Week Two: One Room Challenge

"Our house, in the middle of our street. Our house, was our castle and our keep"
Madness

That song was my very first favorite song. I was maybe 4 or 5 the first time I heard it?? And my cousin gave me the cassette--even though I didn't have a way to play it, and eventually it was ruined because I left it outdoors. 

But, I heard it on the radio on the way into the office this morning, and of course was struck by that last bit. "Our Keep." That's what I'm calling the makeover room in my One Room Challenge. It's a good catchall name for this little space near the kitchen and back door.

If you missed week one, please visit here.

In anticipation of week two, I did the following:

• gathered all the things that I already had in my home and wanted to use. I am repurposing a lamp, mirrored hook, and big stack of magazines. Shopping the House is a good way to save some money.
• went shopping for inspiration. I found an orange garden stool at HomeGoods, blabbed all about it on Instagram, and then was surprised when it wasn't there when I went back to buy it. Luckily, Tuesday Morning recently moved into the same plaza and I was able to get a very inexpensive white garden stool there. (I also broke a bunch of garden decorations so that was my first AND last time in the new store).
• thoroughly cleaned (the inch of grime on the windows, the extensive cobwebs on the light fixture, all gone!).
• decluttered the stuff I mentioned in the first post that was obviously not put away properly.
• worked on styling the shelves--moving the games to a lower shelf so they wouldn't be such a prominent feature and adding in some silver pieces.
• framed some simple things for E-Z art.
• dreamed a bigger dream by searching again (and begging here) for just a wee bit of this Bob Collins & Son Birds and Bamboo wallpaper. Anyone have some? I estimate that I would need less than half a roll. Probably much, much less. Pretty please??

Now mother's tired and needs a rest... Long live British ska bands of the 1980s!