HOW TO KEEP YOUR HOME COMPANY READY

I'm going to share a secret with you. It's a cleaning secret and talking about cleaning might not sound exciting. However, this has saved me lots of stress and given me balance in my home. When things are a mess, I find it hard to relax and accomplish some real brain tasks. This is the solution to attack a frumpy home.

First, I do love clean. I like the way it smells, looks, and invites. I like the way my kids are more creative when a space is clean for them to dirty up. I like the way it entices me to make another creative mess in the kitchen. I like the way clean feels good and breathes peace to my soul and gives me comfort in welcoming others into our space.

I didn't always know how to clean well. Really my mom and sister are the master cleaners. They are going to polish and clean every nitty-gritty detail of  e v e r y t h i n g  and it's going to shine after. I attempt to be like them. My childhood bedroom was a disaster: clothes everywhere, desk piled high, knickknacks tucked into corners, and books stacked precariously. I'd like to take some credit for my sister's cleanliness because she had to share a room with me. Maybe, just maybe, my anti-clean is what has inspired her own skills. Love you, sis.

Here's what I do:

I keep my house 80% clean all the time.

MASTER CLOSET MAKEOVER

My master closet makeover is something I've been dreaming about for almost a year. A year people! I've gone through so many planning options and organizational ideas but landed on some simple solutions that were cost effective as well as transitional. And although I could dream of budget-breaking closets, this is really just what I want. It's my own kind of pretty and effective.

You'll notice from the "before" pictures that one of the biggest factors in this makeover was the paint color. The interior of the closet was still Sherwin Williams Camelback. The whole house was that color and I've slowly eliminated it, I still have the kids' closets, but the day will come.

The new paint color is the same as our trim Sherwin Williams Dover White. If you're looking for a warm white, this is a great option. It has a hint of yellow it in that is calming and doesn't turn bluish in bright light. It's a great pairing with our overall house color of Accessible Beige.

(Before)

Seriously, this closet needed some organization.

TIERED EARRING STAND

In line with my necklace organizing, this is my solution for storing, using, and enjoying my earrings. 

If there's an accessory I always have on, it's earrings. They are simple, fast, and really fun. They are also out of the way, you don't have to worry about them like you do a necklace or bracelet. I know that gold is the in color, but man, I really do like gold and have my fair share of earrings sporting it. 

In my master bedroom I've mixed gold and silver finishes. I really like it. I also like giving a little pop of crystal-like glass for a complete combo. When I saw this tiered stand at Home Goods I knew it was the perfect thing. 

ORGANIZING NECKLACES

Yea for organized accessories!

Jewelry organizing can be a headache if you don't have a good system. I was excited that my master closet reorganizing called for a better solution for my necklaces. 

You might have your necklaces in a pile, hung on thumb tacks, 3M hooks, in individual compartments, in a jewelry box, or even laying all over the top of a dresser or table. Here is a simple solution that's less than $5!

I hung this bar at eye level in my closet. Done right, it looks pretty enough to hang in a lot of different places.

This is yet another ikea-to-the-rescue solution. Seriously, we've got to use ikea for all it's amazing organization solutions.

My favorite part about this, besides its beauty, is that these particular s-hooks don't wiggle. They snap onto the bar and have to be pushed to move side-to-side or back and forth. It's so much easier to organize if the things you do actually stay in place. With kids running all around the house, it's nice to have something that kinda stays put.

This bar is the bygel rail costing $2.99 (you can order online or find in-store in the kitchen organizing section).

The hooks are bygel s-hooks that are plastic, 6 for $0.99. Unfortunately they aren't sold online. But they come in white, orange, green, red, and black.

So if you're out of reach of an ikea store, you can opt for the wiggling bygel s-hooks that are sold online costing $0.99 for 10.

Having my necklaces hung so nicely definitely makes me want to wear them more! Make sure to level your bar when you're attaching it to the wall. I hung mine on two small nails and it's plenty strong for my necklaces. Have a beautiful day!

14 WAYS TO ARRANGE BED PILLOWS

I love the way my friends inspire me. 

I love when we're close enough to ask about our children's moodiness without fear of judgement, go swim suit shopping together, share ideas for our marriages, get to the nitty gritty of our anxieties and beliefs, and even ask how to make a bed look "catalogue" rather than feeling blah. (Shout out to my friend Courtney for this post inspiration. Check out her amazing photography skills that I try to imitate.)

I don't know anything magical or have years of experience, but I do have pillows and like to make my bed. So I'm going to tackle the last question. 

HEADBOARD, SIDE TABLES, LIGHTS

All this can get pricey. Start with what you have and tweak it (paint, swap furniture from another room, recover light shades, scour craigslist). If you want to make a headboard, you can see how I made mine. I also made a bench to match. If you're interested in our whole bedroom transformation, you can check that out too.

QUILT SET

I love the crispness of white. I found my quilt and sham set at target. I love that it has some texture with the sewn lines across it. It also helps that I don't have to worry about wrinkles after I launder it. I can't see it online anymore, but you could try in-store for something close to the same.

COVERLET

In addition to having pillows make your bed stellar, a coverlet (like my gray one with light brown stripes) can add some dimension laid across the end of your bed. 

You can make it compliment your bedding and pillows, pulling your room and colors together. 

Occasionally you might unfold it and put it on top of your other quilt.

4 KEYS TO MAKE A BED "CATALOGUE" USING PILLOWS

1. Layered sizes, textures, and colors.

2. Recognizing the power of and using prints.

3. Having a theme. 

4. Being willing to experiment, fail, and try again to get the look you like.

It was fun taking my pillows out and arranging my bed lots of ways for your enjoyment. You can make your bed with lots or little, with color, with neutral, fluff, or simple. I've given you 2 weeks of making your bed a different way every day!

Go into the design with confidence and own whatever style fits you best! 

Make sure to enjoy your freshly made bed while you can. If your house is anything like mine, soon enough it will be ruffled, wrinkled, played on, and disassembled. Even with all that happening, it's still totally worth the effort.

This post was also inspired an awesome diagram that I've personally referred to several times on my bedroom pinterest board. 

Via Roost Home and Marissa Waddell Interiors

HOW TO MAKE A GALLERY WALL

I'm so excited to show you guys my gallery wall! 

With the thousands of pictures we all have, it's hard to narrow down to just a few. 

My whole goal in the pictures I chose: to show living, not just posing. 

I love it and I love that the entry to our house jumps with life as soon as you enter the front door. (I took these pictures standing in front of the door.)

How to make your own gallery:

1 - Measure your space.

2 - Knowing the type of frames you want to use ahead of time is helpful. I choose the ikea virserum brand of frames.

3 - List out the possible frame sizes. (there are lots for this brand)

4 - Draw your wall space on paper with dimensions in mind.

5 - Draw possible frames in your dimensions.

6 - Cut out your frame sizes in paper.

7 - Tape up the papers on the walls to see the layout.

8 - Make changes as needed, list the frames you need, order the pictures to fit the frames, and go shopping for your frames.

9 - Leave the papers on the wall.  

10 - When you have purchased your frames, they should match up exactly to the size of the papers you cut.

11 - Measure to the center of each paper and mark.

12 - Measure the back of the frame to see how far down the hanger will need to be hung, then measure the paper from the middle down that far and mark.

13 - In the crosshairs, hammer the nail right through the paper. 

14 - Check each frame, the hanger lengths will be different for each size of frame. 

15 - Remove the paper, hang the frames. 

16 - Put your pictures in the frames. 

HOW TO STABILIZE YOUR DRESSER // stuff i learn from ikea

I'm pretty simple.

I love simple solutions. I love ikea because they teach simple ways to construct.

I love things that are practical, useful, clean, and not fussy. These things together make beauty for me.

I love how beauty can be different for everyone.

When I visit my friends' homes, they are all very different in looks and feeling. But they are theirs and that's what matters.

I believe in creating a home for yourself and your family that provides room for growing. How that is done, is personal, experimental, and takes patience.

My house is never done and never will be. Sometimes I say, "oh, if I just do x, y, and z, then I'll totally be done with the upstairs or the garage or the backyard." No, that's not true. A house is a continual project zone. It's good that it's that way, it makes us work and makes us really hone what we want and love.

This said, I finally redid my master bedroom closet. We removed a dresser that we've had for the past 6 years. It was a hand-me-down from a hand-me-down and it was time to do something different.

Some shelves took it's place, the very shelves that taught me something from ikea.

They are simple and solid, but the real trick are the metal crossbars on the back of the shelving system.

Ikea is seriously genius.

How do they engineer so much stuff so simply that anyone can assemble it?!

These crossbars are the key to making the shelves be stable. I had the entire shelving unit together and it was rocking dangerously back and forth. I used 4 simple screws and the crossbars and it was super solid.

This is exactly what I needed to learn.

I want to re-use our dresser in the boys' room, but it need to be sturdy to do so. I needed to learn the crossbar trick on the shelves so I could do the same on our dresser.

It worked perfectly.

I went to home depot this morning and picked up some metal with holes in it (I already had screws at home) and simply screwed in the metal strips. I'm impressed and love that we can reuse this instead of listing it on craigslist in the free section.

It took me 2 minutes and the dresser is as good as new.

Tips for making crossbars successful:

1. If you want to go cheaper, pick up the crossbars at ikea. It was less than $2 for the ones used on the shelves, the home depot bars are $4.47 each. Either should work.

2. Mount them at an angle, not parallel to the floor.

3. Make sure the crossbars you get are long enough to stretch across your desired space. Measure before you buy.

4. Mount at two different angles for maximum stability.

5. Beware that by using home depot bars, there is a triangle of metal that will stick over the edge of your dresser on the bottom edge. I didn't mind because our dresser is going up against a wall. If this is an issue, I would go with the ikea bars instead.

Good luck and have a fantastic ikea/dresser/closet/simple day!