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Knocking things off my Honey Do List

August 7, 2011 By

A few weeks ago we had a contingent from Missouri descend upon our house. My dad and my youngest sister Sydney came to see the boys.

And my cousin Steve and his son Travis tagged along (That’s Steven with Miles not Steve with Travis…Travis is 16 and is much larger than that :) ).

They held lots of babies, ate a lot of good food, and while they where here they knocked quite a few things off my Honey Do list!

This is a shot of our kitchen (please excuse the awful curtains by the sliding door and the boob lights…this was before we replaced them…oh and the dog treats and hairdryer on the counter). See that random little cabinet? I HATE it. The placement is great for holding spices and such for cooking on the stovetop, but it’s so tiny that when I get the spices out I ended up knocking half of them down practically every time! Arrrg. And it looks so strange, this one random little cabinet.

So when the Missouri clan came to town they immediately took to work

Here is the Hubby and my dad evaluating how to best take down the cabinet.

Well once they took down the cabinet, they discovered that the wall behind it was the original 1963 wall. So they had to build it up a bit, sand it down, and then paint it yellow to match the rest of the kitchen. This part actually killed me a bit, because I hate the yellow paint in our downstairs, but we couldn’t repaint everything right now, so, we had to buy MORE of the paint I hate for now. Grumble grumble.

While the paint was drying, my cousin Stinky Steve (that’s his nickwhipped up some shelves and brackets based on these that I found online. Yes, I decided it was time to jump on the open shelving bandwagon!

And this is how they turned out! I just love them. I bought these baskets at Target (they’re dvd storage baskets) and plopped all my spices in there. My spices all have black lids, so I used a silver sharpie to label them all, and now I have easy access and it looks so much nicer!

I just love my new little shelves! Thank you so much Steve, Dad, and Hubby!

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The Little Desk that Could

February 22, 2011 By

My very first craigslist purchase ever was this little desk that I bought for my Hubby. I bought it for $50 or so, and it was great because it matched these two bookshelves we already had (this is before the Man Cave redo last summer).

*As a side note, my hubby was gone when I bought this, and I tried to move it upstairs in our condo by myself. Bad idea. I ended up punching a hole in our wall. Oops.

When we redid the Man Cave last summer, I moved the desk up to the guest room. It didn’t really match the decor of the guest room as a wood desk, so I painted it white. It looked so sweet tucked in the corner.

Alas, it lost it’s place in that room when we started making the guest room the nursery. That’s when I decided to make it a changing table (but later almost regretted that decision in great the boot meltdown).

But sanity prevailed and my hubby sanded her down:

We slapped a quick coat of teal paint on her, and then the Hubby sanded her down again. And this was the end result:

I just love how it turned out–it was so EASY! I’d say all together it took about 30 minutes to complete. And that’s how one desk has had three lives in just three years!

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The Nursery.

February 21, 2011 By

We still have a few small projects to complete in the nursery, but enough of it is done, that I’m ready to unveil some pics! A quick disclaimer…the blue on the walls is photographing a bit on the bright side…it’s quite a bit subtler in person. I promise the colors all meld together quite well.

First up, the cribs. Aren’t they adorable? I love those crib skirts turned out. And that dresser was in this room back when it was a guest room. I have some little white starfish that I’m going to put on the walls above the cribs when I get around to it…I’ll be sure to post more pics then!

Moving around the room you can see the desk we painted, that will be our changing table. I LOVE how it turned out. I’ll do a full tutorial on how we refinished it in the next week or so.  I still need to get a changing pad for the top of the desk, and replace the pics in those frames above the changing table, but then that part of the room will be finished.

Here’s a better shot of the changing table and the bookshelf that the hubby refinished. It was laminate and he was very skeptical of painting it, but he obliged his pregnant wife and put in a little elbow grease, and I LOVE it (another tutorial to follow). You can see the little shadowbox I made last week above the bookshelf.

And last but not least, the other side of the room. Remember the little seahorse wallhanging I made? That rocking chair was part of our Halloween decor, but a bit of paint later and TaDa–fit for a nursery. I still need to find a new lampshade for that little lamp (I’d like it to match the Blue lamp on the other side of the room) and a different tablecloth for the side table, but then it’s done. I love how that board and batten wall treatment looks behind everything!

And there you have it! I’ll do some close-ups and a breakdown of prices in the next few days–but I CAN tell you right now that the whole room–furniture, mattresses, artwork, curtains, etc.–cost well under $1000.

2 Comments Filed Under: Babies, Crafting and Decorating

Tired of the Nursery Yet?

February 16, 2011 By

Nursery Project #5,421. Okay, maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but it sure seems like it these days! I hope you’re not getting tired of all these nursery decor posts–hopefully you can apply some of these ideas in other parts of your house.

Speaking of a house, that’s about how big I feel these days. Here’s my most recent “bump” pic. But I think we can all agree that it’s a little larger than a bump these days!

Any-who. I’ve known for awhile that I wanted to do a shadowbox for the nursery, but I wasn’t sure what I wanted to put in it. So when I had a small piece of burlap leftover from my crib skirts, I decided to start working on my little shadowbox.

I started by just pinning the burlap to the back:

I busted out a bunch of shells, starfish, driftwood pieces, and such that I already had on hand, and started playing. I finally settled on using all the little shells to create a monogramed “M” (the first letter of our last name). I just used a little hot glue and glued them into place after I’d settled on the design. Lastly, I put a little sand and some random shells and such in there. Here’s how it ended up:

And since I already had the box, the burlap, the glue, and the shells, this project was FREE! Love those sorts of projects!

3 Comments Filed Under: Babies, Crafting and Decorating
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