Eversmashing

We picked up a crib last night (from craigslist -- yay!), so after putting that up and making some small changes this morning, Baby's nursery is officially "done enough" -- as in, I've done everything I've "planned" to with it, and am probably not going to change it up much at all unless something changes.

So, without further ado... here it is!

The view from the hallway... I was really excited to find this crib/changer combo... it includes three drawers in front, three shelves behind, and a rolling drawer underneath.  It can also be converted into a toddler bed when Baby gets bigger.  I also hung up a pinwheel mobile that I made over the crib.

Taking a look at this end of the room, where you'll notice some of our penguins

Ta-da!  It's the reading / feeding / rocking corner! Some of Baby's books are tucked away in the night stand to the right, and my books (for late-night feedings) are on the left.  On the wall to the left are family pictures so that Baby can become familiar with people's faces even if we might only be able to see them in person a few times a year.

A close-up of the wall art I made for Baby.

And finally, a look at the other side of fhe room.  Right now all Baby's clothes are in the closet, along with his/her bouncy seat and diaper bag (hanging on the door).  The wire shelf near the door will be used for toys and stuffed animals -- easily accessible for tummy time on the floor.

They say that during the third trimester, women tend to go into a "nesting" phase in which they end up spending a lot of time organizing, cleaning, and making overall preparations for their baby's arrival.  I think I may be entering that phase... either that or I'm just really zealous about finishing up our decorating so that our house looks like a "home" when we have visitors next month (YAY!)

So, this past week I've been working on some projects.  The first of which was trying to figure out what to do with my hundreds (yes, literally hundreds) of books from my classroom library last year.  Here's what I came up with so far:

The little "reading corner" took care of the picture books, nonfiction books, and about four different series (Magic Tree House, Boxcar Children, Horrible Harry, etc.), but still left a huge pile of other series/chapter books in a pile in the middle of the room.  I'm thinking of getting some plain shelving to go on the wall above these shelves, since Baby probably won't be reading many chapter books for a few years... at least three or four

My next projects were for Baby's room itself.  I had found in a magazine a really neat lamp called an atrium glass lamp, which you could fill with different objects to fit the decor of the room.  Unfortunately these were $140 apiece... yikes!

So, instead, I set out to make my own.  First, I found a lamp for $1 at a thrift store that had a long, skinny stem which could easily be hidden.  Then, I found a $5 fishbowl and about $4 worth of shiny ribbon to use inside the bowl.  Add a $5 lamp shade and voila -- a $140 lamp for only $15!

You may notice the little nightstand this lamp is sitting on is new.  Indeed, it is, and it came in a set of two.  Beneath the top shelf is a larger shelf on which were stored some bright red, beat-up looking cube drawers.  The nightstands themselves came to a total of $8, and I found that to replace the cloth cube drawers would cost $20.... hmmmm... So, instead, I grabbed some material I had downstairs in my "sewing room" and re-covered them, using up the rest of the ribbon from my lamp project to decorate them.

All of this came together to make the cutest little feeding-and-reading corner for Baby's room.  Yay!

Well, after nearly two months of living here, we finally last night moved into our master bedroom!  The biggest holdup was the paint job, since the room was at that time a very bright purple color... yikes.  So, after repainting, putting up new blinds, replacing the switch and outlet covers, and finally, FINALLY getting our new waterbed (queen size!) put together, we finally settled into our new suite...

BEFORE

AFTER (We're hoping to find a matching set of dressers for either side of the bed... but it's at least functional now!)

UPON MOVE-IN

BEFORE & AFTER

Ta-da!  I finally worked out a system, and this time the wallpaper demolition only took an hour!

One of my aforementioned nemeses in our new home were some pretty hideous light switch plates.  One of the worst was in the guest room --

New light switch plate = $2

Discovering that the previous owners painted AROUND their switch plates = frustrating

Quart of Behr paint in exactly the right "Cactus Garden" shade = $6

Sandpaper cube = $4

Spackling 'kit,' including tube of spackling & spackling knife = $6

Finally defeating the evil switch plate = priceless

Yesterday I started tackling a rather daunting task... removing the brightly-colored, way-too-busy, red/yellow/green/blue wallpaper from Baby's room.

Before:

I started with one of those "remove wallpaper quickly and easily!" kits from Home Depot (or was it Lowe's?  I've lost track).  After much perforating, spraying, and scraping it removed the entire top layer (yay!) but left quite a bit of the lower, papery, stuck-to-the-wall-with-stupid-wallpaper-paste layer... well, stuck.  I was forced to take a break due to time constraits and a trip down to Gd Rapids to pick out office furniture for Jon's church office (stay tuned for those before/after pics... his furniture should arrive in three short weeks!).

After Day 1:

Day two arrived and I this afternoon I set about hte task of soaking the walls and using a scraper and a sponge to take off the rest of the border... and clean the wall, while I was at it.  Awhile later, ta-da!!

AFTER --

It may need some more work later (as of right now there's a pen line around the entire room where the wallpaper border was that didn't want to come off with soap or with an eraser, so I may have to deal with that), but I feel quite accomplished for my "home improvement" efforts.

AND in other news, my craigslist find of the day...

one toy organzier for "the yellow room" (aka "the toy room")

Actual retail value (according to amazon.com) : $63

My price: $10

and... they go well with our NASCAR curtains

It's been another productive weekend already!

Yesterday...

- we applied for Michigan drivers' licenses, and got the title changed on Jon's car.  Yay!

- we got the slow leak in Jon's car's tire fixed (and got Culvers' while we were waiting) Yay!

- we spent over $300 on home improvement supplies (yikes!)... including paint, spackle, blinds, door locks, and a handful of other things we needed.

- we then spent our evening with our indoor home improvement needs...

New blinds for the downstairs bedroom!  Now we no longer have to drape towels and blankets over the windows!  Exciting!

New blinds for the den!  They're supposedly thermal ones, so we'll see how they work this winter.

New door locks for our back and front doors (since the previous owners didn't deem it necessary to get the keys back from the most recent tenants).

New (matching!) light switch covers and outlet covers for the kitchen!  Now they won't look dirty all the time!

Today, the was our yard work day.  We had great weather for it... sunny, but not too warm, with a nice breeze.

Ahhhhh... no more vines hanging down from the near-dead fir trees; no more piles of yard debris in the middle of our yard. 

So where did all of that yard waste go?  Well, our options were to pay someone to come take it, or... make a compost pile!  I'm not sure that we did it EXACTLY like we were supposed to... after all, none of the online "how-to" pages were quite like our "how-to" ....

1. Create a huge pile of sticks, leaves, and branches.

2. Decide it's an eyesore.

3. Find a seculded, out-of-sight corner of the yard.

4. Move the huge pile of yard waste there.

5. Ta-da!

Friday Jon woke up ready to go and get some things done around the house.  Baby and I would have rather slept in, but we tagged along to Home Depot to pick up some supplies.  The rest of the day we worked on getting some home improvement/handyman stuff done....

- We bought supplies for and installed our washer and dryer!  It required going to Lowe's for a part that was mistakenly excluded from the kit we got at Home Depot, but they're hooked up and ready to go!  Along with that, we also got a carbon monoxide detector!  Yay for safety!

- We bought a weed-eater!  Excitement!

- We got a garbage can that will fit underneath our kitchen sink!

- We bought and installed door stoppers for our kitchen door out to the garage!  Now our door doesn't slam up against our counter when you open it!  Yay!

- We bought new face plates for our light switches!  They desperately needed new ones, as most of the ones the previous owner had put on were way too cutesy and floral and matchy for our tastes.  We ran into some unexpected difficulties with getting a couple of them off, since during the most recent paint job, the former owners had actually painted OVER the face plates instead of taking them off like they're supposed to.  We actually had to use a boxcutter to separate them from the wall and pry them off without removing any of the paint around it.  The area around the switch plate in the guest room now needs repainted, since the plate they were using was actually larger than the standard size, so when they painted (without removing the switch plate) they missed the area around the plate, so with our new one, it leaves a white, awkward-shaped square all around the switch.  Annoying!  Oh, well.. that will be a project for next week!

BEFORE --

AFTER --

After dragging a set of nine 8x10 photo frames with me over 1,000 total miles over the course of a year, I finally got around to printing out some of my favorite black-and-whites to hang on our den wall.  I love how it turned out

My other photo project this morning was getting together fifteen 5x7s showing different scenes from our year in Ottawa to use in the photo screen we got for Christmas.  It now fits perfectly in our Ottawa Room...

I'm convinced that the hardest part was trying to pick out which photos to use!

Welcome to our new home!  We've finished unpacking most of our living areas, and though we are still digging through piles of clothes to find things to wear, we're finally feeling quite settled in our new house.

LIVING ROOM -

Our "formal" living room is what we call our "Ottawa Room," since it contains our favorite memories of our year spent in Ottawa, ON.

Before ---

After --

DINING ROOM -

No dining room table yet... in fact, we haven't really done much with this room at all.  More "after" pics to come, I guess!

Before --

After --

KITCHEN --

The kitchen has had quite a bit done.  I still need to fix my sewing machine so I can finish sewing the curtains for the window, but other than that, this room is mostly done!

Before --

After --

DEN -

This is our rest & relaxation room, so it's a bit more cluttered and "functional" than the other rooms at this point.  It's where we've been spending a lot of time, and we love it.  We do need a new couch, though... for now we've just been using the loveseat that belongs in the living room.

Before --

After --

DOWNSTAIRS BATH -

Since our current living quarters are exclusively on the lower two floors until our master bedroom gets painted, this is the bathroom we've been using.

Before --

After --

BABY'S ROOM -

Baby's room is really the only other room that I've even touched yet, and that was only to hang up some curtains and put the little penguin in there that we found the other day.  The wallpaper still NEEDS to go.

Before --

After --

More to come!