This is my hobby.

Dirty Wall Upgrade

We bought our house while it was being built and weren’t familiar with the term “builder grade,” which means your house has been finished with the cheapest appliances, fixtures, and paint possible.

We kept the builder grade white paint because we like white walls and didn’t realize it was literal powder.

We have three kids and a cat and the walls definitely tell that story.

The scrapes and toddler artwork start at the front door. 🙃

Since the paint is so cheap, we can’t clean off the scuffs, paw prints, crayon marks, and general mayhem. A wet rag will literally wipe the paint right off.

My walls are ugly, y’all.

Painting an entire house after everything is hung and furnished is a big project, so we’re starting with wall paper in small areas.

Area #1 — the kitchen island, where the teenage boys sit to do homework, eat, and kick the crap out of the wall.

The entire area was nearly black from their feet, so we covered it with this wallpaper, Vintage Herons from Spoonflower.

We had a Task Rabbit do this and realized afterward that he didn’t match the pattern up with each panel…I’m trying to decide if this bothers me.

Since we’re in the kitchen, I have a design question:

Do we style the top of the cabinets or no? Is that old fashioned?

If I were to style it, here’s the inspo:

Too cluttered? Unnecessary? Lmk what you think.

Thrifted outfits of the week:

New fave comfy dress for running errands – brand unknown, think it might be Costco honestly. *Source: Goodwill*

Character Flaw: I never iron. Dress – J.Jill, Purse – Dooney & Bourke, Shoes – Sam Edelman. *Source: Goodwill*

Comfy Cotton Gauze Dress – Unknown, *Source: Jupiter Medical Thrift* (photo taken in the Goodwill parking lot – lol)

Throwback! Scarf – unknown, Shirt – Express, Jeans – Levi’s. *Source: Goodwill*

Swift with the Arm Swipe

I live three miles away from the best Goodwill in town, and they know me there. Which really comes in handy when your toddler seeks to destroy.

You know how people in movies and TV shows get really upset and just take their arm and rake it across a table full of items?

And everything just crashes. I bet that feels so good. I, of course, feel the urge to do this (or flip a table Teresa Giudice-style) at least once a month, but I couldn’t do that because then I’d have to pick all that stuff on the floor up.

My mom and I happily preparing to enter our favorite store.

My toddler, though, who is me, but tiny and privileged in myriads of ways, goes for the arm swipe (or the hammer-throw most often) a lot.

And we’re at that stage where I’m like…should I do something about this that’s spicier than a time-out?

Anyway, the arm swipe and hammer-throw tendencies make Goodwill shopping a little dicey at times, so we mostly avoid the glassware shelves.

But a few weeks ago, I had given her a cookie immediately upon sitting her in the cart and figured that bought me at least 30 min of browsing the glassware shelves.

TODDLER ARMS ARE SWIFT.

How did she even snag that snow globe with a fist full of cookie?!

She gets the coordination and dexterity from her mama (I’m deft at snatching a bargain from a shelf or a hanger, guys!).

Luckily, they know me at Goodwill, so all was forgiven quickly and I even got a discount on a plant pot.

Here are some of my thrift finds from the past few weeks:

Pristine conch shell added to the collection

I have a hard time resisting miniature furniture these days. *Source: SoFlo Finds*

I also thrift lots of clothes and shoes – like this dress I wore for lunch with my girlies. $7 at Goodwill!

And this Kate Spade purse – also a Goodwill find! I can share more style thrifts if you want to see, lmk in the comments.

A snow globe hates to see my toddler coming.

Monstera Deliciosa, Chaos Gloriosa

Rabies. Roundworm. Salmonella. Giardiasis.

Racoons carry and transmit all of these things. I hadn’t heard of that last one, but it’s parasites found in contaminated water that, if come into contact with, can lead to major tummy rumbles.

One would not want one’s three-year-old getting giardiasis, would one?

I live in a cookie-cutter, concrete block, basic-b house with my family, and one way we’ve carved out an aesthetic that combats the millennial gray of things is by decorating with green, live plants in every room and on every possible surface. Plant hoarding, if you will.

My husband is the horticulturist and I’m the stylist. Which leads me to how I almost infected my precious toddler with a parasite or flu-like illness.

I’ve been needing a monstera. A big, juicy one for our living room. So, we went to the plant nursery up the street on a Saturday and I recorded cute vids of my daughter splashing in the display foundations while my husband went in search of the juiciest monstera he could find.

After my child had splashed around for damn near an hour, a store rep came up to gently whisper, “You might not want her playing in the fountains. The raccoons get in them at night. There’s a hose over there if you want to rinse her off.”

…Pardon moi?

Raccoon rivers in these here fountains, you say?

Rinse her off with a HOSE?

Lady, direct me to the nearest bathroom and your ANTIBIOTIC SOAP, please!

Ugh. I’m such a sketchy mom.

But the monstera looks LOVELY in our living room. Really brings the space to life.