Baby Girl Nursery

I think one of my favorite things to post on my blog is "make overs" of our house.  With our baby due in less than two weeks, my attention has been on finishing the nursery.  I am really pleased with how it has turned out.  If I have the energy and drive, I might paint some of the furniture so it will match, but other than that, I believe it is pretty much as ready as possible for our little sweet one to move in.

Above: We painted the walls a light gray several months ago (even before we knew the sex of the baby).  I'm so glad we did because it allowed me to add a lot of color to the nursery without it being overwhelming.  The room is so cute and girly, but it is also still calm. 

Above:  I really wanted some sort of peg to hang a dress.  This little knob was the perfect find. The main colors of the nursery are pink and gray, but I love that they aren't the only colors in the room.

Above: I really had certain shelves with pegs in mind, but when I found these, I knew they would work out just right.  I love the verse on the cross, which says, "The Lord your God with be with you wherever you go. Joshua 1:9".  The little pink elephant is an old collectable that my grandma gave me when I was a girl.

Above: I love the mobile and matching sheets.  I should have made sure the sheets were in the pic.  The "Ellie" came from one of our showers and fits perfectly above the crib.  

Above: We're so thankful for a changing station.  I wasn't sure if it would fit in the room, but it is just right.  The little fabric flags were on a diaper cake at one of the showers.  

Above: The mobile is from a shower too and made by my sis-in-law.  Of course, these are the famous curtains that would never have been if a dear friend hadn't gone shopping for the fabric with me and one of sis-in-laws hadn't come over to make them with me.    Below is a quick pic of Jeri helping me make the curtains.  

It's hard to imagine that it won't be long, and we'll have a little girl to actually put into all of the adorable clothes that we've received.  Growing up, I loved to dress up.  I think our little girl will have a head start on when I began putting on dress up clothes for play on Saturdays. 

Above: We had so many amazing hand made things that I couldn't resist using them in the decorations.  The cards were made by dear friends that are on her pin board.  

I love that several if not all of these items on the walls can be used even when she's a little girl.  They aren't just for when she's a baby.  I found most of my great buys at Hobby Lobby, and thankfully, it was right when they were having a 50% off sale on this section in the store!

It's hard to believe we will soon be a family of three!  We can hardly wait, and yet, I still am having a hard time wrapping my mind around this life change just over the horizon.

Blind Love

I titled this post blind love, but it could easily be called kitchen renovation part 3? or 4?.  Eventually, one day, I believe we will be finished with our kitchen updates.  But until then, I have learned to be content with the stage we're at and making changes as we can.  

One of several things that really needed to go when we moved in was the blinds in the kitchen.  They were frustrating to use and looked ugly. 

Above: Exhibit A -- The kitchen before any renovations.  

Notice the blinds?  Notice the hunter green paint? hmmm...

However, when we got to a good stopping point in the renovations, somehow, the blinds stayed.  We hung on to them as long as possible.  And slowly, each one broke adding to my dislike for them all together. 

Above: Last standing of the original blinds.  

For a while, several of the windows in the kitchen, which is in the front of the house, didn't have any covering.  I really wanted Roman Shades or the 2" wooden blinds.  But I also didn't want to spend a great deal on window coverings, which I began to realize would stay with the house when we move one day anyway.  

So, we bought a few different types to try out at home.  And we actually hung some dark bamboo roman shades that looked great.  However, they had one hitch: ZERO privacy.

Above: Dark Roman Shades, which you could see straight through, especially in the evening.

I think if I were a bit more into sewing I might have been able to figure out a way to put a backing on them.  But after them hanging for a couple of months, (and by a couple of months, I mean, notice the seasons change in the pictures) I resigned to the fact that I'm not a sewing, crafty type person, and we took them back.

And this weekend, we finally made it our mission to find blinds that would give us privacy.  We are now proud owners of white, plastic blinds.  Yep, after all of that, we were very happy to have simple, inexpensive, privacy blocking but not light blocking, plastic blinds.  And I LOVE them.  

I'm so happy to know that we no longer have strangers and prowlers peering in on us.

Above: Final product.  

Also, I'm so thankful for a hubby who's willing to figure out things that might seem menial to some but important to me.  Perhaps he is the one who sweetly has the blind love.  Now onto our next adventure. :) 

Painting and Blessings

We've been doing just a bit of painting recently.  I'm not sure the pictures will do it all justice, but I'll share a few (mostly because I'm a fan of pics in blogs).

This past week we painted the baby room and the family room a very faint gray.  Is it grey or gray?  Anyway, I couldn't believe how much I loved the color in the baby room.  It had been a baby blue from the previous owners, and it looked nice.  But the gray is just so calm.  I hope to share more pics of that room once later.

(Above) Baby room in progress.

I wasn't so sure about the family room at first.  This has proven to be the most difficult room over all to just feel finished and happy about.  We've changed furniture, rearranged the room umpteen times, hung and moved pictures just as many times and even painted an accent wall.

Finally, I believe we're now on the right track.  I am very happy with the color, position of furniture and what we have on the wall.  Of course, there are more changes (hopefully) to come over time to this room.  But if that doesn't happen, I would still be happy with how it is now.  mostly. :)

(Above)  Family room in progress.  Good bye green accent color and ALL the nail holes in the walls.

(Above) The pre-painting picture of our coffee table.  We painted it and a side table black so all of the tables in the room would match.

(Above) The coffee table painted, walls patched and painted, and the room in harmony.  Not the best pic to see the new wall color.  Come visit to see how it turned out.

(Above)  Another side table we painted black.  You can see the paint color a little better in this picture.

Finally, I just celebrated my birthday this past week.  I have had a wonderful birthday month with friends and family and date nights with my husband.  He is so good to me that putting it in words just wouldn't justify my feelings and thankfulness for him.  But telling you that he helped me on my quest for the perfect red high heels should give a little insight into how much he cares for me.

(Above) Do you see my new, red shoes?

Perhaps if I see you on Thursday, you will get to see these beauties IRL. :)

Happy Thanksgiving all!

Blah to Bravo!

July, August and September, where did you go?  So, I may have been lacking a bit in my posting for the past several months.  That's probably because of two reasons: 1. Our computer died a slow, painful death. And we finally bit the bullet about a month ago and got a new one. 2. Those months equal just about the same time as my first trimester.  :)

The good news is that I have been working on projects and taking pictures and hope to share more moving forward.  And I just finished something today that I can't wait to show.

We painted our fireplace, and I think it looks smashing!

BEFORE 

The rest of the kitchen is yellow with white cabinets.  

The fireplace was a blah brownish color that was too close to the clay-colored tile floor.

AFTER

The brick is yellow, matching the rest of the walls and making the area feel larger.

The mantle is white and the hearth and step are a slate gray.  We are so pleased with 

how this turned out that we're wondering why it took us a year to do it!

Before And After: Kitchen Remodel Pics

I'm finally posting some pictures of our kitchen remodel.  Although I've put these pictures on facebook, I thought it would be cool to pair the before and after pictures together on my blog.  We still have a second phase to finish a few of the final pieces to the remodel, but it's been nice to take a break for a little bit and enjoy living in our new home without the constant drive to finish.  Overall, this has been a very rewarding experience, and I can't be more thankful to have such a nice kitchen in our first house.  It really is a great change as the kitchen has gone from my least favorite part of the house to one of my favorite rooms.

BEFORE


AFTER


Our overall goal for style was to make the room feel larger and more like a kitchen than an adobe dwelling.  Also we wanted to remove the dark, heavy feel that the backsplash, drawer hardware, and paint color gave the room.  In this picture, we ripped out the heavy tile backsplash and replaced it with beadboard; painted the cabinets; replaced the cabinet hardware; replaced the sink and sink hardware; installed a light above the sink; added needed electrical outlets; installed new butcherblock countertops and painted the room a great warm yellow.



BEFORE

AFTER


I love how deep the new sink is and the sink hardware is great.  We removed two of the cabinet doors as well as the wood space in the center to give some open shelves in the middle of the cabinet space.  This helped update the kitchen with a current trend and allowed for some of our dishes to be displayed.  I love the old glasses made of carnival glass at the top that my grandma gave me.  She bought them for me from an antique shop and I've kept them stored under my bed for many years waiting to display them.







BEFORE


AFTER


The stove top/microwave was one of the main reasons we realized that we HAD to go all out on renovating the kitchen.  The microwave was too large for the space, and it wasn't possible to reach and view the cook space below.  We will eventually add a hood above the newly installed stove.  We had to cut out the cabinet space below the stove top, but we added a storage space by adding a cabinet next to the refrigerator.






BEFORE


AFTER


BEFORE


AFTER


The refrigerator felt like it was floating in the room and didn't match the rest of the black appliances. We moved the refrigerator to the right.  This allowed us to build it in so it felt like it was part of the kitchen and not floating on its own.  It also made room for a new cabinet and a place for the microwave. 






BEFORE


AFTER


This was one of the other reasons that we felt we needed to make more drastic updates to the kitchen right away.  The wall oven was only 24" making it difficult to fit a small cookie sheet in it without touching the front and the back of the oven.  The kitchen also was missing a food pantry.  By making a few moves, we opened up the space to add in shelves, which we evently, will add a door to the front of the pantry.  There was a short "desk" next to the former wall oven, which we removed.  We plan on adding a window seat in the open space in phase two.






BEFORE


AFTER


The laundry room is next to the kitchen.  We painted the walls the same color as the kitchen (also so the walls wouldn't be the same color as the floor).  To make painting easier, we took the washer and dryer out, and when we put them back in, we switched them so the washer's on the left and the dryer's on the right.  Then they open like suicide doors making it more convenient to move wet laundry into the dryer.  The cabinets were also removed to add additional shelf storage that stretches the entire length of the wall space.






BEFORE


AFTER


The kitchen table space feels larger with using the bookselves in the corner and the large, glass table.  We removed the rail around the room, plastered and sanded the walls, put on two coats of primer and two coats of paint to cover the "adobe feeling" hunter green.  I'm really pleased with how the color turned out.  It was a huge relief to see the color in my mind become the same color on the walls.  We got good advice from several friends to buy smaller, test size buckets of paint and also to buy good paint.  Once painting the test paint on a section of the walls, we realized that the color on the wall was not the same as the color swatch.  So, we took it back and had them add a little red to it.  They also printed the new paint color ingredients on the side of the test bucket.  So, when we went back to get gallon sizes, we knew it would be the same as what we tested on the walls.



It's fun to look back and realize the room's potential has now become reality.

Little Surprises

We recently turned the last unfinished room of the house into a music, media, guest room.  I love the wall color in the room, which helps bring out the richness of the newly refinished wood floors.  Plus, it's so nice to feel like we're using every room in the house.  Hopefully, we'll have guests come and enjoy the room too.  We've lovingly named the room "David's room."  I'm also excited for Josh to have a space for his music.  Maybe he can host guitar jams once again.  It's always great to see him pick up his guitar.



The cool thing in this picture could easily go unnoticed, but not to me.  We decided to get a daybed so the room would have a couch feel instead of guitars in a bedroom.  To help the daybed feel more day than bed, we put a whole assortment of cool pillows on it.  However, to finish it off, I wanted just three more Euro (big square) pillows.  I had found a couple before for a steal of $10 each (Ralph Lauren) from Home Goods and was hoping to find such a steal again.  After searching many stores for bedding, I was unable to find nice, big Euro pillows without spending too much.  Deciding to wait, I kind of put the search on the backburner.  But to my surprise, my dear hubbie remembered my hope to get those Euro pillows to finish off the bed.  He surprised me by going back to Home Goods on his lunch hour and finding three Tommy Bahama Euro pillows for $10 each!!  I squeeled with delight when I came home that night to my surprise, and I love them all the more because of his thoughtfulness.

Hardwood Floors

This past weekend, we (and by we, I mean mostly my hubby) refinished the hardwood floors in our new home.  They turned out BEAUTIFUL.  I'm so proud of my husband.  He worked so hard and did a great job.  Thankfully, we had several family members give their time to come help too!  Their showing up was a great motivation for us!  And now, here's pics of the floors.  Just keep moving down and you'll see the transformation from old and scratched up, to sanded, to the first coat being put down, to finished. 















...  and now we're off to work more on the kitchen (I'm taking pics of this room's changes and hope to post later too!)