ORC Week 4: Lighting -- and Problems
Happy Wednesday, Friends! Let me tell you… on Monday I wasn’t sure I’d be able to send you an ORC update of any kind this week. First of all, I spent much of last week getting The Nice List orders shipped out which was fun, but it absorbed a good deal of my week. And this week was to be all about how to light a room like the Workroom. But I am having all kinds of trouble — lights have arrived missing pieces, lampshades have proven to be a bigger challenge… it has just been all kinds of frustrations this week. So I am writing to you in the semi-dark.
More on all of that — and how to properly light a room like this here:
ORC Week 4
Lighting
I am shipping off orders for The Nice List each day, and it’s not too late to order your copy! Make your purchase in the shop!
Free Printable Pages!
I am also thrilled to announce the addition of this year’s Christmas printable pages which are free! You’ll find a Menu Planner, a Grocery List, and a planner for Seasonal Favorites — all adorned with Jone Hallmark’s gorgeous illustrations.
These and so many other items are available for your use in the Library. It’s a little bit like Christmas — and it’s not even Halloween, yet! Enjoy!
Have a great week! Please check out the One Room Challenge post! And for daily updates, watch Instagram. Lots more going on there!
Ciao!
Angela
Thoughtful Gifts
The story of my beautiful Mid Century basket, a flip-through of the 2019 edition of The Nice List, and more!
Today I have a new story — the story of this beautiful, Mid Century basket which was a gift from my dear friend Ruth last Christmas. It’s currently on my dining room table filled with gourds and pumpkins. I love it. Read all about where it came from here…
And here’s a video flip-through of the 2019 edition of The Nice List! If you have already ordered your copy, it is in the mail to you! This week I will be scheduling some Plan-with-Me events — times when we can meet up on Facebook live to talk, ask questions, and get started on using The Nice List. I’ll have tips and ideas for you, too. So watch for that event schedule coming soon!
Happy Monday, friends! Here’s to a great week! The next One Room Challenge update will be coming on Thursday. You’ll get it in your inbox on Wednesday if you are a subscriber!
Cheers!
Angela
ORC Week 3: Furniture for a Room with Many Faces
An update from Week 3 of the One Room Challenge as well as the arrival of The Nice List 2019!
I now have a 14 foot long desk. Yep. It spans the entire length of my Workroom with places for writing, projects, sewing, gift wrapping, and all kinds of projects. That’s just one of the pieces of furniture I’m discussing this week in my One Room Challenge update! My Workroom has to be a multifunctional room, and as such, it needs furniture that is flexible and functional. I am hoping my crazy-long desk and all of the other choices I am sharing this week fit the bill. Check them out!
Two New Tutorials
I also have two tutorials this week. One will show you how you, too, could have a 14’ long desk. Or perhaps something a little more… reasonable.
The other is a newly acquired skill for me this week: replacing trim on a Mid Century steel desk. Very fun — and very sticky!
The Nice List has Arrived!
It seems impossible, but those aren’t even the biggest bits of news this week! The Nice List arrived, and it is gorgeous!! Thanks to Jone Hallmark for her gorgeous illustrations and to Holly Kennedy for her design work. I am so excited to start shipping these out — and getting them into stores — this week! If you ordered one, it will be headed your way soon. If you haven’t ordered yet, there are still copies available in the store. Grab one before it is too late!
Have a great day!
Ciao!
Angela
ORC Week 2: I Have this Thing with Green
An update on Week 2 of the Fall 2019 One Room Challenge: the Workroom Makeover
Green has been my favorite color for almost as long as I can remember. As a little girl I briefly flirted with pink, but green took over early. Green — the color of Ireland, my eyes, the grass in my grandmother’s back yard, my favorite sweatshirt in college. So I suppose it is natural that my Workroom is green. But it isn’t just the paint on the walls. I am working to make this makeover a green one in every way I can. And the Week 2 One Room Challenge update includes a list of the easy ways I’m working to make this room green in the eco-friendly sense, too.
Not only that, but I have TWO tutorials this week both of which will help you make your Billy bookcases (or other stock bookshelves) look cleaner, more like custom shelves, and just absolutely amazing!
Oh, and did I mention the wallpaper? Yeah, click the link and see all the fun this week…
That’s not the only news this week! Orders of The Nice List will begin shipping early next week! If you haven’t ordered yet, or want to order another copy, you can still place an order, but supplies are limited, so don’t dally!
The wind is howling here, and the temperature is plummeting. It was 77 at about 5 pm. But look what’s coming overnight…
I hope you all are having a great week!
Ciao!
Angela
DIY Autumn Projects & Decorations
A round-up of Fall decorating ideas, Halloween costumes, and the best tips for hygge sleeping
It was in the 30s when we woke up this morning, and it was HARD for us to get out of bed. The house was cold, the duvet covers were warm, and none of us wanted to get up and get moving. But we did!
Despite our chilly mornings, I absolutely love fall. It is cool, crisp, and perfect here in Colorado — with the possibility for snow later this week! Eek!
I am deep into the One Room Challenge, but it is also time to decorate for Fall and Halloween and all things pumpkin! I don’t do pumpkins until October — I like to use real ones, and I want them to last until Thanksgiving, so we wait until mid-October to bring on the fall decor.
If you are still making that seasonal transition like we are, I have a few projects and ideas to help you along as well as some amazingly easy DIY Halloween costumes. I rounded it all up for you here as an easy reference!
Cozy, Hygge Beds for Fall
First, up: sleeping. This weekend I changed out our duvets from the lighter summer-weight duvets to our warmer, cozier duvets for winter. I’ll be washing those lighter ones and stowing them away this week. Why are we so cozy at night? Because we sleep Scandinavian-style. This is one of the best things I learned in my travels. Sleeping without a top sheet and blankets, cozied up in a duvet cover is the definition of hygge — and it means better sleep for all of us. Read on for more about why!
Autumn Decorations
I am pretty practical when it comes to seasonal decor — especially fall and Halloween. We don’t do scary Halloween, first of all. We do cute. And I don’t want to decorate for Halloween and then less than a month later turn it all around for Thanksgiving. So I rely on the same colors, themes, and ideas for both Halloween and Thanksgiving. Lots of pumpkins and gourds. Natural elements. Candles. Then I switch out just a few things — a table runner, jack-o-lanterns, and whatever we make to hang on the branch chandelier. Here’s an easy DIY bunting that will take your home from September through Thanksgiving. And here are some details about how to create your own branch chandelier, too.
Halloween Costumes
Part of the reason we don’t do much decorating for Halloween is because I am usually really busy making Halloween costumes. I LOVE making costumes! Here are a few of our most recent costumes. The Lumiere costume (from Beauty and the Beast) is still my favorite! And I’ll add this year’s costumes to the post once they are made… but we haven’t even nailed down what those costumes will be just yet!
Books for Fall
Finally, if you are looking for some good book suggestions for the next few weeks with the children in your life, here’s a list of what we are reading. We have a book basket by the bed which I keep filled with seasonally-appropriate books for bedtime reading. However, this week we started the Harry Potter series, so I think we will be occupied with witches and wizards for a good long while.
Happy Fall, Ya’ll! Here’s to a great week! Work continues on the One Room Challenge Workroom Makeover. You can follow along on Instagram, and I will have another weekly update on Thursday. But if you are a subscriber, you’ll get the update on Wednesday!
Cheers!
Angela
@Midmodernmama
The One Room Challenge Begins!
The Fall One Room Challenge has begun! See the room I’m tackling this time, and get a peek into the plans, too.
Here we are: the beginning of another One Room Challenge, and this time I am taking on my Workroom. This multifunctional space is a combination of home office, library, sewing room, craft room, and art studio. And it needs some love and attention! So over the next six weeks I am doing a Workroom Makeover.
But this is part of the One Room Challenge — an Instagram-based challenge where people all over the world commit to redoing a room in their house in a six week period. Some are professional designers. Some are influencers. Some are DIY-enthusiasts. But we all have a problem area of our house that we need to fix. That’s the best part of the ORC — seeing the huge variety of projects that people undertake and cheering each other on. Each week I’ll post an update on my project with photos, tutorials, how-to projects, and more. I will post all of the resources I use was well.
And for this project, I am guided by several principles about which I have written in the past:
Sustainability and green design: home renovation can have a very negative ecological impact. It can be wasteful. And it can be toxic. But it doesn’t have to be any of those things. I’m committed to doing this project — and every project — with sustainability in mind. I will talk more about what this means later, but there are several commitments I have made for this project:
Using less plastic and more natural materials
Repurposing what I already have when possible
Sourcing vintage and pre-owned items as much as possible
Eliminating waste
KonMari: since discovering Marie Kondo’s book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up several years ago, I have asked myself countless times, “Does this spark joy?” I will be taking on my Workroom as if it was an apartment — using the KonMari method to tackle everything in the room from art supplies to books to files to sewing materials. Can you KonMari a creative space? I aim to prove that you can, and it isn’t as bad as you might think.
The Not So Big House: while this is part of our house-buying philosophy, so much of what Sarah Susanka laid out in her book, The Not So Big House, informs every design decision we make.
So, I hope you will hop over to the One Room Challenge page and check out the first installment of this new project! I have the before photos as well as a roadmap for where I’m headed. It promises to be fun and exciting!
And if you haven’t subscribed to my mailing list, do it! You’ll get the weekly updates in your inbox before anyone else!
New: The Library!
Introducing the Mid Modern Mama Library of downloads and printables!
Is there a better place to hang out than a library? I’m hard-pressed to think of one! So I’m excited to announce my own personal library of resources available to anyone! So many of the projects I post here have downloads of one kind or another — patterns, graphics, Cricut files. So I put them all in one place: the Library! Here you’ll find all of the file downloads for every project on Mid Modern Mama. And the list of files is growing all the time. So pop by and take a look! I am ready to decorate for Fall, and the files for the Autumn bunting are in the Library now. Very easy to find, and it is an easy project to make, too!
Speaking of projects, we are having a busy weekend around here getting ready for the One Room Challenge this weekend! Next week I’ll be able to tell you which room I am taking on, but let me tell you: it promises to be a BIG transformation. It’s one of those rooms that we tend to neglect in our homes, but by the end of it all, it will be so much more functional and beautiful, too. I am really excited!
And email subscribers will get a sneak-peek at the plans before anyone else, and will get to see the room’s progress before anyone else, too. So if you haven’t already, sign up!
Finally, on Instagram this week I’ve been sharing some of the Greener Living changes we have made in our house — an effort to reduce our carbon footprint. Because I know not everyone is on Instagram, I’ve collected all of those posts together to share here, too. Enjoy!
Have a wonderful weekend!
Ciao!
Angela
Greener Living Tips
a few easy ways to reduce your family’s impact on the Earth
9 Easy Tips for Greener Living
Easy and inexpensive changes we have made in our home to be more environmentally friendly.
This week on Instagram I’ve been posting about simple and inexpensive ways to reduce your carbon footprint. And I wanted to pull all of those tips together into one post — a list of a few of the things we do in our house to be more eco-conscious. Plus, not everyone is on Instagram! So here are the posts in order with tips and ideas for making small changes to your lifestyle which can add up to big differences.
Buy Vintage
Say “NO” to plastic holiday decor
Repurposing
Don’t Rake!
Buy Secondhand Kids Clothes
Freecycle
Mending & Visible Mending
Composting
Small Daily Habits Add Up to Big Changes
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