Back when I had the Etsy shop, I had to store shipping supplies in my little office.  To store those boxes and such, I hung 3 of IKEAs ($4!) metal napkin holders on the wall and put the supplies inside them.  It worked very well, but since I’m no longer selling physical products, I didn’t need the boxes any more.

This week, I finally emptied them out and filled them with things that kept cluttering my shelf.

You can go back and read the original post for more details, but it’s pretty simple: level your napkin holder on the wall and screw it into a stud!

Ever since I cleared my desk of everything but a tiny tray and my lamp, I could never go back to having anything else on my desk.  So these little wall shelves to hold my planner and papers are so helpful.  Now I just need a few cute file folders (some black and white ones to match my day planner would be nice) and it’ll be perfect.

The post Turning napkin holders into wall organizers–again appeared first on Little Victorian.

I was hoping to have a design or decor project (or at least the attic office mood board) for you today to give you a break from all the miniatures talk.  (By the way, go vote if you haven’t yet!)

But I don’t.

As much as I have been getting rid of lately, the more I look around, the more I see stuff we don’t use.

We have house guests coming soon.  And once again, my office/guest room looks like this:

While our home is slowly getting more simple, and I’ve made a little progress with my scheduling, things are still too complicated, and it’s starting to drive me nuts.

Is it about a lack of organization?  No.  Is it about not having enough space?  Definitely not.  It’s not even about putting this away immediately after using them.  It’s about having too much stuff.

So, I went back to The Minimalists for some inspiration.  This post in particular.  (I HIGHLY recommend reading it…go ahead, I can wait.)  And spent the morning, not organizing but getting rid of stuff.

How much?

Bear in mind, my office/guest room is under 100 square feet.  I can do better than that, and I plan on it, but that’s all I had time for this morning.  The work will continue, in this and every other room until I can work in it and not have to spend an hour cleaning up after the work is done.

(I also priced things for the yard sale as I was tossing them in the basket to make actually having the yard sale that much easier.)

Of course, I like my rooms to have a little more warmth and personality than Joshua’s, but I think we often kid ourselves into thinking our clutter is what gives the room warmth and personality.

As I was cleaning out my pencil cup, I thought, “Well, I use the red and green pens pretty often, I’d like to have those within reach.  And I probably use the paper clips several times a week, if not daily.”  But do I really?  No.

Besides, if I need them (probably once every couple weeks), all I have to do is turn around and grab the office supply basket off the shelf.  They don’t need to be on my desk.

So, while my advice for today is not about pretty decor, I do have some.  Go drastic.  Cut back everything in any particular space for a week and see what you actually do need and what is actually adding clutter and causing distraction.

And in addition to the assignment, I’d love to hear from you crafters: how do you keep your creative work from overtaking your house?  Do you have a system or ideas to help a girl out?

The post Simplifying (Another post with embarrassing photos) appeared first on Little Victorian.

There have been a couple changes in my office since you’ve last seen it.  I (okay, The Hubs) put up the invisible bookshelves I have been wanting for so long.

But, much bigger than that, I finally saved up enough to pick up the cowhide rug!

And here is how the office typically looks.  Only add a little more mess…

I’m so happy with the rug.  It really warmed the space up and grounded it with the organic element it adds.  But as happy as I am, I think our buddy Roscoe might be even happier, he likes the fur rugs even more than the sofa now.

The post Office Update appeared first on Little Victorian.

Unless it’s something literally hanging on the wall, I don’t have anything in the house that is not useful in addition to being decorative.

Except for two little cuties.  Here is one of them.

Look at that little face.  Irresistible even though he’s plastic.

They came from the dollar bins at Target, back when I was finishing up my office/guest room.  I needed two things in there: decorative elements and pink.  With the room being such a tiny space and so full of stuff, anything I added needed to be bold and minimal.

As cute as these little guys are, they aren’t bold and minimal or pink.  So they were spray painted.

They look a little creepy from this angle with their eyes painted pink like that.  Hmm…

Yes, the dog looked better in black and white, BUT, he would have gotten lost on the shelf.  And getting lost on the shelf would have just ended up adding more clutter.  This way, he stands out and gets attention and brings some bright balance to the room.

(The office has gotten a few updates since this photo, posts are being prepared to update you!)

Those two really do have an impact on the room.  And they only cost a few dollars.  Totally worth it.
Have you ever used toys as decor in your house?

The post Easy shelf accessory: a painted toy appeared first on Little Victorian.

Just a tip. 

Even if it’s made of beautiful Italian glass like, say, this one:

And even if they have always wanted one.  We klutz’ never grow out of our klutziness, no matter how much we try to convince ourselves and others that we do.  Just don’t buy them one, because they will most likely end up with a problem like this:

That is the wonderful desk that I stole from The Hubs. 

I decided to stop being stingy with the ink for my beautiful pen and use it in my planner this morning.  Then I spilled it.  And spilled it again as I was frantically trying to clean up the mess (with toilet paper, because it was the closest thing I could grab).

Thankfully, the desk top can be flipped over.  But the other side already had a few dings and stains.  Certainly nothing like this, though. 

After more scrubbing, and magic eraser-ing, it looks like this:

And yes, this is the first The Hubs hearing about it.  Love you, honey!!  Thanks for taking the black desk so I could have the white one!

I’m just going to leave that pen in the pencil holder for looks and stick to ball-points, or better yet, pencils.  I’m out of ink anyway. 

Anyone have any magical tricks to get spilled ink off of laminate IKEA furniture?

The post Never buy a klutz a fountain pen appeared first on Little Victorian.

Here it is: our small office guest room in it’s current state!  These are definitely not “After” shots as there are still projects to start and organizing to finish.  But before that happens, I’m very anxious to finally get back to working in here, the shop has been on hold for too long.

We painted the walls a very light gray, and the ceiling a crisp, spring-y blue (Martha Stewart’s Cumulus Cloud and Enamelware).  The desk and floating shelves are from IKEA.  I’m still so excited that I get to have a 5′ by 3′ desk AND a sofa bed in an 8′ wide room.

The command center is still in progress, but the cork board and dry erase board were finished today.

The empty frame will soon have some small, shallow wall shelves inside to hold supplies and/or products.  This morning, the cork and dry erase boards were gold inside, but I had a sudden change of mind and made them white lace instead.  Need my girly touches since the walls aren’t pink.

Still saving for the cowhide, and will probably get more white bins and/or baskets to keep the shelves simple and uncluttered.  Once we can get our hands on a few more wine crates, they will be stacked and turned into movable shelves.

(You can read more about the sofa bed and how it fits into the room perfectly here.)  I’ll keep you updated as this room continues to change.

We started clearing out the powder room last night and we’ve already discovered several additional “issues” that will need to be addressed.  There are a couple strange dilemmas that I will probably need your help with!

PS Here is the latest update on the office.

The post The girly office/guest room is done! (for now) appeared first on Little Victorian.

One of the challenges that came with getting a sofa that takes up the whole width of the guest room/office is that there is no room for end tables.

So, yesterday we pulled out some leftover lumber we had from our ladder project and made some wall mounted shelves to go behind the sofa and act as end tables.

I forgot to take photos of most of the process, but it’s pretty simple.

We wanted two shelves, one on each side of the window, level with the window sill.  We used a 4” wide board and a 1.5” wide board and cut two sets to fit from the window to the wall.  Then we placed the 1.5” board on it’s short end on top of the edge of the 4” board to make an L shape and screwed them together (with 2” wood screws).

I painted the shelves the same gray as the walls and then we mounted them to the wall behind the sofa by putting screws through 1.5” board.

Now there is a space for a book and a glass of water.

And I like that it adds some depth to that part of the room.

The post What to do when you don’t have enough room for end tables appeared first on Little Victorian.

We put up the three floating shelves again on the wall by my desk.  I started to bring things back into the office to begin setting it up and there was a big problem.  I didn’t have nearly enough storage.  We wanted to add more floating shelves to the corner of the room on the other side of my desk.  But IKEA’s Lack floating shelves only come in 1 foot or 3.5 feet.  We have just over 2 feet and I really didn’t want to put two 1 foot sections side-by-side and have a seam down the middle.  Here’s what we did:

Purchased 3 more 3.5 foot floating shelves, cut off the excess foot and a half, mounted them in the corner.  Sorry, I didn’t get any pictures, but it really was that easy (as long as you have a chop saw and another saw suitable for cutting the metal bracket that holds the shelf up). 

Here’s a preview of the shelves.  I was going to show you more, but the office is so close to being finished that I want to save it all for the “Before and After” post. 

Oh, and the blog now has a Facebook page.  Feel free to stop over and Like it so you can follow along on there.  I plan on posting preview pictures on there from time to time and highlighting other blogger’s posts that I think you’ll find helpful and fun.  (There’s a page for the shop too!)

The post Customized floating shelves for the office (Hacked Lacks!) appeared first on Little Victorian.

Matchstick blinds are great.  They add privacy, filter light without blocking it, bring in the natural element to rooms that are lacking it and they look great with or without curtains flanking them.  But, around here, the cost starts around $30 for a 2 foot wide window.  Unless you go to Big Lots discount store, where they are $5 a piece.  BIG difference.  But here’s why they are so much cheaper, the ones for $30 and up come with valances to hide the hardware and the ones from Big Lots look like this:

Not so pretty.  But with three windows in this room, I just wasn’t going to spend over $90 just on the blinds when I could spend $15.  But the icky exposed hardware was driving me nuts, so I figured out a way to make a valance for them.  Here is how:

I purchased an additional bamboo matchstick blind for another $5 and started by cutting the strings to remove the top piece of bamboo with the hanging hardware. 

Then pull out several of the bamboo sticks until you have enough string left over to tie the strings back together. 

And tie each set of strings in double knots to secure the sticks.  This will take a while, depending on the length of your blinds, so put some music on and get in a knot-tying groove. 

Measure how tall you want your valances to be , then add about an inch and a half to that number and cut the strings down the length of the blinds again.  Pull out about an inch and a half of the bamboo sticks from the ends, so you can tie together the strings like before.  When you’re done, you should have a section of blinds that looks like this:

Fold that piece in half so the long edges are touching and tie together each set of strings. 

When they are all tied together, center your new seam. 

And there is your new valance!  It will look better once it’s hanging, don’t worry.  Now let’s put up some nails to hang it with.  Back at your window, put in two small finishing nails above the hanging hardware.

Now just hang your new matchstick valance by propping it up on the two finishing nails. 

Your hardware is covered and instead of $90 for three windows, it only cost $20. 

A lot more finished and expensive-looking for just $5 and about 15 minutes. 

The post How to make your own matchstick blind valances appeared first on Little Victorian.

I don’t have any finished projects to show today.  Earlier in the week, I had reluctantly decided to strip the paint off my office floor.  I don’t want to use those nasty paint stripping chemicals, so it was going to be a long and ugly process with scrapers and a heat gun and rubbing alcohol.

As much as I love white painted floors, my office was just too cold looking with all the white furniture, gray walls and blue  ceiling.  I planned on having some wood-toned furniture, but it didn’t turn out that way and I didn’t think warm-toned accessories would be enough to balance it.  So I started heating up and scraping away the paint on an already damaged section of the floor. 

As I was writing today’s post to tell you about my plans, I changed my mind.  Again.  Because I think I came up with a better solution: a cowhide rug.  I have been wanting one for a long, long time, I just never had a good place to put one.  It’s a perfect plan so far in my head: a big white and brown cowhide will take up about 1/3 of the exposed floor.  It will bring in dark brown to warm and ground the room, the organic lines will help balance all the square edges and it will bring in the texture, pattern and the natural element that the room is still lacking. 

Rut Karadottir via Desire to Inspire

Now I just need to save up a little for the rug (thankfully Ikea sells them cheap!) and figure out how to fix up the area where I removed the paint.  Oops.

Think it will be enough to balance the room?  Maybe combined with some matchstick blinds? 

The post Will the office work ever end? appeared first on Little Victorian.