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! ;) 

spring is sprouting

As I mentioned a while back in our post about our backyard plans, I have been very excited to get our seeds started for our new and improved yard and garden! Even though there is still snow on the ground (and sometimes falling from the sky...boo!) we are hopeful and looking forward to the day when it's all gone! It helps to have little green sprouts starting to show in the basement where we have started our first batch of veggies and flowers! 

Unfortunately, we don't have a great place in the basement for a "sunny" all the time spot as is recommended for most seeds. Our basement is just an underground room with tiny windows at the top of the walls. I looked online for a solution to this lack of light and found an option that only cost us about $25 from Home Depot (fixture plus two light bulbs). 

   

This is definitely not going to be a permanent fixture in our basement as it intrudes into a large portion of our "finished basement" but it's perfect for what we need for the next 8ish weeks. The chain makes the light adjustable as the plants grow and it's big enough that it covers two of the seedling starter trays. 

I've never started seeds before so when I went to the store to get a "starter kit" I looked at all my options and this seemed like the best one. It has 72 cells and it self waters for up to 10 days. I still check on the moisture level every once in a while but it's nice to know that we can leave and it's still going to be ok for a couple of days! 

So far I have started Tomato, Onion, Eggplant, Sage, Rosemary and two types of flowers that we will be planting with our veggies for maximum pollination, etc. The starter kit comes with grid sheets so you don't forget what you planted where! Aren't they clever? 

It's almost like Spring has sprung seeing some little sprouts popping out of the soil! They look so fragile now but it's going to be so fun to see them grow and eventually get transplanted to our backyard! 

Has anyone else started their seeds? Any wise words for this newbie? Please, oh please, impart your wisdom! 

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