the nursery diaries: part 1

I loved reading Erika's nursery diaries series over on Urban Grace several years ago.  So I thought I'd do the same with our nursery decorating projects, except we'll just have to pretend like all of this wasn't going on a year ago, okay?

We knew the old office/ man room/ junk collection was going to be the baby's nursery.  I have a theory that all married couples have that ominous third bedroom that literally serves no purpose (except for parental comments on how "it should really be a nursery by now") until a baby comes along to fill it.  Our first order of business was to clean everything out and repaint the walls. 

I knew I wanted to incorporate fabric from Caitlin Wilson Textiles and immediately fell in love with the coral & mint chinoise pillow cover.  Honestly, I also knew this was going to be on our 'splurge' list.  But I felt like I could incorporate the pillow cover and a couple yards of the coordinating coral fretwork fabric and still stay within our budget.

I wanted to keep the walls relatively neutral and found the perfect shade of pink, with just a hint of yellow, in Benjamin Moore's Opal.  In some light, the walls don't even look pink but more of an off-white.

{via}

In one weekend (while I was out of town, I might add), my sweet husband took our walls from this:

To this:

We also quickly realized that the large doors on the closet took up valuable real estate, given the room they needed to swing open. So in that same weekend, off came the doors!

Jeff also added some new shelving and hanging rods, and he used a level to draw straight lines down the closet wall.  The next weekend, I covered the lines with Frog tape and painted bright blue/green stripes to match the mint color of the pillow. (Note: be sure to remove the tape while the paint is still wet to prevent any peeling!)  It was a small space to add stripes, and the little painting project was much easier than I anticipated.



Up next?  Some Craigslist furniture finds and thrifty decorating!

exterior update

Jeff has been hard at work on our exterior updates over the last few weeks...  The progress made after such a short amount of time is so exciting!

Our 'Exterior Project To-Do' list currently looks like this:

• Install new living room windows (and centering them)
• Install new guest bedroom windows (making them regular-size)
• Prime new siding
• Hang new siding
• Hang horizontal batten strips
• Paint all siding (including exterior of sunroom)
• Paint storm door & replace house numbers
• Build pretty trellis to cover stone side of house, with flowering vine
• Plan and build covered front porch (plans TBD) 
• Widen natural area in front of house & landscape

We still have to decide on the paint color... and whether or not we'll paint just the board & batten siding... or the entire house, brick included (which is my vote).

But for having made just a little dent in the list so far, the difference is incredible!

Before:

In Progress:

Stay tuned for the rest of our updates... And my best attempt at talking Jeff into painting brick!

the sofa returns

I am so excited that we got our Lee Industries sofa back from the reupholstery shop!  Two short weeks later, and it hardly looks like the same piece of furniture...

To remind you of our 'before'...

 
We worked with Sugar Hill Upholstery and highly recommend them.  Their prices include pick-up and delivery in the area and wrapping the cushions.  They also added casters to the front legs for us, since it appeared that the sofa originally had them.

It's a little hard to tell in the pictures, but the fabric is a light grayish blue color.

I ended up splurging on the fabric at $14 per yard, but really wanted to invest in something that was neutral and durable.  I decided to go with the practice choice here, since we plan to have this sofa for a long time (and it will hopefully need to stand up to some kids and dogs one day).  So I went with a durable commerical-grade.

And considering these sofas retail new for close to five times what we spent, I feel really excited about our find!  Now I'm off to hunt for a few new throw pillows and a rug... Happy weekend!

new pillows

I was so excited that our new pillow covers for the living room arrived this weekend!  These new editions marked the second time I worked with Lauren at labdesigns.  She has an incredible Etsy shop and was so easy to work with, even with my custom requests.  The pillow covers are great quality and the best prices I've found for Schumacher fabrics!

I ordered two custom 20 inch pillow covers in Schumacher Betwixt fabric (in the water colorway) and couldn't be happier with the texture and color.  I also ordered one 18 inch pillow cover in Schumacher Imperial Trellis fabric (in the citrine colorway).

Before:

 After:

I feel like the new pillows give the room a more sophisticated and complete feel.  Can't wait to get the painted campaign dresser in here to finish our latest updates.  In the meantime, be sure to check out Lauren's shop!

revisiting exteriors

Remember way back when we were discussing an exterior remodel?  That was pushed out with our sunroom addition, but it's become a regular topic of conversation again!

Our thoughts are pretty similar, although we're trying to be a lot a bit more budget conscious.  We're tossing around a project start date of the end of September, but still discussing all the financial considerations.  For now, here is what I'm envisioning...

Adding a front porch with a high roof to break up the straight lines of our long, one-story house:

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{I love this idea of a full porch with an open arbor off to the side}

Replacing the two off-center and the two strange, small windows with pretty cottage windows:

{via}

Painting (yay!) the exterior in a shade of gray with white trim:

{via}

{via}

Painting the storm door a pretty Carolina blue and updating with fun house numbers:

{via}

 And, of course, lots of landscaping! Now to just get started...

the purple couch returns

One of our to-do list items for this weekend was to move the purple sofa out of the back bedroom.  This sofa has been shuffled around our house, listed on Craigslist and been the topic of much design discussion.

Bottom line:  I'm going back to my previous thought to include it in our sunroom.  Jeff & I set a goal to have the back bedroom cleaned out by this winter, as part of our overall goal to declutter the house.  And this room has plenty to declutter... The purple couch, campaign dresser, bookshelf, tv stand, dual recliner... basically everything but a bed.

Whether the sofa stays in the sunroom or gets listed on Craigslist for the third fourth time is to be decided. While we decide, I'm absolutely loving this inspiration for a purple & coral color palette...

{via}

If I go this route, I'm thinking a bright coral for the back of our bookshelf....

{Emily Clark}

{Little Green Notebook}

And some pretty pillows in a coral ikat pattern, like one of these...

{via}

{via}

For now (learning from my past mistakes), I'm just going to live awhile with the purple sofa. Do you want it for your house? What do you think?  Purple sofa for the sunroom or Craigslist?

*Update: Vote in our poll on what you think we should do with our purple sofa!

repurposing frames

Over a year ago, I picked up this set of two botanical prints for a whopping $7 at a local estate sale.  I knew immediately that I wasn't going to keep these prints (although, in general, I do love botanicals), but the  frames had great shape & detail.

They took their place in my guest room closet, full of 'potential DIY' projects... For slightly longer than I'd like to admit.  After we completed our sunroom, I realized that our desk area could use some practical improvements.

Enter the frames... I decided to turn them into a chalkboard and bulletin board set.  The project was very much Jeff-approved (aka cheap), coming in at around $20 total, including the original cost of the frames.

I pulled off the backing and took out the artwork and glass.  Then lightly sanded the frames and spray painted them gray.

We purchased an Ikea bulletin board for $4.99, then Jeff used the old glass as a template to measure and cut the piece to fit in the frame.

For the chalkboard, I took the glass and very lightly sanded it, just enough to give it a rough texture.  Then I painted it with chalkboard spray paint (you can find it at Lowe's in the spray paint aisle)  It took about 3 coats, with plenty of drying time in between, to get it completely covered.

We lined the inside lip of both frames generously with superglue, then dropped in the bulletin board and chalkboard pieces.  After letting them dry (frame-side down) overnight, they were ready to hang!

Quick tip:  Per the instructions on the chalkboard spray can, I rubbed a layer of chalk over the entire surface before writing anything on it.  So far, it's held up very well.

This was a quick, cheap and easy project... Not to mention it pulled one more item out of my guest closet.  Doesn't get much better than that!

Spring Project Updates: Living Room

As I mentioned last week, I've been behind in posting all of our before & afters from the spring project marathon a couple months ago.  We've continued to make small and large tweaks to our living room.  In our ranch home, it's the room you walk straight into from the front door.  And the room where we spend the majority of our time.  So I think it feels extra important to me to get it right.

Check out our house tour button (still in progress) to see the earliest 'before' shots of our living room... It's thankfully come along way!

And for a glimpse into the most recent 'before'...

And After....

Not really a huge difference, but we just wanted to declutter and make the room feel more open.  So we swapped out the yellow love seat for a wing back chair we already owned.  Eventually, I'd like to get an off-white chair to replace it with, just to break up the blue tones by the new ottoman. 

We also moved out the bookshelf and flanked the tv console with two gray ottomans, also already owned.  They're perfect for extra seating!  We had my family over a few weeks ago, and everyone had a seat in the living room.

We also took the speakers off stands (finally!) and added some new artwork to the wall (post to come!)  I also splurged a lot a little and had the tufted ottoman made with my new favorite fabric.  It's on casters, which makes it perfect for when Jeff wants to pull it over to put his feet up & watch tv or when we put a tray on top to double as a coffee table.

Up next:  Hopefully mounting the tv to the wall (to level it with the frames), painting the tv console & swapping out the knobs, styling the mantel and finding a new side table...

Quick Bathroom Update

About a month ago, I started the process of redecorating our guest bathroom. As was the case with many of the rooms when we first moved in, I took colors and things I liked (many admittedly purchased on impulse), threw them all together, and thought I was done.

For the bathroom, the end result was blue walls, a bright yellow shower curtain, and a DIY red mirror. Not exactly the welcoming, peaceful experience that a guest bath should create.

So I started with an easy update to make any room brighter: paint. I went with Benjamin Moore’s Paper White. It is an off-white with just a slight hint of blue (actually very similar to Horizon, which I repainted our living room, kitchen & hallway – but less gray)

{painting progress}

Up next was to remove the gigantic towel bar beside the sink. I have a feeling that no guest of our’s will really need a 4-tiered towel rack, no matter how long they stay. And we also sent off the wobbly glass shelf above the toilet. I’ve seen bathrooms that these look great in, but our’s was just a junk collector.

I replaced all the hardware with a matching polished nickle set from Lowe’s, and Jeff even replaced the electrical outlets and light switch with fresh plates (who puts in black outlets anyway? what an eyesore!)

{before & after}

We also added a bright white shower curtain, to keep the room feeling as open and bright as possible. I had it monogrammed in dark gray (interesting fact: the woman at the shop told me that it used to be that the man’s initial always went first, but now people don’t keep to that as much… So we put the J first, because otherwise we would’ve had a huge space between the C and W – then almost no space between the W and J. Sorry Emily Post, aesthetics trump tradition this time)

 

{before}

{after}

I also ordered my new favorite rug from Garnet Hill (also have one in our kitchen now) in gray...

...and this cute print from Etsy. I framed the ‘Keep Calm & Soak On’ print along with one of my favorites that Jeff’s grandpa painted in matching Target frames.

I’m so happy that we decided to spruce up the guest bath some. Not a major overhaul, but enough to make it feel brighter and more guest-friendly!

{before & after}

Psst... Apologies for the many weird camera angles.  As you can tell from the picture of the rug/floor, this room is small!  And the tight space meant not so great overall pictures.