Command Central Before and During!!!

 oof. before. v bad. That stupid closet just collected everything and anything and it was a mess. All the papers and mail and stuff ended up on my desktop and on top of that cabinet. I took the bifold doors off the closet because they were just ALWAYS in the way. and I hate them generally. Mark and I found grey curtains at Ikea that look great!

also...for some incomprehensible reason they put two can lights in the ceiling for a six foot square room. I painted two coats of white primer on the walls before the blue, and that area was blindingly bright. I have replacement lights from Home Depot, a spot for the closet and a hanging lamp for above the desk.

 after emptying everything into the dining room. bleh. you can see in this photo that the builder absolutely loves loves loves recessed lights. there are an even dozen in the living room, kitchen and dining room. I find the ones in the living room especially incomprehensible, because I am used to there not being ceiling lights in a living room, and there is a ceiling fan so we could have a ceiling light if we wanted.

I am not a fan of recessed lights. I would get rid of all of them if I could.

 I taped. I never tape the ceiling, but because I was using a Woolie paint pad -- it's a woolie sheepskin paint pad that makes great texture -- I taped the ceiling and promptly hit the ceiling anyway. sheesh.

after painting. this photo doesn't do a good job of conveying what the texture actually looks like. It's much more swirly than it looks here. if we EVER get sunshine again I will try taking better photos of the texture.

notice that the desk is completely useless. it has no imagination, no cool details, just a granite slab and cheapass cupboards. granite desktops might look cool, but damn are they cold in the winter.

I am realizing now that the builder or the previous owner of this house or somebody apparently thought we would be doing minor surgeries here. The lights above the dining room table added up to 180 watts. Now we have a fisherman's lamp from Ikea with a 40 watt bulb and it's so much warmer and funkier feeling. which is what I live for, you know.

I will post photos of that Ikea lamp and the amazing wonderful pretty organized Command Central closet soon!