Pimp My Closet

Our closet before.  Not too shabby but a lot of wasted space.

I've always thought of our closet as the little walk in that could.  It's small but has so much potential.  I mean, look at all that wasted space.  It's still a walk in so I felt I was moving up in the world because the closet I came from was even tinier.  So tiny my clothes were perpetually wrinkled from being crammed and jammed in there.  I don't know how those people back in the day survived with so little closet space.  Oh yeah, I guess they didn't have much!  Well, now we have tons of stuff so closets are super important.  I was hogging our closet in typical woman fashion but that's what we do because we have the greater need.  I've got work out gear, tanks, bras, long sleeves, short sleeves, skirts, dresses, scarves, pajamas and it just goes on and on.  Don't even get me started on the shoes.  There are flats, pumps, open toed, close toed, sandals and those darn boots.  Men don't have nearly the excessive wardrobe needs that we do.  Despite my feelings of entitlement to more space I at least had the common decency to feel bad for shutting him out so I rearranged some things so he could at least fit some of his stuff in there.

Our brand new organized closet

Mj's double hang rod and Eight drawers

Women love closets.  Men love closets.  And if you have a lot of clothes and shoes like most of us do then you really love organized closets. Enter Closet World.  They pimped our closet and it turned out even better then I thought it would.  I was thinking it might feel cramped after they put everything in AND we put in all of our stuff but it actually made it look larger somehow.  I took the opportunity to get rid of a lot of stuff and tried not to allow just any old thing to make it into our new and improved closet.  Everything got scrutinized and I'm glad to say not everything made the cut.  It was time to cleanse and make a trip to the Goodwill donation center.  I staked out my territory first and tried not to be too greedy!  The double hang section to the left is all mine but there is room for Mj to hang things too if he needs it.  Turns out he only has about 9 pairs of shoes.  How sad.  So most of the shoe shelves are taken up by me of course.  We have 11!  I have  7 which fit 4 pairs across and he gets 4 which fit 3 man sized shoes across.  All the shelves are fully adjustable so I can make it taller for boots and shorter for flats.  There is also room at the top and the bottom for more shoes or whatever else.  We added belt racks and tie racks that slide in and out too.  I was able to fit a lot more into our bedroom set dresser drawers because my clothes are smaller so I'm only getting 2 out of the 8 closet drawers and he has a whole wall of cubbies to himself.

It's been a week and he still hasn't put all his stuff in.  Is he scared I'm going to shove him out?  After seeing the way he awkwardly tried to cram a bunch of his folded shirts and chunky sweatshirts into one of his cubbies I told him he might as well let me organize all of his stuff.  I'm so much better at it.  He agreed.  The only other thing I want to get for storing clothes is a pretty white end of bed type storage bench/trunk, which I'm having a hard time finding.  I've been on a pajama shopping freeze for years because I have a ridiculous amount of pajamas, mostly from Victoria's Secret, that are currently residing in a bin that doesn't quite fit underneath our bed and they could all go in the trunk instead. 

Show wall on left and Double row of hanging rods. 

The cost is actually almost double what I was hoping to spend but we figured if we are going to do it we might as well DO it.  We had them design it in the way that would best fit our needs.  We didn't want to build our own closet so it cost us but I think it was worth every penny.  I feel like I can actually SEE my clothes and there is a place for everything.  Even my giant Uggs have a home in this closet. I love it!

 My dream closet inspiration.  Ours doesn't look 

exactly like it but close enough!!

We landscaped the backyard last year.  Crown molding was home improvement project #2 and the closet was project #3 for this year with our tax money.  Project #4 is rain gutters.  Not nearly as much fun but necessary.  We'll put that off until after Summer.  Project #5 is kitchen and flooring and hopefully that will  happen sometime next year.  Mj claims that this is our starter home and that we won't be here forever but I love this house and every time we add to it I love it even more.  I am glad that we are doing some of the things that we want instead of never getting around to it so that we can really enjoy it while we are here.  Even if this isn't our last home I definitely plan to be here for a while.  Really, how could I ever leave my beautiful closet behind?

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Does anyone else struggle with how to store all of your stuff?  Aside from not shopping and donating to goodwill what are your solutions?

House Project:  The Gargce

My B-Day: Simple & Perfect

I never know what I want to do for my birthday.  I'm a simple gal so chances are it's not going to be much but even so I can never decide.  I never know what I want either for that matter.  I took Friday off because as a general rule starting in 2009 I do not work on my birthday if I can help it.  It was so nice to be reading my blogs in my jammies at home looking forward to the day ahead instead of at work where I'd have been stuck in an office for the next 9 hours and might hear talk of what a nice day it was outside without being able to enjoy it.  I had a quick work out at the gym then came back home to get ready.   I couldn't have asked for a more beautiful day!!  It was about 80 degrees and there was no hint of gloom in sight which you can't always count on when you have an April Birthday.

Waiting for the trolley

I'm so glad Mj took a 1/2 day off work because we got started on by birthday that much earlier and really had the whole day to enjoy it.  We took the trolley downtown and went to the movies to see The Lincoln Lawyer-Which was very good.  We indulged in popcorn AND soda; something I never ever do because of price and calorie count but today it was OK.

Movie Snacks

Since it was right there I wanted to go to LA Rack.  It's this cute little boutique that has cute little cheap prices to go with it and accordingly I found a cute little top for $16.99.  Time for shots!  We each did a shot at one bar then went to another place to get our Happy Hour on some more.   It was a full and fun day.  We left the house at about 1 pm and didn't get back until 8:30pm.  We got into our jammies and watched Unstoppable.  Mj gave me the gift of shopping in the form of a gift card to Express.  He also gave me 2 pole dancing classes!  I'd mentioned what good exercise it must be and that I really wanted to give it a try so now I'll have my chance.

From a giant cookie to a festive cake

Me and my cake!

On Saturday my family came down.  Mom, dad, my sister and my nephew.  Mom got me a pretty turquoise ring and my sister got me a cute top. haven't been to Souplantation in a while and I wanted something casual and budget friendly.  "You don't have to pay, why are you concerned about price?" is what Mj wanted to know.  Maybe not, but I can't help but consider everyone else.  After dinner we came home and let our food settle for a bit and then it was time for cake.  By request, Mj made me a Chocolate Peanut Butter cake from scratch.  This thing is about as decadent and indulgent as it gets.  Mj was reluctant to give me the recipe but I insisted.  I really shouldn't have.  I plugged it into my calorie tracker and my heart dropped when I saw the calorie count.  I have to admit that I had a lot of anxiety about eating this cake especially on top of all the other weekend eating but I asked for it and Mj made it especially for me one armed and all so I had to put it out of my head and just enjoy it.  That's what Birthday's are for right? 

My Birthday was simple yet perfect.  I got to enjoy the day and the people who matter most to me.  Nothing over the top but it simply doesn't get much better then that.

Our House Has Character

Mj just about drove me nuts in Home Depot on Tuesday night when we were embroiled in our bold vs safe paint color dilemma.  I was nervous about it but I walked out the door expecting to come home with Orange.  Then we got there and Mj started having doubts.  I had doubts myself but was willing to take a chance and just go with it because he seemed to really want to.  Yes, it would be nice to liven things up but oh boy did that Orange seem bright and we just weren't sure if we would like an entire wall that color.  When he started second guessing the choice I told him I could walk out of there happy that minute with Gobi Desert; the neutral or we could go with the Orange if he wanted to.  The problem is that he didn't really want either.  The Orange felt too bright and he felt the Tan would clash with our kitchen curtains.  I could not convince him that neutral goes with everything and it would look just fine.  This was our 3rd trip to Home Depot and I was just over it!  We mulled it over for over an hour, pondered a few entirely different colors and ended up walking out of there with the Gobi Desert which is what we had initially picked after our very 1st Home Depot trip. 

We'd already painted the wall to the right green but had them
re paint it neutral and we extended that color right into the kitchen

We had already painted our Master Bedroom but it needed some major touching up so we had them do that in addition to the kitchen, a few areas of wall left white downstairs, the stairwell and common areas upstairs.  The only white walls left to tackle are the bathrooms and the 2 spare bedrooms.  We can totally do that....at some point!! Our house looks warmer and more inviting without all those boring white walls.  We got the crown molding all downstairs including the half bath, our master bedroom and the common areas upstairs.  We also had them add a really pretty border underneath the three windows in the living room.  It looks so beautiful and makes such a difference in the overall look of our house.  Now it has this so called "character" that people are always talking about on HGTV.  By the time I got home from work and the gym on Wednesday they were still working but almost done.  Our house was a mess!  As soon as they started packing up I ran around like a mad woman putting everything back in it's place because it literally pains me  to see everything in disarray.

the loft area to the left and our hallway to the right

master bedroom

I love it!  I can't stop looking at it and I have no regrets about forking over such a large chunk of cash.  Next project; our closet!  We're getting it done next week and I am just as excited about that as I was about this project.

 Today is my birthday so I skipped out on work.  Mj took a half day off and we are spending today together then tomorrow my family will come down.  April birthday weather can be hit and miss but this year it's just gorgeous.  The sun came out early and it's supposed to be 80 degrees.  Time to get out there and enjoy this beautiful day. 

Home Project:  Closet Make Over

Paint: Go Bold or Play it Safe?

We painted our downstairs living/dining area, upstairs loft and master bedroom not too long after we moved in.  Everywhere else has stayed what I call basic builder white.  It's so boring and adds nothing to our decor so it's time for it to go.  I'd like to say that we are going to do it ourselves but that is not the case.  The first time around was really labor intensive and turned out to be a full day project.  Painting is a lot harder then it looks!  We will do the bathrooms and extra bedrooms ourselves later someday but since we are having crown moulding installed we decided to pay a little extra, leave it to the professionals and have them do some painting this time around.  We can't reach the high areas in the hallway as you go up the stairs anyways and me on a ladder or using an extended roller on stairs is an accident waiting to happen.   

3rd and 4th down are our neutral picks.  #3 would
be for the kitchen and #4 would be for everywhere else.

Picking the neutrals was not too hard.  We didn't agree on our favorites initially but were able to easily narrow it down to two using the darker one for the kitchen and a lighter one for everywhere else.  Then Mj decided he wanted to get bold for the kitchen.  Which is fine because I would love to liven things up with a bright color too but bold can be scary.  We went back to home depot and picked some brights.    We stood there staring at our sample colors on the wall for a while and couldn't decide.  We walked away, came back and looked again but still couldn't decide.  The Behr Paint app said that this shade of  Orange would go well with our curtains but it just looks so bright!! We actually don't have a huge amount of wall space in the kitchen.  It's so hard to visualize how it's going to look all over and once it's slapped on every inch of our walls we're stuck.  We don't want to have to re do this.  Especially since we are paying to have it done.

The bright orange is sort of scary!!  We did not like the mustard
in the middle but the Peachy one at the bottom is an option.

The crown molding will be installed tomorrow so we have to decide tonight. Do we play it safe with a neutral, go middle of the road with a lighter peach or do we go bold?  We have to make a decision very soon and I still have no idea!!!!

Taxed to Death

When I was young and carefree and I heard "old people" complaining about things like taxes and property values I didn't really understand what they were so upset about.  Now that I am older, a tax payer and a consumer of more then just little things like food and clothes I get it.  Being a homeowner I get it even more.  My goodness...I seriously feel that I am being taxed to death.  I get my pay check and it's taxed.  I buy something at the store it's taxed.  I win a 2 night hotel stay and I have to fill out a W2 because it's going to be taxed.  I can't touch any retirement money I have saved before whatever ripe old age they have decided upon or else it'll get taxed.  When we bought our house we had to seriously factor taxes into what we could afford for a mortgage because it adds almost $350 a month.  The principal and interest payment might look pretty nice but when you add in the taxes and suddenly it's not so affordable anymore.  The only reasonable way to handle these monster property taxes is to set up an  impound account with your mortgage company and pay into it monthly along with your mortgage so that when the taxes are due twice a year the money is there.  All set right?  Well not quite. 

A couple months after we moved in last year we got a supplemental tax bill for $1,012.  They say it's typical on new construction.  We expected it but  weren't actually prepared to pay it so we asked for half to be be paid out of impound and by the time the other half was due this year they had already factored it in to this years impound and it would be taken care of.  We even got a nice escrow refund check.  Yesterday, we got yet another supplemental bill and the only thing it supplements is my annoyance.  This time it's $3,000 on top of our normal taxes.  That's not exactly what we planned on using our tax refund for so I call our mortgage company and thank goodness they agree to pay it.  It will raise our mortgage by $25.00 a month come May because it creates a deficit in our impound account but that hurts a lot less them ponying up 3k at once.  Now get this.  He says the reason could be for home improvements which allows the city to say that our house is worth more and therefore we owe more property taxes.  I wondered, how do they know anyways?  If we did anything that would require a contractor to get permits then it's reported to the city.  The only thing we did is our backyard so that must have been it.  We are already paying taxes on the house, then we get taxed on the landscaping job itself, then getting a 3k bill was like doubling the cost of our landscaping job-for  no good reason!  Apparently, California is notorious for doing their little shady re assessments on property value.  I suppose we better watch out when we get ready to do our kitchen remodel and we can probably forget about getting another escrow refund. 

But really.  It's enough to make your head spin.  At least we got a decent tax refund this year-goodness knows we've paid enough.  According to an old saying the only thing you can be sure of is death and taxes.  I may not have understood that as a kid but I certainly get it now.

Injured List

According to the weather report it was going to be a gloomy day so we decided to postpone our day date.  Mj went on his Saturday morning bike ride as planned and I just expected to spend the day at home relaxing.  I didn't think we'd end up at Kaiser Permanente.

I got the call right after I got out of the shower.  He said he dislocated his shoulder and that we'd be taking a trip to the doctor.  I found out which location had walk in hours and was ready to go by the time he made it back home.  He started biking with his friends last year and now he has all the gear that goes with it.  He has a road bike AND a mountain bike.  He has the tight spandex outfits in bright colors and the weird shoes that clip onto the pedals and everything.  Today they went about 25 miles east to the mountains for a 12 mile bike ride.  It was freezing, there was snow on the ground in some spots and the altitude was really high.  Poor guy.  About half way through the ride he took a toss over his handlebars and his shoulder was unfortunate enough to connect with the only rock in sight.  I don't know how he managed to clip his shoes out of his pedals in time to detach from his bike.  He had to half walk half ride his way back with a jacked up shoulder for 6 miles.  He's such a tough guy.  You would never even know how much pain he's in.  His tolerance is pretty high and he's not a whiner like I am.

Those bones should not be that far apart

Kaiser is so efficient.  We were in and out of there with X rays done and Rx in hand pretty quickly.   The bustling pharmacy is staffed with an army of white lab coats taking orders and getting people their drugs.  Turns out he has pulled the ligament that is supposed to hold his shoulder to the bone and it's separated pretty far.  They put him in a sling and he'll need to follow up with an orthopedic specialist to determine if it can heal on it's own or if it will require surgery.  He's going to be out of town next week for work so it'll have to wait until the week after.  He and his buddies had a mountain biking mancation to Utah planned for the end of next month.  At this point who knows if he will be recovered enough to do that.

It was only a matter of time before SOMETHING else happened.  He has a bit of an accident prone past.  Years ago before we met he sliced his face open in Army drill team tossing swords in the air.  I can't remember exactly how many broken bones he's had.   He busted his eye brow open two years ago playing basketball while overseas and had to get stitches.  The eyebrow scar it left is actually pretty sexy but that is besides the point.  He routinely comes home from mountain biking all scraped up and this is his second major spill.  I love it that he has a hobby he enjoys that gets him out with his friends and keeps him fit but I don't love it that it can be dangerous.  A car could run him over on the streets and they get to speeds of up to 45 mph on those skinny tires.  If you hit a pot hole or an unexpected dip you are done.  Mountain biking is even worse.  The terrain is rocky and slippery with gravel and dirt.   A biker could tumble off the side of a mountain if things went really wrong.  Thank goodness they wear helmets.  I suppose it could be worse.  He could be on a motorcycle.  Well, actually that will never happen because I already told him he better not ever even think about getting one of those.  Nope.  Not on my watch.