could rip it to pieces.  We were careful though and I like the modern look of it.  And it cost something like $6.  Gotta love that!
 
It's a small room so we did a lot of built-ins here instead of leaving space for furniture.  The desk was totally new for me to do.  I had to glue and clamp three planks together, fill any cracks (what plank is perfectly straight?) and then stain it.  It's far from perfect, but it works and looks good. 

 
Beth would love a section that raises like a drafting table or art desk, but that may just have to be a separate thing.  And the shelves allow her to display some of her favourite books and things.

This is my favourite wall. 

It's perhaps unreasonable how proud I am of the trim.  Especially the angles.  It turned out pretty great and there's so much storage space where there was useless, inaccessible space under the stairs in the past. 

 We just put the knobs on the closet doors tonight.  

The inside of the closet is a mixture of things we already had and an IKEA closet system.

And that's it.  It'll never be this tidy ever again.  Enjoy!

Patterns

 Alice and I just finished a game of Carcasonne.  

I love the little roads, rivers and farms.  I think every piece is just slightly different, making it fun to look at the final picture.  

Besides the nice landscape that it makes, it's a bonus that it's actually fun to play! It's one of the few games we have that takes very little setup, little strategic thought and only two consenting players are required.  In a house where we're all busy, that's a very good thing.

And another pattern I've always liked:

A nice line of matching mugs.

The girls like their mismatched, personal mugs, but I like the symmetry of plain white matching mugs. Their mugs remain hidden behind closed cupboards, but mine are now on display hanging below my new sink shelf.   One more Lenten project complete.