Inspiration Around Blogland: Welcome to the 161st Metamorphosis Monday!

Greetings!  How was your weekend?  I hope it was fantabulous!  I spent a good part of mine in the Atlanta IKEA repeatedly talking myself into and out of an Expedit shelving unit for my office closet.

Image from HERE

For months now I've been hoping to squeeze an Expedit into that closet for storage, but the unit itself is only about 1/2 inch (if that much) smaller in width than the closet itself.  It's such a tight fit, I'll have to remove the baseboards to get it in there.

Prior to heading to IKEA, I created a fake shelf out of foam board to represent the width of the Expedit and attempted fitting it into the closet.

It appears the closet just isn't deep enough for the Expedit to make the turn in the closet to fit against the back wall.  For some reason my brain refuses to accept that answer.  Stubborn, I know.  I keep trying to think of a way to make it work.   And, in case you're wondering, there's not enough space inside the closet to build the unit inside it.

Logic finally ruled and I sadly left without the Expedit, but not before consoling myself with one of IKEA's big honking cinnamon rolls.  Those things are insanely good, especially when they're hot from the oven...and this one was.  Have you ever had one of these bad boys?  Makes my mouth water just thinking about 'em again.

Image from IKEA site

The rest of my weekend was spent cleaning out the guest room closet and moving about 20 picture albums from that closet to a larger closet.  It's nothing worth showing here on the blog...just practical, boring stuff that needed to be done.


A Camera Switcheroo:
I did make one significant change/metamorphosis of sorts this weekend.  Shortly after purchasing a Nikon D5100 camera, I attended some free photography classes offered by the store where I bought my camera.  During one of the classes I had an opportunity to see a Nikon D7000 for the first time.  Over the next few weeks as I made the change from shooting in "auto" to shooting pretty much exclusively in manual, I realized the D7000 would better meet my needs.  There are many reasons why I like the D7000 better, but one big reason is having easy access to many of the settings on the outside of the camera without going through the menu.  Now that I'm shooting so much in manual, that has become more important.

Unfortunately, the stores have been completely sold out so I couldn't make the exchange until this weekend.  They only received two in on Saturday, but I was able to snag one before they disappeared again for gosh knows how long.  As promised, they were kind enough to let me exchange my D5100 when the D7000 arrived.  It's a bad time to be shopping for cameras and lenses right now.  So many stores are out of product due to the earthquake in Japan and floods in Thailand.

Image from official Nikon site

So I've been playing with the D7000 and so far I love it.  I'm not ready to consider a full frame camera, yet, which would probably be the next step up.  The FX format cameras are quite pricey, so I'll have to save my pennies for a long time before I can take that plunge, if I ever do decide to go that route.  In the meantime, Mr. D7000 and I are hitting it off pretty well.  If you would like to know more about the D7000, you'll find pictures and a breakdown of the camera HERE on Ken Rockwell's site.

So that was my crazy weekend.  How did yours go?  Get any projects checked off your "to do" list or did you spend it doing something fun?  


Metamorphosis Monday:
For this Met Monday I'm sharing some lovely transformations from around Blogland.

Kate fell in love with Benjamin Moore's "Heritage Red" paint color and made this wonderful change to her front door.  I love the red screened-in door and the floral arrangement!  You can read all about how she did it, HERE.

With Picnik leaving us soon, Rhoda has written a great tutorial sharing all the changes you can make to your photos with Photoscape.

Abbie and her hubby Shaun built their house from the ground up while working and raising two young children.  They share their inspiring story and how they kept their sanity during the process.

Kate is getting ready to start a complete bath renovation and you'll want to follow along.  She's got some great ideas brewing.

Jennifer decorated her home for Valentine's Day and I love the little Valentine's Day card tree she made!

Bijana transformed this plain, white chair into the a sweet, romantic piece.

Here's a little hint at the makeover.  Click the link above for the full reveal.  It's adorable!

I love a great pantry makeover!  Ashley completely redid her pantry and it will make you want to redo yours.  The After pics are fabulous and this metamorphosis is totally doable without breaking the bank.  Here's how it looked before she got started.  You're going to love the "After."

Happy Met Monday!  Looking forward to all the Before and Afters!

Pssst:  Today is the last day to enter the Giveaway for Fish Foam, HERE.  Stop over and leave a comment to be entered.


To receive the latest posts, as well as updates about blog parties, subscribe via an RSS Reader or have BNOTP delivered right to your Inbox.  You'll find links to subscribe via RSS and Email on the sidebar to the right.  Thanks for reading; so glad you are here!

Reading this post via e-mail or RSS feed?
*If you are reading this via email or RSS feed, to view all the Before and Afters linked for Metamorphosis Monday, click HERE.


Metamorphosis Monday:
If you are participating in Metamorphosis Monday you will need to link up the "permalink" to your MM post and not your general blog address. To get your permalink, click on your post name, then just copy and paste the address that shows up in the address bar at the top of your blog, into the "url" box for InLinkz.

In order to link up, you'll need to include a link in your MM post back to the party.

If you'd like to include the MM button in your post, just copy and paste the Met Monday button to your computer or grab the html code from underneath the MM logo under the "BNOTP Parties" header at the top of this blog.

PLEASE DO NOT type in all caps...it spreads the links waaaay out. Thanks!

Let's try something fun today! Please visit the person who linked before you and after you...that way everyone will get some visits. Hope you'll visit more, of course.


Welcome! Thanks for coming to the party!