House Tour: Winter 2014

 I've had lots of requests for photos of the new house, and I love seeing how it changes over time, so I decided to do a little house tour.  It's definitely a work in progress, but here's where we are right now.

Winter House Tour 2014: 

This is what you see when you walk in the front door. I didn't take a photo of the outside of the house, but I posted one here. This will be the dinning room when my mom sends down the furniture. We are getting hand me downs since it's too big for her new house, plus the sentiment that it was my grandma's, then my mom's, now mine makes it really special. The left doorway is where the pantry is and then leads to the kitchen. To the right are the stairs and hallway to the half bath, mud room and garage. Oh and to the left is the study, here it is:

And my assistant helping out, ha! Not much I want to do to this room, except change the light fixture. I may paint it but I can't decide. Right now i'm liking this color. 

This is that hallway on the other side of the dinning room I mentioned earlier. I love all the hooks and storage for shoes. The door on the left is a closet, and the door on the right is the garage. I forgot to take a picture of the garage, but right now it's a bunch of stuff everywhere. Once it warms up we are going to put some shelving up and actually organize it. I really love our garage though. I used to hear people talking about how nice it is to park in a garage, especially in the winter and I never understood. But now I do, it's so nice!

Here's the half bath downstairs. Love the bead board. I really want to paint it, thinking a light blue?

Here is the kitchen, probably my favorite room in the house. I love it!

It's so funny because the light over the table is very similar to the light I put up in our old house over the kitchen table. It came this way, but when I saw it I knew this was our new home, it's so me. 

Here is the family room, which is open to the kitchen. This room needs so much! My mom and I painted it Benjamin Moore's Revere Pewter, which is one of young house love's color. I absolutely love it, it's the perfect gray. I want to get a big sectional to go in here and obviously hang artwork, etc. 

This shot shows how it's open and how the room kinda swallows up our current sofa. Thinking this sofa will work well in the playroom though.

At the top of the stairs is the laundry room. I love having the laundry on the second floor, no hauling laundry baskets up and down the stairs. 

On the right side of the stairs is the playroom. It's open and big, which I love. I haven't done anything to it except put the toys there. I have so many fun ideas for this room, changing the lighting, artwork, organizing and making it a fun place for Chloe. 

To the left of the stairs is our room. I really wanna paint this room too, and it needs curtains.

Here is our bathroom:

And the other side of our bathroom, with my assistant again! 

Here is our walk in closet. And fyi that's my wedding dress in that huge pink bag, lots of people ask!

Here's the guest room. Haven't done anything in here except buy a new lamp since the other one broke in the move. I wanna paint this room too!!

Sorry for the weird shadows in this picture, I couldn't figure out how to get rid of it. But this is the guest/ Chloe's bathroom. 

And probably my favorite room, okay another favorite, is Chloe's room. I reused everything from the old house except the color. I decided to go neutral with Benjamin Moore's Moonshine. It's very different from the pink but I think it goes better with the rest of the house and I love how calm it feels.

Can you tell I love this room, took too many pictures! A few more…

I'll end with her bright yellow closet. I had to have some color in there, it's actually the exact same yellow that was in her first closet back in Richmond. 

So there's our new house! I feel so blessed to live here, just to own our own home again is a blessing. It was a long road here, lots of searching and disappointment, and I don't forgot that. Everyday I thank God for this blessing!

I hope to post progress as it changes. Thanks for looking through all those pictures, I know there was a lot! 

Nursery Reveal!

I've been really excited to take pictures of the nursery and share! I spent so much time painting things and putting it altogether, and I love how it turned out! I also must say this room has been so much fun to decorate. I've loved searching for cute baby things and the fun bright pink color of it! Okay, here it is..........

This is what you see when you walk in. It's very pink! As you can see her name is above the crib, Chloe. I absolutely love all the monogrammed and personalized things, so I incorporated a lot of it in her room. Her middle name is Mae. Chloe Mae! 

Here is her closet. It's painted the same yellow that is on the trim of her dresser. I made the flower painting and blogged about it here. The little cat above her closet was mine when I was little, I covered it with mod  podge and paper to match her room. 

Close up of all her clothes! This will probably be the only time they are hanging up so pretty and organized. I got the dividers at Hobby Lobby, so they are organized by size.

I love her crib bedding! The sheet is from Pottery Barn Kids and my mom made the pillow, quilt and crib skirt. (I will take the quilt and pillow, etc. out when she is actually sleeping in it.) A friend's mom monogrammed the fabric for the quilt, as well as the window valence. The cute mobile is from Pottery Barn Kids too. I refinished the nightstand, it was mine. The letters are from Hobby Lobby, I covered them with the same fabric as her bedding. Love it!

This little rocking chair was mine when I was little, as well as the little cat pillows. The lamp is from Ikea and I made the bow board. The bow board was actually really easy to make, click here for directions. I just bought a frame at Hobby Lobby (are you seeing a trend here, haha!) 

This rocking chair was Clarke's grandmother's. She used it to rock his mom, she used it to rock him and his sister and now we will use it. She refinished it so it matches everything else, I love how it turned out. I also love the book shelves. They are actually spice racks from Ikea that I painted white. Another idea I found on Pinterest.

Close up of all the books, I can't wait to add to her collection and read to her! 

This dresser took me forever to refinish, really the yellow trim is what took forever. I put new hardware on it from Hobby Lobby. The floor lamp was mine in college, from Ikea. 

This mirror was mine in college too (I got the ribbon at where else? Hobby Lobby) and I painted the yellow cross at the local pottery place where I used to work. I put the changing pad on top of the dresser so I could store all her diaper stuff in the drawers, and hopefully keep it organized and easy to find. There are headbands and hats in the yellow tin I got at a local craft show in town.

Betty wanted to be in the photo shoot, she really loves this room too, haha!

I know it will probably change a lot once she comes and we actually start using it, but for right now I think it's pretty great. Overall I'm happy with how everything turned out and it was well worth all the hours I spent painting and making things for it. Now I am ready for her to be here so we can really start using it! 

Nursery Window

I was going to wait and share the nursery window valence until I reveal the entire nursery, but I worked so hard on it today, and it was much more work than I thought it would be so I decided it's post worthy. 

When we bought our house they left these ugly window valences, well the fabric was ugly the actual valences were really nice. We never did anything with them so I decided to use one for the nursery. I was inspired by this pin on pinterest.

                                                            Source: thejexes.blogspot.com via Jenny on Pinterest

I absolutely love the monogram in the center of the valence. Since one of my best friend's mom has a monogram machine she generously did that part for me. That was the only easy part. Of course I put the fabric on upside down first, then had to redo it. Of course there was a stud in the spot I wanted to put the brackets to hang up the valence. All the anchors I had wouldn't work so after much frustration it was back to Lowe's. I am seriously thankful I live so close to one and the people who work there are actually helpful. I hate to admit it took me all day just to put this up, but it did.

I didn't put any curtains on the side because the window is smaller and I didn't want to block any light that comes in during the day. But, now that it's up I love the way it looks. As long as you don't look behind it and see all the holes from anchors and screws that didn't work!

The nursery is so close to being done, I can't wait. I am just waiting on some bedding my mom is making, a light for the nightstand, the changing pad and cover and the rest of the hardware to come in at Hobby Lobby.  I can't wait to take pictures and post, hopefully soon!

  

putting the crib together

We had a low key Labor Day weekend. One fun thing (well fun to us, maybe not to everyone) that we did was put our baby's crib together.

Of course Betty had to check everything out. She really loves the nursery!

We are almost done with the nursery, just a few more things left.

I will def. post pictures of everything soon!!

Crib!

The nursery is coming along! Finally done with refinishing all the furniture. The crib is the only new piece of furniture that we bought, everything else was either mine from childhood and the rocking chair was Clarke's grandmother's then his mother's.

 

But the reason for this post....the crib is finally here!! It took forever to pick which one we wanted. Changing ideas about which color, style then researching to make sure it was safe and got good reviews.

 

 

Came home to this today after lunch with my mom. Can't wait to put it together this weekend with Clarke!

Melted Crayon Artwork

I recently saw all these cute pictures of melted crayon artwork on pinterest. I thought they were so cute and it looked pretty easy and inexpensive, so I decided to try one for the nursery. 

I bought 5 packs of crayons at Target (a bunch of little ones so I could get lots of greens and some yellows) and some cute flowers at Hobby Lobby. I already had the canvas and a hot glue gun, so this whole project only cost me $8. 

This was super easy. I just glued the crayons onto the canvas in the order I wanted them, then took a hairdryer and after a couple minutes they started to melt. I tipped the canvas downward to make the wax move down the canvas. I glued the flowers on and I was done!

I love how it turned out, with the different color waxes melting together. Although it does break some design rules about art (putting it smack dab in the middle) but it works for this piece. Click Here for more details on how to make this. 

Friday Night Ramblings

The nursery is coming along. Finally finished the dresser and nighstand. I am so happy to be done with that! It def. took longer than I thought it would. But I love the way it looks. Just needs the rest of the hardware on it. I will take a picture and post soon! I just ordered this print off Etsy and I'm really excited about it.

I had added this to my favorites a long time before I was even pregnant after seeing it on a blog. But I knew if I ever had a little girl I would want this in her room.

I am loving all the fall things people are posting on pinterest. I am always ready for the next season and I am really looking forward to autumn.

I really want to make this for our front porch! Maybe one with baby's monogram?!

With that said I can't believe this fall I will have a baby! I am ready for the cooler weather and pumpkin...yum! But I am not ready for this baby to come quite yet!

Not much else for this post.....I am off to bed!

August

I can't believe it's already August! Where did July go? All my coworkers

and I agreed that doing summer school made July go by really fast.

Things I am loving about it being August:

1. The Olympics! I posted on Facebook that it makes me want to run another marathon! I am really loving the gymnastics though. It has always been my favorite, and I love love love team USA's leotards. So glad they won the gold too!

2. As of today I am officially a stay at home mommy! I don't know if I've mentioned it on here but I am going to be staying home with the baby. I did summer school and now that it's over I'm done. I would have loved to work up until the baby came but I didn't think it would be fair to the students and teachers to be there for 2 months then leave and make everyone transition in the middle of the school year. So now my new job title is officially mommy, so exciting!

3. Yesterday was the 3 year anniversary of my grandma's passing. It's hard to believe it's been 3 years already. I wish she could be here to meet her great granddaughter. (I guess that isn't something I love about August but it's apart of it for me.)

4. I am almost done with the second trimester, and in August I will start my third. This pregnancy is going by so fast! While I am not looking forward to getting even bigger, I'm happy that she is growing and it's getting even closer till we meet her.

5. My goal for August is to finish the nursery. I'm pretty sure we can get it all done by then. Almost done painting the furniture and then the only big thing left is the crib. It's been fun putting it together but I'm ready to have it finished.

So I am really looking forward to August, it's gonna be a great month!

Getting Started

I wanted to post some pictures of what we've been doing around here today.

We've started painting nursery furniture! We are using my old dresser and nightstand that I got in middle school. I got it unfinished, and never did anything with the nightstand. The dresser is white, and I never sealed it, so there is no sanding involved which is nice.

I brought the drawers downstairs, and of course Betty had to check them out.

I told Clarke I might take pictures and post her reaction to everything we do to get ready for this baby. She always wants to know what's going on.

We still have quite a bit of painting left to do for her furniture, but I keep telling myself when summer school is done I'll have plenty of time. So for now I'll just enjoy the Olympics!

Pink Paint!

I am so excited the nursery is pink!

It's very pink, like bright pink! It's a lot right now, but once we get all the furniture and everything else in there it's gonna look so good.

Here's an in progress shot. I didn't paint any of the room, both grandmas came over and painted most of it. Clarke went back and touched it up. (We were having trouble installing the ceiling fan in the guest room so Clarke and his dad were doing that while they painted. They finally got it up and working, it was a very productive Saturday in our house!)

My mom doing the edging.

Shelley painting too.

Betty loves this room! The past couple days I've gone to look for her in all of her regular spots and she's not there. She'll just be hanging out in the nursery, I guess she likes the bright color.

The closet is yellow. I love how it looks against the pink. I got a bunch of that yellow paint for some accents throughout the room too.

All I hafta do is take the tape off and clean up the paint stuff. So glad to have this done!