Dustup.

You know what makes for a hot mess? Chalk.

Dude, chalk is messy. And dusty. Here's a tip: don't try to wipe chalk dust off wood furniture with a wet cloth. The resulting white chalk paste smeared all over your wood furniture is next to impossible to remove. Just blow that crap off onto the floor and hope the vacuum gets it.*

Helpful cleaning tips from Abby, certified professional homemaker! You're welcome. 

Anyway. Wondering why all the talk about chalk?

Well, I finally got around to one of those home projects I've been blathering on/doing nothing about for the last six months: a chalkboard in my dining room.

First off, I know. A chalkboard is not standard dining room fare. But let's review my goals for this redecorating initiative, shall we?

- Colorful
- Kid-friendly
- More "me"
- Cheap

What screams "color" or "me" more than a chalkboard?

Well, lots of things, since chalkboards are black and I haven't used one in 20+ years. But I loved the idea of having a focal point that could be updated regularly, changed seasonally, and used for fun family-friendly things like quotes, scripture, game night score-keeping, party menus, birthday greetings, etc.

I found my inspiration on Pinterest:

Paint the glass of a Goodwill picture with chalkboard paint and hang it. Great in theory, harder in practice. Our buffet is pretty wide, and I wanted to fill most of the space above it. I searched high and low for something that would work, but couldn't find a frame that was large enough. So, my plan changed: paint the wall and draw a frame around it with chalk.

At this point I will confess to having ZERO drawing skills. Fine motor is not my bag, though I like to keep torturing myself with projects that involve tiny details. Thank heavens I go to Goodwill regularly and stumbled upon this hunk of junk before remembering I have no skills and attempting to draw myself a frame:

 

Yep, a gigantic bulletin board falling out of its frame. You know what they say: another elementary school's trash is some crazy lady's treasure! It wasn't the ornate frame I envisioned, but I knew it would work just fine. Especially once I got it painted. Because, you know...color.

We hung the frame, traced it, taped it off, and painted it with five coats of chalkboard paint. Good thing chalkboard paint dries quickly, because it turns out I have no patience.

During the brief period of drying time/frantic pacing, I spray-painted my frame a gorgeous mustard yellow. I loved the way it looked drying on my garage floor and was so excited to hang it up.

Wah wah wah.

It looked terrible. Granted, this is a terrible picture of it in terrible lighting, but I guess that's good because it kind of expresses the terribleness of that color against my walls.

Yuck.

I tried to like it. I thought maybe I just needed to push myself, because change is hard for me and it can take me a while to adjust to the idea of something new. So we sat it there for a bit and then I said to Nate "It's not right. Do you think it's right? It can't be right. What do you think? I just don't know, but I'm pretty sure it's not right."

I'll spare you the details of what turned into a riveting spousal discussion.**

Nate (eventually) agreed that it wasn't right, but I think he was willing to keep it if it meant him not having to deal with my incessant questions or another round of painting indecision. But the perfectionist in me won just as it should, and the following weekend I repainted it white.
 

NOW it's right.

I know, I know...a black chalkboard with a white frame does not really meet the colorful criteria. It's the exact opposite of colorful. But it's kid-friendly, and it's definitely me. Plus the neutral frame means I can do a lot with my lamps and other accessories. In addition to clashing terribly with my walls, that yellow would have tied me to a very specific color palette. Repainting was a good decision.

So, there's a chalkboard in my dining room. And next to it, some lamps that look awful. But don't worry — I have plans for those.

Whether or not I will carry out those plans before 2021, well that's the question.

--

* Somewhere Martha is having a heart attack, but I'm pretty sure she has people to deal with her white chalk paste disasters, whereas I just have me and a dollar store "magic eraser."***

** Argument.

***The quotes are because it's probably not called a magic eraser at the dollar store. It's most likely called a wizard sponge or delete-a-mark pad or something equally stupid. But man if they don't work just as well at a fraction of the price. I make an extra stop for those suckers. And the "floor dusting sheets" aka swiffer cloths.

Progress report.

My house is a mess.

And I'm not talking about a "stuff strewn about" kind of mess (please never open my bedroom door). We are fairly tidy and try really hard to stay on top of the day-to-day clutter because when four people and a dog share 1200 square feet and one bathroom, it gets ugly pretty quickly. Think nightmarish stacks of school papers and overflowing laundry baskets and piles of playground pebbles and lots and lots of dog hair.

Oh, the dog hair. Yeah, we have to stay on top of that. Both for physical and mental health reasons. But, I digress.

The mess to which I'm currently referring is more of a "what in heaven's name is happening in here?" kind of mess.

I'll tell you what's happening in here ("here" being my first floor): I've lost my everloving mind.

Remember that challenge I gave myself earlier this year? The one about injecting color into my drab, tan house through thrift store shopping and DIY projects?

Idiotic. Turns out I love tan. Tan's my favorite. You know why? Because loving tan means I DON'T HAVE TO DO ANYTHING ELSE.

Seriously, who has time for this? When am I supposed to thrift and craft and paint and sew? I currently have about 52 minutes between Calvin actually going to sleep (vs. when we put him to bed an hour and eight minutes earlier) and me actually going to sleep. And call me crazy, but I prefer to use those 52 minutes to shovel ice cream in my mouth, flip through my secondhand copies of People, and half-watch The Bridge.

Occasionally, though, I find a burst of energy and wholly devote myself to this project. This typically occurs on nights when Nate isn't home. Then he comes home, looks from me to the mess I've made, raises an eyebrow, and says "whatcha doin'?"

Nate's "whatcha doin'?" is the equivalent of "what in heaven's name is happening in here?"

A fair question, and one I ask myself pretty much every time I walk in the front door these days.

On one such evening, I took down everything on my living and dining room walls. That was in June. Guess what's hanging on my walls now? Nails.

I also purchased some fabric and folded it around a curtain rod just to get a feel for how it would look in my entryway window. Three weeks ago. It's still there. And it must look okay because last weekend my mother-in-law said "oh, you got your curtain done!" Um, no. I got my fabric shoved up in that window. But if no one can tell the difference between something I've sewn and something I shoved, why bother sewing it?

And let's not get started on the insane mix of styles represented in my house right now. Modern, vintage, and traditional do not work as well together in one room (or one house) as you might think. Every time I change one thing, I realize I need to change ten more for it to work.

Thus the mess.

In all seriousness, redecorating is hard work. Really hard. When your goal is to make your house more colorful and family-friendly and everything you own is dark wood and breakable and you don't have money to buy all new stuff, well...it takes some doing.

I'm totally frustrated, but I know this has been good for me. It's helping me realize that matching does not always equal style, that nothing bad is going to happen if I take some chances and come up with crazy combinations that appeal to me and no one else, and that the beauty of our home is the result of how we live in it — not how we decorate it.

Of course we all know I will be freaking out trying to make sense of this disaster before my sister-in-law's baby shower next month.

Or maybe not. Maybe I'll just do what I did before Audra's party and take everything down. I'm halfway there already.

De-tanning.

Like my new wreath?

I can't tell you how ridiculous this looks on my front door when we have two feet of snow on the ground.

I can, however, tell you that I don't give a hoot. I love ridiculous. Ridiculous is my favorite!

I threw this together the other night (Mod Podge is my new BFF) because I just can't stand this blah wintery blahness for one more second. I love the snow, but I am tired of the gray and dreary backdrop. Gray trees, dirty snow, concrete. Blah! So my gray and dreary front entrance complete with dead Christmas garland now boasts this wildly inappropriate-for-the-weather wreath. 

I actually laughed when I saw it from the street for the first time. It's pretty bright, even from a distance. But bright is good! I need bright right now! And my house really needs bright right now. Which leads me to my poorly named year-long home futzing initiative:

PROJECT COLOR.

(Sorry, couldn't help myself.)

So, here's the deal. My house is boring me to tears. The only room we've painted since we moved in is Calvin's. The house was freshly painted in a neutral palette when we bought it, and it worked with our existing furniture so we went with it. And it's not bad, by any means. I think most people would say we have a nice house painted in a nice color palette.

It's just so...tan.

While I love tan as a skin tone and very much wish I could achieve it for myself, I do not love it as a house tone. It's a lovely color, it's just not me. It may have been me six years ago, when I was taking my newly married adult homeowner status very seriously and shopping exclusively at Pottery Barn (before everything there had a lobster or shell on it), but since then my style has evolved and our family has grown. What worked for Nate and Abby in 2007 no longer works for Nate and Abby and Calvin and Audra and Matilda in 2013. Adult dinners have since given way to kid playdates, and what we need and want now is a bright, fun, comfortable space for our family and friends. A home where our kids can play and create and be inspired. A home where I don't feel like I have to tuck all the kid stuff out of sight because it doesn't "go."

There are a few rooms in our house that already meet this criteria: the kitchen, Calvin's room, Audra's room. Our bedroom will be painted and redecorated this spring, but I consider that a separate effort. The bathroom is fine — again, not what I'd choose but also not at the top of my priority list. I might make some minor updates to that later in the year.

The real focus of this effort will be our primary living space: the entryway, living room, and dining room. These areas need to be brighter, lighter (in both color and personality), and more functional for a busy family of four. We have a very small house, so every part of it really needs to be livable and usable.

I've already put some parameters on this initiative, since I would most assuredly go crazy and spend all of our money without them.

Wall colors stay. I hate painting, and this would be a major undertaking (difficult with small children). So instead of ridding our home of tan, I will just attempt to distract from it.

Furniture stays. All of our living and dining room furniture is high quality and in good condition. While it may not be what I'd purchase today, it would be ridiculous to replace it and I want to work with what I have. I am open to swapping out/modifying some of our less expensive pieces, though.

Rugs stay. Both of mine are from Pottery Barn and relatively new so I can't justify the expense of replacing them. I wish they were brighter, but at least the living room rug has some color to it and the dining room rug is fairly neutral.

Plate wall stays. I still love it and it took me forever. I do anticipate some plate updates, however.

No big purchases. I don't want to break the bank on this, so Pottery Barn, Crate & Barrel and the like will be off-limits.

My goal is to inject color and life into these three rooms relying solely on discount/thrift store finds and DIY projects. I'm giving myself a year to accomplish this, because it will take time and I want to do it right. And I'm putting it on the blog because I want the accountability of having to show you what I've done at the end of the year.

I'm not a Pinterest queen or inspired decorator, so I really have no idea how this will go. Change and risk-taking are both really hard for me! But I'm excited to give myself a project, challenge myself creatively, and hopefully end up with a home that better reflects our family, our lifestyle, and our values.

And I promise to show you everything, even the DIY disasters. I'm sure there will be plenty of those.

Pictures of pictures.

It only took us three years, three months, a couple of weeks, and two hours to get something on this massive blank wall at the top of our stairs.

FYI: creating a photo collage is hard.



In other exciting home improvement news, we also hung the roman shade the previous homeowners purchased for this window and gave to us the day we moved in — three years, three months, and a couple of weeks ago.


There's a reason you never hear "Breyers" and "fast" in the same sentence.