instead of eating my stress, i decluttered. now what?

ByMary Lenaburg

I can’t believe it’s been two weeks since I have written anything in this space.

So sorry my friends.

Life has been busy and full of opportunities for crisis management, hence the silence. 

Last week brought a few challenges to la familia. First, Jerry was in a car accident on the way to work. Not his fault and we are still waiting to find out if the insurance company is going to total his car. Just a little stress. 

Then, the very.next.day. I was in a car accident. Yep. That’s how we roll these days. One crunch after another. Again, not at fault, but stressful nonetheless. My car will be repaired next week. Until then, we make due with one rental car and one car with a very crumpled bumper. 

This is kind of how we both felt on Friday afternoon…

 

Amazingly enough, we kept it together and worked our way through the problems. I truly wanted to eat my way through, but I have been holding strong to my veggies and resisting the sugar. I praise the Lord above for keeping both Jerry and I safe as well as the others that were involved in the accidents. Amazingly enough, there were no injuries. Thank you St. Courtney for once again protecting your Mom and Dad. 

Yippee. 

Crisis Management. 

We know a thing or two about it. Our Courtney taught us well.   

We stayed close to home this weekend (except for one little fancy schmanzy party, but I will blog about that later)  and worked our butts off re-organizing the living room and kitchen. This is what we Lenaburgs do when things feel very out of our control. We clean and remove clutter so we can think more clearly and breathe easier as we go through the stressful grind. 

We took down bookcases and went through every single book. I mean every.single.one. We ended up donating over fifteen bags of books to the library. Mostly fiction and boy did it feel good. We took down the bookcases in the living room, moved one of the chairs up to our bedroom to create a reading space for Jerry AND we did ALL the laundry. 

Did you hear that?? ALL the laundry!!

AND WE PUT IT ALL AWAY…despite what the photo above tells you. I took that one earlier in the day. 

We were on fire. 

Now that we have decluttered and moved a chair out of the very small living room, I am at a cross roads. Our plan is to paint the walls a shade of blue. That will probably happen in the next month or so (please Lord, please Lord, please Lord) when we have saved our pennies for the paint and supplies needed to complete the job. 

We have no company coming over (at least not on the calendar) so the fact that we could only comfortably seat four people before we ask you to sit on the floor, is not really a problem at the moment. The bigger question is what kind of furniture do I start looking for? A loveseat? Two chairs? A recliner? Another sofa?  

This project will be done with cash and only as we are able to save for it. After the lovely car situation, we had to use some of our emergency savings to cover our deductible, so we need to replace that first. Then we can paint and find new furniture. 

 
If this were your living room, what would you do? We need to use what we have first and then and only then do we purchase something else. So I have a khaki colored sofa, a khaki colored chair and ottoman, a red video cabinet, a blue end table cabinet, a cream (totally can be painted) dresser/storage piece and lots of new wall/floor space. 

Help me out all you creative homeowners. I need seating options and you know I love color. Give me your ideas, your resources, your creative minds.

Help me? Pretty, pretty please?   

11 Comments

  1. Benefits of neutral-colored furniture? It's easy to add bright colors in the form of throw pillows! 😀 Whatever color{s} you go with, it's inexpensive and simple to add a throw pillow or two to tie the theme together.

  2. You are so right Rebekah! It's one of the reasons I love our furniture. Now I just need to be inspired to make this space better. A new coat of paint and then we move on to all the details. Thanks for being part of this!

  3. Here's the first thing I thought of: Scoot the TV console to the middle of the wall, and then tuck the tan chair in the corner where the console is now. If you need another chair or two you could get a couple of inexpensive comfortable chairs with colorful slipcovers from IKEA. Either way, I'd move the chair and then you have room to make a "round" (oval, whatever) sitting arrangement with your dining room chairs and the existing layout when you do have company over.

    Figuring this stuff out is so much fun, if a pain in the meantime! I can't wait to see whatever you end up with – I'm sure it will be fabulous!

    Lea

  4. First you choose your inspiration piece such as a multi-color throw rug or a painting or a fabric. Then from there you choose what color to paint the walls and what kind of accessories and threw pillows to buy or make. Make sure you have a floor plan and buy furniture that isn't too big or too small. A good furniture store will have a design staff.

    1. We have a painting that my Dad did that will stay in the living room so the color blue is very present. I am thinking of bringing in more red. Slow and steady we go.

  5. throw pillows, not threw pillows. Someday you may say you threw the throw pillows across the room, and they flew through the doorway.

  6. Since you will be painting the walls blue, the blue, red, cream and khaki in your furniture will go together much better. A new area rug and throw pillows in those colors will tie everything together and make it look warm and cozy.

    Clearance stores like Big Lots or Ollie's Outlet are the best places to find rugs and pillows.

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