Baby Girl Nursery Reveal

Alright, so the nursery has been mostly done for a while now, I was just waiting on the last touches before I put some pictures up.

But you just want to see pictures, yes? After MUCH deliberation (seriously, it took me forever to decide on a theme – it was so much easier for the boys for some reason), I finally went with a mint/pink/gold floral theme and I love how everything has turned out!

I found the adorable watercolor floral prints on Etsy and printed them out at Costco. The mobile might look familiar – I’ve used it for all three of them now, I just switch out the colors to match my color scheme. ;) And I’m totally in love with the gold polka dot curtains I found at Target. (Okay, there’s actually only one curtain – I still have to get a second one. WHY do retailers only sell you one panel?! Does anyone just put ONE curtain over a window? Or choose two different curtains for one window? Why don’t curtains come in a package of TWO?!?! This is ridiculous…but anyway…)

Here’s a glimpse of the absolutely adorable quilt that our family friend made for us. She also made quilts for the boys and I used them in their monthly pictures. I am SO excited about this flower quilt for baby girl’s monthly pictures!!

Here’s the IKEA dresser that used to be in our room, but we moved to the nursery after I painted those craigslist dressers. It has the same glass knobs that I used on my dresser :) The gallery wall was really fun to put together. I’m excited to have to pictures to put in all the frames! I’d also never made pom poms before so that was fun. I love the way the garland turned out.

I scored on some clearance silk flowers at JoAnn’s – all their spring/summer floral stuff was getting cleared out and I found a wreath of those white and pink flowers and just pulled it apart. It was MUCH cheaper than buying individual stems and the flowers came off the wreath really easily so I was feeling really pleased with myself ;)

And that’s it!! I’m so excited! And I can’t believe that I’m finally due THIS MONTH! Just a couple of weeks left! I. AM. SO. READY. To be done being pregnant that is. Having three kids? Is anyone ever ready for that?!? Eek!

A Dresser of My Own

Okay, so here’s the thing: John and I have shared a dresser our entire married life. We’re coming up on 8 years now, you know. ;) We’ve made it work, but I’ve been excited to have my own dresser at some point. In an effort to find a dresser for baby girl’s nursery, I found 2 dressers on craigslist for $100. Serious steal of a deal, my friends. 2 solid cherry wood dressers for $100! John was hesitant to buy both, because we only needed one for the nursery, but I convinced him that each of us having our own dressers would be awesome and it was too good of a deal to pass up. (He’ll thank me someday) ;) They were on my parent’s craigslist, and my dad was awesome and picked them up for me and then I refinished them at their house. The plan then was to move our current IKEA Hemnes dresser to the nursery and then the refinished dressers would go into our room. It worked out perfectly! (and I finally have my own dresser! yippeeeeee!)

Here’s the before picture:

I got everything sanded and primed one weekend in June and then finished them up when we were at my parent’s for Spencer’s birthday party. 

We got them up to our house a week or so later and I LOVE THEM! I am SO excited for a dresser of my own! I found some beautiful glass knobs on amazon and put them on my dresser and the IKEA dresser for the nursery (the nursery is still a work in progress- pics to come soon!). I then put the old knobs from that IKEA dresser onto John’s new dresser – they were a little more manly than the glass knobs ;)

Here they are all finished!!!!!

I also purchased a few things to style John’s dresser – I think he sometimes feels like my stuff is taking over our room, so I wanted to put together a space just for him. The little chest holds his cufflinks and collar stays and we both totally love the ship piece I found at Hobby Lobby.

I just LOVE walking into our room these days, I love how these turned out!

Spencer's Nursery Reveal

Ohhhh you guys! We are getting so close! I go between feelings of panic and feelings of "I AM SO DONE BEING PREGNANT". The second one actually tends to occur more often, which I take as a good sign ;)

But anyway, I've been meaning to take and post pictures of our cute little nursery! John was making fun of me the other day, getting a room ready that he won't even use for several months, since we'll have him sleep in our room in a bassinet for a little while. But I was scrambling to get it done now, because if I wait until after Spencer arrives it's never going to happen.

So I finally remembered to take some pictures, and here we are. We went with a color scheme of Navy, Grey and Apple Green with a nautical theme. I really liked it in Nathan's room, so I decided to keep with it for Spencer's.

Here's what you'd see when you walk in the door:

Remember the bunting in Nathan's room? I loved it so much, I made one for Spencer. I'd never made one before, but it was super easy, and Nathan and I had fun picking out the fabric a few weeks ago. Next to the rocker we have the dresser that started it all, along with the gallery wall. I scored this dresser from a friend in the ward - they just moved and were selling a lot of their furniture. She was worried no one would want it since it was such a unique color but it ended up being PERFECT for us and helped me finally decide on the color scheme for this room, as I'd been completely torn between two completely different looks. And since it was already painted, I didn't have to paint it! Which I would have done had I found a dresser to makeover, but with this one I didn't have to haul it down to my parents, paint it, and get it back here. Win win win win!

We have a little bookshelf for books, toys and other things like wipes, and I'm going to have a large storage bin on the other side of the dresser for diapers. Right now that corner has our hospital bags. (Eeek!)

If you keep going you'll see the adorable striped curtain I found. It's actually a fabric shower curtain that I found at Bed Bath and Beyond, but it was exactly what I was looking for in my price range AND I didn't have to DIY anything (which rarely happens - so I was extra excited). Once Spencer starts sleeping in this room I'll add a blackout panel to the curtain, since I don't know that I'll have time to do it before he gets here. So pleased with this find though.

Along the other wall we will put the crib once we've transitioned Nathan out of it (which I'm SO not looking forward to - chances he'll actually stay in the big boy bed at night are basically slim to none). I found this adorable set of nursery wall art that I loved on Etsy, but at $40 a print for a total of $120 for all 3 that wasn't really going to work. So I made my own knockoff in Photoshop and printed them out at Costco, and it came to $6 instead. Muuuuuch better. :) I also refashioned the mobile that I made for Nathan's room by replacing all the red circles with green ones and I absolutely love how it turned out.

And that's it! I am so happy with the way everything turned out AND that I managed to get it all done before Spencer's arrival. The countdown begins!

Nesting Projects

I think I’m going through a nesting phase because I really just want everything clean and organized right now.

One of my main projects was to get all of my framed photos and wall hangings out of Spencer’s room. Up until this point we had been storing all the photos in there until I had a chance to hang them up, as well as some old end tables and other odds and ends. With less than 2 months to my due date (eek!) I wanted to start getting everything non-baby related out of there so that I could have his room ready for when he makes his debut.

First up was a gallery wall for Nathan’s room. We’ve got a nautical theme going on in his room and I’d been scouring stores for something fun to add to the gallery wall but wasn’t finding anything that I really liked or that matched the colors in his room. Joann’s started selling summer décor and among the selection was this awesome (though kind of ugly colored) anchor!

I scored it for a pretty good deal with a sale and a coupon, but it definitely needed some love before it was ready to go into Nathan’s room. Nothing a little spray paint can’t fix! I gave it a couple of coats of blue and then it was ready to be added to my collection. It took me almost an hour to come up with an arrangement that I liked (which included a canvas that I painted over and redesigned for the millionth time), but I love what I ended up with. During one of Nathan’s naps I spread everything out on the floor. (The anchor was still kind of sticky, hence the cereal box…)

After Nathan woke up, he ‘helped’ me get everything hung up and a few days later I ordered some prints from Costco to fill up the frames. I LOVE the end result!

It looks sooooo good with the dresser! And I cannot for the life of me get those top frames to sit straight. Oh well…

And since we’re here, I’ll show you the rest of my projects in his room. Across the corner from his dresser he has a large wall that houses his play kitchen, and I was at a loss for quite some time as to what to put up on that big blank space. Then I got an email from one of the daily deal sites that I follow and they were selling nautical-themed bunting for $8! I almost considered making my own, but between getting all the fabric and the time and work it would take to do it myself, $8 was a steal. So I ordered one and it came in the mail at the end of April. And it fit perfectly on that wall without being too overwhelming next to the gallery wall. I lurrrrve it.
 

Here are the two walls together. So adorable, right?!

This was one of the first projects I did in his room, but I just haven’t taken a good picture of it to put up here, but the room has more closet space than I knew what to do with (which never happens) so I turned one of his closets into a reading nook and added some fun vinyl to the wall.

And Nathan being super helpful. ;)

And I think I‘m finally finished with his room! I’m really happy with it.

But to get the majority of my pictures up on the walls I decided to go with those picture ledges I’ve been seeing everywhere on Pinterest. IKEA sells some, but it was much cheaper to make some of my own (I think my total cost was about $15 for all three) and it was super easy – I made them when we were down at my parent’s house for Nathan’s birthday party last weekend. They came together really quickly and I was able to get them made and painted in a day (a day that included getting a million other things ready for the party). Then I just screwed them into the studs in our dining room wall and Ta-da! Threw all my pictures up there and I was done!

(It was very difficult to get a photo without the fan.) I added the “Love” letters almost as an afterthought – that space underneath that shelf was looking a little bare. I’d already purchased the “O” and the “E” from when I spelled the word “ONE” for Nathan’s birthday photos last year. So the “N” went into Nathan’s room and I just needed an “L” and a “V” and sprayed them all gold and it filled up the space perfectly!

There were a few other random frames that I found homes for on other walls, and that took care of all my frames and pictures! I love our new set up. And it cleared up lots of space in Spencer’s room. I have plans for a gallery wall similar to Nathan’s in there and we’ve got a few more odds and ends to take care of before his room is all ready! It’s so exciting!

Pegboard Craft Organization

So far we are really enjoying our new apartment. I think we have a little under 200 more square feet here than we did in our last place and it’s making a HUGE difference. We just seem to fit better here. Thank goodness!

One of my favorite things is that I actually have a designated space for crafting (that doesn’t involve taking up half a bedroom – YAY!). So the apartment comes with a dining area and an eat-in space in the kitchen. Since we only have one table and really only need one space for eating, the eat-in area in the kitchen has become my crafting space. But between my fabric stash, my felt stash (yeah, I have enough felt for its own stash), my serger, sewing machine, patterns, pattern books, paints, papers, and all the other random craft items, I really needed to get creative to make everything fit into this little eat in-area, which is made smaller by the necessity of a gate to keep little fingers away from scissors, craft knives, and pretty much all of the aforementioned crafting items.

I scoured Pinterest for ideas and my favorite was making use of vertical wall space using a pegboard. So that’s what I did! I bought a big 4’X8’ piece and had them cut it down for me at Home Depot. My table is in a corner, so I ended up putting two pieces of pegboard up on both walls of the corner. My goal was to get as much storage as possible from these two pieces and it has worked out magnificently.

The pegboard itself was pretty inexpensive – about $18 for the 4X8 piece. (you also need 1” X 2” pieces to mount it on the wall) It started adding up with all the hooks and baskets to actually hold stuff on the pegboard, but so far I think it has been totally worth it in getting allllll my craft stuff organized.

So here it is! I lurrrrrrve it! It keeps my table completely clear (which was a must) and it’s so easy to put everything back when I’m finished with it. For the shelves I just got a 1X6 board and had them cut it down for me at Home Depot and then I used the shelf mounts that came in the box of assorted pegboard hooks that I’d purchased. Maybe at some point I’ll paint them a pretty color, but I was so ready to just have everything up and finished.
The metal buckets are from the Target dollar section. I placed them backwards, so that you can’t see the chalkboard shamrock on the front of them (it was March and they didn’t have any completely blank ones.. ;) ). I still have two empty ones, but I like that I have some empty space as I’m still going through my stuff and might decide to store something else on my pegboard wall. Or, you know, buy more craft stuff…hee hee

I’m really glad I did both walls. I was worried it was going to be a little much, but I’m loving that everything is off the table and off the floor! I’ve done a couple of projects already and it’s seriously so easy to put everything away, which is soooo important in an organization system! My machines sit on shelves beneath the window and it’s nice that I have the space to keep them out now and I don’t have to lug them out of their boxes every time I want to use them. Then when I’m finished, they go back to their spots on the shelves and I have a clear table for the next project!
Even John was impressed! (You know it’s good when the Hubs is impressed :) ) This has definitely been one of my favorite organization projects!

The Media Center Part 2–All Finished!

Okay okay okay, so I’ve had this done for like, 2 months now. But first I needed to touch up the paint that got dinged up when we brought it back up from my parent’s house. Then I wanted to ‘style’ it so it looked pretty. We finally got the door magnets put in and then I wanted to add shelves to the center console cabinets. Then we took a trip to Florida. Right before we left for Florida, I tried to put the shelves in and the stupid guy at Home Depot didn’t cut my wood accurately so they were wedged in there so tight I needed a rubber mallet to get the shelf level. Couldn’t find the rubber mallet. John fixed them when we got home. Now one of the doors doesn’t close all the way. I don’t care anymore. It’s still locked so Nathan can’t get into it.

Can you tell I’m sooooo done with this project?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m pretty stinkin’ proud of what I’ve done. But it’s still a first-time build and I’ve messed up learned sooooo much in the process. And I’m kind of done learning for now ;)

But anyway, here’s where we left off when I posted about all my projects while John was at High Adventure

Dad brought it up in his truck (I’m so glad he has a truck – makes my life so much easier ;) ) and I attached it to the bottom and voila! You can see where it got a little banged up on the ride here, so I just touched it up once everything was secure.

Then I started bringing things in to style the bookshelves and make it pretty. I’m still considering it a work in progress, but I’m happy with where we’re at at this point.

And here is the whooooole thing, in all its DIY glory ;)

I’m really happy with it and I’m really glad I took the plunge. It has really opened up and lightened up our space and keeps everything nice and organized (read: out of Nathan’s reach). Though I have to admit I think I enjoyed refinishing already built furniture better ;)

Little Man’s Room

While I’m still kind of in denial about it, Little Man isn’t really a baby anymore. So I have been slowly making changes to his room to better suit him. His room as gone through several changes since he’s been born, back then it was half nursery/half office. Everything from the office half has made its way to other parts of the apartment by now, and Nathan can finally call his room his own. Well, except for the closet. But he can’t even open it anyway. ;)

We were desperately needing a new system for his clothes. We had been using a large black hutch as his dresser/closet and his clothes were in those fabric bins for those cubby shelves you see everywhere. But it was really hard to keep things sorted and folded and organized in those bins – at least for me. Most days his clothes didn’t even make into the bins, but were spread out on the shelf on which the bins stood. It was a mess. So I started looking for a cheap dresser on craigslist. Even craigslist is more expensive here than in other states! Sheesh! So I was really excited when my mom gave me those two dressers she was getting rid of and let me refinish them. The coral dresser found its home, and now I’m going to show you the red dresser now happily living in Little Man’s room!

Here is the view when you walk in:
I love how it turned out. Like, really love it. I totally did a little happy dance when I had finished it at my mom’s house because it turned out even better than I had envisioned. I luuurrrrve it.
Here are a few close ups of the knobs. I just cut some shapes on my Silhouette out of vinyl and used the negative space as stencils to paint the designs.
We sent the hutch back down to my parents to store until we decide what we want to do with it and when we started using the dresser I lost my diaper storage. The hutch had a nice big deep drawer at the bottom that I kept all the diapers, wipes, diaper genie refills, etc. I had a brain lapse and left an open stack of diapers next to the dresser one day and within minutes they were scattered around the room by a certain little someone. ;) So some new (childproof) diaper storage was in order. After going back to Target like 3 or 4 times last week to buy and return different boxes and tubs to find something that worked, I decided on this large storage tub made by Hefty – I don’t remember the size though, I threw the sticker away…and since I can’t just leave it blank, it got some nautical vinyl love!
It’s working really well so far – Nathan hasn’t figured out how to open it and whenever he looks a little too interested in that latch, I quickly distract him with something. He usually leaves it alone though. He doesn’t like taking the time to get his diaper changed… ;)
I still had those nice fabric bins and once the clothes moved out, they started holding his toys. They started out just sitting in a row beneath the window, but I knew that things would easily get out of control, especially since the 4 bins we did have barely held what we already owned (and that would be my fault – one bin was almost overflowing the all the felt stuff I’ve made, hee hee). We needed a little room to grow. I initially wanted an Expedit shelf here (sidenote – IKEA isn’t making Expedit anymore! But don’t panic, they are making something new that is similar, it’s called Kallax.) But after measuring that space under the window, I thought the Expedit/Kallax shelf would be a little too tall. I knew Target sold something like it, so Nathan and I went to check it out (you know, on one of our bajillion trips to Target last week) and I found a Room Essentials model that was the right size! It’s about 6” shorter than the IKEA version AND $20 cheaper! And as you can see, it fits perfectly! Win-Win!
I had meant to purchase 4 more bins, but as I was checking out I didn’t realize the packages came in 1s rather than 2s, so I ended up with 2 more rather than 4 more. But the 6 we have are good for now ;) I had planned to put his little collection of stuffed animals on top of the shelf, but they got in the way of the curtains, so they are here in the corner and that has been working out just fine.
I am loving the changes so far! Eventually I hope to have a little display on top of the dresser or something and I’d really like to get some new pictures/artwork up but I am so happy with where we are in this room right now! Thanks for stopping by!

An Enchanting Entryway

Okay, so maybe ‘enchanting’ is a little much, but I absolutely adore alliterations. (See what I just did there? Yeah, I’m a nerd…)

So one of the dressers that I refinished at my parent’s house went into the entryway of our apartment. I don’t have a good before picture (again) because I ended up sending all the old stuff down to my parent’s house for the yard sale a couple of weeks ago and it didn’t even occur to me to take one. But we had a black 3-shelf bookshelf – with its shelves removed – and a little shoe shelf. You know. For shoes. The bookshelf didn’t have any shelves because I took them out for Little Man’s safety. They weren’t very secure and he could pull them out – right onto his toes. So the bookshelf mainly housed what I called Nathan’s ‘magpie nest’ – his random collection of toys and items that he decided were now his, such as paper towel tubes, small boxes, empty plastic containers, etc. And he loved pulling all the shoes out of the shoe shelf and taking them to random parts of the apartment. Which I thought was kind of gross. And he’d lose our shoes. So the bookshelf and the shoe shelf had to go. And I put my lovely coral dresser there instead. :)

But as you can see – it needs a little something. Besides some organization…
Vinyl. Vinyl was the right answer ;) I used my Silhouette and a herringbone pattern to fill in the lonely spaces. Though the front was looking a little too tribal for me, so I took the drawer front vinyl off yesterday. It’s a little less overwhelming now. Whew! The sides are enough to add the extra punch for me, and I love it!

I also made some drawer liners with this adorable wrapping paper I found several months ago at Target. I didn’t actually have a good reason to get it back then, but I’m so glad I did! I love the way the gold looks with the coral! I covered the top of the wrapping paper with contact paper to protect it and help it to last longer. I’m still deciding what is going into each drawer, but shoes are in the bottom drawer for sure, and it’s so nice to not lose track of our shoes anymore ;)

But the top of the dresser was still needing some love. Yikes!
So I’m proud to introduce you to my second IKEA hack. :) That set of drawers came from IKEA and since they don’t make them in the US anymore, I’d begged and begged my mom to let me have some of hers that she bought when we were living in Germany if she could manage without them. I now have 2. ;) She gave them to me sometime last year (I think) and as you saw in the last picture, this one was nicely labeled and is doing quite a nice job of keeping lots of things corralled and organized. But it was definitely time for a makeover! I painted the whole thing white and flipped the drawers around so the little finger holes we no longer visible. I found some metal label pulls at JoAnn’s and spray painted them gold and drilled little holes into the drawers to fit the brads through. I didn’t think that would be a strong enough hold though, so I added some superglue to the back of the label pulls themselves as well. I love how it turned out!
I got a little spray-happy and sprayed my pencil holders gold too – but now they match! It’s so awesome what a little paint can do! They look so much nicer now!
I also got a cheap $2 plastic dinner plate at Target to use as a drop off spot for keys, cell phones etc. I didn’t have any painter’s tape, so I just used some vinyl scraps to mark off some stripes and sprayed it gold as well. I was getting a little lazy (and naptime was going to be over soon) so I didn’t really measure the stripes as well as I could have, but I still love the way it came out. I was a little worried about how well the paint would stick to the plastic, but I sealed it with a gloss acrylic sealer and it’s holding up well so far.

And there you have it! It makes me so happy every time I come home to my bright, cheery, organized space! Hurray!