New Living Room Rug

Even The Monkey thinks its pretty awesome! I find her laying on it a lot. HA!

We went from two hastily seamed together Ikea rugs (yay for $19.99 each at the time...) to a larger 8x10 rug. The old rugs were mostly under the furniture but for this rug only the front legs of the furniture are on the rug. I've discovered that the play area was the rug and The Monkey just needed a larger space plus our old rugs were, well, old. And a pain to vacuum every day.

This rug is from Joss And Main. which is one of my new favorite decor sites to peruse occasionally. There's a ton of stuff to look at, so its better if you know what you want (an end table, a painting, etc...) to find what you like, otherwise you will be sucked in and 30 minutes later you're wondering where the time went. Shipping was super quick.

The next thing on my to-do list is to get rid of the changing table in The Monkey's room, replace that with a bookcase so I can move all of her books into her room and get the white bookshelf that we use for toy/book storage down into the basement for toy storage there. I'd like to replace the book shelf in the living room with some sort of antique or rustic table - effectively getting rid of the toys in the living room except the kitchen in the corner and a new toy storage bin rack. I think I'm over the toys but we just don't have the space and the basement is still unfinished (ok, it just doesn't have a finished ceiling or drywall up).

I rotate The Monkey's toys - she has 4 toy storage bins with a variety of toys in each. I rotate them every 2-3 weeks depending on her boredom level. Any new toys HAVE TO FIT, otherwise, well, they just sit on the floor and kids accumulate a lot of stuff. So toys need to be rotated otherwise I would be swimming in toys. No, thank you.

So, phew, new rug is in. I don't have to worry about this anymore. YAY!!!!

Happy Wednesday!!!

The Neverending Basement

 Here's the debris left from some demo. Bimmer Man still isn't quite complete with demo (however, if he waits about 12 weeks, I'll be able to help). The carpet still needs to be pulled up and the dry bar (shown in another picture below) needs to be pulled out.

 Along the far wall there used to be 3 useless closets. Two had hanging bars and the one had only one shelf. In a basement you need more shelves and less hanging bars. We need a bit more specialized storage as well (now I'm going to have to think of toys, crap, never thought I'd be saying that for awhile). BUT on this wall we're going to mount a flat screen television. Ideally, I'd love to have the components on the opposite wall (so mounted in the shop on the other side of the wall) so no cords are showing with a wireless feature for it and then hidden speakers. I'm not sure if that will work, but we'll have to talk about it. If we don't do the components on the opposite wall, then we'll have to do a wall cabinet of sorts. Hello, Ikea. Also, the door will be closed off. No need for two doors going into the shop (plus that means that I can get storage shelving for the shop so everything won't be piled on the floor. YES!).

 Here's the dry bar. The reason it's being ripped out: It's useless. There's no electrical outlet back there for a mini-fridge, there's no water hook-ups to even think about putting in a small sink. It's basically storage that's hidden in the corner that doesn't work for us. So the paneling will be coming down, the bar will be ripped out and in its place will become a closet (complete with a door). In the closet, I'll put shelves for toys, crap, etc... It will be much needed.

 Now, back to the laundry room for a bit. We have some repairs to do. When the new washing machine came, it didn't fit in the door - why? Because the furnace is partially blocking the door which is now hidden by the curtain. There needs to be some sort of door to the laundry room. I'd love a pocket door so that you don't have to worry about an open door at the bottom of the stairs and you can block out sound for the future movie watching nights of the washing machine/dryer/furnace/water softener/etc... We'll see how expensive the pocket door is, otherwise it may just end up being folding doors. Have to look into the cost.

 Now, here's another problem. It's the laundry chute!!! I LOVE THE LAUNDRY CHUTE. Not only will it be nice when our child(ren?) get older, but I have a feeling that Bimmer Man doesn't like it. I think I may need to convince him otherwise. How do I go about doing that? Not only will we NOT need laundry baskets in the bedrooms on the first floor (which are small to begin with) but it will be so much easier for this child and future children to keep their rooms clean. And to get laundry to the basement without breaking my back or hauling clothes through the house to throw down the basement stairs.

Phew. Basement update over with. Any questions?