I Really Haven't Fallen Off the Face of the Earth...Just Had a Baby!

This blog will be up and running eventually. Thanks for hanging in there with me! I actually do have several projects to post about, including the long-awaited post of Luke's and Mia's newly decorated rooms. It will be posted as soon as I can get it written!

Post from our family blog:

So for all of you who are sticking around with me, I will get back to the blog world eventually. I'm in them middle of writing Mia's birth story (which will be my next post) and believe me, it's going to be a long one!

Thanks for your continued prayers and support. We are adjusting well to life with two little ones; it's tough and tiring, but so worth it! Today is Mia's due date and she'll be 4 weeks old on Tuesday. I CANNOT BELIEVE that she is already 1 month old!

Luke had a wonderful 2 year old birthday and party (pictures and post to come). He is the sweetest big brother and is adjusting well to his new life of not being the only one.

Stick with me! There are many exciting updates to come!

Project Rewind: DIY Day: Office Nook

Originally posted: October 26, 2009

Our house has three bedrooms; master bedroom (which you recently saw re-vamped), Luke's room, and what has been the office/storage room. Well, I decided (especially after Luke's 1st birthday) to make the office/storage room a playroom for Luke, which leaves me needing some place to write bills, store pens, paper, tape, etc. So, I ended up making the end of the hall in between Luke's room and playroom, a little office nook. The end of the hall started out as just that; a plain, dark end of the hall. The inspiration for this project is Rhoda's office space seen here. Here's how mine turned out...

Before: The wall as the same color as the other walls; antique piece of furniture (called a secretary) that I used as the office component, the front of it folds down to make a desk top and it has four drawers below and a cabinet display shelf unit above.

First step: Painting the wall; this is the same color as my guest bathroom (I'll be posting about those DIY projects soon), it is a Behr color called Caribbean Coral.

Second step: Adding the trim; I added this chocolate, velvet trim that I bought at Joann Fabric. I ended up using white thumb tacks to hold it to the wall. I thought this worked out nicely, because it looks a little like upholstery tacks.

Final step: Decorating and accessorizing-my favorite part!:) I re-purposed these three Southern Living at Home trivets as wall art and used my small library of decorating books on the left side of the top of the secretary. I also used an antique apothecary jar, more books, and a hurricane candle holder to finish out decorating the top.

Here is the cabinet shelf unit. I forgot to take an upclose picture, but I taped scrapbook paper to the back that has a paisley pattern and a lot of the colors of my house in the design. My mom helped me get the items on the shelves arranged just right and I love the way it came it. I also used velcro to add push lights to the top to add some lighting down in this dark end of the hall and so you could see all the "pretties" better.


And here's the final product! Like I said when I was doing the master bedroom re-do, decorating is never "done" to me, but this at least is a great start and result up to this point!

Let me know what ya think, and also how have you incorporated an office into your house? Do you have a room or just a little space you would call a nook? Also, look for a post at the end of the week to see how I've re-vamped our back porch!

Project Rewind: DIY Project: Master Bedroom (Part 3-Finally!)

Originally posted on September 14, 2009:

So here is the final post about our master bedroom redo. It's taken me awhile to get the small details in place so that's why it's been so long coming. Of course, I still have a few ideas in mind to finish out in there, but all the main stuff is in place. I don't think a room is ever really "done". I'm constantly thinking of things to add or take away, but for the sake of having some closure on this project, I'm posting the "final" product!:) Hope you enjoy the tour of our redesigned room!

Welcome to the room! This is the view of what you see when you enter. You can see the horizontal stripes on the back wall; hung in the middle is one of our wedding pictures that I had printed by Shutterfly to a poster size. The frame that it is hanging in is one my grandad made awhile ago. You can also see the variety of bed pillows, which the majority of them I made by finding fabric and covering over old pillows (more on that in a minute). Another point of interest is the curtains. I'll tell you more about those in a sec too, but you're going to be amazed at what they are made out of!

Closer up view.

The two back pillows and the two square pillows towards the front are the ones I made. I simply found fabric at the United Textiles store in Bessemer (a great place for fabrics, rugs, window treatments, etc) on the the remnant table ($4.49/yd), measured my existing pillows, cut the fabric to size, and sewed them up on the machine! The green quilted pillow is another pillow covered over with a euro sham I found at Pottery Barn on clearance for $10 (originally $60 or $70!)! The monogrammed pillow was a wedding gift from my aunt and I found the round tufted pillow a couple of weeks ago at Ross Dress for Less on clearance for $7!

Closer view

Alright, now on to the curtains! These are not really curtains at all; they are painter's canvas drop cloths! My mom and I regularly check several decorating blogs and this was an idea we found on one of them (within the post, click on the hyperlinked "drop clothes" and you'll see even more detailed pictures along with Layla's inspiration). These drop cloths are from Lowe's for $9.99 a piece and measure 6ftX9ft! You simply can't find curtains this big for that price! They come hemmed so all you have to do when you get them home is wash and dry them and hang them up! Couldn't be simpler!

This shows how I hung them with curtain rod clips. This way, I did no sewing at all! I also hung them about 1ft higher than the top of the window to make the windows look longer.

Here they are going all the way down to the floor. The thing I love about this idea is the fact that they are so inexpensive, but really give a dramatic look. They are long and the canvas is textural and natural looking. They do only come in this standard canvas color, but you could always dye them, stencil a pattern or monogram on them, etc. Also, they can be dressed up by adding trim or fringe or a sheer curtain behind them. This makes them great for just about any room in your house. The possiblities are endless!

The right side of the room. You can see the shelf on the wall we talked about a couple of weeks ago, and the three pictures on the wall are actually black and whites of our hands. The top one is of our hands with our promise rings on, the second is one of my engagement ring, and the third are our hands at our wedding with our wedding bands! Just a fun way to remember those times in our lives as well as inexpensive wall art. The door goes into our bathroom which will be another DIY project post to come soon.

This is the left side of the room. You can see some frames I painted and also a cedar chest that I covered to make into a bench. I'll post before and after pictures of the frames later, but as for the cedar chest, this was an easy project. I just took some upholstery foam and batting, wrapped it over the top, stapled into place, and then covered it with this fabric that I also found at the United Textiles store for about $9 (another remnant piece). Stapled that into place and this project was finished.

Here's a closer view of the fabric (which I just love!) and also how the fabric folds in at the corners. This is the trickiest part of the project, but easy to figure out with some practice. And if you mess it up, just pull out the staple and try again!

Here's the wall opposite of the bed. The dresser with the candlesticks and two plates hanging in the corner. I'm wanting to replace the drawer pulls on the dresser, but am having trouble finding some. The measurement is 3 1/4 in, which most come in 3in. So if you find any 3 1/4in, let me know!

One last view. I do want to mention I found the runner at the foot of the bed on clearance at Ross Dress for Less for $15! I wanted something to anchor the bed and I think it also draws the brown out of the furniture to the floor.

Thanks for hanging in there to see this project to completion! I hope you enjoyed it and I'll keep you posted on some more DIYs to come! I already have a few in the works...

Project Rewind: DIY: Master Bedroom (Part 2)

Originally posted on August 20, 2009:

I know, I know. I haven't posted the rest of the pictures from the weekend redo of our master bedroom. Mainly, because the finishing touches are taking awhile to complete. So, I promise, there will a Part 3 to this DIY project which will include the finished product!


But until then...


Here is a shelf that hangs on one of the walls. This is my "taste of the sea" shelf! Nate Berkus, Oprah's designer, says every room should have some element of the sea in it, so this is my bedroom tribute to the sea!:) I mostly wanted to do it because it obviously reminds me of the beach, which is one of my favorite places. One of the goals of redesigning our bedroom was to make it a relaxful retreat, and having beachy things helps to do that in my opinion! I actually really like the way it came out.






This is also a DIY project, because I kinda just made this wood into a shelf. I found this old piece of wood (that already had green paint on it and was distressed and peely) in my grandad's workshop amongst scrap pieces of wood! Then my dad had given me these scrolly brackets that he made and I decided they would work great with the scrap wood to make this shelf.



The hurricane is filled with sand, seashells (gathered from the beach), and a brown candle that has a neat basketweave design on it that was about $5 on clearance at HomeGoods. The driftwood my mom brought home from the beach for me and the starfish she bought from a little collectible store in Panama City. Lastly, the small print was bought on a trip that Ross and I took to Bermuda. I just loved it and wouldn't it be nice to have a beach house one day that looks much like the little white house in the print!


So that's the touch of the sea in my bedroom. Do you have any beachy items in your house? If not, consider adding something that brings the relaxful, peaceful feel of the beach right to your home!

Project Rewind: DIY Weekend Project: Master Bedroom (Part 1)

I've decided to transfer previous DIY posts from our family blog over to this blog to keep them all together. So for those of you who have been a reader of our blog for awhile, these projects will be old news to you. Stick with me while I get these transfered, and then the first new project post will be about Luke's and Mia's rooms (which are almost completed-YAY!)!

Originally posted August 6, 2009:

This weekend, Ross and I decided to repaint our bedroom. We had wanted to get this project done before Luke was born, but you know how these things go sometimes. We had repainted our bathroom before he was born, so this was the finishing painting touch to redoing our bed/bath. All the walls started out a Sherwin Williams color called Latte. The bathroom is now Palm Breeze by Behr and the bedroom is Spring Hill by Behr also. (I couldn't get these colors to link right, so you can go to behr.com and search them if you want to see what they look like.)

I have seen decorators on many HGTV shows paint wide horizontal stripes as an accent wall, and I've loved the look of it. I decided to give this a try on the back wall of our bedroom! The pictures below are of the striping process. On part 2 of this post (maybe I'll get around to posting it this weekend), I'll show a completed picture (with furniture and window treatments). I really love the way it came out and it was a fairly easy process. I also have pictures posted below of some candlesticks I painted to go on our dresser. Again, an easy process with a big result.

Striping Process:


The back wall after being painted Spring Hill. As you can see, the level is leaning against the wall--this is the only way to get straight stripes!


The wall after being taped. The height of the wall measured 105" so I decided I wanted 5 stripes so each stripe ended up being 21" each. I then painted Palm Breeze (the color of the bathroom) on the top, middle, and bottom stripes.

The end result! I love it! As you can see, Palm Breeze, Spring Hill, PB, SH, and PB (well you can't see that one!).

Upclose of the middle stripe.

Candlestick Project:

I have three candlesticks, large, medium, small. This is a picture of the medium size one. These candlesticks actually started out dark red and gold, but I previously had spray painted them brown. You can see all the intricate carving and detail of the piece.

Here's an upclose picture of the top of the candlestick.



Now, here is the end result! I love the way it came out. All I did was take the paint color of the walls (Spring Hill) and a foam brush and lightly brushed it over the whole piece. The green paint really brings out all the details, while the grooves are still brown. A little bit of paint gives this piece a whole new look.



Upclose of the top.

The finished product! Now, they have 3 vanilla pillar candles sitting on top of them and they look great! This was just the look I was going for.

The Birth of a New Blog: Man Cave vs. Mom Cave

Ross and I were watching tv the other night and we saw a Home Goods commercial where a lady converted her husband's "man cave" into a "mom cave" using all the great stuff she found out shopping! Her husband comes home with a bunch of buddies, and much to his surprise his room is gone and she is lounging in a chaise, reading a magazine. Looking quite puzzled, he says something like, "Man cave?" And she sort of sheepishly replies, "Mom cave?!" I thought it was great, and, as Ross says, "my wheels started spinning!" Every momma needs a place to retreat, but seldom do we take time or find a place to be by ourselves and pursue other interests that excite us.

One day I hope to have a mom cave (MC) of my own, aka, a room in my house where I can go and do all my projects; somewhere to set up my sewing machine, organize my craft stuff, set up a gift wrapping station, etc. As you can tell I've been thinking about this for awhile! My MC would be a place to relax and unwind and to have fun doing all the little things that interest me outside of being a wife, raising two kids, and teaching ballet! But until that room exists, I'll continue to have my dining room overrun with project stuff!

So after all of that daydreaming about the perfect MC, the idea for this blog popped into my head! I have been wanting to go private with our family blog for awhile now, but still wanted to be able to post and have people view DIY ideas, projects, recipes, and other various interests. So this blogspot is the perfect place.

For the time being, this will be my dreamed about MC. Projects will be continue to be done in my overcrowded dining room or anywhere else I can find a spot, until one day you'll be reading posts from my own MC itself! What a great day that will be!

I hope you'll enjoy this little place of my own, and maybe you'll get inspired to create a mom cave too!