Around the house: Not too big for this wall

I realize I haven't really managed to post many pictures of the inside of my house. Except for the dining room, which I only posted about after doing so much work to organize it. But now that I am in possession of a new painting from Berrybody, I figured it was time to show a picture of my living room, where it earned its place of honor.

And a close-up of the painting (and it was $20!):

Call it an early birthday present to myself!

Around the house: Not "Welcome to the Jungle" anymore

I have a love-hate relationship with weeding. On the one hand, I love the results. The plots looks so loved and cared for. I also get the satisfaction that I did something that day, instead of doing what I do everyday (sitting on the couch, watching TV). I even sort of like the healthy muscle soreness in my arms. It's almost like I worked out (which I sort of did)! But I hate the sore lower back. Or the bug bites and stabs from particularly vengeful plants that I end up covered with by the time I'm done. So maybe that's why our house was beginning to look something like this:

 *Not an actual picture of our house*

But this was the weekend I had enough. And I attacked. I ripped and dug and yanked. And I discovered the candytufts I planted a few months ago. And the azalea plant that I brought back from the brink with a little acidic plant food. I even found a flower that had shown up all on its own.

An Anderson's expert (read more about Anderson's here) identified the little guy as a Vinca, a flowering annual that likely was brought to our little plot by a bird. While we were at Anderson's we snagged some hardwood mulch (for $3.50 per bag) as well as some topsoil to fill in some holes that were bequeathed to us via the previous' residents' children. By the end of the weekend our front plot now looks like this:

Gorgeous! Though, it's hard to be amazed when you don't have a before. My bad. I guess I'm not the best blogger when it comes to that.

Around the house: I have a functional dining room!

Remember this?

And this?

A few weeks ago I managed to clear all the junk out of the room and off the dining room table:

But the massive cleaning left a fairly blank wall here:

My plan was to get a cube organizer and get more storage with something that could anchor the room without taking up too much space. Last weekend, that's just what we did. And then I filled the cubbies in a hurry cause our landlord was coming by with our new lease(!) and I wanted it to look like we hadn't just thrown it up cause he was coming (we sort of did). And here's the result:

Now I just have to hang the prints I framed:

Total cost to me: $35. The cube organizer was on sale for $35 at Target, the frames (available right now in a 4-pack for $15 at Bed, Bath and Beyond) I purchased with a gift card and the prints are from a calendar I got for Christmas a couple years ago. Booyah!

Around the house: Kitchen organization

So we've been in our house since October and I've only recently gotten motivation to really make it ours. Our plan is to keep renting this house for as long as we can. Luckily, our landlord is also all about keeping the same renters as long as possible. So this gives me the ability to really make this place our home, especially after moving twice in the last year.
Unfortunately, getting the house the way I want it will take a lot of time. I made a huge list of tasks. Seriously, it's several pages long and a bit overwhelming. But Travis, in all his wisdom, just said to take it one step at a time.
First step? Fix this mess:

The top of the microwave has essentially been another area to throw stuff that we don't have a place for, namely our pizza stones (one for pizza and bread and one for cookies), cutting boards and some silpats. But it's also continually annoyed me.
So I purchased a $5 black letter organizer from Target and filled it with all the extraneous things.


I want to get a canister for the coffee filters, but for 5 bucks and a couple minutes, I am quite happy that this little eye-sore has been repaired.