what to do with the playroom?

Let the decorating begin!

Oh wait, I have to finish unpacking.

I have unpacked the playroom.  I was planning on buying a new sofa for the playroom, but the Murray sofa I already have from Room and Board is the perfect size, and the kids have broken the springs on the seat and peed on it anyways, so I decided to stick that sofa in the playroom and buy a new one for the living room.  (The new sofa is supposed to arrive on Sunday, so hopefully I'll post pictures of it then!)

Its still a mess. 

The tv is not centered--we couldn't find a stud anywhere in the middle of the wall, and the Mister drilled many, many holes to find it, so we went with off-center.  That puts paid to my idea of hanging something on either side.  Ideas for decorating around a tv stuck randomly at 3/8ths of the way across on a wall?  I am not really the kind of girl who places art organically, I am more of a rigid grid type person.  This is probably going to drive me nuts the entire time we live here.

The playroom shares space with the dining room--its a long, 20 x 13 room.  One half is the playroom, and the other half is the dining room.  I had hoped to do a banquette in the dining room, but I cannot find a seating solution for an amount of money I want to spend that doesn't involve mounting kitchen cabinets to the wall, and thus I am putting that idea aside for a while.

The nice thing about this space is that it gets great natural light.  The bad thing about this space is that the natural light will sear your eyeballs in the morning, especially where the sunlight comes in through the high window and glares off the glass table top.  I'd like some curtains in here.

I am, however, undecided on what color direction to go here.  And whether I should do curtains? Pelmets?  Roman shades?  What to do with that top window, which doesn't have blinds like the others?

This room is open to the kitchen, which has navy blue tile counters, and the toy storage is contained in bright green bins, so I'd like to work with these colors.  The room is also open to the living room, which will have a brightly colored curtain pattern including red, teal, green and yellow.

I'm partial to the Stockholm Blad curtains from Ikea.  I think cobalt blue and bright green are a fabulous color combo, so the curtains and bins would work nicely with each other. 

We had the green colorway in our playroom in the apartment, so obviously that works as well:

What to do?  And what do I do with that window up top?

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campaign dresser mystery; observations

The movers arrived on Friday, so we are now firmly ensconced in a zillion boxes in our new house.  The new driver let me know that the old driver "had the ammonia" but was out of the hospital and on the mend.

You might recall that the night before the movers came, I got an email telling us our estimate was over what the Mister's company would pay for and thus I owed a zillion dollars for the extra amount.  I decided that there were a few furniture items that I would be willing to part with, and since the campaign dresser weighs about 200 pounds, I decided to give it to my sister.  I had the movers move it out to the garage, along with a matching campaign desk and hutch, and our china cabinet.  

I'll be honest, I have absolutely no memory of whether the campaign dresser and desk were in the garage when I did the walk-through with the movers at the end of the day.  I had told the movers that once we hit the weight limit they would be walking stuff back off the truck, so they probably were. I truly can't remember.  

A few days later I went to the garage to take some measurements of the furniture for my sister.  I opened the garage door, and.....where the hell is all the campaign furniture??  I guess the movers put it on the truck?  Sorry, sister, you aren't getting a campaign dresser after all. 

Since I thought the campaign dresser was on the truck, I mentally drew up a floor plan using that under the tv.  

On Friday all the furniture was unloaded and the movers started assembling stuff.  I looked around and asked "is there a big white dresser still on the truck?"  

Nope.  

Uh....where the hell is it?  

We called poor Brad the truck driver, still suffering from the ammonia, wheezing and coughing, who claimed he put it in the garage. 

Basically, this means someone stole a 200 lb dresser and a desk and a hutch.  They were extremely heavy, and certainly not the type of items that you would say "ooh, let me carry that home, it will just be a minute!"  Lifting the desk or the dresser would be a two person job, and you'd need a truck. 

Not a clue.    

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Awesome thing about this house:  completely fenced in yard and three walls of windows that means I can see the kids nearly everywhere in the yard from inside the house.

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I thought Southern California was warm year round.  I was wrong.

When we flew out a few weeks ago on our house-hunting trip, the weather forecast said that it would be 72 degrees.  Since it was 30 degrees in NJ, I thought that sounded warm, so I packed a bunch of sundresses.  When we arrived in California, I dressed up in my cute sundress, went to breakfast, and made the Mister turn around and take me back to the hotel to change into the pants I wore on the plane, and then we went to the mall and I bought a sweater.  I wore that outfit for the next four days.  My pants nearly walked off the plane themselves at the end of the trip.

Now we are here in California, and its 52 degrees and rainy, while the weather in NJ is in the high sixties and sunny.  Hahaha.

You would think that I would be all "pish tosh, you silly Californians don't know what cold weather is! This is nothing!"  But these Californians seem to think that rainy and 52 degrees is perfect weather for tank tops and shorts.  I am still bundled up in my winter coat.  I feel somewhat misled.

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My own personal episode of Hoarders.  I didn't get a picture of the first 58 bags we took to the dump. (Its mostly packing paper that the movers used to wrap our stuff in when packing it.)

There's  more where that came from!

At least that ginormous pile of packing trash and cardboard is keeping my kids from catapulting from the second floor.

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Welcome to our chair and small side table convention!

I bought another sofa.  Should be here next Sunday, yippee.

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I have unpacked nearly all the boxes inside the house.  (The garage is a different story and it will be months, if not our entire lease period before we can park in there.)  I have hit that last 10% of stuff, of where the hell do I put this, this will NEVER BE OVER JUST THROW IT ALL AWAY FOR THE LOVE.

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I'd like to end this on an up note but there is just TOO MUCH STUFF here that I need to put away.  Also, there are only three overhead lights in the whole house, so I am putting things away in the evening in the dimly lit ambience of a cave.  I do have plans for some lamps but that would require finding the extension cords and some light bulbs, which are in the garage, and I have not yet braved that hell.

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I think we are going to like living here, but I am not so great at the transitional period, you know?  

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no water landings

We are here in California!

Peter, reading at the airport, surrounded by our 400 carry-on bags.

Our flight wasn't bad, although my older two asked every thirty seconds "what if we have a water landing????" I reassured them repeatedly there would be no water landings.  I refrained from telling them, even on the 498th asking, of my fears that we were far more likely to slam into the Rockies than to have a water landing.  Thankfully there were no water (or mountain) landings.

As we were waiting for our flight I got an email from the moving company letting us know that our truck driver had suffered some unknown ailment that landed him in the hospital, and thus our belongings are in a parking lot somewhere in the southwest, and will not be showing up on Thursday as previously scheduled.  They may show up on Friday.  Or not.

Tonight we are staying in the Mister's executive housing (he has been here for a few weeks already), but this apartment has one *very small* bed, and originally we figured that for one night we would suffer it so as not to spend even more money, seeing as all our stuff (ie. our beds, and toys, lets not forget all our toys) were showing up the next day.  Thankfully after tonight the moving company will be putting us up in a hotel until our stuff gets here.

This is not actually the worst thing in the world.  (Except for the truck driver, I imagine he's not so keen on this scenario.  Did I tell you about our truck driver/head of the moving crew? He is the spitting image of Ron Swanson, and talks like him too.  I hope he's ok.)  However, instead of going over to the new house to supervise all my stuff showing up, I will go over tomorrow and clean the house (it will be a contact paper party!), and we might explore the neighborhood, and register Greg at school, and generally try not to be stressed out.

I find a large part of my being stressed out at the moment is feeding Peter.  We eat mostly at home where I can prepare foods that I am certain are peanut and tree nut free.  Peter has had three reactions in the last month, two of them to food from restaurants (the third was a rebound reaction the next day), and I am just very leery at the moment of eating out.  Which is problematic when one is moving and traveling and has to buy food at airports and all of one's kitchen utensils are on the back of a truck in a nameless parking lot a thousand miles away.  

Not related to anything, but as we drove home from the airport I said "goodness, the sun is very strong for 7:30 at night, isn't it??  That daylight savings is something extra here?"  The Mister gently reminded me that it was only 4:30 in California and yes, the sun IS still strong at that hour.

Anyways.  The only way out is through, right?  We are drawing closer to being settled in here, hopefully in the next few days.  The weather is lovely.  And there are palm trees all over the place.  I have sofas to shop for.

It was a very weird feeling getting off the plane, knowing that I was not returning to New Jersey.

Its only 8:30 here, but I know from past experience that I will be awake at 3 am until I get used to the time difference, and my children will probably be up at 2 (or earlier, the horror), so I will stop my inane ramblings and go to bed now.

(As some writerly guy I can't remember right now once said, I'm sorry this letter is so long, but I haven't had the time to write a shorter one.  In that vein, please forgive my excessive parentheticals and lack of coherence or editing. Basically this is a post to let my mother know I'm alive.)

Goodnight, New Jersey. I miss you.  Good night, California.  

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I talk about my feeeeeelings. AGAIN.

I stopped at Whole Paycheck Whole Foods last night for some groceries, and swung through the card section to pick up a card for Greg's teacher.  The card section was chock-full of positive affirmations.

One of them really jumped out at me:

Leap, and the net will appear.
   ~zen proverb

I am not really the kind of person who leaps without checking for the net.  I am the kind of person who Yelps four recommendations for net makers, asks what kind of tensile strength the rope has, how long the net maker has been making nets, and how sturdy the edifice is to which the net will be attached.

Moving to California feels very much like leaping and hoping that a net will appear.  

One more day.

Here's hoping all those Zen followers are right.  

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pumping gas; chesterfields

Two more days till we leave!

Ack!

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It occurs to me that I will have to learn to pump my own gas when I get to California.

If the majority of you are scratching your heads at that, let me inform you that New Jersey is unique in two aspects: you can't make a left off a major road here, and you don't pump your own gas.  Obviously on small local and residential roads you can make a left, but generally on roads with more than two lanes in each direction, you will have to get in the right lane and go around a circle at a light to make a left, much like an exit ramp.

via

These U-turns are known as jug handles, and they are confusingly placed. Sometimes they are before the light. Sometimes they are after the light.  Sometimes there won't be one and you'll have to go to the next light, or even the light after that.  And sometimes, for no reason you can discern, there will be a left turn lane.  If there is someone sitting in the middle of the intersection, trying to make a left into four lanes of oncoming traffic where there is no turn lane, and there are twenty cars behind him honking with rage, 100% of the time that car will have out-of-states plates and a driver gesticulating wildly.

Anyways, we don't pump our own gas.  The gas station attendant will do it for you, and you are not charged extra for the privilege.  I had a job in Georgia a few years ago, and I managed to spend four months there and only pumped my own gas twice.  The rest of the time I batted my dewy eyes at strapping young men and had them do it for me.  (That was before I had children who stole my youth; I was prettier then and young men were quite happy to help me.)

New states, new adventures, I guess.  I look at it as adding to my life skill set.

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I am obsessively shopping for the sofa for the playroom.  Its distracting me from the fact that I am leaving nearly everyone I love outside of my nuclear family behind. (Waah. Hold me.)  Also, that's what I do--shop obsessively for something once I have a design idea in my head.  Between the sofa and trying to find a way to do the banquette inexpensively, I am a shopping MACHINE.

I went to West Elm and sat on the chesterfield sofa.  It was....eh.  If I wanted a small loveseat for an entryway, or a second small sofa for a rarely-used living room, then that would be a nice choice.  It was a bit hard and stiff (oh, so many jokes here) but not very comfy.  Since I anticipate logging quite a few hours on that sofa, I want something that we can all snuggle on.  That sofa was not it.

Yesterday I was drooling longingly over the green Atelier chesterfield at Anthropologie.  At $6000, its wayyy out of my budget, but oh my heavens, is it not just the most beautiful sofa?  I can't get it out of my mind.  On the other hand, I haven't sat on it either.

And it comes in yellow!

Pottery Barn has a nice one, but at 90 inches long, its too big for the playroom.

Jules has an aMAAAAzing one she found on craigslist.  Stuff like this never turns up on my craigslist.

This picture has been in my inspiration files for quite a while.  I love everything about it--the white chesterfield, the vintage art, the black window trim, the rug, the metal table....I would love to have this living room.

via

The rest of my sofa shopping will have to take place in California.  Less than 48 hours till we are there.  

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Sofa for the playroom

The playroom and dining room space is a long space, about 20 feet long by 12 feet wide.

The space to the the left will be the playroom space, and to the right, under the light fixture, will be the dining space.

My plan is to put a sofa in the middle of the room facing the back wall, so the back of the sofa acts as a room divider.  This means I need another sofa, since the living room around the corner will have our other sofa.  

My first thought was to buy a leather sleeper sofa.  This sofa will be in the playroom space, and having a wipeable surface would be great with the kids.  I know that we will have plenty of visiting family and friends, so a sleeper sofa seemed like a good idea, especially since we don't have a guest room.  Some cursory internet shopping, however, revealed that leather sleeper sofas are mostly ugly and start around $4,000.....so.....I'm not getting leather or a sleeper sofa.  

Moving on to less expensive options!

A strong front runner is the Movie sofa from CB2, which was a contender last year when we bought a new sofa.

Last year we both said "that's too modern and a bit too slouchy," but it was definitely comfortable.  And I don't mind how it looks--for my playroom.  I wanted something a little more sophisticated for my living room, but for a playroom, I think it would be just fine.  Also, a huge plus--its a tight-back sofa, so my children would not disassemble the sofa fourteen times a day, as they do with my current sofa. (Every time I want to sit down I have to pick up all six cushions off the floor and put them back on the sofa.)

One drawback to the Movie sofa is that it is 88 inches long,  The room is 12 feet wide, and the sofa is nearly 8 feet long.  After we move in I will tape off the dimensions of the sofa to see how it feels in the space.

Another possibility is the tufted chesterfield sofa from West Elm.

I have yet to sit on this sofa, so I can't speak to its comfortableness.  But, it does have two advantages; it is a tight-back sofa without cushions, and it is 77 inches long.

The Club sofa from CB2 is also 77 inches and a tight-back:

I really like this leather sofa that Dana at House*Tweaking bought for her new home:

Its leather and its the right price, but it seems to be sold only on the internet, not in stores.  I am reluctant to buy a sofa without sitting on it.

Seen any good sofas lately?  Would you buy a sofa without sitting on it first?

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Garage of Doom

I cannot recall if I ever discussed our travel plans.  Our belongings are currently on a truck wending its way across America, which will take two weeks.  Because that means I have no furniture in New Jersey, and no furniture in California, we are currently staying with my in-laws in New Jersey for two weeks.  We will fly out to California on the 14th, and our belongings are scheduled to arrive at the new place on the 15th.  Its a few days before I get to start decorating yet.

When we found out we were moving, the Mister and I knew that we would have to tackle the garage.  The garage has been crammed full of furniture and bins of stuff since the day we moved in.  The use of space was not very efficient.  I do not have a true "before" picture, which is a shame--the furniture literally came up to the garage door and in the middle of the garage, with a tiny, narrow corridor to get to all the bins arranged on the right side.

Here it is after we started shifting some of the furniture out.

A few weekends ago my family came up for dinner, and my sister's awesome husband helped the Mister play a game of furniture Tetris to rearrange the garage.

We gave these bookshelves to my mother.  My sister took a brass headboard and a campaign nightstand, a stroller, and a bunch of clothes for Denise. My other sister took the two bright turquoise chairs, which I recovered on the spot in some Robert Allen Kiki Pinata fabric for her.  Sadly I didn't take any pictures of this.

I went through every single one of the bins on the side of the garage.  They contain mostly boy's clothing in sizes from 3T to 7, off-season adult clothing, and other household items.  I consolidated, donated, and purged.  I finally found the bin that contained my sweatpants, now that I bought replacements a few weeks ago.

Many, many, many things went to Goodwill:

True story:  this trip to Goodwill took a very long time because the road to Goodwill was shut down in both directions for Whitney Houston's burial.  We took the long way around.

After the furniture tetris, the garage looked like this:

When I was notified that the moving estimate was over the weight limit, I decided to leave behind some furniture.  I planned to leave the big black bookshelf and the china cabinet, because I had no place for them in the new house, and the campaign furniture, because it weighs a gazillion pounds.  I discussed this with the movers when they showed up, and they moved the china cabinet into the garage for me.  My sister was going to take the china cabinet and the campaign dresser.

Yesterday she asked for the measurements, so I went out to the garage to take them, and realized....the movers had taken the campaign furniture and put it on the truck.  Oops.  (We made it under the weight limit anyways.)  Sister is only getting the china cabinet.  The black Ikea bookshelf was finally given to someone off craigslist yesterday afternoon.  I gave it to them for free in return for getting it out of my garage.

And now the garage looks like this:

My sister will be picking up the china cabinet on Saturday, and then I am finally done with this house. (That chair belongs to the landlord.)

Over the course of the past week I have cleaned up, patched all the holes in the house, primed over all the crayon on the walls, and painted over all the dings and scratches.  This should have been a post in itself, but I was sort of busy and did not take any pictures.

Onwards and upwards!  The next house is lacking the basement we had here, so all of the stuff that lived in the basement will be in the garage, plus all the stuff that was in the garage here...so....I think its safe to say that there will be a William Morris organizing project or two in the garage of the next house.

I'm linking up this post to Pancakes and French Fries William Morris Project.  

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