Well, well, it's Friday! Normally I'm all stoked that Friday has come (even though, yes, Facebook, I am a mom), but I am running the Brooklyn Half Marathon at an ungodly hour tomorrow, and I have a pit of nerves in my stomach. Blech. Nothing has changed since high school cross country - except the distances are longer now. Anyway, let's talk about something funner, and potentially more rewarding. I shared on Wednesday my plans for changing up our bookshelves in the dining room, including painting them and moving them to the family room. Looking at all the work and furniture movage required, I asked Bret a couple days ago if he wouldn't mind helping me move all the stuff.

His response was lukewarm. Fair enough. Strange though it may seem, Bret doesn't actually get the same charge I do from futzing with things on a constant basis. Especially when said futzing involves a healthy dose of chaos and banged up walls. He also is a firm believer that perfect is the enemy of the good, so my pursuit of perfection/entertainment really seems to him to be counterproductive. Still, he agreed to help, and we planned to tackle it last night. But when I woke up yesterday and looked around, I knew I wasn't going to wait.

Here's the thing: I was preeettty sure that this was all for the greater good. But I also needed to see how it shook out before I could be 100% - and I didn't want Bret to have to be there for my thought process as I (and those bookshelves) went back, back and forth, back and forth. In the past, these types of scenarios have not proven super awesome for our relationship. And then, I figured I could do it. I figured West would go down for a nap at about 9:30, and then I'd disassemble the dining room shelves and paint them, take all the books off the family room shelves, and switch them. Then I figured I could put things back together once West had woken up.

Well, funny story: West refused to go down until about 11:30 yesterday, and he only slept for an hour once he finally did. Blurgh. So there was a lot of food bribery and crib-corralling, because I didn't realize he was full-on refusing the nap until I was well into this project, and I didn't really have a choice but to put things back together - or there would be nowhere to put him down at all. Anyway, I took the shelves and backing out to the roof and painted them, and while they were drying, I moved things around.

So there's first blush at the dining room. I was into it. I had hated those tall heavy bookshelves back there. They blocked the entrance way, and felt just really...dark. Heavy. I also thought that, by moving the credenza to the family room, I'd get to enjoy it more, because it wouldn't be hidden by the dining table. But the flip side of that is that I was hoping the dining table might break up, visually, the long slog of books I was planning to create in these shelves. Not that there's anything wrong with books, but I find our sheer numbers (estimated at about 700) to feel a little overwhelming at times. I thought that by breaking up the visual of them, it might take it down to just whelming.

So, all was going according to plan on the dining room side of things, and though I had just thrown everything back there initially, I was optimistic. Meanwhile, in the family room....

This is, in my book, definitionally, "meh." Those shelves are just so big....and having them flank the dresser/credenza like that feels like it takes away from the whole, forgive me, "moment." But I wasn't that surprised that this didn't go my way. I sorta kinda thought maybe it wouldn't? That it would be so much heaviness on this side of the room, with nothing to really balance it out on the dining room side? It was this inkling that led me to tackle this myself, a sort of just-in-case-this-idea-is-terrible-let's-not-ruin-our-evening intuition that all DIY'ers have. Well, what to do? We needed some additional storage here; try though I might, I haven't purged enough to get rid of these shelves entirely. Hmmm. Something lighter, cuter? I thought of this corner metal shelf, which I actually have two more of, holding linens and craft supplies in my closet:

They might look nice flanking the credenza...but then what would I do with those giant bookshelves? And what would I do with all the crap in the closets? (Those big bookshelves would not fit in our closets). But then, I had a little light bulb moment. I have some nice white ladder shelves!

I took this quick shot yesterday while I was in the midst of the overhaul, so, for better or for worse, this is really what they looked like on a regular day. I mean, they were fine in there, but they actually don't store quite as much as I might like, and I thought they might really, really look good in the family room. So, I checked with myself, and I was fine with trying something else!

I brought the big bookcases back into West's room, and moved these white shelves out to the family room. This was a pain: I had to take the bottoms off the big shelves so they would fit through the door, and West was feeling super lovey, so I took everything off the white shelves with one hand while I held him, and then carried them through the hall and squeezed them through our baby gate also while holding West with one arm - which illustrates that they're pretty light, I guess. And also that I have can-do spirit.

Yep! As soon as they were in here, I knew that was thew way to go. So I kept on keeping on! One-handed, with a break for picking up Lou and making dinner, I just kept putting things away. Here's where things stand, as of this morning:

That's pretty good, right? I spent no time on these, but rather just put away all the stuff that needed to be put away. Still, I think they look lovely, and the whole area feels bright and light. It's a bit of a shocking change, to be honest, from how it looked before. (Which, to be clear, I also really liked - this is just different).

Here's a quick shot of the dining room this morning. Again, we're at the super beginner stage - I need to Magic Eraser those walls and consider putting a rug back down and think about maybe more art? And one more time edit things out; there's too much here. I also need to find storage for our cloth napkins (in that basket on the floor) and just make this look exactly like I want, but over all, I'm pretty happy with it.

Finally, Westley's room:

This has a long way to come, but I think it'll actually work really well in here. The shelves are repositionable, so I can make the darn toys fit, and they offer more storage than the leaning ladder shelves, so I think, overall, they will be better. I also like how they look in here, which was a bonus.

In sum, practically my entire house feels different than it did yesterday - and I did it all myself. Baby. Do you find yourself undertaking projects like this yourself? Because you mostly fly solo anyway, or because it would place an undue strain on your cohabitation situation? I just think that, for me, it's overall less stressful to do it on my own than to rely on help. I put on my work apron (my waitressing apron from college) to hold screws and shelf brackets and small tools, I break out my furniture sliders, and I try to remember to put on shoes, because, when you do stuff like this, you're going to drop sh*t on your feet. Period. So, if you're also running 13 miles in the near future, protect those piggies, and use good form when lifting.