Yay, for accomplishing something...

In January of this year, on another blog, I wrote a post titled: "To Resolution or Not to Resolution".

In that post I decided I would purge and clean one room of our house per month for the year of 2012. Ha, ha, you can laugh with me, or you can laugh at me, it's your choice. That was a loftier goal than I had imagined. Four people can gather a lot of junk and time really gets away from me. I started out strong by thoroughly de-cluttering the family room in January and Michael and I got partially through the garage. In February, I started the bathroom, but never finished. I never even started the linen closet. I did re-do my home office in March, as planned, but it is now cluttered again. There was a big lesson to be learned, just like with any bad habit, if you don't change the underlying problem, it will recur. I go ahead and de-clutter, but then stuff seems to magically appear to take it's place.

Fast-forward to December. December's goal was Joey's room. I had visions of Joey's room turning into the most beautiful guest room. I planned, I pinned, I cleaned, I tested the limits of my allergies with all the dust in that room... kids should be taught to dust their own rooms (she says after her children are grown and at college). Joey helped me go through his things so I didn't have to box everything up for later. The Goodwill received some treasures, the recycling bins received a lot of, well, trash. Unfortunately, there are still a couple boxes of items in the furnace room. One of my biggest pet peeves is moving something from one bad place to another (Michael is a master at this).

Once the room was purged of all of Joey's pre-teen/teenage paraphernalia including his old Pottery Barn Locker furniture, we moved in the original bedroom set Michael and I used when we first lived in Portland in 1987. I love this little set. It is just a double bed and a dresser. My Sister, Tiffany, had kindly been holding on to the set for me. Danny painted the room and then painted the furniture black, which I think looks awesome. I wish I had before pictures of Joey's room. I cannot believe I did not take any.

And then, today, this very morning, the most amazing elves came to my house and made the whole thing come together, magically. This is why there are people that do this kind of thing for a living, because THEY ARE SO FREAKIN' GOOD AT IT! Thank you Holly and Jasmine.

I am not a great photographer, so use your imagination. The room has the most obnoxious recessed lighting, which I obviously left off for these pictures. Holly and Jasmine brought beautiful lamps that give a nice cozy feel. I pinned that chair on Pinterest ages ago. It is a relatively inexpensive chair from Urban Outfitters. It works for me.

It is a fairly drab December afternoon, so I took one picture (below) with the flash. You can also see the really cool bug lamp on the right.

Joey returns from Amsterdam tomorrow night. I hope he likes it!

I am so happy to have accomplished December's room transformation.

Next on the list, Sammy's room, which will have a queen bed! Visitors Welcome!