House Project- Greta’s Room Dress Wall

I didn’t really know what to do with this space above the end table that I bought at a flea market. When you walk in her room it’s that space to the left of her bed. Here is what it was before the end table. Empty wall.

And then we got the end table, which I posted about before.

And now I finished what’s above the table. I put together a little wall of Greta’s dresses, and one of my dresses from when I was a baby. Mine is the one on far right, and Greta’s are the other 2. I figure I can rotate her clothes too if I want to change the colors of the room a little.

September House Project- Living Room

I made this whole post and then lost it somehow. Sooo frustrating. I have been waiting to take photos of my living room until the boys went back to school. I couldn’t keep it decent long enough to snap the photos while they were all home. So here we go. Before the mantle was cluttered with all these little frames, and I am over it.

And see that quilt on the ottoman. Yeah, that was covering up some stains. And the chair had a hole in the side. The kids lived in this chair and thus the inevitable kid damage happened.

I took away all the little frames and used some big frames from our previous place. I put artwork from each kid in each. How happy does that tear collage piece make you? It’s by Sawyer, and he even has glasses! And I blew up a family picture of us. So much less cluttered. Better.

This new chair was courtesy of an ebay seller from Seattle. Aaron had to drive to this creepy Greyhound station to pick it up since he wouldn’t let me go get it myself. But at least I didn’t have to recover the original cushions.

We have always wanted a coffee table in this room, but with the oversized chair and ottoman, it just never worked. I found this awesome Danish furniture store in Silverlake. I am obsessed with all their pieces.

New pillows courtesy of Pier 1. Highly recommend them for pillows. Great selection.

And here is the whole shabang. I know this may not please everyone’s tastes, but I absolutely adore our living room now. Every time I walk through it or come down the stairs, I smile. I definitely need to spend some more time in it, especially lounging on the comfy couch.

loving. . .

right now.

New barstools. My kids can actually sit at the island and not be fearful that the 3-legged stool will take them tumbling to the ground. Courtesy of Crate & Barrel.

I am obsessed with this. I can’t tell you how long I have been eyeing it. They come in a ton of colors, and I doubt this will be my only one. I can see myself layering it over and under almost everything.

And lastly, Target has some adorable sweaters right now. I know I will probably hear about it from my sister, but you can’t judge yet though, they’re really cute. Wait til you see it in person! I couldn’t download a photo of the sweater, but if you click here, it’s the thermal hoodie with stripes, of course I picked the orange and grey. But all the colors were adorable.

House Project- Master Bedroom

I am so excited about my bedroom. It has been the barest of all the rooms. Everything just kind of got pushed to the bottom of the list and deemed unnecessary. So we’ve spent 4 years with nothing on the walls until the recent television mount. It’s a big room and we love it, but just didn’t know where to begin. So along with my living room, I spent some time this summer turning it into the room I really wanted.

Now, I would have loved brand new bedding, but I settled for new pillows. I thought I took some before pictures, but this is all I found. Darn that photo reorganization project on my computer!

You’ll get the idea from this photo. Bedding was chocolate brown (winter bedding) and there was nothing on the walls, and there was this leather ottoman in this corner. Above the bed was just a big blank wall.

Living Room photos to follow next week, hopefully when the kids start school I can keep the living room in decent condition long enough to take a photo!

Here’s what it looks like now. I finally got my polaroid wall. The bedding is not new, it’s just what we use in summertime, the pillows are from Pier One. Corkboard is from Anawalt Lumber.

This bookcase is from Target. Probably my favorite purchase for the whole room. And I had much fun decorating the shelves, I move things around on them almost daily. That’s the record player I blogged about last week. The old camera was an ebay find. We had all the books. The birds I blogged about as well, from West Elm. The owl is from Pier One. Typewriter is a Craigslist find.

I replaced my old lamp on my end table with this Sheesham lamp from West Elm. Ultimately I would love to get new end tables, but not now.

And there you have our new living room. We didn’t change anything on the wall where the dresser and TV are since we just did that wall a few months ago. You can see that blog post here. I hope to be on a better schedule of house projects once the kids are in school.

loving

Quick Note: Saturday from 2pm-4pm the kids are having their first lemonade stand. There will be lemonade and homemade cookies for sale for 25 cents each. If you know where I live and are reading this, you better come. If you don’t know where I live and want to stop by, send me an email. The kids have already painted their signs and all the ingredients are bought. It will be pretty darn cute and the cookies, I promise will be awesome. See you there!

What I am loving right now.

Listening to this non-stop.

Watching the kids peck away on this, courtesy of Craigslist.

My new pillows, courtesy of Pier One. Soon I will share my new living room, well, it’s not new, but I made a bunch of changes. Some of these are in my bedroom, which has also seen some changes.

These guys, purchased at West Elm.

These shoes. Thank you Endless.com

And last but certainly not least. Check this out, our new record player! How fun is that. And it’s portable! If only we had some records to play. . .

pizza making

We have adopted Wednesday nights as our pizza making nights. The house looks like a flour bomb exploded once we are done, but the kids couldn’t be more thrilled with the whole thing.

And after trying both white and whole wheat dough, the consensus among everyone is whole wheat is much better. The kids all voted that homemade pizza is way better than any other pizza they’ve ever had. I agree.

my heart skipped

when I walked in the living room and saw this. . .

I mean I know he loves to read as much as I do, but still to just mosey on into another room and stumble upon this just makes me melt. (and it makes my house look kinda cool in black and white)

Backyard Camping

A few weeks ago Aaron decided to camp with the kids in the backyard. We took the boys camping once when Sawyer was 1, Gunnar 3, so they don’t really remember it. In fact I think it was right around the time Greta was conceived. No, not ON the camping trip. Gross.

Anyways we are going camping with a few families in September and decided to do a trial run. Well, Aaron decided to do a trial run. I opted for my bed. And I half expected Greta to bail out, but no. At 9pm I went to say goodnight and asked Greta if she’d like to come to bed. I got a big fat appalled NO. The thought that she would leave the fun. They had a few extension cords running from the garage. I believe for the DVD player and for the sound machine. They stayed in that tent til at least 7pm. No air mattresses, just sleeping bags on the hard ground.

But of course the kids had a blast and cannot wait to do it again. My kids have a very good daddy.

Even Foxy had his very own tent within the tent.

Not quite sure what we’re going to do without a microwave to make microwave popcorn when we do the real deal.

let me introduce you to my lit’l friends

First of all, you can’t see them. Sorry. I am not such a good fish photographer. But they’re there. All 3 of them. Ever since Sawyer heard the idea from his little friend Julia, he has not been able to get fish off the brain. He graduated preschool last week, adorable photos to come. The only thing he has asked for is a fish. And a tank. In fact, we have actually been able to create quite the gift week over this fish tank. First we went to the pet store to check it out and pick up a tank. Good thing we did that first because most people don’t realize you have to prepare the tank. Yes, I said prepare. We had to buy bacteria. Yes, I said buy bacteria. And add bacteria for 3 days before it is a welcoming environment for fish.

I figure fish can’t be too much trouble. I mean, worse case scenario, we kill them and then we buy more. So after the first expedition to the pet store we had our tank, gravel(i think that’s what you call the smallish rocks), filter, bacteria (yep, I said bacteria again). We then proceeded to watch the tank religiously for the next 3 days. I bet you didn’t think a fishless tank could be that exciting to 3 small children, and that is why you are SO w r o n g. A fishless tank has got to be one of the most wonderful creations this household has encountered. For hours the kids all squeeze on a single step ladder and peer at the growing bacteria in a tank of water. 

Along with Sawyer’s graduation came many questions from my family about what to buy him as gifts. You have guessed it. Fish accessories. Oh, you didn’t know that fish tanks have accessories? silly silly people. Yes, my mother as her gift to Sawyer took him to the pet store on day 2 to purchase a sunken ship, castle and skeleton to decorate his tank with. Ah, but we cannot forget the most important thing for our fish tank. Yep. The fish. 

This is where Tati came in with her present. She picked up the kids, yeah, you didn’t think we’d get just Soso a fish, did you? Please. He got the tank and “accessories”, now for the fishies. After day 3 we were good to go for the fish. After a third outing with Tati to yet another pet store the kids came home with our 3 new additions. Let me be the first to introduce you to Orange Bubbles, Slurpy, and Catwiser. Interesting choice in names. I know. 

Orange Bubbles is Sawyer’s and this fish is a Mickey Mouse fish. Yeah, I’m going to teach you a lot in this blog post. It is called a Mickey Mouse fish because on the tail is the face of Mickey Mouse. It’s true. I promise. It looks just like Mickey Mouse. 

Greta chose Slurpy which happens to be red since the fish store did not have any pink fish available. Slurpy’s tail is black and will get big and beautiful. 

Catwiser is a cat fish. This is Gunnar’s choice. Catwiser is the non social fish of the bunch. He likes to hide out and give me a heart attack daily where I think the other two fish have eaten him until I twist my neck and discover him laying in the ship or hiding in the castle.

Orange Bubbles and Slurpy seem to be best buds in the fish tank. They kind of swim together and feed together and then Catwiser likes to pop out when you least expect it and then disappear just as soon as he sees my camera lens. 

Food. Yes, fish food. I have never owned fish before and had to grill my brother in law, apparently he’s the aquarium man, about how often I have to clean the tank, change the water, and on and on. There’s a lot to learn people and I just pray that these little fish live a bit longer than tomorrow. 

I also just realized I haven’t posted any photos of my adorable nephew! My sister in law and her husband and son came out for a visit 2 weeks ago and he is scrumptious. We had a lot of fun and I will try and get those photos up this week too. And the Vegas details. So much to post, so little time.

House Project- Garage

Awhile back I posted how we had invaded Aaron’s garage and turned it into a pseudo playroom. Well, it just got a little cozier. We put down Flor and now we can roll around and play on the floor and not freeze out butts off with the concrete floor. I got a good deal on a huge lot without knowing what the patterns/colors were, but I think they worked. 

As you can see, Greta is already making good use of floor time with some more fabulous old school Little People.