Welcome back, Push 2012!
I’m excited to give you a look at the beginnings of the inside of my Home Decorating Plan + Progress book, which will help me move forward on projects now, and eventually become a scrapbook of the process.
My Philosophy on Big Plan + Progress Books
I envision this book will be visually fun to look through — eventually. But my philosophy on assembling these books is the same as my philosophy on actually decorating or organizing a home:
Live in it for a while before you make big commitments. Allow yourself to go slowly. Stay bare-bones until you know how you function, what will work, and what won’t.
So there isn’t a whole lot of visual excitement going on inside my book yet (oh, but there is excitement there! It’s just subtle.). As I get a feel for what I like, I’ll gradually dress it up. Function first, right? It makes no sense to doll up a book that is difficult to use. I see projects like that and I wonder about them.
Anyway…
Map out the floor plans:
I need to work on each room in our house, as well as outside. So each space is getting a floor plan (including the backyard!) with measurements. I will add tabs or dividers for each room’s floor plan. I’m leaning toward using Becky Higgins’s dividers for Project Life when they become available again.
Photograph the Different Spaces
These photos are of the space in our living room that has the most needs right now. The rest of the room is almost done, but this area isn’t anywhere close. I’m hoping to find a piece of furniture for each side of the piano.
On the right side I expect to put our old Edison Music box from just before the turn of the century. You can see it there in the top photo on the floor to the right of the piano. We love her. She originally belonged to my husband’s great-great-grandparents. And she plays!
On the wall above it I want to put the 59 wax cylinders we have (what they used before records). I’m hoping to find a shelf that will display them. So now that I’ve got my measurements (of both the cylinders and the space), I know what to look for.
My other big problem is the beautiful wine refrigerator that our best friends gave us for Christmas a year ago. We haven’t found a spot for it near the kitchen, so right now it’s on a rickety old $4 homemade table I picked up at a garage sale years ago. It’s just sitting in the middle of that big empty space on the other side of the piano, quite a ways away from the kitchen.
Again, with the dimensions noted, I can look for pieces of furniture to set it on (or something open to set it in), and hopefully a better place for it. I might just switch its location with the music box.
Evaluate Needs
I’ve written all of these problems and needs on this sheet of paper I made for my book. Already I see a change I want to make to this evaluation sheet and once I’m settled on it, I’ll make it more visually pleasing. Here’s what it asks:
- What is this space used for?
- What’s working already?
- What’s not working?
- List of items needed with measurements
- Resources
Right now “Resources” (ie. Pinterest resources) is on the next page, and I’ve moved the “List of items needed” to that page, too, to give myself more room to write.
In the front of the book is a master list of items needed so I don’t have to look through each room’s section to find stuff I need. I type my master list instead of hand write it. That way I can easily remove items I’ve purchased and add new items and then just re-print.
Push! 2012 Participation Check in So how are you doing with your Push! projects? We’ve heard from some of you who are journaling about what you’re learning. Anyone doing a Plan + Progress book? Whichever you’re doing, I’d love to hear how you’ve kept up with it (or haven’t) during the couple weeks when I was too busy with CHA to do a Push!-post! Please check in with a comment, and link us up if you blog about your own!
note: now that we’ve kicked off the first several weeks of Push! 2012, I expect to post updates every other week. That way I can do a Photo Stories update one week, and a Push! 2102 update the next. I might be a bit flexible on that, but that’s the plan.
* * *
Push! 2012 is a blog series on Paperclipping. We are dedicated to pushing boundaries and thriving in various areas in which we’re trying to learn or improve, and we’re using journals or Plan + Progress books to help us do that. Read about this series here. You can see all of the related Push! 2012 posts here.