My home-improvement wish list

The main reasons, and there are several, that I'm often running on very little sleep are as follows:

1. A very loud frog has recently relocated to the green space behind our house. I can hear him all hours of the night, with windows closed, all the way upstairs in our master bedroom.

2. My husband snores. A lot. Also very loudly.

3. No brainer here; I have a baby. He still gets up to nurse. I know, I should work on phasing out these feedings, but every time we start making progress he comes down with an awful cold or ear infection and I feel too bad leaving him to cry.

4. Our 4-year-old comes into our bed way too often. And it's a queen-size. Gets a little squishy. I sometimes go sleep in his bed and we did not splurge on the expensive mattress. Rookie mistake.

That being said, last night I found myself 'Sleepless' for an entirely different reason; one I imagine is very common among us women, moms in particular. My to-do list played endlessly, over and over and over in my mind. Not my mundane daily to-do's; I am actually ahead of the game this week and caught up on chores. This was that big list of wishes-- if only I had the money and time, here's what I would do.

Our laundry room is in desperate need of a makeover. I really hate the wire shelves; they look messy, stuff falls through the cracks, things don't stand up right on them. Drives me nuts. But my perfectionist husband wants nice wood cabinets, the kind you would put in a kitchen or bathroom. Of course, I love that idea, it would look great. But it's very low on the budget priority list. I'd settle happily for inexpensive white laminate cabinets!

I am embarrassed to admit that this swatch of pink has been painted for a year and a half. I am also embarrassed to admit that it is in my laundry room. When we (happily) found out Beckham was a boy, I decided I needed something feminine in this house of boys. The laundry room is the only place that is mine and mine alone! Honestly, not my favorite room, but it's mine. And I wanted it to be pretty. I got the cute pink garbage can above, I hung my 'Le Boot' picture, and I painted this pink square to see if I liked it. Which I did. And still do. And yet it's still a tiny square. Goal for the summer: 

Buy gallon of Miller Divine Berries and Beans, and get to painting. 

Another shameful admission of mine: We moved into this house before we were even pregnant with Beckham, but we decorated his nursery and still to this day have done almost nothing with Ty's room. Bad, bad mommy. Honestly, we just struggled with inspiration. His fav color at the time was orange, so we got this cool chair which I really like. And he really, really loves music, so we wanted to do a rockstar room, but the orange is hard to work with. I've been looking on Etsy for some cool fabric so I can sew him a coverlet, and I found some that I think will work. We have a bit of a vision finally, so I hope to be posting 'Ty's Room Makeover' soon!

Second goal for the summer: paint, fabric and accessories for Ty's room.

I know my kitchen doesn't look too bad, and there isn't a whole lot I want to change. But we bought this house short-sale because the builder went bankrupt (as so many have done lately). Great deal for us, but you can tell where he started running out of money because he did some cheap finishes that drive me crazy. I really don't like the countertops. Or the short little backsplash. 

And it has always bugged me that the lower cabinets don't fill this space.

Or this one. 

Two strange, empty walls. Like he decided to save money by cutting out a few cabinets. I've always wanted to track down the company that made these and order two lower ones when we finally decide to redo the counters. I think it would be a relatively inexpensive fix, would look so much nicer, and give me more cabinet and counter space! Definitely a long-term goal, but it runs around my mind nonetheless. 

I have this really cool antique craft/scrapbook desk, which has a rolltop. But the rolltop is broken. I love the idea of getting deep into in a craft project and being able to leave out my mess and just close the top so it looks neat! I've tried fixing the thing myself but it seems almost impossible. I think we need to find some sort of wood expert who could repair it for us.

I also have this secret hope that when Beckham gets a little older, we could buy bunk beds for the boys and they could share a room. Then instead of having a "craft corner" in the playroom, I could have my very own craft ROOM!!! This idea absolutely thrills me. Literally keeps me up at night. I could have a sewing table. And a gift wrap table. With wooden dowels to hold all my wrapping paper and ribbons. And floor-to-ceiling shelves, filled with gorgeous, crafty things. In little glass jars, with labels. And PINK walls!

Oh, the possibilities.....