Taylor's Room

Taylor's room finally came together. We are so excited about how it turned out and so is Taylor. 

DJ just shook his head every time he came up the stairs because our house is like a rainbow now. The loft is bright green and blue as seen in the picture below, the laundry room is bright orange, our room is teal and now Taylor's room is hot pink and grey. I love it.

I think my favorite part of the entire room is the letters above her bed. Taylor and I bought plain 9" wooden white letters from Michael's and we used scrap booking embellishments to decorate them. I was so happy with the way they turned out. We bought the flowers at Hobby Lobby when they were on sale and used a hot glue gun to hold them in place.  

I think they need a little something more so I'm debating over adding clear and white rhinestones in different sizes around the outside. I'm undecided. 

I also got this frame and wall hanging from Hobby Lobby (I love that store).

This was bought with the intention of hanging it in the loft. She originally had a purple frame on this wall but the purple didn't look right in there so we moved it to the loft instead. She made these projects at school on Monday. I love that every sun she draws has a smiling face. It's a picture of our family with flowers and orange grass. :o)

I got the small hanging by her window at Bed Bath and Beyond. It says "Do something amazing every day". A good reminder. The butterflies came from Target.

And my second favorite part of her room are her new curtains. They are the tired white sheer curtains from Pottery Barn Kids. I was able to get them on sale which makes them even better. Had they not been on sale she probably wouldn't have gotten them. Love that store but it's a little expensive if you ask me.  

It's hard to get a good picture of them with the sun outside. I'll have to remember taking a picture of them when it's dark outside.

We painted the inside of her closet the same pink that's on her walls just for fun. I would have loved to have a hot pink closet growing up!

And DJ hung a ceiling fan. This ended up being more of a project for him than expected. He added a dimmer switch to Taylor's room so we can turn the fan on separate from the light and without having to use the pull strings. 

So glad her room came together as easy as it did. We still have just a little bit of touching up to do but I think that will wait at least a week. I'm over all this painting stuff :o)

Spekeled Fingers

I'm sitting in the office right now with a kink in my neck and specks of paint covering my fingers. I'm longing for a hot tub, full body massage and an uninterrupted nap.

Ever notice that when you start one house project the rest of the house gets neglected and about half way through the project you realize just how messy the rest of the house is? No. Maybe it's just me. Our house been torn apart since Saturday and I am anxious to have it put all back together. 

For a long time DJ and I have been looking for curtains to hang in our master bedroom. We wanted something for added privacy since our bedroom is on the front side of the house but we also wanted something that would block the sun while DJ sleeps during the day. I finally found curtains a few weeks ago at Bed Bath and Beyond. So excited.

Since we were hanging curtains we decided we'd go ahead and paint our room since we'd talked about doing it since we bought the house. 

(Valspar paint Cool Rain 5005-10C, satin finish)

I still need to hang pictures and finish putting our room together but it's at least functioning for now. When we upgraded to a king size bed we haven't had a headboard. We eventually wanted to buy an entirely new bed set so we didn't buy a king headboard. Now with the paint, it looks more bare than it did before. I'd like to get three wrapped canvas pictures to hang above the bed but I am also loving this idea right now (but in white)

Headboard Shelf Tutorial

For right now our bedroom will be slowly pieced together. We hadn't planned on painting our room so it was an unexpected project. The only reason it got done first was because it was a smaller project than the one we originally planned on starting this week . . . .Taylor's room.

We wanted to give Taylor's room a special make over. Like all the other house projects on our list we've talked about painting her room since we bought the house. We also knew it needed to get done before other things took priority. It finally all came together and we started it Sunday. We bought the paint last week, installed her ceiling fan Sunday afternoon. Monday Taylor and I made a girls day out of it and went shopping for new wall hangings for her room. Why does everything for a girls room need to be covered in glitter with some sort of animal print, an owl or the word peace written all over it?? I was not impressed with what was in the stores but we did manage to find some very cute things. 

Tuesday morning we moved everything out of her room and got to work. I gave her an old t-shirt of mine to paint in and she couldn't have been more excited. 

DJ got the fun job of painting all the edges while I made a run for lunch. 

 If she could have painted the entire wall by herself she would have! DJ stayed close by to make sure nothing got spilled on the carpet.  

(Valspar Rose Dust 1002-1B, satin finish)

After we got her accent wall done we took a break for awhile. After dinner Taylor and I came back to work on her room some more. We got one half wall done with the first coat. Tomorrow we'll be painting more in there. 

(Valspar Opal Slate 4001-1C, satin finish)

The grey will be a little darker once we have a second coat done. By Sunday we'll have her room painted, decorated, curtains hung and all put back together again. I'll post more pictures as we go and of course of the final product. Can't wait to see it all put together. :o)

Home Enhancements

I've been spending a lot of time inside our house lately and it's starting to show. I've been working on some 'home enhancement' projects. I love our house. I really do. But it hasn't felt like it has a personal touch to it. So I decided to change that.

I browsed Pinterest (so thankful for it sometimes!) trying to find some cheap DIY projects I could do and gathered some decorating ideas because I fell into a rut (decoratively speaking). I am itching so bad for it to be Spring that I've been wanting to add pops of color everywhere I can. Everything outside is brown and lifeless and a lot of what's inside our home is brown - floors, cabinets, wall color, furniture. I saw brown everywhere I went. Short of painting I knew there were only a few things I could to help my issue.

I stumbled across this website and fell in love with the way she decorated her kitchen. I loved how simple and easy she made it look. I've always wanted to decorate the tops of our kitchen cabinets and I finally had the inspiration to do it. First, I gathered things I knew would work that I already had laying around our house.  It's still a work in progress but it's finally coming together.

Carrie and Paul gave us this picture a while ago but I never had anywhere to hang it. I might add some Bull Dog wine bottles to it.

This plate used to hang by our back sliding glass door but it got bumped a few too many times for me to be comfortable with it hanging there. This plate was a gift to me and it has a very  personal and special meaning. I love it and every time I see it it warms my heart. 

I picked up a few of these little plants. I thought they were too cute and would add just enough color to my windowsill.

I still felt like I needed a little more color so I tossed some yellow pears into my Sangria Jug. 

As you can see there's a few more finishing touches to make but I'm happy to finally see it all coming together. 

Above the left cabinet I want to add an old serving tray. 

Carrie and I went shopping and I found this one at Joann's and I may go back and get it. 

Other than the small decorating that's left I am going to make a mock-Roman shade for the kitchen. I found a great tutorial on making no-sew Roman shades and I think I will try that first. I just need to find the fabric I want to use and that's turning out to be the hard part. I did find shower curtain that might look good though. Not your normal fabric but anything would work. The woman who did the tutorial used a table cloth from Target. Some people are so creative! If it were circles instead of stripes I probably would have gotten it.

I'm also on the hunt for a decorative pillow for the bench in our entryway. It needs a pop of color and seeing that when I walk into the house would just make me happy :o) I haven't found a pillow that just said "that's the one! I NEED that!". I did find this fabric at Joann's and if I had a sewing machine I would have bought it and made my own pillow! This fabric makes me happy.

I've loved add all these touches to our home. And I really love that it hasn't cost us a lot of money and we've been able to use a bunch of stuff we already have. 

Paint Project #1

A long time ago we bought Taylor an art easel from Ikea. And for a looong time I have been wishing it was a different color. It's a chalk board on one side and a dry erase board on the other. She also has a large roll of paper attached to it.

The plain wood was fine but it didn't seem to fit in with the other bright colors in her loft. So Tuesday I took Taylor to Home Depot to buy some paint for it. She was so excited when I told her she could pick the color. She picked out Tootie-Frootie. 

I didn't get any pictures of the painting process. To be honest I was a little worried that if I took my white camera out into the garage it would somehow come back inside with pink on it. I was scared.

The easel turned out perfect! 

I love the way the pink looks in the loft. She has bright blue and green walls (as you can see in the pictures), a large purple chair and one wall is a chalk board wall. I'm working on the finishing touches of her loft and soon I'll post pictures of the finished room. It's been a work in progress but it's finally all coming together.

 

One Year and This Weekend

I woke up this morning to see snow. Not a whole lot but the ground is sprinkled white and the roof tops are white. Taylor was so cute when she saw it. She looked out her bedroom window, looking over the backyard and saw her trampoline was covered with snow. She said, all sleepy still, "I don't know how it got up there but I am going to go shove that snow right off it". Too funny. Does anyone else think it's still a little too early for snow? This time last year we were closing on the house and moved wearing t-shirts. 

I can't believe we have been in our house for a year. We moved in on Taylor's birthday and everyone said we set the bar really high last year by giving her a house for her birthday. I wouldn't disagree with that! Some days it feels like we have lived here forever and it just feels comfortable. Other times I look around and see all the projects we'd like to do and realize we have many, many years ahead of us here. I wonder how many years it will take us to have all our projects done? When you own a home, the work never stops. But I like it. I love knowing that for the next 10 years or more, Taylor will come walking through that front door after school and we'll keep building strong family memories here.

We sure have come a long way since then.

Speaking of family, my parents are on their way in from Kansas City. I couldn't be more excited. I love having them here - just wish it could be more often. I love that they come for Taylor's birthday. It makes this day that much more special. And while we didn't buy Taylor anything the size of a house this year we did get her a very cool gift. I can't wait to share what it is.

Thinking of special days. . . this weekend is a busy one. We are having Taylor's birthday party tomorrow. I plan on posting lots of pictures on it. We are also looking at a wedding venue and going dress shopping. So maybe after this weekend we will have a wedding date set. Just maybe, no promises yet. It was really important to me that my mom be here for dress shopping so we're squeezing it in while they're here. I've never tried on a wedding dress before. This will be interesting!

That's about all that's going on here. I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend! 

   

Home Tour - Kitchen

I think my favorite room in the house is our kitchen. I spend early mornings there drinking coffee, reading blogs, emailing and just relaxing before everyone wakes up. It's just inviting. When we moved in things were crazy busy. We moved into our house on Taylor's 3rd birthday - her party was the next day. I was working basically full-time, so was DJ. I was also in school, Taylor was still in gymnastics and would soon be starting school. While the house was still under construction I would look at pictures of our kitchen and picture how I would organize each cabinet, where things would go, what would sit out on the counter tops etc. For the most part everything went right where I thought it would.

We've been in the house for about 8 months now and some of our cabinets were in need of a good organizing. I also wasn't over the moon about some of the things covering our counters. I LOVE cleared, clean counter tops. A clean kitchen is one of my favorite things. With the weather being almost too hot to play outside, I employed Taylor as my little helper the other day and we conquered the kitchen. I am so happy about everything we accomplished - cabinets are clean and organized, we threw some stuff out, moved a few things around but mainly gave the counters a good deep cleaning.

I LOVE MY KITCHEN

(I took these pictures before I changed the picture in our frame. I promise there's a picture in there now)

I still want to find small things to decorate the top of our cabinets and some tin stars to hang above the sliding glass door.

Now if I could just find a way to keep finger prints off our stainless steel. . . and I'm off to conquer more around the home projects.

I Think You'll Like The View . . .

I love the view from our back door.

Sometimes it just doesn't get any better than this . . . 

Home Tour - Front Yard

Home ownership can change people in so many ways. Years ago you would have heard DJ complain about doing yard work. Now you can stop by our house and if he's not working you'll likely find us out tinkering around in the yard. He's starting to learn the names of flowers, talks about fertilizers and grass seed with the neighbors, and gets excited to come home from work and mow the yard. He is so proud of his yard. 

Our yard started off pretty boring in the beginning. . . 

We weren't big fans of the bushes out front so we dug them up, moved rock and added a flower bed. DJ did such a good job. . .  

When it was warm enough we planted flowers. We wanted pink, purple and white flowers. We planted two Hibiscus plants and a Peony (Thanks Paul!). Then we planted a few Lily's, a Columbine, and some Foxglove. We planted another plant but I can't remember the name of it. Turns out, contrary to what the tags read, Foxglove and the other plant do not survive well in full sun. We took them out and planted more Lily's. DJ was so excited when they finally bloomed. . .

We had bought a fountain for out front but as soon as we took it out of the box it was broken. You couldn't see it was broken and it still worked so we kept it. But then it just kept getting worse so we took that back too. Isn't it funny how many times something can change? Anyways, I found a really cute idea on Pinterest that DJ loved too so we went with that instead. We found an old milk can off Craigslist, got the flowers and did this . . . ( I couldn't find the original source for the idea anywhere)

 

Once the flowers spread it will look like spilt milk. We finally have our finished product . . . for now. . .