Sweet Summertime

I have one teacher day left.  And then I’m on vacation.  And I am so excited.  I really only have enough work to keep me busy for an hour or two tomorrow, so I have no idea what I’m going to do all day.  But that doesn’t matter.  Because at 3 pm, I’m out.  For the summer. 

Plans are already shaping up for the first few weeks of vacation.  On Tuesday, Oliver gets his rabies shot.  Wednesday my friend Rebekah and I are trekking out of town to Hobby Lobby and Michaels to get the materials we need for a baby shower we’re throwing in July (R. is leaving for a month and won’t be back until a few days before the shower).  On Friday we’re heading home for the weekend, and I get to see Shannon, Brian and Theodore.  I’m sure from the pictures I’ve seen recently that I won’t even recognize the little bitty…but I guess at this point, it has been 96 days since I’ve seen him :)  Then it’s VBS at church and the next week I am going to camp with the youth group as the non-pregnant female chaperone who can stay with the girls.

My big plans for the summer include doing not much.  And finally getting some rooms of the house in an order that I enjoy.  We found an entertainment center at Target last night that I love….and I figured out a design for end tables that I love—but I don’t know if we’ll be able to find them somewhere….so I might try to convince Andy to see if we can build them.  This summer, I’d like to do some work in our bedroom, finish the living room, and work out Andy’s office into a functional office space/guest room for the future.  I also want to get rid of a lot of clutter.  I started working to get rid of things in the bathroom yesterday.  I parsed through all of my makeup until I was able to get down to 1 bag of makeup supplies total.  I cleared out our shower too, and we recently switched over to Mrs. Meyer’s all-purpose cleaner—so instead of having 6-7 different bottles of cleaners, we only have 1.  I love it. 

In our bedroom, I want to replace the original lighting fixture (that I think looks like a b-0-o-b) with this capiz chandelier from World Market.  I have this bedding from Target on order.  And I want to add the extra closet space to our bedroom as shown here from younghouselove.com using none other than IKEA wardrobes.  Young House Love is my new obsession.  It’s a young couple from Richmond, VA who show all the ways that they are updating their old ranch style house.  It’s pure genius.

  And in the living room, I am hoping to pare down all of the excess crap that stores Andy’s stereo components with items like these…..I want this room to be light and neutral.  We have bamboo blinds to go up, and the walls/carpet are already a light neutral tan.  I have the perfect end tables in my head, but I think we may have to try our hands at building them because I very seriously doubt we can find them somewhere.  All of these images are from Target—except for the lamp, which is World Market.  I want some more storage in that room…for all of our extra little pieces.  Some for paperwork, shoes, etc.  All the random things that lie on tables and clutter up the house.  And we definitely need something to put shoes IN because Oliver keeps running off with shoes.

My end table idea is close to the West Elm Parsons cube—but I want it to be another layer high.  I want something tall and thin with some extra storage space.  And then we can put a nice, substantial porcelain lamp on top.