Around the House

In preparation for the arrival of Natalie, Craig and I have been doing a ton of stuff around the house and since we're in the midst of day three of being iced in...I have nothing better to do than clean up my house, photograph it and share it with you.  And we still have another three days until we go back to school...sigh.

LIVING ROOM: Nothing has changed too much but I finally feel like the room is complete...for the most part.  There isn't too much that I really feel is absolutely necessary for us to add or change.

 We got a new rug from Target because our other basic chocolate brown rug went upstairs to go on the floor in Natalie's room.  I liked this particular rug because of the big, bold pattern of light green - it breaks up the monotony of the chocolate brown furniture.

 I added a few pictures from our wedding to the bookshelf.  This is mainly going to be used as storage for Natalie's downstairs toys.  I'm thinking of painting the wall behind the bookshelf a muted light green color as an accent wall...but that wouldn't happen until this summer at the earliest.

 Nothing has changed...but I know once the little munchkin is crawling a lot of my pretties will be finding a safe storage spot somewhere in a closet.

 Hi Angie.  Yes.  That's YOUR couch with the blanket on it.

ENTRY FOYER: We have a gorgeous two story foyer complete with open stairs and a view down from the upstairs open loft area.  This wall below is the focal point of the foyer - the first thing you see when you enter.  It's been relatively empty since we've moved in and I have been searching for two years for the perfect piece of furniture to fit in this space.  Craig and I found it at Kirkland's before Christmas and it was my big Christmas present.  It's the perfect shade of green that matches the green of our dining room and the greens found in the living room.  It also has three big drawers that I now use for table linen storage which I desperately needed.  All that's left for the foyer is to paint the space a nice mocha color and find a rug that can go in the middle of the tile entryway!

MY NEXT BIG PROJECT: This room is supposed to be the formal dining room since it is directly connected to the kitchen and the foyer, but we use it as a trophy room, junk dump spot and extra seating/serving area during parties.  I would LOVE to turn this space into a great little library/study room for when Natalie is bigger and has homework to do after school.  

 I would put a computer table where the hutch is and a nice rug on the floor in the middle.  I think that a muted blue would be pretty painted above the chair railing while leaving the bottom beige - mainly because the bottom is incredibly difficult and time consuming to paint!

 In this corner I would put a big comfy chair with footrest...or even better...a chaise lounge chair!  Maybe a little side table with a cozy reading lamp?!  But don't worry, Craig will still get to keep his "trophies" on the wall.

1/2 BATHROOM: We redid this room over the summer, but then I got pregnant and sick, started school and forgot to ever post any "after" pictures of our bathroom remakes.  It was originally a terribly dark and horribly done maroon wallpaper with an equally hideous mirror from circa 1993.  We hired painters to take down the wallpaper, texture the walls and then paint it an icy light blue color.

 We needed something to fill the space behind the toilet so Craig bought and built the shelving unit that also serves as a storage area for extra kleenex and toilet paper.  I thought it was a little on the short side so we bought the lamp and candle from Pottery Barn and I filled the space around the candle with rocks from our backyard.

 This mirror might be my favorite thing about this entire space.  It was a very out-of-the-box buy for me at Home Goods.  It is made up of light gold, cream and baby blue sequins glued onto the wood frame.  Craig was a little hesitant about my purchase when I first brought it home, but I think it adds such a unique charm to the small space. 

MASTER BATHROOM: Our master bathroom has a great layout and lots of fantastic space for the two of us but unfortunately the people who owned the house before us had done an awful job of painting the bathroom an awful glossy maroon.  It was so terribly done that we had to hire professional painters to prime and paint all the nooks and crannies in the bathroom to a nice seafoam blue-teal color.  The cabinets also used to be white and we had them painted chocolate brown.  My vision for this space was reminiscent of a dressing area that you might find at a spa.

 I need to sand and refinish the light brown chair to white but again...that's probably a summertime job.  My dad and Craig found the two mirrors at Home Goods after the original silver mirrors we found to be damaged once we took off the cardboard packaging they were encased in.

 I found the pictures on the wall for thirty bucks at Home Goods!

 For a long time I had all my perfume bottles and other stuff just hanging out on the countertop and it always looked messy.  As a base for the diaper cake she made me, my friend Amy used a plastic silver plate charger...I repurposed it as a space to nicely and neatly place all my bottles and jars that used to clutter up the countertop.

And now for what you REALLY want to see...

NATALIE'S ROOM: Craig and I chose to use the spare bedroom that is furthest away from the front of the house because it is the quietest and it also does not face east or west and therefore stays a little darker than the other bedrooms.  It was originally "my" spare bedroom because it held all the bedroom furniture from my old apartment.  Sometime this fall, Craig woke up on a Sunday morning and decided that we were going to clean out the closet in this room, take out all the furniture and paint the room to the appropriate color.  That was a pretty long day.  Over the MLK weekend in January, my parents and friend Amy came over and we got a lot of other things done in her room and here is what we have done so far...

 Her crib (Babies R Us) that is convertible to a toddler bed and then a full size bed.  The bedding is the Dahlia pattern from N. Selby designs that I found at Lonestar Baby in Frisco.

 We used the turquoise flower print on the comforter as the basis for the paint on the walls. 

 We bought the glider at Babies R Us and the blanket over the back of the chair was handmade by Amy.  The chocolate brown rug we brought up from the living room.  The lime green nightstand was originally black but Amy and I sanded it, primed it and painted it lime green and I replaced the original knob with a round glass knob.  And yes...that is Angie's bed in the right corner of the picture, but to be real honest...she tends to prefer the chair.  Sigh.

 And this is the rest of the room...we still have a LOT of stuff to do.  The dresser was mine from when I was a little girl - we just changed out the brass knobs for silver ones.  The brown shelving unit is going to be used for books and other things like that.  I didn't want to put too much furniture in the room because I want her to have room in the middle of the floor to get out her toys and play.

Her closet so far...she has PLENTY of clothes as of right now.  Craig and I built the storage unit and that is where all her toys are going to be organized.

I know that someday Craig would like to own a larger home with a bigger backyard but I don't know if I'll ever want to move.  We have worked so hard over the last few years to really turn this place from a house to a home and I am really enjoying personalizing everything.