Magic and Mayhem

The site was down last night so I didn’t get to do FDF last night. Nonetheless, I’m posting random embarrassing stuff just for you!

This week– the world’s wonkiest living room.

You may have noticed that our homeschool photos tend to be either with kids posed in front of fridges or doors, taken from below, outside or on stairways! This is not by accident! Our house frequently looks like we live in a very packed snowglobe and a terrible giant has recently picked us up and shaken us.

Our living room is not just messy, but tacky, though. We painted and redecorated last year, and did it all around a wonderful quilt that a bunch of fabulous friends from my homeschool email list made for me and baby Alex. Everything was designed to match it, and it was hung prominently on the wall.

I painted the awful wood paneling white, thinking it would brighten up the space. It did, but with the bright colors elsewhere it made it look more blinding than serene. Ah well, it’s still better than wood paneling, right?

Then we painted the windowsills this lovely “gold” color that was not so much gold as screaming yellow. We keep meaning to repaint when we get the (snort) extra time. And hey, change is good in my book, even if it’s rather pitifully done change. Baby steps! It was still progress!

Then we bought new cloth shades for the windows, except I had Daryl hang them too high so they not only clash but look like outgrown pants 4 inches too short.

I also have an eccentric aunt who only sends me pink things. I gave up telling her that I don’t like pink. She insists that I do and ONLY sends pink things. Pink toasters. Pink bathrobes. Pink Kitchen Aid stand mixers (I don’t care if it’s pink, I love it!). Pink napkins. Giant pink frogs for new baby boys. You get the idea. So it looks at times like someone has taken a paintball gun with pink ammo to our house. I give away loads of it, but much of it remains like a cold you just can’t shake.

Then we finally let our 20 year old couch go to furniture heaven and got a new (to us) small hide-a-bed from a lady on freecycle. Okay, so it didn’t match anything we owned. It was in our budget (free) and was a hide-a-bed, which is perfect for sleepovers and also just for plain old kid fun. I keep meaning to get a slipcover for it but with the way everything else matches in the living room it seemed a little laughable.

Then a lovely lady on Freecycle (Did I mention we love Freecycle? We also give away oodles of our own things through the network) gave away a giant handmade Oriental rug. I’ve always wanted an Oriental rug. Nevermind that it could not possibly clash more with the quilt, the children’s paintings on the wall, the screaming yellow windowsills, the embarrassingly short blue window treatments, the outdated loveseat and the random pink things.

I should also mention that we bought our house for $2,000. Yes, that’s the correct number of zeros. I am the queen of frugal living. However, two thousand dollar houses tend to have really tacky light fixtures, beat up floors and other bits of “character.”

Oh yeah, and then add several billion children’s books, baby toys, kid toys, Daddy toys, HS stuff and random cats.

That about covers it.

See why I carefully pose my pictures in doorways?

But in honor of full disclose, I give to you our chaotic, creatively challenged, colorfully confused living room.

Now don’t you feel better about your own house?

Someday it’s going to be pretty. Someday I am also going to have time to regularly style my hair, publish my book, organize our craft supplies, eat breakfast, write relatives more often, finish my degree, see Europe, exercise daily, clean out the garage and master baking bread by hand.

But not this week.