Ema's Grand Ideas: Weekend Recap

I was very busy in my house this weekend. I cleaned out the closet and did lots of rearranging. I'm so happy with how everything turned out. I absolutely love how much of a difference you can make in a space by rearranging things you already have. The majority of my work centered around the bedroom.

Even after posting the Bedroom Before and After blog I was never super happy with how I had our room accessorized. I want one of those fantastic, cozy retreats that you see all over Pinterest.

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You know the ones I pin from the Better Homes and Gardens website all the time? You can stalk me on Pinterest if you want to see all those fun pins. Anyway, I think I might be getting a little closer to my cozy retreat. I started with the chest. I removed some of the picture frames, this chest was like picture frame overload.

I put a couple of pictures away and relocated a couple of birdhouses from the dresser. I would like to replace the boring candle holder I have up there, but still an improvement.

It was easy to decide to pull the birdhouses off the dresser. I was not wild about them or the antique wooden box there. I felt like it didn't belong.

The dresser turned into this:

I would apologize for the TV glare in the picture, but I was watching football while I worked and I cannot apologize for watching football, so you will have to pretend it is not there. I want to replace the candle holder here as well, but I do like this much better. I used a couple of pictures from the chest and one from our hot air balloon adventure in Arizona that had been in my office. I love that picture.

I was particularly unhappy with my dressing table and my bedside table because I felt like they were just thrown together. Items that didn't work anywhere else, or items I had from when I was younger kind of landed there together randomly.

On the bedside table, especially the bottom shelf, had random books, a treat jar for my pups, and a glass jar with change in it. All kind of random and not that wonderful to look at.

I simplified that with two pretty hard back books, a silver pitcher that was hiding in my dining room, and a bird I relocated from my breakfast room shelves.

The dressing table is the location where the husband empties his pockets so I wanted something there to corral those items. I also wanted to trade out the painted wooden boxes where my frequently worn jewelry lands.

I grabbed an antique bowl from the living room for the husband's things to land in. I moved out the wooden boxes and replaced them with a silver bowl from the breakfast room. These are very subtle changes, but big ones to me.

I moved the painted wooden boxes and the pups' treat jar to the shelves of my TV stand. That is the tiny space in my room where all my silliness comes together.

I do like the silliness.

I realize these are shelves you would never see on Pinterest or on the Better Homes and Garden website, but that is partly because no one else posts their shelves of silliness. I know there are others out there who have them.

The antique wooden box that was on my dresser took up residence in the living room in the space the blue bowl left behind, along with a tiny bowl that had been on the chest in the bedroom with all the picture frames.

Very happy with this.

My final project of the weekend was to frame and hang the prints we bought in Italy (finally) on the blank wall in the breakfast room. It had been waiting to be filled for a while.