the table.

We've never been in love with our table. It was sturdy and could expand to a very useful size. But it wasn't our style. And it had upholstered chairs. Upholstered chairs with kids = worst idea ever. It was getting pretty worn and instead of refinishing it, we sold it on Craigslist to a very excited man who thought he could fit it in the back of his small VW (I can't tell you how many people have shown up at our house in small VWs to haul huge Craigslist items).

And then Ben built us a table. We came up with a design and Ben built the table top. We ordered the steel hairpin legs online. And voila. A table we are in love with.

It was actually a fairly easy process. But somehow still took a few months. The hard part being finding the time (daylight hours with good weather so Ben could work outside). Building the actual table top only took a few hours. We had a hard time getting the stain just right. Stained it, didn't like it, sanded the whole thing down and started again. We ended up mixing a few different colors.

We got the chairs online. They're light, stackable, and EASY TO CLEAN! We plan to either buy two more mismatched chairs or Ben might build a bench.

Next up is a makeover for the rest of the dining room...

Ben's favorite new tool: the kreg jig!

bedroom update. or, how one thing lead to another...

Several months ago we realized we needed to put some shelves up by Amelia's bed so she could store her books for reading at night. And somehow hanging shelves took a few months.

Before we could hang shelves, I had to repaint the whole wall. When we moved the bunk beds there a year ago, we removed some big shelves from the wall and there was some serious paint damage that we never fixed. So I painted the wall.

Then it took a few weeks to decide on shelves. We thought about making some out of an old pallet since I had seen several tutorials for that. But that didn't really fit the style of the room. Then I saw a quick IKEA solution on Pinterest a few months ago and immediately ran to IKEA and picked up $4 spice racks to use as book shelves.

Then the spice racks sat in our house for several weeks. I finally decided to paint them white, but that meant I should probably paint the bed white too (something I had always meant to do). So, multiple coats of paint later, the bed and shelves were white. (See the before here, although I photoshopped out the yucky wall.)

And I figured as long as I was painting things, I would repaint the table and chairs since they had been destroyed by marker and crayon (see the before here). Ben suggested making the top of the table a chalkboard since the kids write on it anyway. And I already had chalkboard spray paint laying around. And I figured as long as I had the chalkboard paint out, I would use it to add "labels" to some mini drawers that we finally hung up.

And I updated Elsa's bedding.

And that is how a project as simple as hanging shelves can take me months.

Living Room Reveal

Remember the wall? The one that took us a few months to finish? Well, we finished it. And then it took me a few months to post about it. I guess I was waiting until our living room was 100% finished. But I'm still searching for a few finishing touches. And since I'm always changing things, it will probably never be finished.

The stenciled wall:




We were really tired of our living room. The style was never really us. And the furniture made it feel way too cramped.

The before:

(Originally there was a matching love seat squished in there. Those paintings had been floating up there for a few years ever since we moved the armoire to the corner. Definitely time for a makeover.)

AFTER:




BEFORE:


AFTER:

couch (which converts to a bed!): major bargain at World Market
rug: carpet squares from FLOR


metal chair and orange geometric chair: World Market
side table: thrift store ($15!)


blue chair: Urban Outfitters
tv stand: Modern Mobler (great store in DC with mid-century modern furniture)




My mom made the pillow covers with Joel Dewberry fabric I got on Etsy.


Our old curtain rod was sagging. We changed it out for plumbing! I love repurposing things. I might attempt to spray paint this a copper color.


This clock used to hang in my Grandpa's grocery store back in the 50s. Then it moved to the meat shop behind his house. My cousins and I would play in there all the time and I always loved this clock. I'm so glad I was able to snag it. It had been hiding in my dining room but I realized it was a perfect match for the new living room. It actually works perfectly and even lights up. The cord is too short right now so we're working on a solution that doesn't involve a huge extension cord hanging on the wall.

Going Gray

We finished redecorating the nursery right before Oliver was born. It had been yellow and green since Amelia was born and we were ready for a change. We are really happy with the gray wall color we ended up with and now I'm wanting it in my living room. But it's exhausting just to think about that so I'm pretty sure we'll stick with what we have. I really wanted to do gray (do you prefer gray or grey?) and orange and wasn't sure how it was going to come together, but I'm happy with the result.

I bought an extra set of orange curtains and my mom made a crib skirt out of one panel (the other one makes an excellent table cloth). The fabulous vinyl wall art is from blik. We used blik for the girls' room as well.

The pictures don't quite do the colors justice, but you get the idea.

BEFORE:


AFTER:




BEFORE:


AFTER:




BEFORE:


AFTER:




Oliver LOVES laying on his changing table. Whenever he's really fussy we can usually just lay him down there and he immediately calms down and starts staring at the pictures on the wall. Sometimes he even smiles at them.

The bunk bed.

With a new occupant for the nursery on the way, we had to figure out a way to fit Elsa into Amelia's room. I absolutely love organizing spaces, and especially small spaces. Which is good since we will most likely be living in this house for the rest of our lives.

The best solution was a bunk bed. I didn't want to lose any floor space, and twin bunk beds were going to take up a lot of room. There is a little nook in the room that is perfect for a bed, but it's too small for a twin size. Enter Ben. He thought about building toddler bunk beds, but then came up with the idea to modify an IKEA twin size bunk bed. He cut it down to the size of an IKEA toddler bed, which is longer than a regular toddler bed, and a little wider (and should fit the girls for a long time). And it happens to fit perfectly in our nook.

Now, do not think this was an easy task. He had to cut, with perfection, over 40 boards and drill new holes to make the bed both shorter and narrower. He worked on it for 12 hours straight (and this was after doing a 9-mile run in the morning...I get tired just thinking about it). We're still not sure if building it from scratch would have been easier or faster, but we're really happy with the results. The bed is perfect. Perhaps we'll paint it someday. Probably not.

Amelia is SO excited to have a bunk bed. She said "I hope I can sleep in a bunk bed the rest of my life!!" We're headed off on a 10-day trip to Utah soon and she keeps telling me how much she will miss her bunk bed. The girls have already built countless forts with it. We haven't had Elsa start sleeping in there yet, but we'll get to that in the next few months.



I figured out a new arrangement of furniture and with the bunk beds in the nook, we actually have MORE floor space than before. With a little reorganizing, dejunking, and the addition of two underbed drawers, we have plenty of space for Elsa's things. It's amazing what a little rearranging will do. After moving the "reading corner" to a new location, the girls have been spending so much time reading books together. And rediscovering a lot of books.





Simply rearranging didn't quite satisfy my design bug, so I've decided to redecorate the nursery. We don't need to since it's a gender neutral green and yellow, but we're ready for something new...

Cubes. Again.

I can't get enough of these cube shelves in my house. They are a great way to organize and utilize a lot of wall space. A few years ago, we ditched our dresser and got the largest IKEA cube shelves and then modified them...you can see the results here.

I needed more storage and our living room had an empty space, so we tried out the cube shelves again. We made our own drawers again but this time we did a mix of paint on some and fabric on some. (Recognize the fabric from this project?)

It spices up the living room just a bit.

The before:


After:

The room reveal.

I spent most of my pregnancy working on a new room for Amelia. It was really fun to create a room completely from scratch and it was the last room in our house that I hadn't really done anything with. The inspiration for the room came from this great cabinet we found at a flea market in Arlington. It's an Eastern European liquor cabinet from the 1940's. We refinished it and then used the curved lines of this piece to create other furniture for the room.


Before:

After:

After patiently searching Craigslist, I found this great dresser from the 1950s that only required a little bit of touch-up.



I found this great couch for the "reading corner" and then painted it purple. I was so excited when I found these old pillow cases in our attic that were green and purple. They didn't quite cover the couch, so I added in some extra purple fabric and made a slip cover for the couch. My mom ingeniously figured out how to fit it perfectly to the couch.


I designed a toddler bed and Ben did an amazing job building it. After a little trial and error, he pulled it off and it is one sturdy bed. He has definitely proven himself to be quite the handy man. He single-handedly built a fence for our backyard, including two gates, and he put in a perfect paver patio in our backyard, among many other projects around the house. Since he handled the building of a bed quite well, we designed a book case for the room that matched the bed and he built that too. (Notice the fabulous wall art courtesy of Emily Martin at the Black Apple.)


I made a toddler bed size duvet and my mom sewed a great duvet cover for it. She also made a pillow and a pillow case for the bed.


Amelia loves her little coloring station. The pots hold all of her crayons and art supplies.