Stairs

I have been totally jazzed by the numbered stairs that have been all over the web. I have yet to see a place that lists vinyl numbers specifically for this purpose (I think pottery barn kids may have had them at some point) and everywhere I looked into having them done seemed a little excessive... so I figured a DIY was in order

It took me a little while to think of an easy way to accomplish it but it finally hit me- black contact paper. I found it off of Amazon for somewhere around $11 (I actually bought the chalkboard contact paper because it had better reviews). 

Then I played around in Publisher until I found a font I liked and a good text size. After that it went fast I just laid out my printed numbers on top of the contact paper and cut through both  layers with an exacto knife. 

With just a little bit of measuring they all went up super fast. They have been up a few weeks and they continue to look good and are staying stuck. I would suggest cleaning your stairs very well so there is no dirt to get in the way of your sticker sticking. I took this opportunity to finally fully paint my stairs since I was so sick of painting when we originally refinished them that I had never bothered to finish .... and then forgot all about it. 

I barely used any of the contact paper so I see more projects in the future. Martha Stewart has all of the neat holiday silhouette stickers at Michael's so I might have to try my hand at something like that. 

Corner Cabinet

There is an empty useless corner in our upstairs hallway that is big and yet small at the same time, it sits right outside of Micahs room which has french doors. I have been diligently searching craigslist for corner cabinet possiblities for MONTHS and finally succeded the weekend before we left for California this popped up- it looked terrible on the post but I figured hey why not go check it out.

I'm so glad I did!  It ended up being exactly what I have been looking for (minus the beach scene). It is solid wood and the lady was more then happy to sell it to me for $100 - What!? Ridiculous! She could have easily got double from what I have seen (I found it online, unfortunately they don't list a price).

I finally found time to sand it down, repaint it and add some pretty crystal knobs. Uber also anchored it to the wall and redid the quarter round so it fits into the corner snuggly.

I am so beyond thrilled about this I have more plans for finishing off this upstairs area - it's going to be the  'travel' themed section of our house...

Kitchen Improvement

This wine rack has bugged me since we moved in. Yes I selected for it to be there (though honestly I have no idea why) but I never expected it to be all awkwardly up high like that and 5 years into living with it, it's become clear that it is completely useless we usually put a bunch of San Pellegrino up there for decoration and it all just collects dust and is a total pain to clean. Yesterday when I was deep cleaning the kitchen I realized that the wine rack is just held in with little finishing nails... awesome! 

So I talked to Uber about it and asked him to rip it out. But when I got up this morning I realized... who needs him! So I did it myself and I LOVE it! I have always wanted a book shelf in the kitchen and have been trying to figure out ways to put one in ... duh! I would still like to do something with the awkward space below the cabinet but for now I am extremely happy with this improvement.

P.S. Why can't I decide on a fabric and make myself a kitchen aide cover- so irritating!

Chalkboard Paint = hours of fun

I have a few  plans to update our house this year- just fun smaller things to spice things up a little since I am home all day. The first thing I wanted to work on was our entry way which I have never really done anything with. It's pretty small so there isn't much that can be done but it went from this:

 To this:

I used chalkboard paint to make the area a little more interesting. Below the cork cork board I also put a few layers of magnet paint so now the fridge magnet letters can be used here as well. I drew birch trees on the one wall but I plan to switch it up through out the year... or really just when every I feel like a change. Also I bought chalk markers which write on the walls much better than just plain chalk and they don't come off unless you use water- so no worries about someone brushing the wall and being covered in dust. 

 This is behind the front door Mum and I found this fantastic HUGE mirror at Home Goods for a ridiculously low price- I have been looking for a mirror for here forever and hadn't found anything I loved and was affordable. The frame is really neat. And now I can get one last peak at what a mess I am before I leave the house.

 A better view of the cork board/magnet wall. That is Micah's silhouette down there, his grandparents traced him!

 So another room that has been bugging me for a while is this small half bath its very narrow which makes putting artwork on the big wall that you face when you walk in difficult because it feels like its in your personal space- Excuse the OLD photo I forgot to take a before so this is a pre new flooring photo!

 Chalk board paint now covers this wall to- so yeah i am totally embracing the writing on stall walls look in here. Weird - probably but it's a lot of fun.

 And anyone is welcome to add decorations - infact the walls are a lot more decorated now than when I took this picture. I figure I will wait until it is filled up and then think about erasing and starting over.

 Here's a view of the other side of the room. It's just impossible to get decent photos!

And if you have ever wondered  it may not seem possible but you can in fact fit 3 adults and a baby in this room.... 

I know this look wont be for every one but it has been fun for us and a quick coat of paint will put it all back to normal if I should get bored with it-- that's what I had to tell Uber when he walked in from a business trip to see half painted black walls in his house... I realized I hadn't really run the project by him... SURPRISE! But he ended up really liking it so I guess it is a good thing I forgot to ask because talking him into it would have been hard (apparently)

Master Bedroom

Uber was nice enough to help me make a headboard while he had a few days off with the holidays. I LOVE it! I finally (5 years later) feel like we have a complete master bedroom!

Here's a reminder of the before with the new side tables

And here is the after!
I went back and forth on buying verse DIYing and finally after looking everywhere I decided I just had to try it myself. I was amazed at the high prices in the stores and the not so great quality! Plus I wanted a bed skirt that matched to make it look completed since our room is a little small for the whole bed frame thing.
The nail head trim was key for me- it took a few hours but I think it was totally worth it!
And a not so great shot of the bed skirt.
So the project break down:

Fabric- $55 -6 yards of Coffee Divesitex Whitney Linen/Rayon Blend...

Joanns-$15 -2 yards of kona cotton to finish off the back, and 2 yards of 90" muslin for bed skirt

Foam and upholstery batting- $50.80 - I am so happy with this company! I completely recommend them to anyone needing quality foam. They had excellent and fast customer service. I told them what I was making and they told me what I needed (and their recommendation saved me money!) Shipping was fast and inexpensive- it's part of the total above!

Home Depot-67.48 - this included the 2x4's, sheet of mdf, bolts to attach headboard to bedframe, screws, wood glue, and a ton of upholstery tacks!

So total is $188.28 for the headboard and bedskirt- not bad!

and here is Micah with his Uncle... just because the photos made me laugh! He is not into babies so it's fun to make him hold Micah!! Micah finds him very interesting to watch but not so much on being held by him... I think it has to do with Beau holding him completely awkward I know they'll be good buddies when he gets a little older... and doesn't randomly spit up/poop!

Randomness

Micah received this awesome silver spoon (lol) from his awesome Uncle Kris and I wanted to display it until Micah can actually use it so I broke out some of my Martha Stewart craft stash to whip up a shadow box... I kinda love it!

I FINALLY found night stands for the Master bed room this has been a LONG hunt ... years actually. I had something in mind and I never found it exactly and anything close was sooo ridiculously expensive that there was no way I was settling. I happened to be playing around on pottery barn the day after thanksgiving and came across these... on clearance and with no delivery surcharge- Perfect!
I loved them even more when they arrived! I also bought the charging stations which are great (also clearance and free shipping!). The baskets underneath are Target. Now I just need to get the headboard done I think I have finally decided to make one for this room... well see how long that takes me!
How cute are these? These are some that Mum made from Heather Baileys Tutorial they fit him so well! Of course I lost one the first time I took him out of the house in them... not the shoes fault I am pretty sure they came off when I pulled him out of his carrier : ( but no worries she said she'll make him another pair!
Micah in his prison outfit...
He is getting so close to laughing he smiles at you and makes happy noises but he hasn't actually laughed yet...

oh and I actually finished a big craft project yesterday so hopefully will get pictures of it to show you tomorrow!

Check out Mum's new blog!

Where she'll be sharing all the neat things she does with her new house!

Consolidating

Since I've been back I have started the process of consolidating the office and guest room down into one room so that I can start getting the nursery together - I only have 99 more days until my due date! I can't believe that it's approaching quite so quickly my to do list is a mile long... not that it all has to be done before the baby arrives - but it sure would be nice!

The Guest Room and Office are for the most part completely unused spaces for us. I did the bare minimum for each room knowing that in the future we would be purging most of the stuff in them to make room for kids. Below is the before picture of the guest bedroom corner/closet that is now going to house our home office. We actually just bought the desk a few months ago it's been completely bare in this corner for the last 4 years.
After some slight reworking of my original plan here's what we ended up with.

The details--

Desk - Is from World Market, I chose this one because it was reasonably priced, solid wood, and on the small but not too small side.

Shelf - Is from Ikea I put little feet on the bottom of the shelf to allow it to sit closer to the wall.

Storage containers -

The aluminum storage bins are in the heavy duty garage storage at Lowe's, they are slightly to long for the shelving unit, but since it's in a closet I just kept it about an inch from the wall and it worked out perfectly.
Ribbon and paper storage are from Michael's

Magazine storage is from Ikea

Floating shelf - from Lowe's. Originally it was black I painted it white.

I'm really happy with the way that it turned out! I have some finishing touches and things I would still like to do in here but it's completed for the time being... the nursery sounds like a lot more fun to work on! The crib and chair have been ordered so I will start making final decisions on the the nursery soon!

Random

The one item we did manage to pick up on my Orlando shopping list was the EXPEDIT shelf from ikea. Which was actually the most important item... I do have to say the ikea trip was rather rough because it came right after shopping at the millennium mall next door that had nothing I had needed...plus ikea has this ability to suck all of your energy away- have you noticed this issue? We were in and out in an hour and it felt like it had taken at least five. And of course ikea is always slammed. Anyway, we got all the way to the display for these shelves and it said that they were out of stock in the white... it was a total bummer but I know that this happens all the time at ikea so I tried not to let it get to me... actually I told uber it saved him some money because there were some small items I was going to get but I didn't feel like waiting in line for. Anyway we checked the warehouse area anyway and it turned out that had a bunch of the shelves in stock! So mission accomplished.

I don't have much respect for ikea stuff it tends to not be made well but I do have to say this shelf is very sturdy and didn't take terribly long to assemble.
I bought the shelf because it is the exact size of the opening for our closets in the guest bedroom and study. We decided to try it out first in the study and we will buy a second one for the guest bedroom on our next trip. Uber removed the doors from the closet. We are going to store them in the attic for the time being because I wanted the closet opened up for workspace.

So here is the first peek at it. There is a lot more that we are going to do with the closet area but this is the first step. And since I am really not sure how long it is going to take me to get to the next steps I figured I would show you what I had so far!

The ultimate plan is to paint the closet with an accent color. Remove the wire shelf and replace with a floating shelf, raise the ikea shelf up on feet to counter height and top it off with a counter top to make the whole thing feel built in... it wont be done to be permanent since the next person to own the house may not want it and we will make it so the closet doors will still work with it inside.

I found the paper and ribbon shelf sitting on top at Michael's, I think it is a new product they are carrying, I really like them I might run by and pick up a few more of the cubes I think they have about 10 variations with drawers and all sorts of things, they are stackable and they even sell counter tops to be attached across the tops of them. I was in the study cleaning and thinking I could really use something to organize all the random paper I have and then I walked into Michael's and they had this line all on promotion at 50% off. So I grabbed the ribbon thing too. I never realized I had so little ribbon! I think I am going to have to go shopping!

Oh and this is a picture of the whole room so you can see it's a mess. Uber wanted you to see it. He was making fun of me for taking a picture of the closet from the one angle that you couldn't see all of the mess from. So to get him back I took it with him in it.... he is part of the mess you know...

I had some fun this weekend on etsy and ordered a bunch of fabrics for my nonexistent stash. I am loving these prints. I am hoping they allow me to finish a few projects that I have started. I am realizing that you really need to have fabric on hand. I didn't buy a lot of it I am hoping I don't regret it later because these prints are pretty awesome. Alright I have to get to church.

What's making me happy... or was...

Since I have already told some of you about this project I am blogging about it before I am finished...I thought I would be done already so I feel bad making you wait any longer!
So I got this wild hair to make garland the other day... and boy am I making garland! I figured I would pick up just a few types of paper to try out and here they are... ahem...so maybe I went a little overboard on my paper selection... since Sunday I have been punching paper and sewing...

They are totally making me happy! And since I bought sooooo much paper I am going to throw some up in the shop and see how they do... or I am going to hang them from the ceilings and freak Uber out when he comes home... speaking of which

Our guests came in Sunday night from their trip to Savannah (Uber had left that morning) and they were very entertained by the madness going on at the dinning room table and wanted to know if I was planning to do the whole house in them while Ubers gone... I guess a grown woman cutting out paper and sewing it together is a little weird...

So the frustrating part is some how my settings on Adobe Elements got all wonky and I cannot figure out how to get them back to rights. Does anyone know a way to restore default settings? Whatever I have managed to do to isn't resetting by closing out the program. Anyway if anyone can trouble shoot that would be awesome my technical support is on vacation!

I have all of this adorable packaging in mind but am unable to create the graphics. I did manage to get one done though so here's a preview

I've been thinking up fun names for what each of the garlands colors remind me of. This one's blue and green so I called it Oceanside. The garland on the label matches the colors of the garland enclosed.... is this a little obsessive? Probably but it is super cute...

Hopefully my technical difficulties will be fixed shortly and I will be able to get some of these up in the shop...