Once I actually took the time to call a bunch of companies, asking them not to send me catalogs anymore.  Since then, they’ve somehow managed to sneak back in.  (I’m looking at you, Guitar Center.)  The only mail that ever interests me is wedding invitations and Netflix.  The rest just piles up on a table by the front door until I eventually throw it all away.

Shama suggested that maybe if that table weren’t there I’d just throw it away immediately instead of letting it accumulate.  It seemed like a good idea, so we moved the table into the dining room.

Unfortunately, further testing disproved her theory:

A few weeks later she suggested that “maybe we should move your pile table back”

Aaaahhhhh.

A few weeks ago I got fed up with the wall that divided my bathroom in two so I took out the top of it and made a giant mess in the process.

A cleaning-up-of-a-giant-mess later, I’ve decided I need to paint the bathroom to de-bore-ify it.  I was thinking of brown — or maybe brown with some blue and green accents, but then Janel of Apartment Therapy suggested navy and it got me thinking.

A hue-and-saturation-fest-in-photoshop later, I have the following images.  What do you all think?

I wanted to put up some shelving in my kitchen, but when I went to the lumber yard, I was disappointed by how expensive wood was. Then I realized that when you buy furniture from Ikea, you’re basically buying lumber and instructions on how to make it into something. All you have to do is throw out the instructions and you can make whatever you want. The wood is super-cheap — cheaper than going and buying the same wood from a lumber yard. What the heck, Ikea? How does that work? (The answer is simple: volume.)

So here is my shelving creation. The pieces came from the VÄRDE line. Some pieces were installed as designed. Others (like the box) were cut up and reassembled. The leftover pieces and a crafternoon produced the mediocre paintings on the left.

(Not pictured: the incredible disgusting mess that usually occupies the counter.)