Outdoor tub...

I was talking to some friends the other day about living in a remote place... away from neighbors and paved roads. This idea is so appealing to me, possibly for no other reason than I could have an outdoor tub!

This is on the short list of things I would like in my future home. I do realize that in order to do this we really would have to live away from civilization. Or at least have a ton of trees and some privacy screens. But I love the idea of having a tub outside. Soaking in the tub is one of my favorite things to do, and I think it would only enhance the experience to do it outside, under the stars, with the wind blowing by...

And no, this is not the same as having a hot tub. Not at all. First of all chlorine... yuck! And it's just a different experience to be in a hot tub as opposed to a regular tub.

Yes, I realize this might not be super realistic... but oh I'm hopeful! Anyone out there have any dreams for your living space that might seem a little different?

And no you can't be my neighbor!!! (just kidding...)


Image 1, 2, 3

Baby G's nursery...

 In the most beloved story of a baby’s birth, there was no decorated nursery or designer crib—

only a manger for the Savior of the world.

 - Neil L. Andersen October 2011 General Conference

 

 

I love this quote by Elder Andersen. This talk really spoke to me two years ago when we were trying to bring a new baby to our family. We were about to move in with my in law's while my husband was trying to find a job, and I knew that wherever we ended up living was not going to be a big luxurious place. I also knew that it was most likely going to be a hard few years financially while my husband started and settled into his career, and there was not going to be a designer crib in our future.

 

We live in a very small house. Super small. But we love it and it has been a comfortable place for our little family of three. When we found out we were pregnant, we really didn't want to leave! But I knew that meant that there would be no room for this little baby. There really would be no decorated nursery... at all. So the title of this post is a little misleading because Baby G does not have a nursery, or a room of his own, or even a room shared with his brother (yet...). Baby G lives in our living room, and all of his stuff is in a lovely dresser.

 

It's tricky for sure, but it works for us right now. It honestly was a little nice to only have to worry about getting the dresser done before he was born and not having to decorate a whole nursery. We have plans of making a loft bed for Blue that we will put the crib under, but not until the baby starts sleeping through the night (meaning 12 hours) and who knows when that will be. So for now, he sleeps out in the living room and it is working surprisingly well.

 

Part of me feels a little humbled to share this, but the rest of me just feels grateful for what we have. I've thought a lot about the woman who first lived in this home with her FIVE children. Holy smokes! Surely I can make it work for our two children right?

 

So without further adieu... here is Baby G's humble nursery...

 

Before I talk about the dresser, I want to talk about this bed! It's a Fisher Price Rock and Play Sleeper, and I love it. It was an impulse buy when he was waking up every 2-3 hours at night and I was so exhausted!! He really wasn't sleeping well laying on his back in the pack and play, so I needed to figure something else out for my own sanity. I'd heard about this bed and read the hundreds of reviews on Amazon before driving over to Target and picking one up. I'm not usually an impulse buyer, but man was it worth it! The first night he slept in this he did a 6 hour stretch. He now does a 6-9 hour stretch in there every night. I like how little it is and that it's easy to move around, it works so well with our "baby doesn't really have a room" situation. It's hard to see it's full beauty in this picture because I have a big blanket in there, but I really love it.

 

I talked in this post about my plans to redecorate the living room and how I wasn't sure what color we were going to paint the dresser. Well, yellow won out and I love it! The color is Behr's Sweet Maple and I love looking at this bright and cheery dresser everyday. It makes me smile! And someday when Baby G does have a room to call his own I can work this into his room better than I could teal. So yellow it was.

 

I did something that I had never done before when I refinished it which was make my own chalk paint. IT WAS AMAZING!!! I have painted a lot of furniture before and let me tell you, this is the way to go! I followed this tutorial and was so happy with how it turned out. I wanted to distress it a little, so I sanded the dresser before hand and then stained all the edges with a dark brown stain. Then I rubbed a white candle over all the places that I wanted to distress and painted two coats of yellow over the dresser. This chalk paint goes on so smooth and thick, that's all it took! I only used 2 cups of paint for the whole dresser. Then when the paint was dry I went over the edges with some fine grit sand paper and got just the right amount of dark wood showing through.

 

 

I bought the hardware off of Ebay because it was so much cheaper than the exact same drawer pulls from both Home Depot and Lowes. They were just the right touch.

 

 

I'm still needing to make a cover for the changing pad when I get around to it. I love the way the yellow looks with my pallet art on the wall above. Baby G loves looking at this while he's getting changed. I think it's the contrast between the dark wood and the white.

And inside are all of the baby clothes, extra wipes and diapers, blankets, burp cloths, shoes, toys, everything!

In the little basket on top I have easy access diapers and wipes, plus a little metal bucket that holds my small baby accessories. Nail clippers, binkies, bulb syringe, and plastic bags for stinky diapers.

There you have it! My super easy, low key, nursery solution for the time being. I like the simplicity of it. It has really helped me to not go overboard on baby stuff because we can really only fit what will fit in the dresser.

Bathroom...

Once upon a time I was taking a bath. My foot was resting on the tile by the faucet and next thing I knew... my foot fell through the wall. Ah crap... this can't be good, and it wasn't. Hubby tore out all the tile in the shower to find that whoever built this place didn't use the special water proof sheet rock behind the shower, they just used regular old sheet rock. So all of the sheet rock in our shower was water damaged and moldy. So gross. So we tore all of it out and this is how our bathroom has looked for the past 8 months...

Well sort of... I didn't get a picture before we put the new tub in. So this is the new tub and the new piping that we had to have welded together... so that's a start! Next up we have to sheet rock in the shower (the sheet rock has been on my living room floor for the past two weeks). I just hope that it's up by Christmas.

Don't worry... we are fortunate enough to have a second bathroom so we have been taking our sweet time at getting this one done. I know that sometimes we all just try to show our homes in their best light. But this is my reality. And we are working on a budget so we will get it done slowly, piece by piece. I think though that since it has to be redone I'm going to have some fun with it. I really love the look of subway tiles like this shower from Door Sixteen...


Anyone seen any great bathrooms lately? I need a little inspiration...

Favorite Corner...

This is my favorite corner in our house. It's in my sons bedroom and this is often where the most precious moments of our day take place. We love to sit and read books in this chair and I like to rock him and sing him songs before bedtime.

The chair was found on Craigslist for super cheap. A few coats of Ivy Pasture from Valspar is all it needed. The basket on the floor has his books in it, while the shelves hold the books I don't want him to touch all the time and his library books.

The shelves were made out of wine crates from Costco (they were free). I stained the outside and painted the inside. Sock monkey was made by my sister in law and was a gift for his first birthday.

I love this picture. It's a page from the book Welcome to the Zoo, which is a darling picture book that my son has loved to death and totally fell apart. This is one of the only pages left that was not ripped so I kept it and threw the rest of the book away. I glued some of his little animals inside of an IKEA frame. I love it. I got the idea from here.

Finished mirror...

Ahhh... I've been enjoying my new mirror all week! My hubby did a great job!

We couldn't find any little wooden caps for the "wooden nail" look so we ended up sanding down the edges of a wooden dowel and cutting off the little knobs and gluing them into the holes. That's love people!

Now to figure out how to refinish the fireplace!!! Tile it? Put molding around it? Not sure yet...

Alphabet magnets...

I needed some more kitchen magnets. I'm not a fan of collecting all of the local pizza parlors and Realtors magnets that are easy to come by. I thought it would be cute to make some alphabet ones... mainly for a fun, clean look.

I did the ole' clear stone magnet trick. Simple enough. I used the font another typewriter and cut out circles around all the letters. Glued them on, glued the stone on top... voila!!!

You can use them to spell out words....

or not!

Very fun, easy to do project!

Supplies...

- You can get all of the supplies from Michael's craft store. The little bag of rocks has more rocks then you could possibly ever need (you can get these at Walmart too).

- This glue is the best for this project because it can glue glass and is totally clear. It's called Quick Grip.

- I printed the letters onto card stock because if you use regular paper then the glue will show through and make the paper look too thin.

White dish towels...

I recently took Stephmodo's advice and threw out all of my old, stained, mismatched, did I mention OLD dish towels and bought all new white ones. I can't even believe the difference! Seriously!!! I almost didn't do it because technically the old ones weren't unusable... but they didn't make the kitchen look sharp, that's for sure. I'm loving it, I actually want to dry the dishes now. It really does brighten up the kitchen.

Just a heads up I found the best variety and cheapest options at Walmart. Don't even try Target! Not worth the search!

Now for those old potholders...

Sproost...

My friend Ashley told me about this great Interior Design website called Sproost that has a test you can take to determine your own personal design style. I took this test a few months back and it said that I was 33% contemporary, 33% modern elegance, and 34% cottage chic. I was a little surprised by the results... because I like modern and contemporary but I do think that I'm a little more cottage chic.

I went back today and re-took the quiz. I was very serious this time, looked at the pictures and gave my true honest answer. This time it said that I was...

100% Rustic Revival

Amen... just look at this picture. I do love the mix of modern and country. I like solid clean colors. I like to throw in plants and prints here and there but this room feels like home to me. This is more of what I would like to achieve someday in my home. I would love to get a cow print rug (sorry animal lovers...) and put a set of antlers on the wall... as long as it was modern and classy and not cabin fever.

Go take the quiz! I think I'm going to have to re-take it again in a little while just to double check... it's fun!