Styling the Bookshelves.

For years, I resisted "styling" my bookshelves. It seems a particularly precocious thing to do. Shelves are for books--or games, or boxes, and maybe, maybe the occasional decorative object. In other words, shelves are places to put things, not display them.

But.

There's no reason they can't be attractive, too. Since I first decided to pretty up my Expedit, it's been a challenge to style it so that it looks good without sacrificing any of its functionality.

The Befores

Which "before" picture should I show you?

It's undergone quite the transformation this year. Here's one from January when I also had a tall Billy bookcase in the room and a wall of shelves above my desk.

I took down the shelves and moved the Billy to the basement--and, as you'd expect, a massive decluttering.

When I moved the Expedit to its new wall in the spring, I made sure to put back only what I absolutely wanted (the scrapbooks) and needed (everything else).

That didn't leave a whole lot of room for decor--though I took a half-hearted stab at styling it after the Organiz-a-thon.

I lived with it like that for a few months, poking at things and moving bits around until I took my official "before" photo for Justina's course.

And now, after much fussing about, here we are.

Ta Da!

Does it bother anyone else that the bull is a little off-centre? I face-timed with my daughter last week--and when they were in the centre, the horns looked like they were coming out of my head! Still.

The Principles:

It's been a while since I laid out Justina's style principles. In brief:

1. Address needs.
2. Include contrasting shapes.
3. Consider placement. Fill the space--but leave room to breathe, too. Aim for balance--you don't want one shelf extremely cluttered and the next one bare.
4. Create a tight colour palette.
5. Include pattern. Books can be upright or flat. If they are flat they can be left justified, right justified or centered.
6. Include items with various textures.
7. Include objects with bling.
8. Include botanicals.

In the video, Justina suggests you sort your books by colour. I didn't. I sorted them by subject matter. My scrapbook binders are sorted by colour--and all of my working binders have white spines, so I feel I've kept the chaos somewhat controlled.

Secondly, you'll notice: no botanicals. At least, none inside the unit itself. The Expedit sits ten feet away from a north facing window. The best I could do was this Mother-in-law's tongue from Home Depot beside it. I wouldn't mind including some faux botanicals, but I didn't see any I liked. Maybe Abigail Ahern can send some of her stuff to Canada?

I definitely took her advice to stand something in front of something ugly! The duck needlepoint and the crayon painting hide those nasty little drawer units.


Applying the Principles:

So, it's pretty obvious that the Expedit serves my needs. It has almost everything I need to run my home.

Mostly everything on a book shelf is rectangular or square. I tried using bowls to add some curves, but they sat too low in the cubbies--and the low things I have already are holding important things.

Placing too many low things in the cubbies made them look sparse--which looked really weird given how tightly packed those scrapbooks are. The whole thing became unbalanced. Fortunately, it doesn't take a lot of round or curvy things to offset all the rectangles. The owl and the plate do a fair bit of heavy lifting--and they fill about 75% of the space within the cubby.

You'll notice though, that the colour is all over the place. It would be really, really hard for me to neutralize my Expedit! Because of that, I kept the arrangement of the books similar. There's only one horizontal stack--and that's because I wanted to fill the space!

I'm lucky I have that bread basket--it adds so much texture! (It holds our two cameras). The books and boxes are "rough" too which helps--cause everything else is so shiny or smooth. There's lots of bling!

I'll leave you with the wide shot:

What do you figure? About a B+?

This post is part of a series based on a course I am taking at skillshare by Justina Blakeney called Style Your Space Like a Pro.

Assignment 1: (Identifying) The Styling Principles Of Justina Blakeney
Assignment 2: Styling the Coffee Table
Assignment 3: Styling the Sofa, sort of.

A Retrospective. 1. The Front and Back Yards, 2007-2014

In some ways: so much changed!
In others, not so much.

Makeovers inside the house tend to be decorative in nature, low budget and somewhat easily changed.

Changes made outside, though, tend to take much longer (sometimes several years) and are somewhat more permanent. They also tend to be done by my husband!

However, there are a lot of pictures--and it may take a while to get through the whole post. I advise a good beverage.

A Retrospective: A Series of Rooms, 2007-2014

On this very day, eight years ago, I started this blog. There are more than a thousand published posts.

I started it to record my participation in the old eight week Apartment Therapy Online Cure in the fall of 2007. Those were crazy days.

The first photo ever to appear on the blog. It was a developed photograph--scanned in!

There was a small group of us who started our blogs just so we could share our Cures with each other in greater detail than whatever AT had set up. From the enthusiasm and support of those women, I became hooked--on decorating, doing projects, thinking out loud, and sharing ideas and encouragement.

Though I've dabbled in wardrobe planning, and gardening, organizing and cleaning, my main focus on the blog has always been decorating my home. So, in that spirit, I am going to look back at each area of my home and how it has changed over the last eight years. We'll start outside, move our way through the hallways and passageways, look at the hardworking areas, like the bathrooms and the laundry room, then our bedrooms and then on to the dining room, the kitchen and then the living room. I'll post one retrospective a week.

As a grande finale, I'll take us on a tour of the whole house as it is this fall.
Pinky swear.

I hope you enjoy the series.

1. The Front and Back Yards, 2007-2014
2. Passageways: Entrys, Hallways and Stairs, 2007-2014
3. The Bathrooms, Laundry Room and Pantry, 2007-2014
4. The Bedrooms, 2007-2014
5. The Dining Room, 2007-2014
6. The Kitchen, 2007-2014
7. The Living Room, 2007-2014

Design Dilemma: Colourful vs. Neutral

As you know, I stalled out during the makeover of my dining room/study during the One Room Challenge last spring. One of the (many) reasons was this perpetual dilemma I have with colour.

Chiefly, I am not sure how much I can live with.

I love colour.

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I crave the sophistication (and calm) of neutrals.

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For some reason, I had planned to make over my dining room/study all in neutrals.

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But, I have my bookcase, I thought.

And its contents are anything but neutral!

There are a few neutralized Expedits and bookcases out there.

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I thought long and hard about how I might neutralize my own Expedit.  I even went to IKEA to look for those square woven baskets. (My local IKEA does not have them.) But of course, there are all those colourful scrapbook spines to deal with.


So how about those bookcases which are colourful and allowed to sing, as it were?

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Did you notice something?

In almost all the examples where the bookcase is colourful--the rest of the room is neutral. (The patterned footstool and pillow in the image above are still neutral.)

But what about using colour with abandon? Colour everywhere?

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Gah--navy blue and pink. Traditional + modern. Gorgeous.

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Ok, so, this isn't exactly using "colour with abandon," but it really isn't using any less colour than the example above: it's just softer.)

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This is a lot of strong colour!

And, of course, there's Edie's riotous workroom:

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So, OK, Edie's workroom may have ust defined what's "too much" for me: but a million possible variations lie before me, still.

Where do you fall on the colour spectrum?

a) Oh, my eyes! Neutrals only, please.
b) Lovely bits of colour, just here and there.
c) Served strong just like my coffee: straight up, and lot of it!

5 Steps to Get Organized for Fall: Your Way

The Fall is like a fresh start, isn't it? It's like the New Year for me--full of beginnings and promise. It is certainly a season of change.

There's lots of advice out there about making up snack stations for school kids, ideas for lunches, there's projects for making communication centers and all sorts of things--but our needs are all different, depending on where we are in life.

What will change for you? (Or has it already?) What do you need to do to get ready for that change? What do you need to do to make that change happen more easily?

1. Mind Dump

Take five minutes (set a timer if you're feeling particularly overwhelmed) and do a mind dump--or a mind map. This may be all you need to do.

But, if you feel like you may be forgetting a few things, check out a few sites, like the great practical September Checklist from Simplify 101. Here's Aby's Back to School Checklist. There's more: If you want to make sure you get your lawn and garden ready, there's a checklist from This Old House, a fall home maintenance checklist from Bob Vila, and if cleaning the house helps you prepare, there's the Fall Cleaning Checklist from Organized Home. If you really want to see checklists of every kind imaginable, just type "fall checklist" into pinterest!

Get everything swimming in your head down on paper (or typed into the screen--however you do it). You want it all out of your head and in front of you so you can see it all and assess it.

2. Prioritize

The next step is to prioritize. Once you've got all the tasks listed, ask yourself, given all that's to happen between now and Christmas (I know!) what's essential? What will make the most difference to our lives? What will have the most effect?

However, some things, like whether I hang a fall wreath on my front door won't change my life a whit--but it is fun. Don't forget to include a few of those.

I'm going to work through four examples from my list:

1) Call for Furnace Cleaning.
2) Buy a new winter coat.
3) Research frugal make-ahead meals.
4) Aerate the front lawn.

How much of a difference will these things make to my life?
1) Huge. Well, not making the call, of course, but having a clean furnace and ducts will make a world of difference to our comfort this winter--and our natural gas bills!
2) Again, huge.
3) Well, here, I'm not so sure. Having a few meals pre-prepared and ready to go on nights when I am tired would be great. But it is a lot of effort to put into the whole endeavour up front and I'm not sure I can't just continue the way I have: making two meals on one night when I know there's a heavy week coming up.
4) This will make no practical difference to my life at all. But a nice front lawn would be a pleasant thing to have.

3. Rank the Ease

Here's the thing. If something is dead easy and will make a big difference--it's going to take precedence over something that is difficult to do and won't make all that much difference to how your life goes, day to day. In fact, if something is on your list that's difficult to do and won't make much difference to your life--does it really need to stay on your list? Can you let it go?

How easy are they to do?
1) Call for Furnace Cleaning. Dead easy.
2) Buy a new winter coat. Relatively difficult and relatively urgent given how few warm plus sized coats exist.
3) Research frugal make-ahead meals. Somewhat difficult,
4) Aerate the front lawn. Very difficult. I'd have to rent an aerator and figure out how to use it--then do it!

Once I have these two measures: effect and ease, I can plot them on a graph. (I know, I'm such a geek. This handy tool comes from Jackie Hernandez and her book, Project Home.)

On the left vertical axis is the Effectiveness scale. If something will make no difference to my life at all, that is, if it won't have any effect on my life at all, it is a zero. Something that will contribute significantly to my life is a five.

On the horizontal axis, plot how easy the project will be. Lots of effort--that is, not at all easy is ranked at zero, easy-peasy is a five. Anything between 0-2.5 you probably could let go of, and anything 5 and above are "must do's" Anything falling in between 2.5 and 5 are "might do's"

So:
1) Call for Furnace cleaning: Effect: 5 + Ease: 5 =10. Must do.
2) Buy a new winter coat: Effect: 5 + Ease: 2 =7. Must do.
3) Research frugal make-ahead meals: Effect: 2.5 + Ease: 2 =4.5. Might Do.
4) Aerate the front lawn: Effect: 0 + Ease: 0 =0. Don't do.

4. Estimate Time

This may seem counter-intuitive, but the busier you are, the more important is this step. This way, when you have a free ten minutes, you can find something on your list--and get it done, just like that. If you have to look at your list and try and figure it out--well, your ten minutes will have been lost. So, do it and you'll be able to make the most of your time.

How long will they take?
1) Call for Furnace cleaning: 15 minutes at most. (I need to look up the number.)
2) Buy a new winter coat:1/2 hour if I am really lucky to 4-5 hours. Since I hate shopping for long periods, at least 2 maybe 3 trips to the mall.
3) Research frugal make-ahead meals: several hours.
4) Aerate the front lawn: most of the day.

5. Schedule your tasks.

Now, actually, there is one thing I can do before I schedule them--I can delegate! I just needed to slip that one in!

Do some tasks need to be done by a certain time? Keep that in mind.

Since I don't keep a day-timer or a planner of that kind, what I did was make a list.

1) Call for Furnace cleaning: I should call by the end of the first week in September so someone can come by the middle of October at the very latest!
2) Buy a new winter coat: As soon as possible.
3) Research frugal make-ahead meals: If I decide to do it, there's several ways to approach the research phase. I can spread it over several evenings, or I can just research one or two meals to do while I make up the menu plan each week, or I can blitz out and plan out a whole freezer meal prep day extravaganza.
4) Aerate the front lawn: Not going to happen. (But you knew that already.)

It looks like this in my Bullet Journal:

This might seem like a lot of planning and prioritizing--but the process brings tremendous clarity. That's vital in a season of change such as this.

Review:

1. Mind dump a big list. The bigger the better.
2. Rank each task according to the difference it will make to your life. Remember to include fun things.
3. Decide the effort it will take. Is it worth your time?
4. Estimate how much time it might take
5. Schedule a time to do it. Is it time sensitive?

I may not do this process all the time: but it was quite helpful for me this time.

From the Weekend: A Whole Lot of Plannin' Goin' On

This was supposed to have been a picture from my trip to Vancouver.
But it was cancelled.

A couple of days spent planning at my desk is more my speed right now, anyway.

And what I need.

How I Decluttered my Gall Bladder

1. Be diagnosed with gall stones and an inflamed gallbladder.
2. Ignore the good doctor's advice to have it removed--for two years.
3. Wake up one day, eat a piece of pie and feel nauseous.
4. Wake up for the next four or five days thinking you have a bad case of acid reflux.
5. Go to a medicentre on Friday where they diagnose the pain as definitely NOT acid reflux.
6. Go to the hospital where a test for my pancreatic enzymes is off the charts. My pancreas is essentially digesting itself because it is blocked. There are two main causes for this: alcohol and, you guessed it, gallstones.
7. Stay in the hospital for a week where they perform two procedures--one on Tuesday morning to take out two gallstones stuck in the duct the gall bladder and the pancreas share and, one Thursday evening to take out the pesky gall bladder. Learn patience, humility and how to sleep amid a million interruptions and sounds and people coming and going. (One nurse remarked, "a hospital really isn't a good place for sleep." There was even heavy construction!) Learn how to live without any wifi whatsoever.

I received excellent care and everyone was so helpful and kind. Amazing, really.
But I'm glad that's over.