nursery reveal

We are probably 85% done with the nursery, so I thought I would share some photos.  I have made everything hanging on the walls (except the antique shoes my SIL, Laura, found for us), plus the blankie and elephant stuffed animal.  I also refashioned C's old mobile, just reusing the bones. I made the elephants for it and the coverings. We still need to recover our glider and solve our closet door dilemma, but mostly there.  My FIL is also making us a storage/shelf piece, but that will come later.

 (bes (b

Christmas Decor

We don't have our main family tree up yet, so those pics will have to come later, but we did already get out the rest of our decor.  I didn't photograph every little detail--that seems a bit overkill, but just the overall look.

 

Repurposing a garland I had made for our kitchen in Normal for our bannister.

 

Our sleigh holding our Xmas books

 

Buffet display. 

You can't quite make out my Merry Xmas garland across my mirror, but it's there.  You can see our Jesse Tree waiting patiently to be decorated through Advent.

 



 

My cousin's wife sent me this activity last year when I was stuck at home so much, but we didn't get around to it, so this year we are giving it a try.  Each day we read about a different "character" that impacts the Xmas story and hang an ornament that corresponds with that one.  You can see the Noah ornament--the ark and the God ornament just peeking out--Earth. 

The mantel.  Have you ever noticed one stocking always refuses to behave, or is it just me?

 

 



 

Entry table--you can just see part of my Willow Tree Nativity.  C says he loves seeing it every time he walks by.  He generally slightly adjusts an animal in passing. 

 

Atop the toy area.

 

I need to snap some outdoor photos in day and night as well.  We have some lit garland up on our upper porch and lights on our shrubs.

 

Now to get seriously busy about Xmas cards!

House painting "after" shots

I realized I'd never uploaded photos of our kitchen and family room painting. 

Here's a fuzzy shot of the two-tone in our eat-in kitchen.  It's the same darker gray that's in our dining room bottom and the alternating walls in our living room.

a slightly better shot with a different angle

it's hard to get a photo that shows the color of this room. it is a gray blue

our white-washed fireplace. we need new fp doors, but for now we have to wait and just show off that cool Thomas bridge C got for his bday and our dogs.

the dreaded toy area.  it really just doesn't look nice, but that's the way it is with kids i guess. 

our new rug. i guess it's not very new anymore.

any ideas on what to put in that tray on the coffee table?  I feel like we have so much brown i the room even though it's broken up by the white walls and fireplace on the one side.

House: Living Room and Dining Room After painting

Painting is finished!

We've finally got all the painting in the downstairs completed...well, not us, but the painter.  I think he did a great job.  We love the colors, and it just makes it seem more like home.  I need to take some pics to post.  We need to find new glass doors for our fireplace as the others had pretty bad smoke damage.  I want ones that can be closed with the fire burning, which seems to be hard to find.  Once we have those, we just need a coffee table and a backsplash (probably on hold until next year).  Our painter is going to paint our bedroom and C's bedroom in the fall probably--after we decide what we want up there.  Things are really coming together. 

C and I have had a pretty uneventful week as we had no plans.  We've been so busy with school and errands until this point that we hadn't really had to fill our days.  Today is the first day where we literally have NOTHING. It's 9 am, and I'm already bored.  I'm kind of at a loss of what to do.  Library, CEC (it's a bit cool today and wet), the indoor playcenter.  This is the first time it feels really obvious we don't really know anyone other than family.  I have something most weeks of the summer, but a few gaps, and I don't do well sitting around.  I'm also not great at spur of the moment planning.  C just wants to do the slip-n-slide, but it's been way too cold the last few days. 

House tour: Upstairs part 1

I'm posting the 2 rooms that are completely finished so far.  C's room and the guest room won't really have much more done to them.  We might paint C's room, but have no immediate plans/ideas.  The guest room will also function as my craft room, so I have to work on getting stuff from my basement up there and organized in drawers and the closet.  I'm so unmotivated to do this right now. 

As you can see, it looks pretty similar to the way it's always looked.  I got new curtains b/c I didn't have any to fit the big window that matched as we've never had a double window in the guest room before.  Even though we've had the black and white going in the guest room for 5 years, I still like it.  I would love to paint the walls a bright color (once upon a time we paired it with blue) to offset all the black.

I don't like having the head of the bed at the doorway, but there's not really another option b/c of the narrowness of the room combined with the window/closet placement.

This will be my sewing area

This house has crazy closets.  This is in the spare room.  It's a bit of a catchall.  My dresses are in there, Scott's biking stuff/hiking stuff, sewing machine, our ironing/steamer stuff, our table linens, and some upstairs cleaning stuff. My craft stuff will join the hodge podge eventually b/c it's no where near full.

Here's C's closet--huge again.

C's room is way too big for a second bedroom.

these 3 canvases are a new addition

the trash can, too

once again, it's pretty much a slight variation of what it's always been

i think we need blinds for his room.  it's hard to get it dark enough, and I don't really want blackout curtains.

 

His favorite part of his new room is the red rug. He picked it out.  It's a super soft, shag style rug.  He calls it red snow. He loves to read down there. We pull out his baby quilts I have displayed in the corner and a fuzzy pillow he picked out when he wants a pallet there.  He has two smaller kids-style rugs on the other side of his bed.  This is more so he can get in and out of bed w/o falling.  His stool slipped continuously on the hard floor.  I'm not crazy about all the hard floors upstairs b/c it's really loud w/the dogs' nails and the doors were hung when there was originally carpet, so there are large gaps between the doors and floors.

I will take pics of the office once Scott gets it picked up.  I swear that man could live in a pig stye.  I can't stand stuff sitting all over the floor, but not him.  It's all stuff that I think relates to work, so I don't know where to put it away.  Honestly he needs a bigger desk, but we're making do with what we had already.

House sneak peak 1

Here is a little sneak peak of the first-floor of our house.  We are having it all painted this week, so it will look a bit different soon.  I will take pictures of the upstairs, basement, and outside later.

Here's where we put up all our paint options.  It is unbelievable how many shades of brownish-gray there are.  It was mind-numbing.  I hate choosing paint colors. 

Here's a pan out of the room.

This is our eat-in kitchen.  It has the entrance to our deck, our laundry closet area, and a tiny "hallway" to the garage.

This is one side of the kitchen.

The other side

Our family room

The mantle/fireplace.  The fp is being whitewashed...I'm really excited.

More paint choice fun

Sort of a flow shot from our family room.  This is the entry way into the L.R. you can see here.

This is our living room/foyer. This dresser (Scott's mom's teenage bedroom furniture) is getting a paint makeover soon. Trying to decide if I'm going to play it safe or go bold.  I need to make a cushion for my bench, but not sure what fabric to choose until I paint the dresser.