Project Fall

Forget spring cleaning, I've decided to clean up and clear out and we've been working on a few projects this past week that I'm pretty jazzed about.  First and foremost is a closet for Ellie's room.  When you live in a shoebox - especially a shoebox that was built in the 1920's - there ain't a whole lot of closet space.  Needless to say we've had to get a little...creative...with how we store things.  The two closets in Ellie's room are chalk full of our things like coats, sleeping bags, the vacuum cleaner, sewing machines, wrapping paper, etc. and there is just no room for Ellie's stuff. And as we all know, kids come with a lot of "things" and this girl has a lot of clothes. We'll chalk it up to some very successful baby showers.  I was trying to stuff everything into her dresser but as she's getting bigger there just isn't enough room.   

Since we have no actual closet space, I decided that we needed to make her a hanging closet on the wall in her room. We searched around for a bit to find closet materials that weren't going to look horrible hanging out in the open, but there wasn't much out there that wasn't short of a small fortune. We decided to go the simple route and use the same rod and hangers that are in our closet. Simple, understated...cheap.  I convinced the hubs that he should construct this closet before he left on his business trip so I'd have the whole week to sort and hang all of Ellie's clothes. The actual construction didn't take very long (thank you Tom) but organizing and hanging all her clothes took longer than I thought it would.  I brought up the tubs from the basement that were holding all of her "big" clothes and went through them all again. I'm glad I did because I found several really cute outfits that she could fit into now.

The closet looks great and it so nice to have all her stuff out where I can see it.  It makes finding things much easier! I should have taken a before and after photo, but just imagine a blank wall and that's what it looked like before.

The finished product.  And this is just 3-9 months - there is more downstairs!

Today was the first day that it actually felt like Fall here in the bay area.  The sky was gloomy and it rained off and on.  I decided it was the perfect day for putting out all of our Halloween decorations.  Of all the holidays, I love opening my Halloween box the most.  I'm always pleasantly surprised by what I find because I forget what I have.  I literally squealed with delight when I found my Halloween tree.  I had forgotten I had made a witch candy bowl at Petroglyph last year. I hung up our Anniversary Papel Picado banner that was handmade by Claire. I lit our pumpkin candles and busied myself arranging the house. Damn I love Fall. Obviously. And of course I have wasted no time finding and making Ellie a Halloween costume.  But that will have to remain a surprise for now. 

Anniversary Papel Picado

Halloween tree & witch bowl

We have a few volunteer pumpkins that sprouted out back that I am going to cut and put out on the porch along with the corn stalks.  Hopefully they aren't too moldy.  Our corn did not turn out well this year which unfortunately was the case for most of our garden.  We sadly neglected our garden since we were so busy with Ellie.  In fact, the weekend it started to go downhill was the weekend that Ellie was born and we forgot to water it.  Oops! They don't tell you to remember to ask someone to water your garden in all the baby books.  Note to self for round two.

It's so cozy in here it makes me want to bake a pie or snuggle under a blanket with some tea.  But that's going to have to wait because I hear the baby waking up from her nap...