My cute, girly, finished-for-now entryway!

I am slowly working on getting some stuff done around the house.

I have pulled a typical “Noel,” meaning, I hauled ass to get 90% done and then decided that I had worked so hard, I should take a break for, oh, I don’t know, a couple of years.

I still have boxes stacked up against my back windows, but I don’t want to unpack them because then I have to solve my curtains issues there.

I still have boxes in my den because I don’t really use that room and once I get rid of the boxes in there it will be glaringly obvious how bad I need furniture in that room.  Plus, it was so stinkin’ hot in the whole downstairs all summer that I didn’t want to be anywhere down there anyway.  I pretty much just hung out in my bedroom that had a window AC unit.

I did just finish my entryway project recently.  I still would like to find a coat rack/hall tree to hang my purse and Arthur’s vest and leash on.  Plus, I would like a cuter basket to sit on top of the table for holding keys (I’m hoping that will solve my problems of looking for 15 minutes every time I need to leave the house), and I bought a different drawer pull for the table, but it turns out it doesn’t have a screw, so it’s going to require someone helping me get the old one off and drilling a hole for the new one.  So really, I’m not finished at all.  But it looks much better than it did before, and not like it’s still in the process of being worked on.

Here are some photos:

On the little table:

Top basket:  for keys, and Arthur’s vest and leash, to keep me organized so that these items have a place where they belong and I can find them easily every time I need to leave the house.

In the drawer:  Let’s face it, this is my “man drawer.”  But it’s supposed to contain:  stamps, pens, and Arthur’s travel water bowl.

First shelf:  Liberty of London box contains mail that needs to be dealt with.  This way I can come in and immediately put it in that box rather than letting it pile up on the kitchen table, kitchen counter, dining room table, stairs, in the bathtub, you get the idea.  Mail in my house has a tendency to fall in love and have babies before I ever get a chance to deal with it.

Bottom shelf:  My new Missoni for Target box is for recycle (This and a picture frame were the only Missoni items left in my Target one day after the collection hit stores.  Seriously?).  This way all the junk mail can be put immediately into this box and I don’t end up having to touch it twice.  Smart, right?

This wall art is something I’m very proud of.  I don’t like to brag, but I thought of this all by myself.  Ok, I totally like to brag.  I had done something similar in my Pearl Street rental on a smaller scale.  This is a great way to cover a lot of space with lots of color and not that much money.  I spent somewhere in the neighborhood of $15 for this project.  I used a level because, well, I’m anal retentive, so it took a little time, but I love the result.  It’s just pieces of scrapbook paper, and this time I used masking tape to put them up (last time I used thumb tacks but it didn’t work that well and it took forever, plus I knew I’d be painting the entryway sooner than later and didn’t want to have to putty up all the holes just to have to do it again after painting).  I went ahead and bought the flashiest colored masking tape I could find so that it looked intentional.  I figured, own it.  I think it worked.

This is the view from the living room...

So that’s my story, yo.  Now I only have about 374 projects to go!