Bathtime, Part II

Remember this post?  Well I have another one.  November's version :)

Part I, seen here.

Narls' Room: Before and After

Because I'm a sucker for a visual before and after, I thought you might enjoy seeing some comparison shots of my son's room.

Narls' Room: Done!

Two months into home ownership and I just finished my first room! Before our house, my family and I lived in an apartment filled with white walls so I've been itching to paint with fun bright colors. As a result, my 2-year-old son's bedroom was our first room to decorate.

 

The entire inspiration for this room came from David Walker's FreeSpirit line of fabric.  I used it on the headboard, the bench and the curtains.   The majority of the paint came from Sherwin-Williams; the lime green is called Hep Green, the bright blue is Reflecting Pool and the vibrant orange is Navel.  The red trim was just a small container of a cherry red color from Home Depot and the black is chalkboard paint. 

The previous owner built that fullsize bed frame and set it sideways in the middle of the room. I had planned on removing it but when we lifted it up we noticed that they laid the new Berber carpet all around it buttttttt, not underneath it. Underneath was shaggy dark brown carpet. Pretty weird right? Especially since it didn't take much to lift that bed frame. Anyhow, new carpet isn't in the budget and my son sleeps on a full anyway, so I just worked with it.

 

A bed without a headboard looks strange to me so I made a headboard out of wood, fabric and batting and then mounted them on the wall. 

I spruced up the bench on the bed frame using the same idea only gluing it to the frame. 

Using shelves and frames from Ikea, we displayed the art he makes in his early preschool class. What can I say, we're proud parents.

I know the curtains would have looked better if I made them longer but I wanted to remove the temptation of hiding/playing in them and accidently pulling them down. 

Not too shabby for my first time making curtains, huh?

I found these space prints from Etsy.

I had to display his Uglydolls. They're too adorable not to. The cutout ones taped to the wall are decorations I made for his Little-Monster themed first birthday party. I'm nostalgically sentimental like that.

The chalkboard wall gets lots of love but I wiped it clean for this picture. Above the chalkboard are decals ordered from Etsy. Also, you might not be able to tell from the pictures, but we have glow-in-the-dark planets hanging from ceiling. And there are glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling and on all the walls - looks super cool at night(anything to make bedtime more appealing right?).

These little buckets from Ikea are perfect for holding chalk & erasers. 

We took the doors off the closet to make that space part of the room. Putting his dressers and shelves in there opened up the floor space for more important things, like playing. And tantruming. I repainted his dresser to match the room.

I have to include his book shelf because it's the first - and only - time it's been this clean and organized. 

I am so proud of this room! I'm thrilled about how much was diy and I'm thrilled to see my designs and ideas actually come to life just how I pictured them. And I'm  the most thrilled at how happy this room makes my little boy :)

Narls' Room: Before

My son's room is completely finished. Before I share the pictures with you, I want you to see what we started with.

Decorative wall moulding.  And wallpaper.  Lots and lots of wallpaper.  Layers of it, in fact. 

With creepy faces on it. 

And an alter bed in front of a closet with mirrored doors that were just begging to pinch tiny fingers.

Yeah. Not exactly the most toddler-friendly room, huh?

Cupcakes & Dragonflies

I absolutely love how my daugther's nursery is coming along.  I hung some cupcakes prints I bought the very day we heard our offer on our home was accepted and I hung the dragonflies that my bestfriend Tearah bought for Emerson from the ceiling.

 

Now to find the perfect rug.

Furnishing Our Home

We knew one of the first major purchases we'd have to make moving from a small apartment to a larger house with both a living room and a family room was another furniture set.  Clay and I have been searching for the perfect set this entire month.  I think we've been in a half dozen furniture stores to no avail. Everything was either the wrong size, the wrong color or the wrong price.

Just when we were ready to call off the search and sit on milk crates for the rest of our lives, we found it.  The set.  Right color, right size, right material, and best of all- right price!  So we bought it, and the matching ottoman, right then and there.

Clay and my stepdad went back the next day with my stepdad's truck and loaded it up and brought it home.  We saved ourselves over $100 by opting out of the store's delivery service.  I don't think they would of went that route again though, given the choice.  I heard it was pretty heavy.  And Clay swears he will never move this piece of furniture again so good thing it's such a perfect fit in our family room.



DIY: Curtains

After last week's curtain fiasco, I decided to just make the curtains for Narls' room myself.  Never mind that I've never made curtains before. How hard can it be right?  I ordered some adorable fabric off Etsy and waited patiently for it to arrive. Now that it's here, I cut each piece into what I determined to be appropriate sizes and I'm going to stich the pieces together with my sewing machine.  I'll then sew the edges in for a hem and add some tabs on top for the rod to slide through.  Wish me luck!

Ho Hum

I picked up some frames at Target for the hallway going into our family room.  I don't know.  I'm not completely in love with this. It needs something more, a wow factor.

Rugs & Curtains & Pictures, Oh My!

I've been making progress in the kitchen & dining room.  We have pictures on the walls now and rugs on the floor. And curtains too!  Wow, what a difference curtains make. I've never bought them before so imagine my surprise (read: annoyance and an irrational urge to kill) at discovering that curtains are sold singularly.  I didn't stumble on this vital piece of decorating knowledge, of course, until I was already home from the store, babies unloaded and feed, and curtain hung. I went back to the package to pull out the second panel and yeah, no second panel.  So I reloaded the babies, drove back to the store, bought the other panel and repeated the process.  Lesson learned. 

Ikea Haul

Clay and I snuck away to Ikea for a couple hours and got some awesome stuff for Narls' room. 

We picked up a couple long floating ledges, some brightly colored frames, and a trio of black frames plus a few other items. I love Ikea and I could seriously spend all day there.  

Halloween Recap

I am happy to report that while our subdivision isn't a full-sized-candy-bar subdivision, it is a good-selection-of-mini-sized-candy-bars subdivision.  We got tons of Kit Kats, Snickers, Milky Ways, Twix; very few Sugar Daddies, Bit-O-Honeys; and absolutely none of those disgusting wax candies with the syrup inside or those weird peanut-y candies in the orange or black wrappers.

And the best part? My fireman and his firepuppy had an absolute blast walking around our cute little neighborhood, collecting candy and seeing all the houses decorated for the holiday.

They got tired about halfway through though so we headed home early. It was actually a good thing because we got to hand out candy for a bit too.  I'm in love with the little people of this subdivision.