Nursery Mood Board!

1. diy pallet wall inspired by bower power
2. blackout roman shades
3. diy chalkboard globe
4. numbers artwork - I can't find the link back to it! It's from etsy.
5. vintage eskimo fan
6. chalkboard plaque
7. diy pallet shelf
8. already own - large cadillac print. We're going to custom frame it with more reclaimed wood.

What do you think? I want something masculine and strong rather than the typical pastel baby stuff. His crib and changing table are white and the walls are beige, so they'll keep things from getting too dark. I'm excited to get started!

Little Guy Nurseries

After spending so much time renovating the living room/kitchen area of our house, we've put the other rooms on the back burner. I'm itching to do Jack's nursery, though, so until Bran is ready to dive into another project, I'll be spending my time gathering ideas.

One annoying thing about the homes in our neighborhood is that they completely lack architectural detail. They were built in 1947 and were some of the first prefabricated homes (see this really interesting article Building a House an Hour about the prefab process). They're made of steel and concrete so they're sturdy as heck but generally pretty ugly.

I love architectural details, and so making the rooms interesting by adding them is my main decorating goal. We added crown moulding in the living room and created a column effect with some bump-outs at the entrance to the hallway:

In Jack's room, I want to add an architectural feature wall like the one seen here on Bower Power:

They created their wood paneled feature wall using pallets and mounting the pieces directly to the wall. I love this idea (which surprised me a bit since I generally hate wood paneling, but this is sooo different than the 70's stuff we had in our old basement!) and I think it really brings a masculine feel to the room. I think it would look great. Thoughts?

drumroll please....

It's been a long time coming, but I finally have a few after photos of our living room to share with you! The kitchen photos will be a while longer, since we're still waiting on our upper cabinets (and don't want to ruin the surprise with "progress" photos - we want you to get the full after!). But anyway, here's how the living room looked when we bought the house on June 1st:

 Talk about blah. It was dark, ugly, and needing updating in a big way. On to the after:

Ta da! My hubby took out the closet that you see by the front door (you can't really see that it's gone in these photos... I'll have to take one of the entertainment center to give you a better idea), replaced the drywall on 2 of the walls and the ceiling, and then painted everything, installed new pergo floors, did base trim and crown molding. I LOVE it! What do you think?

We're In!!

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After spending almost the entire month of June living out of our suitcases, we're finally in our new house! The next few days I'll be unpacking, then I should have some {amazing} after photos for you! Stay tuned!

Renovations!

We closed on our house Wednesday night, and Bran started demo last night. It went from being all put together and move-in ready to a mess! But it's a good thing! He's already torn out the two closets we wanted to get rid of in the living room, and is working on tearing out that wall that makes the kitchen a galley tonight. By tomorrow our living room, dining room, and kitchen should all be one big open space and I can't wait to see it!

Due to the amount of concrete dust and nastiness in the house while they're demoing, I won't have many during pictures (I've been doing my best to stay away - gotta keep myself healthy for this little guy!) but I'm going to try and have Bran snap some tomorrow. Of course we don't have any before photos because we're lame and forgot to take them. But we'll definitely have durings and afters.

In the meantime, check out this beautiful mudroom. It's my current inspiration for the addition off our kitchen:

Isn't that door incredible! And I love the built-in bench. We could totally do this in that room, and I think it would really add to the function of the room. I guess I should let Bran finish with the current renovation first though, huh?

Happy May! And more Kitchen Ideas

I can't believe it's already May - this year is flying by! The warm weather and less rain will be a welcome change for me and my little lady (she loves playing outside!). We didn't let April's showers hold us back, though; we used them as opportunities to try out our rain coats:

She's quite the cutie if I do say so myself!

When we're not playing outside, we're making plans for our new kitchen. I'm so excited and nervous about finally getting to renovate our own place.  I've only gotten to see a little bit of the work my hubby's done in other people's homes and I can't wait to see how ours turns out - he's so good at what he does!

We've already got the cabinets and countertop, thanks to a job he did a few weeks back. We've also got flooring and appliances thanks to another job (he always asks homeowners if he can snag stuff they're going to be getting rid of - most of the time it's not very old and it's going to save us a huge chunk of change!)

I'll try to take photos of my floor and countertop samples soon so you guys get a sneak peek, but for now we'll start with layout. Here's what it looks like now:

FYI - floorplanner.com is my new best friend. You should definitely check it out!

And here's the plan:

We'll be turning our cramped, tiny living room/dining room/kitchen area into one big open room. I'll go into more details about what the changes will look like in future posts, but for now what do you think of the plan?

a new leaf...

For a few months there I was so good about posting regularly, then life got busier and I spent less time on the computer (probably a good thing!) and my poor little blog has suffered. BUT I'm happy to announce that we have a big life change happening soon that will lend itself to lots of blogging... and I'm not talking about this: 

Jack at 25 weeks

I'm talking about this:

We bought a house! It's teeny tiny and has an ugly awning and we love it. It's also literally 5 doors up from where we currently rent in a little neighborhood near Baltimore. We have  big plans for a kitchen renovation, taking down some walls, sprucing up some of our existing furniture to go with a new decorating scheme, and lots of more fun stuff, so stay tuned!

No shame.

Today is the first day of Simple Mom's project:simplify and she could not have picked a better hotspot for me to have to tackle this week.... your wardrobe. I'm being very brave here and hoping I have friends who won't judge me based on my closet, but here's my before photo:

Talk about scary! We really aren't messy people - we just haven't made our closet a priority. I'm looking forward to doing that this week.

My plans include:

• Cleaning out clothes that don't fit/I don't wear.
• Finding a storage solution for pre-preg/maternity clothes.
• Organizing our ugly shoe situation.
• Utilizing the hall closet for more space.

 Here's a shot of our hall closet, featuring Emmaline, my lovely assistant:

I know, right. So now you can see why I'm doing this whole project: simplify thing to begin with - I NEED IT!

But anyway I'm hoping to re-organize this closet and actually remove some shelves so we can move the locker and all the shoes in here. I think it will make a huge difference!

I'm well on my way, pretty labeled laundry baskets for clothes to toss and give away and all!

Alright that's enough embarrassment for one day! Come back on Friday for my after photos!

Gallery wall...

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We have a big blank wall above our couch in the living room that's been dying for some attention, so I've been browsing the interwebs for gallery wall inspiration. My favorite so far is this post from Design Scouting. I'll try to post before and after pictures once we get everything hung!

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My bedroom is currently a mess, so this is me promising myself to clean it today. I love the way my room feels when the bed is made and everything is put away! Now if I could just keep it that way....

Also, I just noticed how high they hung the curtains in the above photo. My husband and I disagree on curtain placement - I say the higher the better, but he would love it if we drilled right into the window trim. I let him have his way in our bedroom and the living room, placing the rods just above the window, but in Emma's room the curtains are tall, wide, and wonderful.  What do you think? Where do you hang your curtain rods?

Nursery Photos!

I know, it's about time, right? Here's Emmaline's nursery:

 

The best part? It cost us hardly anything. The wall color is Robin's Nest Blue from Benjamin Moore.  We rent from my parents, and they agreed to buy all the paint in exchange for our labor (quite a deal, right?!).

Here's the cost break-down:

• Changing table - Wal-mart for $150.  
• Curtains and mobile - Pottery Barn (bought with a gift card)
• Glider - gift from my mom
• Crib - free from friends 
• I didn't get to snap a picture with the crib bumper (we had to pull it out once Emma started standing up in her crib!) but you can see it folded up next to her glider.  It's also Pottery Barn, originally $100, I got it on sale for $30. 
• Pillow on the glider - $5 from Target.

Total, including bumper: $185

Anything not listed was given to us by friends!

Living room reveal!

I finally managed to snap some photos of our living room, but once again failed to take any before photos. Someday, maybe!

Paint color is Wedgewood Gray by Benjamin Moore

New pillows and slipcovers for the couches are on my list of things to buy.

Duke seems to like it here :)

More to come later!

Nursery progress!

I just used the last of my pb kids gift cards to buy these curtains for the nursery:

As soon as they get here I should be able to finally show you some pictures of it!

Home Renovations!

I  got my first tour of our house in April of 2008 during a trip to Moscow with my mom and my sister.  My first impression was that it was much bigger than it looks on the outside, and that it hadn't been renovated since approximately 1972. Shag carpet, huge tiffany lamp, wall to wall wood paneling... you get the idea. I remember how exciting it was to walk through the house with Bran, knowing that in a few short months we'd be married and living there together.  We made lots of plans (the upstairs closet really would someday be a third bathroom) and even started thinking about paint colors.

When we moved into our house in June of 2008, we knew we had a lot of work ahead of us. I posted about all the work we did that first month here. I have yet to take an updated picture of the foyer, or what was the upstairs living room (and is now our bedroom).  But I do have some new pictures for you!

When we found out I was pregnant in May of 2009,we knew our little upstairs apartment would have to change to accommodate the little one.  As it was we had a teensy bedroom (with no room for a baby) and a big living room, and that was it. We decided to forgo the living room and turn it into a master bedroom, and turn our old bedroom in to the nursery.  We also decided at that time that the big upstairs closet needed to become a bathroom. 

We immediately moved all of our things out of the nursery and set up our new bedroom (which I LOVE).  Turning the old bedroom into the nursery and installing the bathroom took a little more time.  As in, 9 months. Two weeks before Emmaline was born I was painting the nursery and the bathroom still wasn't done.  Bran kept telling me I had to hold her in until it was finished, and it just so happened that they finished the new bathroom the night she was born!

NURSERY

My mom bought the glider for me, and also put my idea for the curtains into effect.  I found the purple curtain panel at goodwill for $3 and knew I wanted to turn it into a window covering for the nursery, but have no sewing skills whatsoever.  So mom took my idea and made it happen! I love how they turned out.

Then we have the changing table Bran surprised me with, complete with some cute cubbyhole boxes Karen (Bran's mom) picked up for us while she was here.  We're planning on hanging a shelf and some photos on the wall above the changing table, but haven't gotten to it yet.

The crib came from friends of ours.  I absolutely love the white crib with the yellow walls and have plans to do some stenciling on the wall above the crib.

It still needs some decorations to give it that finished feel, but I think it's a great start! 

BATHROOM

The upstairs bathroom is my favorite room in our entire house, but it definitely didn't start out that way!

This is the only before picture I have, thanks to the fact that Bran was so
excited about the demo that he had it all finished before I could get my camera out.

When we moved in we called this particular room the "weed room" thanks to the big lamp that gave off a blue ambiance, the shag carpet and the heavy duty fan. It was evidently also the massive beehive room, as the guys quickly found out.  Thankfully, the bees had evacuated the hive months before!

We designed the bathroom and picked out all the elements and fixtures, and the Antkowiaks (Bran's parents) made it happen financially.  Bran did some of the work himself (all the demolition, some framing, and some plumbing) but most of it was done by a good friend of ours who owns Anderson Construction here in Moscow.  We're thrilled with the results!

First, there is the "spa-like" tub with an all-tile surround and built in shelving on either side,

with storage cabinets below the shelves.

Then we have the toilet and little cabinet that matches the vanity and shelving.

And finally the door, vanity, and mirror! We had to play with the fixtures a bit to get everything to fit (talk about a major ceiling slant!), but with some custom wood work and a bit of imagination we did it!

The only thing left to finish is painting.  Everything is primed, and the bottom half is done, but now the slants and the ceiling need to be painted.  I'm hoping to finish it with my sister's help next week, 

and will post a few more pictures when we do it.

Our Summer Projects

Since "the kids" (aka Jen, Ty, and Rachel) all leave this month to go home for the summer, Bran and I have been talking about things we want to do while they're gone. Here are some of the things we've come up with so far:

1. Build the upstairs bathroom.

I'm sure I've mentioned before that Bran and I are going to put in a master bathroom off of our upstairs bedroom. The plan was to have this done by Christmas, but that didn't happen. So now it is our "if we get nothing else done we will at least do this" goal for this summer. I'll post some pictures of the room now, and a little mood board with our furniture, floor, and color ideas.

2. Finish painting the darn foyer.

The foyer was the last painting project from last summer, and as such it was the project that burnt us out. It was such a violent "cannot do any more work" moment that we even left up all the painters tape. So our goal is to replace all the painters tape after figuring out how to take it off (it's pretty much impossible to take that stuff off even after a month, let alone almost a year....) and then finish painting in there. I also would love to re-think our entryway furniture, but at this point painting is more important.

3. Curtains, curtains, curtains.

My mom made me these beautiful dining room curtains, but right now those are the only curtains in the whole house, besides the curtains Karen bought for Tyler's room and study. I need to find/make curtains for the living room, our upstairs library/chill room, and our bedroom.

4. Re-vamp some of the decorations we put up in a hurry last year.

We were given a few decorative things before we moved last year, and in an effort to decorate the house, we put them up as a temporary fix. Some of the things I really love (like our make-shift candle holder on the coffee table - it was some sort of Roman wall hanging thing, but Bran popped out the center and cut off the chain it hung from, turning it into a beautiful coffee table centerpiece) but there are others tat I've grown tired of. Mostly, I want to replace the iron decoration above the fireplace with a pretty mirror to brighten up the room.

5. Decorate with art and photos.

I've collected lots of photos and some art over the past year (including a gorgeous painting that Anastasia did for me as a wedding gift), and I'm dying to display them. I bought some frames at Goodwill and painted them white, and now they're just waiting to be hung.

Summer to-do list

I mentioned in my last post that we're going to do some bathroom renovation over the summer. Some other things on my summer to-do list are to change up the decor in our living room, clean out the basement storage room, paint the front door, and finally "finish" our master bedroom and upstairs living room.

Right now the living room looks pretty much exactly like it looked when I took the picture of it found in the sidebar the right (maybe not as tidy, but you get the idea). My plan is to take down the hanging iron piece and replace it with a square mirror {they have a great selection of framed mirrors at Ross for under $50} that will look something like this:



The living room is the only room in the house that doesn't feel very spring-y right now, and I'm thinking that changing up some things will help. Because of where it's located, it doesn't get much natural light until late in the afternoon, so I think the mirror will help maximize the little bit it does get.

As far as our bedroom goes, I want to paint the slanted parts of the ceiling white instead of blue. We were afraid that it would look weird if part was blue, but I had a change of heart after coming across this picture on design*sponge:


Granted, we don't have gorgeous floor to ceiling windows or awesome wainscoting on the ceiling, but I love how much bigger their ceiling looks. Having the blue on ours makes the room feel a little closed-in.

As far as the basement storage room goes, I'm just hoping to clean out the junk left there by the previous owners. Lots of old paint cans and supplies, chunks of wood, etc. Someday, I'll paint it and organize all of it so it looks like this:



Well, almost like that. Except without the checker patterned floor. Although, I guess that's better than the plywood floor it has currently....

Bathroom Inspiration

That is, inspiration for painting/furnishing/decorating the current downstairs bathroom. Not to be confused with inspiration sparked while in the bathroom.

We painted the bathroom with left over blue and yellow paint, but ended up not liking that it looked like we were going for a "day at the beach" theme. We're going to re-paint with a creamy white and green to tone things down.

This photo is from a site called "This Young House" (click the photo to go to the site). I love the long shower curtain and how much light there is in the room.

I would also like to replace the typical shower curtain rod with one that curves for some extra shoulder room for my man.


Another problem we've got is that the bathroom window is in the middle of the wall - divided perfectly in half by the shower curtain. The previous owners had a (very ugly) curtain up and the shade you see here:


We want to frost the window so that we still get natural light, without our neighbors getting to know us too well:


I know that I want to replace the medicine cabinet, but I'm not sure what I want yet. Also, we're thinking about doing sconces where the "vanity" lights are now.


It would also be nice to paint the cabinets under the sink the same creamy white we're thinking for the walls. As far as the floor to ceiling cabinets shown here, I'm thinking about doing open shelving up top and leaving the bottom with doors. Not sure how I want to paint these yet...


That's it for now. I'll keep posting my ideas as they come to me, and then when we get a chance to start the project, I'll post about our progress!

A Picture Post

Thought you'd enjoy some pictures of our trip to NC (I don't have any of when we were home - Jen you have to help me out with this!)

Me and my sweetie

Tyler and his "smoking on the beach" outfit

Moogie discovered that flying a kite with no wind was a workout!

the beach was gorgeous

Our new curtains - Thanks, Mom! I love the fabric more now than I did when we picked it out!
When things are more updated (and shortened), I'll post another picture.

and a picture of the green room, because I'm proud of myself for cleaning and organizing it (except for the Christmas boxes in the corner... :) )

the things that are hard to see because of the glare on the table are a decorative bowl and candle holder that Tyler got me for Christmas, and a book I started reading on the plane ride back to Moscow. I don't have candles for the candle holder yet, but I think I might get those today. So pretty!