Nursery Updates

I have had the nursery done up to this point for quite a while, I just haven’t posted pictures. But we are almost done and I just have some final small things to do like accessorize the bookshelves, hang curtains, and do some artwork. I’m loving it so far!

Our silver/gray glider will go in the right corner kind of in front of the bookshelf. We should be getting the glider this weekend and I can’t wait!

I’m going to hang some curtains and I’ll probably try using a tension rod between the bookshelves. I think I’m going to use the tan canvas drop cloths and add a strip of cute fabric vertically along the edge of the curtains.

I made the crib skirt without sewing and attached it using velcro strips.

I love how the dresser turned out. I got it on KSL for cheap and I re-finished it. The gray was darker than I wanted but I actually really love the contrast between it and the blue/gray wall color.

My mother in law made the changing pad cover for me. I love the cute knobs! I’m going to add some artwork above the changing table and some large map artwork above the crib.

I may end up adding an upholstered pad for the top of the blanket chest at some point.

We are just about finished and I can’t wait for it to all be done so I can just enjoy it. I know I will just sit in there in my glider and love it. It makes me smile every time I walk by and peek in his cute room!

Updates around the house

Garden update: it’s out of control. Everything has done amazing except for the red onions. They grew really tall but they are tiny so that was a bummer. But just look at the madness.

We have harvested the following: spinach, lettuce, cilantro. parsley, basil, cucumbers, carrots, green beans, peas, green onions, zucchini, tomatoes, and maybe more…can’t remember. It’s amazing that all this came from some tiny seeds I planted a few months ago! I love it and I’ve learned a ton about what to do differently and change for next year.

This all came out of one quick harvest the other night. Basil, green beans, zucchini, tomatoes, carrots and cucumber. It’s crazy! I have made a lot of delicious and relatively healthy zucchini bread and we love it. Luckily I only planted one zucchini plant because that has been insane.

A few things for next year:

• plant more: peas, peppers
• trellis the peas
• trellis the cucumber
• probably won’t plant: carrots
• plant 1 cherry tomato plant
• plant less: spinach, cilantro, parsley, lettuce
• fertilize everything, especially onions, cucumber
• give tomatoes their own box with support
• give zucchini its own box

Our backyard flower beds look awesome and I love the bright flowers. They have just exploded and gotten huge. We will still add more perennials to our backyard in the fall but I love the color we have had so far.

A few weeks ago I got the hankering to repaint our half bath on the main level. I had painted it the orange color over a year ago but it was just too much for me in that small room. And it clashed with the counters and cabinet.

So I painted it the same gray we have in our master bedroom and I also painted the cabinet white and added hardware. It looks a million times better now and it was almost free (just bought the hardware)! I may add something where the vinyl was but I’m not sure yet.

I also want to get a different rug, but overall, it feels much calmer and brighter and doesn’t clash as much with the counter and floors.

Nursery progress! I am dying over how much I already love this room. Dan has been a beast and done a ton of work and it looks amazing so far.

Remember when it used to look like this? Keep in mind those are fairy stickers and one wall was sickly green. And that orange rug won’t stay there.

Now it seems so much bigger and brighter and I LOVE IT! We still have tons of work to do but I wanted to update with some progress. We still have to caulk a ton and I will paint the board and batten bright white to match the walls. Hopefully we can build a window seat too! The color looks really blue in here but it has a greenish grayish tone to it as well and is really pretty. We also painted the bathroom across from the nursery the same bluish color and it looks a lot different in there too.

I bought this crib on KSL ages ago because it was the one I wanted for cheap! I still love it. The top of the board and batten has a shelf so I can put artwork on it (not above the crib obviously).

There is a ton more to do in here and I am excited to figure out what type of rug to do, artwork, a dresser, glider, lighting, etc. Of course I have tons of ideas and plans so hopefully it all works out and looks as great as it does in my head!

Gardening and a new project!

Last fall I decided I wanted to plant a garden and because I’m a crazy person, I kind of became obsessed with it. I tend to focus on something and get a little obsessed with it for a while, and then I either move on to something new, or stay interested but not as obsessive after a while. Food storage is a good example of this. At first, I was really obsessive and focused on it, but now I have scaled back and I’m still very interested and continuing to focus on food storage and emergency preparedness, just not obsessively!

Anyway, I decided to do square foot gardening and I read the book about it by Mel Bartholomew. It was really interesting and I got really excited. I learned a lot and planned a lot in the fall/winter and I was ready to go when spring came! Our backyard neighbors (we don’t have a fence behind us yet) have a bunch of raised square foot beds and they do great so I asked them a lot of questions too. I used the site My Square Foot Garden a TON and it is an amazing resource. I basically read every single article on the site! I wrote my garden plan and even posted it on her site for a guest review and got some feedback which was helpful.

We decided to start small and see how things go this year. Dan built me two beds that are 4 feet by 6 feet each. He used 2x12 boards and it was pretty cheap for everything. We stained them and moved them to the yard where Dan had pulled up some grass. We put down a weed mat and then mixed our own “Mel’s Mix” which is 1/3 vermiculite, 1/3 compost and 1/3 peat moss.

I drilled screws in the top of the boards and used string to make my squares. This helps with planting so I can plant certain things in each square. Some squares I will plant several seeds and some squares will have only one. For tomatoes and zucchini, I will cut some of the string to make more space since those plants need more space. We will also be adding some trellis supports for the beans, tomatoes and zucchini so they spread up instead of out. This will save space and hopefully go well!

This year I’m planting the following: peas, beans, onions, carrots, cilantro, parsley, garlic, basil, peppers, tomatoes, zucchini (only 1 plant because they take over!), spinach, lettuce, celery, and cucumbers. I have no idea what I’m doing so it could be a total flop. I have planted a few things that can handle the cool weather and my onions have already started popping up so that is exciting! I will continue to update with some garden posts and hopefully we will have some fresh vegetables to enjoy in a few months!

And my next big project is to start working on an extra bedroom that we haven’t touched since we moved in! It is going to be a future nursery (no I’m not pregnant…) and I figure I might as well get started with paint and some other things since it’s going to be very gender neutral and I just can’t handle the nasty purple and green walls with fairy stickers everywhere! I have a lot of big plans for this room so I’m glad that we can take it slow and hopefully it will look great! The room below is my inspiration picture and I love the colors and everything about the room.

Below is my inspiration board with some ideas that I like. I’m going to do white board and batten on the bottom 2/3 of the wall. Instead of the tan grass cloth wallpaper, I’m going to paint the top part of the walls a pretty blue/green/gray color. There is also an awesome big arched window that I love but I’m not quite sure how to cover it yet. And I’m going to have Dan make me some built in bookshelves and a window seat on either side of the window! I am really excited about that.

    

Dan has already peeled off the horrible fairy stickers and patched and sanded the walls. I have picked out a paint color and I started ripping out the baseboards last night. I’m going to start painting tonight! Hopefully it all turns out as great as I’m hoping and I’m excited to get started!

UPDATE: I found a few pictures of the future nursery in it's current state. Brace yourselves.

Flooring Extravaganza

We are still not completely finished with our flooring project but it’s just about done so I thought I would finally share some pictures because we love it! First of all, here are some before pictures. You can see my white painted island that I finished the day we started the floorings. Good timing. See the weird angle of the carpet/laminate? I hated how weird that looked and we had to squish the chair into the family room more so that it wouldn’t have one leg on the laminate and look weird. The carpet was also grungy and not very soft. We picked up about ten million tons of laminate flooring from Sam’s club and lugged it into the house. This is only about half of it! This is also a before picture of the living room with carpeting.

Dan stayed up late several nights in a row ripping out baseboards, moulding, carpet and the old flooring. He was amazing and got so much done so we were ready to lay floor when people came to help on Saturday. Thank goodness for Dan’s amazing family and their willingness to help because we definitely wouldn’t have been able to do it without them! They work great together and did an amazing job on the floors. Our house was a disaster zone and covered in dust. Debbie was there for moral support (she has a broken leg), and she did a great job giving tips and pointers since she had done flooring at their house before. The saw was set up in the living room and dust was EVERYWHERE. Julie came to help and brought the boys who tested out the newly laid floor. Everett almost biffed it a few times since the floor was really dusty but they are always fun to have around. Julie also brought us pizza for lunch! Dan finished up the rest of the floor during some late nights on Monday and Tuesday. We took a break for Thanksgiving on Wednesday and Thursday and worked on the baseboards and finishing things up Friday and Saturday. I have cleaned everything about ten times but I think most of the dust is finally gone! There is still a lot to do to finish up the baseboards, but we are just about there! We put the house together and found a new rug for the family room. And here is what things look like now. We love it and I think the floors look amazing. I love the dark wood, wide planks, and hand scraped detail. It’s also really durable and will hopefully last a long time! I love the rug we found at Home Goods (and shoved in the back of our Accord!). It makes it more cozy and softer to lay on but you can still see the floors.

You can see the new baseboards and moulding around the door frames here. I love the thick and simple look of the moulding and it matches the kitchen island and I also framed the window in the kitchen.

A few more shots from some different angles.

While at HomeGoods, we found a chair we loved to put in the little nook/desk area. We have been using a folding white chair for 2 years so this looks much nicer and it’s comfortable too!

Below is a pretty good idea of the main room before we moved in almost exactly 2 years ago.

And here is the main room now from a similar angle. I still have more plans (always!) but we really love it. It’s amazing how much there is to do in the house! There are always more projects and ideas, and I remember thinking when we moved in that the entire house would be “done” in about a year! That was a joke…we still have empty rooms but it’s getting there and so far we love it!

Linking up here:

http://www.beneathmyheart.net/
http://thriftydecorchick.blogspot.com/