the clock is ticking

As I write this (or part of it) my sweet two year old boy is napping and I can feel baby #2 doing flips and kicks like a crazy little ninja. To say that we are excited for this little one is an understatement and the time is really flying! 33.5 weeks and our little guy is growing like a weed, so much so that my Braxton Hicks contractions, which were non-existent with our first son, are definitely a real life factor! 

Needless to say, we have started preparing for our littlest boy's arrival. Let me assure you though, it's a much different preparation than we did for baby #1! With our first, we were so prepared with the nursery being practically ready by this point in my pregnancy. That is so not the case this time. We are as prepared as we can be as a family but physically this little guy's room is unpainted, obviously undecorated and unfurnished (though we have the furniture and will be picking up soon!). Last week I decided that I would at least start washing all the baby clothes so that even if he didn't have a room to call his own (were he to arrive early) he would at least have clothes to wear! Oh little brother, we love you more than you know but it's much harder to get things done now that we have a kiddo running around! 

This momma does have a good idea of how the nursery will end up though. At least I am good at making plans! Ha! We decided that we wanted another boyish room but had a hard time getting our son's room out of our head. We love the grey/wood/orange color scheme for a boy but we wanted these brothers to each have a space of their own (for now at least!) We decided to use a much, much lighter grey and a dark green tone. I was choosing between greens and when one had "Hunter" in the title I couldn't help but choose it! 

I painted a corner to see how the colors would meld together when they go up and so far so good. The dark green will only go on one wall and a window cubby while the rest of the room will be the lighter grey. I'm not usually certain about the lighter colors but once it hit the white wall, I knew it was the right choice to warm up the space. Again, this room is painted with a flat white paint (like the rest of the house) and it's so scratchy... who even uses flat paint for a whole room?? A fresh coat of paint will go a long way to modernize this room! The picture below is one coat with a paintbrush, I think that once the green is applied with a roller it should be nice and smooth! 

We are going a bit more rustic in this room than we did in our first son's nursery. A bit more texture mixing for a cozy feeling that will be different than the feeling one room over. With some wood framed watercolors, a geometric wool rug, wooden accents and metals mixed in, we are excited to see what happens as everything comes together. Below you can see the first thoughts/purchases for this room! 

After some additional decisions, purchases and a whoopsie-two-year-old-accident that landed one of those framed prints on the floor with broken glass (no worries, no one was hurt!) we have honed our design and landed on a final idea for the room. 

   

The chair was a gift from my mom and it's so comfortable! The colors needed to be taken into account for the room because it certainly isn't neutral, though not quite as dark as the photos above are showing. The rug - while neutral - is a nice fun pattern that will liven up the space while being a cozy space to play with our boys! The broken glass was removed from the frame (which is harder than you would think!) and we are going to put this little one's name over it. We didn't want to give away any spoilers so I laid out "BOY" for now to give the general idea. And who doesn't love a little stuffed taxidermy creature, man oh man they are so cute! 

We also have a couple DIY projects for this baby's room. We wanted to make a few things with our own hands since we did that in our first son's room with the arrows above his crib and his side table! We are going to once again make the wall decor that will go above the crib and instead of a side table, since the space is configured differently, we are going to make a shelf that will hang on the wall to store the necessities of rocking chair time! 

   

These photos will serve as our inspiration but we will be making them our own based on color and size requirements for this room. We like how the yarn wall art is rustic but soft which will reflect well on the watercolors and other art we have ready for this room. The shelf is far from traditional and adds a little flavor while being completely useful! 

We will be starting on this room little by little in the next days! Hopefully at the end of the next five or six weeks when this baby is ready to meet us, we will have a space all his own that he will live in and love for years! 

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For those of you who have been following along, here is a sneak peek of the kitchen. Yes, we are still putting in the finishing touches so the full reveal is yet to come but we wanted to give a little glimpse into the kitchen we are daily living in (and loving)! This photo was taken weeks ago so it's a few steps behind our current situation, but the counters are so clean and pretty so I had to use it! ;) 

Making it all fit

Now that we have lived here for more than a year the basement has undergone some renovation, reorganization and most recently we've changed it's function.

When we first moved in we used the basement as an office of sorts. Rob's computer was down there as was my crafting desk, so we used the space to work on projects and hang out while the other was working. It wasn't decorated, there was barely any furniture and it felt like a dark basement. It was a waste of much needed space in our small home. 

Over the summer we decided that we wanted to have some part of the house, other than our bedroom, that was carpeted. We figured with a baby on the way we should have some space to put toys and let a babe romp around without fear of falling on the hardwood or marble flooring. The basement seemed like the best option since it would mean that we wouldn't have to cover any of the original wood floors. Plus the existing basement carpet was horrendous so it was the perfect choice. Below is a picture from when the laundry room flooded, yet another reason to rid the basement of it's old floor covering. 

The original carpet in the basement was directly on the cement floor so it was hard as a rock. We called Empire and it was a simple process that was started and finished in two days. We chose a very neutral color but added padding and a deeper plush to the carpet itself; much more acceptable for a baby to crawl all over and the change made the basement feel more like a part of the house. 

   

You can see in the picture on the left above that we left the original carpet 

on the stairs because we plan on refinishing with a rustic wooden stairway. 

Once the carpet was installed, we needed a place to put the furniture that had been in the den because that room would now be the nursery. This is when we had to do some problem solving, without getting rid of any furniture we had to add a whole new room to our house. 

Rob's desk moved up into the nook in our bedroom where the dogs beds used to be. Moving his desk created space in the basement for the futon and one of the black side tables that was formerly in the den. We also took the tv and buffet from the living room and moved it one floor straight down. Now we have a living room on the main floor and a family room in the basement. The black cubicle unit is now part of an entertainment unit in our bedroom and the only piece we retired was the red chair... it had seen better days. 

The transition happened little by little but now it seems like this is the way our house should have been set up all along. We stretched the little bit of space we have as far as it will go and we are very happy with the way it feels now! 

let there be darkness?

As you might have seen in yesterday's post about our new bedroom furniture we also spent the weekend painting the walls of the bedroom. Last week we painted the ceiling and though we liked the color it was darker than we had imagined it being. It was "sitting" atop the white side walls, and the light grey ceiling look heavy and a little bit clumsy.  

Enter step two of painting and step four of our bedroom upgrade: grounding the walls with a dark color on the sidewalls.

The paint we used on the side walls was Armory by Pittsburgh Paint; again I only paid $10/gallon for this paint and ended up using less than half the gallon. We decided that the rich color, which plays off the blue in the ceiling, was a perfect color to ground the room. 

***Disclaimer: the dark carpet, whose days are numbered, should be ignored completely! We are choosing color schemes with hardwood or cork flooring in mind. 

Painting with a dark color, like we did in the hallway, is always simultaneously exciting and nerve-wracking. Because the color is such a stark contrast to its surroundings there are more chances for bleeding, uneven lines, etc.. To alleviate most of the worry, I arm myself with many painting cloths as well as my handy short handled paint brush to get the job done. Painting cloths are the best, made of old t shirts, they make the best wipes for getting into tight corners and cleaning off molding. 

       

During the edging process, the color was reading much more brown than we had hoped for. The color swatch, shown above, looks more like the ceiling color than the wall color but we just crossed our fingers and kept on painting. 

     

After the first, very splotchy coat we were left with a good feeling. Even though the color was still reading a little more brown than we had hoped, it was doing the job of grounding that ceiling and making them feel light and bright in contrast! As you can see above, we opted not to paint the "end walls." We thought adding that much darkness to the room would make it feel like a cave. 

You can also see the way the walls and the carpet are fighting one another, it's driving us crazy for the time being but we are putting our blinders on until our wallet is ready for us to change up the flooring. 

     

After two coats, the second with a roller, the color smoothed out and was giving us warm and cozy feelings! Even though it still reads a little more brown than we thought it would, we love the color and are happy to walk upstairs into our new and improved room. 

     

Above you can see where all three colors come together: white molding and end walls, Benjamin Moore Winter White ceilings, and Pittsburgh Paints Armory side walls. Doesn't it just make you smile?

Painting the bedroom: CHECK!! (phew!!!)

Here are a couple looking forward / next project peeks for the bedroom!

Left: The 15 drawers that are built into the wall of the bedroom are currently natural wood, as you can see below. I got a little over zealous and (just to see what it would look like) painted the top left drawer the same color as the walls. Eventually all the drawers need to be taken out, emptied, sanded and painted but that will be another day! 

Right: The built in cubby space that is right across from our bed (at the foot) needs reorganizing and a paint job. Currently, the center section houses my jewelry, rob's watches, etc.; really, it's just a catch all. I want to change it around so there are more shelves in the middle and make the back of the right cubby a place where I can hang my necklaces. We're not sure what color we will use for the back of these cubbies but I can only imagine it will be one of the existing colors in the room. 

   

Lots of things already accomplished and still more to do! For now we are enjoying our cozy space and counting down the days until the carpet "meets its maker", ha!

Until next time,
Lindsey

we're moving up... about five inches

This weekend was chalk full of activities and projects. We spent time with both sides of our family, played games, had dinners, and really enjoyed ourselves! In between all that good family fun, we worked on projects around the house, mainly upstairs, and scored some awesome deals on items for our home!

One of the things on our to-do list has been getting our bed up off the floor. We have been waiting to either build a bed frame or find one that we liked and in the meantime (the past four months) our box spring has been right on the floor. It doesn't really make sleeping any different but the bed is lower and it's hard to vacuum close by the bed. Adding a bed frame was always in the playbook for us, we just weren't in any hurry. 

Once in a great while I check Craigslist just to see what's happening out there and what may be available. Nine times out of ten when I do this, I don't find anything but that one time of ten is when I find something that we actually need that is in great shape, for an unbeatable price. Enter Wendi and her craigslist posting for a bed, chair, night stand and dresser all for $280 bucks! We don't need a dresser or night stand because of all the built-ins in the room but the bed was exactly what we were looking for and the chair was a perfect addition that we didn't know we needed wanted. In total the bed and chair were supposed to cost $110 (according to the original ad) but she gave them both to us for $100! Both pieces (valued at around $300) are in almost perfect condition and if we hadn't said anything, you would have thought they were brand new! 

Rob managed to fit the whole bed (disassembled) into the Torrent with the chair, what a guy! It was definitely a squeeze but we made it home. After some painting [we'll fully reveal that excitement in a post tomorrow] we were able to assemble the bed and waalaa! the room was transformed. For some reason, Rob and I equate nice bedding and bedroom furniture with the idea of being a grown up - who knows where that came from - needless to say, we were feeling mighty grown up last night when we stepped back and took a look at phase three of our bedroom process! 

     

     

Rob did most of the assembly while I handed him what he needed (and took pictures of him working). It wasn't hard to put together and thankfully the people we bought the bed from had opted to separately buy the slats for under the box-spring, always a nice addition. Once the bed was assembled we tipped the box spring and mattress back down and made up the bed. 

   

We like how the light wood offsets the darkness of the room and with the addition of the chair, it has something to match. Currently the built in drawers and railing around the staircase are a sort of dark cherry colored wood, but eventually those will be repainted and the natural wood look will be gone for good! Also the carpet, the purplish blue "elephant in the room", is being completely ignored during this process because it isn't going to last very long - our color scheme is designed with a wood or cork floor in mind. 

   

We are very pleased with the "final product" for stage three of this bedroom makeover. The chair and the bed tie together with their light wood, the fabric on the chair goes perfectly with the color scheme of the room (it's a burlap-y tan), the paint is working exactly how we wanted it to - here's your sneak peak at tomorrow's big reveal, and because I can't just leave a corner without flourish I added some empty gold frames for interest! All in all a successful weekend and a great deal! 

Did any of you snag some awesome deals this weekend? Take on a fun house project? Share what you are up to with a comment on this post! 

Until next time,

Lindsey 

*** In case you were wondering, our nosy pups were safe in their cages during this process so they didn't get into something they shouldn't. "How happy were they about that?" you may ask. Well, let me just say that Oswin is in fact not sleeping in this picture. When I got near her to take a picture, she closed her eyes in protest. Yes, she is that dramatic! As soon as she heard the camera noise she perked right back up and looked straight at me. WHAT A GOOBER. 

seeing how far we've come

We always have an up-to-date list of what we've accomplished so far on the blog, but sometimes it's fun to take a look and compare the pictures of the original house (at move in) with our new and improved look in each room. The first picture of each "series" is the original, pre-move-in look and anything that follows is what we have done to the house! It's exciting to see it put together this way and really see what the differences are - let me tell you, paint is our best friend - i've said it before but it is amazing what a little paint can do!

Front Yard:

• Move house numbers to other side of door
• Re-do porch and walkway
• Re-landscape - Sod front yard
• Move mailbox
• Install flag and hang it
• Repaint the exterior of the house
• Repaint front door
• Repaint shutters

Back Yard:

• Dig out old garden beds
• Weed existing garden beds
• Remove white rocks
• Move hydrangea bushes away from house and to the back yard
• Decided what to do with shed - tear down and rebuild
• Install raised garden beds
• Plant vegetable garden 
• Re-finish swing
• Change fabric on swing and bistro set seats

Living Room:

• Change out curtain rods
• Hang new curtains
• New rug
• Paint living room / choose color
• Create walkway between living room and dining room
• Replace baseboards
• Hang art
• Paint inside of front door
• Add lighting

Dining Room:

• Change out curtain rods
• Hang new curtains
• New rug
• Re-upholster dining room chairs / choose fabric
• Hang art
• Organize closet for more storage
• Change closet door to be a glass "china cabinet"
• Paint dining room / choose color
• Baseboards
• Choose and hang light fixture

Hallway:

• Hang art
• Change the coat closet from a rod to hooks
• Change the shelves in the linen closet - real wood instead of pressed wood
• Paint the ceiling / choose color

Bathroom:

• Take down original shelving behind toilet
• Hang new shelves and decorate
• Hang Shower Curtain
• Re-attach fallen tiles in shower/tub
• Add hooks for towels and robes
• Organize closet behind door with baskets
• Replace sink pedastal with vanity style
• Replace fixtures / toilet paper holder / towel bar

Spare Room / Den:

• Paint den above chair rail / choose color 
• Change out curtain rods
• Hang new curtains
• New rug
• Arrange collage wall
• Hang art
• Add hanging bar to the inside of closet / maximize storage
  

Kitchen:

• Paint jars and cubby
• Build butcher block table
• Install new cooktop
• Hang pot-rack
• Install new hood
• Tile behind cooktop
• Hang art
• Paint underside of cupboards 
• Add shelf above cooktop
• Add knobs to cupboards

Finished Basement:

• Replace carpet in basement
• Remove carpet from stairs and re-trim
• Paint basement / choose color
• Complete ductwork that connects to living room vent

Laundry Room / Unfinished Basement: 

• Clean existing shelves
• Build laundry organization
• Create shelves for Rob's tools / work bench

Upstairs / Bedroom:

• Strip the carpet from the stairs
• Refinish stairs with a pallet wood look
• Hang curtains
• Organize closet
• Replace carpet upstairs
• Hang art
• paint ceiling
• paint walls
• new bedding
• create a bed platform

Thanks for keeping up with us!

Until next time,
Lindsey 

bedroom upgrade: step two

Last week we finally changed our mindsets about our upstairs, bungalow style bedroom and decided that it should be just as "finished" as the rest of the house. Our first step in that process was getting some new bedding - a simple change that made a nice amount of difference while we were still living in a very large, very white room.

Step Two: Painting the angled ceiling

This past weekend we resolved to getting some color up on the walls / ceiling of the bedroom. Now, it's not as simple as picking a color and simply painting the four straight walls because as you can see in the "original" image above, the shape of the room is not typical. The angled shape creates an overbearing amount of white ceiling when left white. Merely painting the limited wall space isn't a strong enough contrast in a room of this size. In light of this, we decided to switch things up a bit. 

We chose to use the same color that we used in the dining room: Benjamin Moore White Water which I snagged for $10/gallon. When we painted the dining room, the color read a little more blue that we would have hoped but we still ended up loving the contrast it created. We thought having that nice "light blue" feel on the ceiling of the bedroom would be nice and cozy without feeling too heavy. 

After edging in along 22 edges and around 2 light fixtures, not only once but twice (gotta have good coverage!), I was feeling the ceiling painting pain. There is a lot of ladder standing when there are that many edges!! 

When I was ready to start rolling, I made sure to tarp below where I was working. It's amazing that the tiny little paint drops get all over everything - myself included! I channeled Dexter (the tarping not the stabbing) at some points during the process, but all in all got the impression that it would be very hard for him to do all that tarping and wrapping on his own - always a critic. 

After two coats of paint and some death defying balancing over the stairwell shown above, the ceiling was painted and the room was looking cozier than ever! 

   

The color, which read blue downstairs, now reads completely grey up in the bedroom. Crazy how paint can trick you! We weren't disappointed though; the white pinstripes of molding along the middle panel add depth and character that would have been lacking had we been able to just paint the whole ceiling as one smooth surface. So far, we are pleased! 

We have more plans for the bedroom but they are constantly changing and morphing with every task we take on. For now, we are loving the warmth of the colored ceiling and our new bedding! You'll just have to wait and see what is next. 

Until next time, 

Lindsey 

***It's always so fun when I am painting to have Rob come into the room I am working on and express his thoughts, usually along the lines of "Wow!" or "Looks great!" Since he promises that he is a terrible painter, he hold the dogs at bay to keep them from becoming my next paint project and comes to see me with moral support and an occasional Diet Coke! Gotta love that team work! 

snazzy sheets (and comforter and pillows)

We haven't taken much care in renovating or redecorating our bedroom since it is out of sight, out of mind from the rest of the house but the time has finally come and we are ready to start doing some work upstairs. 

When we moved in we just picked up what we had in our old apartment and set it down in the new house, no thought involved and not much care taken. In the beginning we decided that things were nice enough and it was just the place that we sleep and dress, not a lot of hang time upstairs. Now, we are ready to adjust our view and make it just as lovely and cozy at the rest of the house! 

The room is a bit odd due to the fact that it's a bungalow. The ceiling is angled because of the roof, which creates lots of hassles that aren't typical, but we are excited about what could happen with color and depth! 

  

As you can see above, our bedding was fine - not a lot of character and kind of "eh" (to us at least). For the most part the room around the bed needs to be revamped, as you can see when looking at the undecorated built-in, but the bedding was our starting point! 

I made my way to Target, my first stop for most things home decor related (second only to Home Goods), to see if there were any signs of a good deal! 

I ended up walking out with a new comforter and shams (both Threshold), a new set of sheets (Thomas O'Brien), and a new fitted sheet for the box spring (RE). We use a fitted sheet over our box-spring instead of a skirt for the bed. 

Target has some cool designers represented in their home decor line (my favorite is currently Nate Berkus) and the Threshold brand is always good for a nice piece or two (or three, etc!). 

Overall, we like the new tone the bedding sets in the room. A little more "grown up," if bedding can represent such a thing! 

Mmmmmm... look at that texture. I mean really, hubba hubba! I liked the color, we always like grey in our bedroom, but I loved the shabby chic and yet classic look of this comforter. 

     

And calling all lovers of pattern and texture, don't you just love this combination!? Well, I do! The sharp graphic design of the Thomas O'Brien sheets on the left perfectly complements the softer Threshold comforter on the right. Thankfully Rob is also down with this bedding change - I definitely made an effort to keep my girly side out of these decisions. After all, it's his room too!

We hope you like the change! We have only created a small difference with the bedding, but it's definitely a start.

As always, thank you for following along! 

Until next time,

Lindsey 

**The decorative pillow on the bed is going to be changed out once I finish my next project! Stay posted!