Backed Up To Dos & Laundry Room Refresh

My to-do list has seemingly exploded this past week. Beyond the basics of keeping a house tidy and organized, I worked all 8 of the last days. My little bits of graphic design work has kept me humming along designing ads for local businesses. Then there is carving out time for my art, which I consider ‘a job’ and the days when I’m not busy working downtown I ‘work’ at my ‘painting job’  the same hours I’d work if I were at my job outside of the  home. It’s an interesting balance, but if I didn’t consider my time in my studio ‘work’ I’d never be able to justify painting over housework like laundry and mopping. So it is work then. Without the quotes.

Just this past Sunday I was approached and asked to create a painting for the church’s Easter service, so some time today will be spent researching for that painting and sketching.

A few more design ads are popping up in my docket, and of course there is the pressure of creating enough of my own works to enter into art galleries.

I can only imagine what the work/life juggle would be like if there were kids in the mix!

In spite of today being a work in my studio day, I will do a bit of laundry because clean clothes and sheets are always a positive thing, and the bright shiny newness of the paint in the laundry room is calling my name. Elevating the monotony is always a good thing right? We started with this awful green room. Peeling blue-green linoleum, monster green walls…it was gross. Lots of vacuuming, removing linoleum and painting later and we have a pretty decent space to do the laundry in. It’s certainly not a finished space, but it is much brighter, lighter and less depressing to do the laundry in the updated space. The stark whiteness was a bit…dull still, so a navy stripe wraps it’s way around the room now, jogging it’s placement at the corners of the room. Besides adding a better light, or painting the exterior of the laundry sink to cover up old paint smears it’s a much nicer room with no money invested in it. Thankfully I had the sample of navy paint leftover from testing colors for the garage doors, and the white paint is just flat ceiling paint. Bryan and I both hate painting ceilings, so if we don’t have a lot leftover than we won’t feel like we need to paint many of the ceilings, right?

Guess I don’t quite have that work/life balance down yet. I can’t quite seem to let go of my feelings that the running of the house is my solo responsibility even though we both work outside of the home, and Bryan is independently insistent on helping out (with no solicitation from me)! It’s just ingrained in me I guess.

How do you achieve or in my case ‘trick’ yourself into a work/life balance? Does anyone have it down to a science?

One Large Room=Design Dilemma

When we bought this house one thing we absolutely loved about it was the large family room. No worries on whether or not our couch would fit. Instead it was something like will we be able to see the tv? Haha. Not kidding. I’m still not totally sold on the layout, partially because something feels off, and partially because we don’t want to spend anymore money on furniture at this point so there remains large ‘holes’ no matter how you shake things up in there.

Within the first weekend of owning the house we were here, walls painted and Grover carpet in place:

Then the carpet disappeared: 

We added flooring and our furniture, homemade curtains, and some color with the pillows and a rug:

Things felt dark and cramped and something was off. One day, while browsing through pinterest and my Better Home and Garden magazine collection I realized an ottoman with long skinny legs rather than the big steamer trunk would really lighten the place up. The only problem was the room was so large one, unless it was as big as the trunk wouldn’t really help. And I didn’t want something that big. So I needed two ottomans.

The need for two made the possibility of finding something cheap at a thrift store or Habitat for Humanity slim to none. So I turned my sights to Home Goods, Marshalls and TJMaxx. There were pairs galore but I needed something either in a great fabric, or easy to recover that wouldn’t break the bank. Countless single ottomans/benches were great colors. But the price and the lack of a duplicate ruled them right out. Then, I found these relatively easy to recover benches, but they were in a harsh geometric pattern, complete with shiny nickel nailhead trim around them. And the price was exorbitant, $299 a piece. So I kind of gave up on the idea and pushed it to the back burner. A few weeks later I went back to browse and they were still there, taunting me. This time the price had dropped to $149. Still, for both that would be $300 + tax and that too was way more than I could spend. So once again, even while I hated leaving them behind I did just that. I called the store though when I got home and asked what their sales schedule was, thinking I’d plan on coming back in whenever the sale day hit and scooping them up then. They said those two pieces were already marked down as far as they would go. Dejected I hung up. Guess it was back to square one.

Once again, a few weeks later I found myself back at HomeGoods, this time, somehow they were still there (ok well maybe that isn’t so surprising since they were very intense) only now they were marked down, all the way to $69 a piece. Still higher than anything I could have bought at the furniture thrift store, at a savings of $460 I scooped them up and brought them home where I began the task of painstakingly pulling out the nailhead trim and removed the crazy fabric. I did not photograph the process because it was hours of using a flat head screw driver and needle nose pliers to pull out the hundreds of staples and nailhead pins. My wrists ached for days. But to commemorate the crazy fabric:

 

And the new fabric:

And the new view of the room (granted this one has the Christmas Tree in it):

Now I only need to figure out what to put where the christmas tree was. Anyone have any suggestions? Below are two pics to show my dilemma. It can’t be too closed off, because the front door, and the two sets of stairs (up and down) all need walking access.

 

Enjoy the snow day!

 

 

Poppies

Well it’s about time I catch up with what’s been happening around here…over the last long long while.

In November, in  a fit of frustration I was working on loosening up my paintings. It only lasted the one painting and I’m right back where I left off with my tiny brushes, but I really enjoyed creating this painting, ‘Resolution of Poppies’. To let you in on how ‘slacking’ I’ve been on the art front, Bryan built the cradled panel for me when we were engaged in August of 2011. Yikes. I started an underpainting in our apartment in 2012, but packed it away when we moved and didn’t pick it up again until after the lure of the beach in the summer time had passed.

Well to get back to it, I’d spent a week or two on the painting and was really happy with it. Just in time for the Christmas Show at Studio33 Art and Frame Gallery so I took it in and asked Sara, the owner, if it was something she’d be interested in. She was and the next day at work we hung the show. Of course, I’d only spent a few weeks with the painting, none of them when the piece was finished and hanging anywhere I could see it and I wasn’t really ready to sell it. So rather than listing it for a price that was suggested by Sara, I decided to go a bit higher. After all, if it was priced higher than it probably wouldn’t sell and I’d bring it back home with me for a few weeks. Of course, things rarely work out the way you expect them to. Before the show officially opened, just a few days later a client walked in and bought it on the spot. I got a call it had sold while I was busy prepping food for the opening later that night. Never even got to see it with the classic sold mark on it, the red dot. So much for bringing it home after the show and enjoying it!

The colors are rich orangey reds, buttery yellows and cool blues. The movement, texture and translucency of the petals build over the soft pixelated background.

Measuring 20×23 inches with a thin poplar frame wrapping around it the piece was up for sale for $495. 

 

Commissions are always welcome in paintings and graphic design work. Check out my in progress portfolio tab for more examples of my work. Keep in mind that I am available to teach art lessons as well in a wide variety of mediums. Email courtney@bottledsunshine.org for more information!

One Year Down

29 to go.

One year ago today it was the beginning of ‘winter storm Nemo’. It was the final walk through of our house. It was the day we went to closing. The day the furnace decided to ‘be unreparable’. The day my in-laws drove five hours through bad weather and traffic to help us do some projects around the house and move. The weekend we painted two pink rooms and all the trim, ripped out a bathroom, ripped out Grover blue shag carpeting, painted the subfloor ing, steamcleaned five rooms of carpeting two times each, scrubbed the bathrooms. The day we got three feet of snow and were snowed in for three days. The day our tree decided to lose half of its fork and fall on a neighbor’s fence who then threatened to sue if we didn’t get a tree company out right that minute.

That unrepeatable furnace? My father-in-law fixed it for 2 dollars and change in parts. He hasn’t given us that bill.
Those freshly painted rooms? We are so glad they are no longer pink. That shag carpeting? Nice hardwood flooring. The planned move? Didn’t happen due to the snow. The steam cleaning? Saved us buying new carpets. That three feet of snow? Kept my inlaws around an extra day and that gave us time to rip out fuzzy wallpaper plus two other layers of wallpaper, and spackle and paint the bathroom off of the kitchen.
The tree that fell? Was a healthy tree so our insurance sent a nice ‘it’s not our problem letter’.

One year ago today it really didn’t feel like our house. Around midnight when the storm was blowing full force and I was the only one awake it felt like we had made a huge mistake and dove in way over our heads. But that was in the emotional heat of the moment.

I have learned how to spackle and paint without taping off my edges. I can rip up carpeting and install new lights. I can scrub bathrooms like you wouldn’t believe and can assist Bryan with replacing windows. Bryan can add outlets where there weren’t any before. He can build a dinning room table with a drill and a hand saw. He can fix clogged plumbing, replace the flushing valves on the toilets , he can stop the roof from leaking.
I can’t believe how much we have learned in the past year and how much we have grown. I wish the me who was wide awake in the middle of the night listened to the wind howling and the tree branches crashing down knew without any doubt that it was going to be ok. But if we hadn’t learned new skills, if we hadn’t learned to trust we never would be where we are today.

What a blessing this year has been. Where has this past year taken you?