The Upside Down Kitties

Now that all the rooms have went from being chaos to organized cleanliness, we can start focusing on getting this show on the road. One of my favorite things about decorating is the possibilities, the fun things you find, new ideas you locate on the Internet or even just an old vintage family picture that makes you smile. So two weeks ago our living room/hallway was looking a little something like this:

 

 

 

Please don't mistake me, this isn't how we really live, this actually is the cyclone that followed my purge of everything (Thank Goodness for Tupperware containers) It was one of those mornings where everything feels like it's closing around you, that the chaos has escalated to a new level. So in a heated moment of decision (and a very understanding roommate) I pulled everything out, took everything down, un-hid everything that was in secret stashes and we one by one, item by item decided to answer that age old question.... "Will I ever use this again".

 

After this much needed step was completed, I started sketching possibilities. I looked at that shelf for hours, wondering how I could give it that designer flair... and believe me I've come up with a great idea. I had to break this project down into three groups. I've been trying to live off a budget the past few weeks so that I could have a savings again. Part of this meant that I not only had to be more frugal... but that I had to try a bit harder to squeeze every penny.

 

1. Pictures and Picture Frames

2. Shelves and Organization Options

3. Style Shelves

With my first quest in mind, I trolled every Goodwill, Home depot and anywhere I could think of that I could make frames. Everything seemed out of my range, 80-100$ for large frames. Then one day as Rhys and I had went to go to a new Goodwill we have never been too and I found this:

 

 

With every intention or re-painting the frame to it's former glory, it wasn't far off from the following few adding themselves in.

 



Please note the shelves are almost not cluttered! Can I get me some snaps? And then we are now at what I like to call the "Upside down kitties". This had started when I found a picture frame that was about the perfect size for 7$ at good will which was currently inhabited by Kitties.

 

 

It was an old brown colour, which wasn't my favorite so I took some leftover paint that we had sitting around and painted that bad boy. The problem was that I had originally tried to take out the glass which didn't work so I simply removed everything while I was painting and then placed it all back in when I was done. That's when this happened:

 



Yes ladies and gentleman (and computer using kitties) I placed it in the frame, upside-down. At fist being slightly perfectionist.... I wanted to correct it, however, it was a pain to put that frame back together and with the print only a week away, I decided to leave it. Which has thus far led to comments like "The Upside Down Kitties are watching me"... "You're making a kitty statement"... "What would the Upside Down Kitties do?" ....

 

 

So as they perch in the now white frame, upside-down.... in all their beauty. I await for the vintage prints that I purchased online to clean that messy look up a bit (and the jokes). If you scroll to the top you can see the progress on the shelf going from GAH to ahhh... to ouuuuuu (yes, you can say it out loud for fun I won't judge). So here we are still searching. I think I've got a good 3-5 frames left to get, but once that's done we will be well on our way to a happy hallway!