Another Step Closer

I worked on two projects last weekend; they were rather small projects but ones that are delivering big results in way of usefullness.

First up… Organize my dressers junk drawer:

Organize a drawer?? How can that be concidered a project? Well, have a look at what I removed from a very small drawer and you will see exactly how this can be a project…

 This drawer hasn’t been cleaned out in a long time.

Three or four years long, but hey, I admit my flaws!

Okay, maybe not EVERY. SINGLE. THING. was in there, but you get the idea… Waaaay too much stuff for one little drawer. Nothing like a jam packed drawer filled with so much that you can’t open it, let alone find what you are looking for to create uneccasary aggravation, right?!

I was completely overwhelmed by the clutter that was on top of my dresser after I emptied the drawer that I honestly wanted to just shove it all back in there and be done with it.

Instead, I bravely took my time and delt with it properly. It seriously took a bunch of little splurts over 3 days (so I wouldn’t have an anxiety attack) to sort everything, fill up a small trash can, untangle 3,000 necklaces and organize it all.

Perhaps something so trival stressing me out is strange, but it’s true.

Luckily, I had extra drawer space since getting rid of Huz’s crap belongings to put all of my things neatly into. 🙂

Here is what all of the keepable stuff looks like now that is neatly tucked away among three drawers…

Oooh! Did you notice that empty drawer up there?! FANCY! I haven’t decided what to do with yet, but that’s just fine by me 🙂

Naturally, I am still not satisfied and now want to put pretty scented liner in the drawers. Also, Ikea has affordable drawer organizers I’d like to get but I also want to buy shelves for another project and don’t have the funds so I am staying away from there for a while  to make the drawers even better. For now though, since it’s organized, I am satisfied and crossing it off of the list!

Moving on to the bigger, much less time consuming and stress inducing project…  Lamps for my dresser:

When I put my list together, almost a year ago, I had writen on it that I wanted to buy lamps for my dresser. I know a lot of women have a ton of lamps in their home and I always wanted to be that kind of girl, but lamps (along with curtains) have always intimidated me.

First of all, they are expensive. Like, they can be really expensive and with the way I change my mind about what I think works in a room I could never justify shelling out a ton of cash that I don’t have for something that I might not feel happy with. I also have issues commiting to something staying in one spot for a hundred years. Add to that the fact that anything breakable in this home will eventually be broken (Murphy’s Law… aka Isaac) I really didn’t want to couldn’t spend a lot of dough.

My bedroom, in the meantime, has been screaming at me desperately for better lighting. Like each of the other rooms in our home there is a ceiling light fan (I know HGTV is against these with fury but this is real life here.) I love my ceiling fans, they make life easy, simply flipping up a switch and being able to see instead of stumbling around and potentially breaking an ankle  finding a lamp to turn on is a great thing! Also, air circulation and a lovely relaxing breeze while you are sleeping are wonderful things.

While overhead lighting is always a good thing in general, when it comes to reading, mood lighting, and say.. applying makeup, ceiling lights just aren’t bright enough.

So into the world of lamps I reluctantly dove, but not without first making things a wee bit difficult. How can one turn buying lamps into a complication? With stipulations. Of course!

I have a fairly large dresser and could eaisly put two lamps on it, but I really don’t care much for clutter and two big lamps would make the dresser feel crowded plus they’d hog up the mirror and I wasn’t too interested in doing that. This brought me to check out wall scones (I believe that’s what they are called)  but because of my fear of commitment and the firewall that my dresser is up against there was no way to install hardwired lamps.

I happily discovered that they make plug in lamps for the walls and they can look nice, so my search began. Unfortunatly, the selection isn’t all that big for such. Pottery Barn certainly has a beautiful selection of these lamps but they come with a hefty price tag.

I almost splurged a few times but in the end decided that paying my electric, gas, water and cable bill for the month was the more mature gosh, I hate being an adult descision.

So, for affordable lamps I searched. And searched.

While on my most recent trip to Home Depot I finally lucked out and found the perfect plug in wall lamp sconey things for my budget. They matched my new celing fan and switch plates that I had installed two months ago and they were affordable so I scooped up a pair. I even felt confident enough with my “savings” that I bought an area rug for my room and a runner for the hallway and still spend less than if I had splurged on the Pottery Barn lamps!

Hanging the lamps up weren’t all that difficult. I used my Better Homes and Gardens “New Decorating Book” to determine the placement of the lamps and measured and marked the walls with a tape measurer and a level with confidence.  In the spirit of how my projects go, of course, getting the fasteners in the wall turned a bit disasterous for a few moments but in the end the lamps are even (and I think secure) on either side of my dressers mirror.

Let there be light! It’s so great to be able to put on makeup without traveling from mirror to mirror in search of good light! Yippee! I think they look pretty nice and for the price of $50 each I love them!

My room is still far from being finished but that’s okay, it will get there and it gives me things to look forward to!