There is something so satisfying about checking off a long percolating project. Especially when it something in our home that has been staring at me undone for months (or longer). That's the story behind both of these updates in the downstairs of our home.
Buffet Gallery
For over 6 years, this was our gallery wall over the buffet:
The reveal post was from March 2015 and it mostly stayed like that until May of 2021 when I took it all down (and eventually made a new travel wall on our stairs!). Then we spent many months with just the command strips up. Then more months of a completely blank wall. Then more months of paper guides (back in this post from May you can see paper guides up for an arrangement I didn't end up using. We had a party with those up.) Then months of different paper guides.
I knew I wanted a simpler gallery and less on the buffet but it took FOREVER and SO MANY variations, laid out on the floor, to get to what I thought would work. When Target finally put frames on sale I bought a whole bunch for this and the picture ledges in the kitchen (because I was rearranging those too, as always). Having that many options to work with as I went over and over this layout really helped me figure out that the solution was LESS frames. ALWAYS LESS.
Here is where I, finally, ended up although filling the last frame, the lobster one, took me a long time!
The lamp stayed the same and the print over it ("Oh, let's be adventurers darling!") are from 2015. I didn't want to throw it all out! And the stack of travel guides next to the Lego flowers are back out, after spending a few years in the buffet. The rest of the frames are new!
I knew I wanted this Lindsey Letters print (top middle) and bought that waaaaay back when I first started this process. I based the wall on that and the Adventurers print since they were the first pieces I had.
In the bottom middle is a canvas we had printed from a picture we took in Hawaii. Matt made the frame at least 18 months ago so that's long been part of the process!
Top left is an IKEA frame and a print from Etsy that I first mentioned back in May. I liked it as soon as I saw it when browsing for art and like that it's a different medium that anything else up there.
It was that dang lobster that took forever to figure out. For awhile Matt was going to make a version of something I had found on Etsy but then we went to Maine and I decided I wanted something Maine related since we loved that trip so much. I first searched for square pictures of Acadia and almost bought one but then decided it was too similar to the Hawaii picture, despite being almost half a world apart. But browsing that artist's shop led me to her lobster print. Going on the lobster and seal watching tour was a real highlight of the trip and it was a nice way to memorialize that but also have a bit of whimsy. Once I got that print in the mail over the summer this was finally done!
The Lego flowers were a Christmas gift to me from Matt (he picked those out himself! We don't pick out ALL our own gifts!), in a Target vase I've had a long time. And the Lego fish tank is a set Luke and I put together together right before he started 3rd grade. It's my favorite way to have fish in the house!
Overall, very happy with how this all turned out, even if it took 15 months and A LOT of variations!
The second update was a much quicker one, although one I've been thinking about for awhile. I wanted more blue in my office, really, that's what it came down to. Plus, we bought rugs for Matt's office and two for the front room when we redid those floors 5 years ago but I never got one. And this was easier (although probably more expensive) than repainting my office walls to my current favorite shade of blue (which changes at least once a year. If you are wondering if my current favorite shade is close to my current favorite sweatshirt...you'd be correct.)
Then I was set on something blue, darker blue, just really, I needed more shades of blue in my office. So I forced myself to make a decision and bought this one from Wayfair. No pad because I didn't want it super soft or thick so my chair could still roll and I knew my heavy desk would keep it in place.
It arrived a few hours before we left on a weekend camping trip and I even had a spare 10 minutes in frantic packing to unroll it and put heavy books on the corners, in the hope that a weekend of it being unrolled would help it be closer to flat by the time we got home. Then I took a picture to show Matt and checked that picture more than once over the weekend. I wasn't completely sold when I unrolled it but by the time we came back home I was.
It does shed but not a ridiculous amount (like one in our front room that made my sister, who knows I am NOT an animal person, ask if we got a cat). I am always amused when I vacuum to see a layer of blue fuzz in the vacuum in between the white (and dirt) from the very sheddy rug (even after 5 years!). I can still roll my chair on it easily enough and it still leaves some of my lovely bamboo floor on the edges while also softened (and blue-ing) up my office a bit more.
Wonderful to finally get both of these checked off the list, especially after months of indecision. The inbetween can be some work and some thinking and some overthinking but I think that makes actually getting something done all the more enjoyable. Plus, I like to be sure in my decisions, not impulsive, and what better way to do that than months (and months) of considering options?
Getting these things done has me a bit more motivated to knock out some other lingering house projects. Some reorganizing, cleaning out, just finishing those nagging tasks. Always nice to be nagged by them less!
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