Decorating schmecorating

So, my mother is celebrating a milestone birthday this weekend (I won’t tell you which milestone birthday – you’re welcome, Mom). We decided to do it up good for her this year by having a big party.

At my house.  Awesome!

Last year, I had made a (rather long) list of all the cosmetic changes I wanted to make to the house over the course of… our lifetime. I understand the rule of doing it one room at a time and I have been pretty good at doing that (read:  basically, I do nothing), but now that I had a reason to make the house look nice, I wanted to do that. In all rooms. Like, yesterday.

Because, as you know, when the prospect of new people coming to my house is upon me, I go into a frenzy of cleaning/redecorating/blowtorch-and-sledgehammer renovating. I don’t mind so much. It’s motivation. I find that I can live with what we have if it’s just us that have to see it. If it’s someone new… oh, hells no.

Not that we don’t have a great house. Because, in all honesty, we do. It’s just a little dated. The problem is that none of the things on my list have been done. Or, even more irritating, they were done halfway. And I’ve had enough. So, this year, I’ve resolved to do something about it. Good thing this party came along, isn’t it?

Some of the things on our (read:  my) list are pretty simple. Replace foyer lighting. Buy new window treatments. Paint the kitchen cabinets. Replace kitchen flooring. Get new carpeting in the living room and dining room. Buy a new couch. 

Wait. I said simple, didn’t I?

For this party, however, I just wanted to fix up the living room. It’s the first room you see when you walk into the house. And it sucks. There’s one massive piece of furniture in there (the server to our dining room set), a couple dining room chairs as a conversation corner and that’s it. Our damcat uses this room to leave her "little presents" for us, so the carpeting needs to be replaced. There’s no function or purpose to the room. 

I came up with the idea to turn it into a library. I scoured pictures on Pinterest (love that Pinterest!) to get an idea how I wanted the room to look and, once I came up with my game plan, I was ready to implement. Buy bookcases! Add books! Get a nice chair! And a floor lamp! Aaaaand… that’s all I wanted to do.   

I forgot I live with another adult. Who has other ideas what needs to be done. 

The husband has been bugging me for a new couch for at least 2 years now. The one we had was looking pretty beat up (that’s what happens with 2 boisterous boys who like to jump and a babysitter who sat on it nonstop for a year). He has always wanted a sectional and he has always wanted leather. So, we set out looking for a leather sectional. 

My mother, on the other hand, has made comments about my too-short window treatments for… about 5 years now. Finally, she shamed me enough to replace the curtains. 

(Incidentally, my brother said preparing for this party has been complete madness. I want to get A, B, and C done, the husband wants D, E, and F done, while my mother wants to get X, Y, and Z done. Yeah, hilarious.)

I thought X, Y, and Z would be easiest, so we set off to do that first. I? Am an idiot. You have no idea how difficult it is to find window treatments. The rod in our family room is not the correct height for 84” panels. So, of course, the rods needed to be moved. But, because my husband only cared about D, E, and F, he didn’t think the window treatments needed work at all (mostly because that required more work – filling in holes, repainting, etc.). After buying (and returning) 7 different sets, I settled for raising the rods to the more appropriate 95” length. My husband was out of town, so I hurriedly called my dad to raise the rods, install the new curtains (which, in turn, hide the old holes – yay!) and voila!  X, Y, and Z were done!

Surprise, honey!

To take care of D, E, and F, we researched furniture online. I’ve been doing this for a while now, but now we were On A Mission. One Saturday morning, we stopped at a furniture store on our way to visit family. Found one we liked, for the right price, and 30 minutes after we walked in the door, we were the proud owners of a new leather sectional. Done!

(‘Course, now that we have this piece, we need a coffee table in the room to balance it out. Sonofa.)

At last, it was my turn! I bought bookshelves at Target. Took one chair from the family room and put it in the living room (read:  Library.  I’m faaaancy now!). My mother brought over books I had read in college that had been collecting dust in her basement. I rummaged through our basement for hidden treasures (I still have wedding presents in boxes, y’all). I busted out the FaceTime to discuss placement of said treasures with my sister. She had me take her all around the house, removing knick knacks from where I already had them (and liked them) and moving them to the bookshelves. I was all, “But I like it therrrrrre” while my mother and sister were all, “Too bad.”

Eff you people. Who lives here anyway?!

And all this for a damparty! (Kidding!  I love you, Mommy, and am thrilled to do this for you!)

How much you want to bet no one will notice any of this work?! At least there’ll be alcohol. Which I’ll be enjoying in my new library. Cheers!