messy drawers

The last four days hit me like a truck, and I ended up taking a couple days off from my February project. We had dinner guests Friday, which required some cooking and cleaning and such Friday afternoon. Saturday was spent picking up my repaired car and pecking away at a big pile of work stuff, and then Mom’s holiday party was in the evening (yes, her holiday party is in February; fewer schedule conflicts). I had a show all day Sunday, which ended up being a total bust, and yesterday was a day of mad scrambling to catch up. I’m finally back in the swing, so here we go.

On Saturday, I reassembled and rehung the wall art in the family room. Here is the before and after:

before

after

 Originally, this piece hung in the living room of my bachelorette house, where the cream frame looked great against the sage walls. In this house, though, the frame color just melted into the wall color; they’re actually much closer shades than they look in this photo.

Better, yes?

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For today, I had to pick a tiny thing and a not-so-big thing, since I still have a bit of catchup to do and don’t have a lot of free time.

First, I measured the oil painting in my office for a frame.

 

this painting makes me happy

I bought this piece from Janet Spreen (no website) at a Summer Market a few years ago. She was set up across the way and down a little bit, and it kept drawing my eye all day long. When my husband came to help me tear down, I sent him over to buy it. It gives my office an extra bit of joy.

As much as I love it, it bothers me that the bottom stretcher is slightly warped, so that the center of the painting is about 3/8″ shorter than the outer edges. The canvas doesn’t have enough stretch in it to insert some kind of wedge in to it straighten it out without ruining the paint, so my plan is to either purchase official picture molding or create some kind of molding from what can be found at the hardware store to make a simple frame. I have a feeling that traditional picture molding won’t have the overhang I need to cover that bend in the lower stretcher, so I’ll probably have to make my own. Which might work out better since I could then do a bigger overhang on the bottom and less so on the other sides.

But all of that will be a project for another month. In the meantime, I have the measurements down, and I can start to explore my options and figure out how to make the DIY happen if I need to.

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Next, it was time to tackle the desk drawers. I know it sounds like it could be a big job, but there were only two drawers that needed to be done, and for the most part things are at least in the right drawer already, just not super well organized within the drawers. My goal for these two drawers is to have in them everything I use regularly as I’m sitting and my desk, and nothing more.

The top drawer is mostly personal stuff: lip balm, mints, checkbook, calculator, earbuds, nail polish (when it’s time for a pedicure, I do it at my desk), that kind of stuff.

The second drawer is mostly office supplies: red pencils, white erasers, white-out tape, Post-its, letter opener, ruler, staple remover, hole punch, business cards, my Micron pens, and so on.

I gave myself a time limit for this one: just 20 minutes total. I beat it by 22 seconds, and that included the time I took to switch out a few drawer dividers and put things I found that don’t belong there in places they actually belong. Sent elsewhere: sunglasses I no longer wear, an iTunes card I already added to my account, a chip clip, a nail, a necklace, ponytail elastics (it’s been a long time since those have been useful around here), a tape measure, and a few business cards.

All in all, a successful day.