pottery barn inspo

I love Pottery Barn Kids. I don’t really know why. Some of the stuff is just so effing expensive it doesn’t even make sense. But all the bedrooms are super matchy-matchy and freaking adorable. I wanted that for my girls but at like a Walmart price point.

IMG_0216

So cute, right? It’s been finished for like 6 months and no one has slept in here yet!

Money well spent!!!

IMG_0229

So this was O’s room and had a lot of stuff in it originally. I made these little side lamps before O showed up. They were old Pier 1 side lamps and I just bought new shades and some boa’s and stuck them around the rims.

IMG_0107IMG_0118

When O got a little older I saw all these precious DIY dress-up cabinets on Pinterest and just had to have one.

I could totally see it, all the little dress-up clothes hanging on little tiny hangers and looking so freaking cute. Well guess what – as you can see from the image below we just shove all those pretty little outfits in the door and close it. O never hung her clothes up and so not only did I have clothes everywhere but she would be running around with hangers too – uhhhh helllo dangerous! 

This was my moms dresser as a baby so it had some sentimental value. I spray painted this since it wasn’t real wood and glued fabric to the door because it was cracked. I also got the butterfly knobs from Target.

IMG_0228IMG_2190

I got this bookshelf from my mom also. I painted it and backed it with the same fabric as the dresser.

20130721_163636IMG_0227

O’s room was Mauve but I repainted it this candy pink color to match the bedding I ordered from Pottery Barn. I got the cheap last season bedding but it worked out for me anyway because I really liked it and it coordinated with the monogrammed pillows I wanted.

IMG_1148IMG_1150

Always wanting to help, unless it cleaning up her own toys, clothes, etc, etc and then she wants nothing to do with it.

IMG_0223

Love Love Love this sign we got from a burnt down barn. It was a charity event and I just haaaaaaaad to have it.

IMG_0224

O’s aunt made that wreath from pink tissue paper for my front door when I had my baby shower. It’s soooo pretty!

IMG_0231

This toy box was my dads growing up and I sanded the weird sketchy clowns off it and painted it 6 million times with that Martha Stewart Glitter paint. You can’t even see the glitter, total waste of time.

It is also filled to the brim with small $5 bribes. It typically costs about $5 to peacefully grocery shop with O, and it is so worth it. I would gladly pay double that to peacefully do anything with W but we haven’t reached that bridge yet. Apparently her patience and cooperation is priceless.

IMG_1241

Found these two on Craig’s list. Luckily C went with me to pick them up for one because they weighed like a million pounds each and for two you never know what kind of sketch ball is waiting to chop you up into tiny little pieces off craigslist. SO always bring someone with you! 

And don’t be scared to turn the sale down either! Unlike me who bought  broken $10 packnplay with baby vomit inside and actually spent $20 because the crazy woman didn’t have any change. My fault for not bringing exact change, I will admit – but ewww so gross for not cleaning your baby puke up before you sold your packnplay! I mean seriously have some dignity people!!!!

IMG_1368 IMG_1369 IMG_2189

Anyway. I painted and distressed these two and I love how they turned out. I was too impatient to order that Annie Sloan chalk paint so I used the Americana from Home Depot. Boy that is some thick stuff. We shall see how it holds up. I guess the good part about them being distressed is that scratches won’t matter???

wild nursery

Remember how I said I went through a psychotic pregnancy paint spree?

Well, I wasn’t kidding. I wanted to do something really wild with the baby nursery. This was the first of the projects I stared and I must have been about 5 months preg because I wanted it gender neutral.

I wanted to use stuff I already had on hand and since this room was very jungle-ish already I decided to go with it. This room was really just a catch-all for all the misfit furniture that did’t belong anywhere else in the house.

We had 2 large artificial palm trees, huge Pier 1 metal mother and baby giraffe statues and a queen size bed.

Jungle it is. I went with animal prints. Giraffe’s – obviously and Zebra.

My little helper.I taped and painted the walls a base color for my animal prints.

SAMSUNG

SAMSUNG

always in our underwear in this house, except me. I wear clothes all the time.

SAMSUNG

Boom. That is trippy, right? I freehand taped all the spots. C said it doesn;t look like Giraffe colors but I thought it did.

SAMSUNG

Got this little guy at a Kids Nearly New sale for $15! Sometimes it does pay to be late to everything! Nobody wants to pack this back up in their car after a long day at the yard sale!

IMG_0808  so niiiiice.

we went back and forth with baby W’s name forevvvveeeeer. I got antsy and started painting random names anyway.

SAMSUNG IMG_0222

Got all the letters from Michael’s. I was so freaking mad too because I went like three different times for the letter E. I hand painted all the letters too. I liked the Carters sheet and blanket set Jungle Jill – or something, I can’t remember the name exactly but pretty sure it was that. I don’t buy the whole bedding shebang since babies aren’t supposed to have anything in the crib. But I got the sheet, the baby blanket (the super soft one not the quilt) and a wall sticker and plaque. The plaque was dumb and it was a total waste and the sticker was kind of lame too but oh well. I ended up coordinating the baby name, letters to the sticker.

IMG_0220IMG_0219

Oh, yea – in case you didn’t notice we went with a different name. No matter! I love painting apparently!

I made like 60 thousand holes in the wall trying to get these letters hung. Thanks to my handy laser level the look pretty damn close to level. I had them on the giraffe wall but was scared they would fall off the wall in the middle of the night and hit the baby so I relocated them to above the window.

SAMSUNG

Here is the zebra wall. This was so annoying. Can you see the face? You either do or you don’t. If you don’t just say you do okay? Never painting this room again EVER.

I had the white crib against the zebra side but my mother said it would scare the baby. And I had bought hot pink frames and wanted to hang them on that side specifically so I moved everything all around and put the crib in the giraffe side.

IMG_0218

Hopefully W stays in the crib until she is like 5. But I bought her a bed anyway and put it in O’s room. Once she moves out of here this will be a guest room. Cuz we have guests over like all the time. NOT.

IMG_0217    IMG_0221

playroom

Once upon a time I had a fancy dining room.

It had beautiful beaded curtains and a wall with a bunch of lovely black and white photos and a pretty bar table that would collect large quantities of dust.

Then came baby O. I first relocated the beautiful beaded curtains because they posed a huge strangulation hazard. Then I had to move the bar table into the kitchen because our kitchen table was baby-face level and glass which posed a hole new set of lethal hazards.

Then my dining room sat empty. I discussed it’s playroom potential but C wasn’t convinced and we utilized our bedroom’s sitting room as the playroom. That was great until O’s second birthday when all the kids wanted to play in there and I was uncomfortable since it was technically my bedroom. That’s when I decided to hell with our fancy decor, our lives were over anyway. Might as well accept fate and be comfortable in our own house.

Then I stole C’s favorite couch from his office and convinced C’s mom (grandmom) to make pretty curtains.

Begin transformation playroom….

Oh, I mixed the steps up a bit – I did paint first. This awkward sea foam color. I had a lot left over from the upstairs hallway so I tried to use what I had without having to buy new.

IMG_3455

I didn’t like the way it looked like a kindercare so I painted over it wit another color I had – and I hate cutting in so I taped a trim line since I did like the sea foam color.

IMG_3933

These are the curtains from Joanne’s that Grandmom fixed up for us. I drove to two different Joanne’s for enough fabric but I really liked it. That’s the cozy couch I stole from C. That couch has seen better days. But it’s nice and low to the ground so when the girls fall off it’s no big deal.

IMG_3779IMG_3778

Then I painted the black frames yellow.

IMG_0246

I had some of those cubes with the girls toys in them but with all the bright colors I wanted something a bit more formal. I found this great armoir (<- I think I spelled that wrong) anyway, I found it on craigslist for like $100. But the guy wanted it gone asap so I got it for $50! It took forever for me to paint it.

I hate Pinterest BTW. It makes me think I can do all this crafty stuff. Then I buy all the stuff just to figure out I am not so crafty. From afar it looks good – and that is enough for me.

IMG_2174

It did not come with that smallish child inside.

IMG_0213 IMG_0214

Here is the finished result. Not gonna lie – I kinda love it. I reclaimed that coffee table too. Lets see if I can insert that post – it was one of my earlier attempts at entertainment…

https://amberunraveled.wordpress.com/2014/07/31/reclaimed/

IMG_0215

I got a little silly and painted some shelves yellow too. And found this little canvas that matched, O sings the song all the time anyway so it had some sentimental value an all (but it mostly matched). I wrapped yarn all around that letter O and then said there was NO WAY I was going to do it again so W got the shaft, as per the norm and I painted her W.

IMG_0247

And that’s how we got our cozy playroom. I really like it, it’s functional and gets lots of hours.

teleworking

It has been unfortunately snowing here off and on for the past few days (weeks – whatever). It sucks really bad. Traffic is already horrendous on a normal day – add snow and you might as well stay home. Like literally. We have a steep cliff for a driveway too so the littlest dusting calls for teleworking. Not only would I likely slide back down the driveway (hill) but I would slip off the back of the parking pad, which is a cliff down to certain doom.

Anyway, days I telework the girls just basically run wild throughout the house destroying stuff. Example – right now I have about 35 stickers stuck to the kitchen floor I have to eventually peel up at some point.

I’m not sure what drives children to just destroy but I feel as though they would be setting the curtains on fire and burning couches if I let them.

Figure 1 – playroom.

IMG_0199

I force myself not to look in there during the day. C gets so mad because I like to clean it all up at night before I go to bed. It looks so pretty all cleaned up.

IMG_0213

great room

This is where it all goes down. The great room. I don’t know specifically why some rooms are great and some are called family or living rooms but I like the way you can say GREAT so many different ways.

At least in my head I say it different ways and it’s funny – in my head.

IMG_0200

The little people are in all the pictures. They see a camera come out and it’s “CHEESE” and “CHEESEBEEEERGER” the entire time. All the furniture in here is mix matched. Originally we had glass tables that all matched and looked lovely but they were evicted once the kids started running around. I try to avoid unnecessary accidents as much as possible.

The black side table is actually my kitchen table with the glass top removed. Hopefully we can use that again one day once the kids are taller.

IMG_0238

The TV looks a little sideways…

My – uh, I mean the girls Anywhere Pottery Barn chairs. I love them.

IMG_0243 This surprisingly and extremely comfortable rocking chair came as a set with our camper! I know, so lame to use recreational furniture in your home but it just happened okay. None of us saw it coming. It has more than earned it’s keep rocking babies over the past four years. And I made those pillow cases myself thank you. It took lots of fabric because I messed up the measurements somehow but it all worked out in the end. The fabric was called Waverly – how ironic, right?

IMG_0244

No, it’s not me and it’s not a stripper. It’s a painting of a scene from Dancing with the Stars. A painter at our gym did it. He’s super amazing.

home edition

I was cleaning and decided to snap some pictures for bloggy world. This is for you Rose, it will be a virtual tour of my house. But minus the virtual tour part. Okay so it will be more like strategic pictures taken at optimal angles to hide all the crap and junk and make me look like an amazing house keeper, cleaner, decorator, what-have you.

It’s basically an optical illusion. As is my entire life.

IMG_0249

HI! Come On In!

Chris randomly called me from Home Depot and said there was a really great door on clearance. Apparently the people who bought it measured wrong so it was an odd size. Being the craftsman as he is Chris made it fit our house by adding extravagant molding details around the frame. It’s so fancy. The old owners last name was “Fly” I think. I think of them often. Like way often. Whenever I open the front door I see FLY written on masking tape on the inside trim. I will pull it off one day.

That crazy thing on the door knob is a child lock to keep in grandparents, visitors and babies.