Adeline's Nursery

We've posted a bunch of photos of this room in various stages of completion, but here it is in it's most recent and final stage.

Our theme for our little girl’s room was “woodland” and we incorporated that with various stuffed animals (foxes, owls, etc.) as well as some of the prints which were from etsy. But before we got started on the decorating, we pulled up the carpet and refinished the hardwood floors as well as painted over the dingy/dirty/ugly tan wall paper.

We wanted the room to be feminine for our little girly, but we didn't want a pink Pepto Bismol explosion. To combat the inevitable pink we brought in oranges and yellows, all in sherbet tones.

The best before/after in the room is the dresser which was $7 at a thrift store but it had really old and ugly yellow paint and a drawer was broken. We painted it glossy white around the tops and sides and the drawers themselves are a gradient of a coral color. Because we only needed a little paint we used the Home Depot $3 paint samples for the drawer fronts. Then, because the sample paint comes in flat sheen only, I sprayed them with a gloss clear spray paint.

We saved a bunch of money by getting most of the items at either IKEA, thrift stores or Craigslist. The room has a nice bright and cheery feel to it and we love playing with our little girl in there. There are some special family touches in the room, including the pennant flag banner made by Auntie, the embroidered squirrel, made by Mom, and the Raggedy Ann, made by Great Grandma.

Now the photos:

Rachel's Grandmother made this little Raggedy Anne:

Paolo the Fox series from etsy: 

Rachel needlepointed the little squirrel ---- which is hanging from a brass owl: 

It's pretty obvious Adeline loves it! Thanks for reading.




Crib: IKEA
Paint: Behr Ultra Custard Cream semi gloss with White trim and ceiling
Rug: Home Depot
Bookshelf: Craigslist - it came painted white so bonus! Though we added the wood effect backing
Dresser/changing table: Thrift store for $7 though it was hideous yellow and a drawer was broken.
Prints: Felix the Fox, and Paolo the Fox series in IKEA frames
Flag banner: Kaitlin, Rachel's sister made the awesome flag banner over the crib
Rocking chair: Craigslist
Floor lamp: IKEA

Master Bedroom: the DIY headboard

This post isn't about the silver ceiling tile headboard I had made for the Master bedroom about a year ago. Rachel wanted something "softer" ----- figuratively and literally.

We had online headboard shopped and nothing was cheap and I kept saying, "I could make that". For example this Target headboard for $300:

So finally, I got around to making it.

Materials:
3 2x2's from Home Depot @ $1.87 each ($5.61)
1 4x8 particle board @ $12
1 picture frame wire @ $2.50
1 pack picture frame mounts @ $2.50
2 yards of fabric $13
2 yards of thick batting $15
11 packs of upholstery nails @ $1.30 each ($14.30)

Total cost: $65

For our Queen bed, I made it 67" wide by 41" tall. The frame is pretty simple, then I screwed the sheet of particle board to it. I then used a router around the edges so that the fabric would wrap around a little smoother and make it look less like fabric wrapped around a board. The 2 x 2's give a nice depth and help add to the structure of it.

I mounted the picture frame hardware on the inside of the frame (rather than the back side) so that the hardware wouldn't be against the wall:

So here it is looking pretty decent pre-upholstery nails. The nails took a decent amount of time. I used a straight edge and a pencil to draw a line down the top and each side where I wanted the nails to go to help keep things straight. 

Also, I found by using needle nose pliers to hold the nail part it made things easier ---- the nails are about an inch apart: 

Anyway, here it is: 

Still planned are new matching table lamps and a sunburst mirror over the bed.

Kitchen

Take a good look, it's not going to look like this much longer:

Outdoor plumbing

On the side of our house, we have these pipes that leaked like crazy. Also, for some reason, the pipe comes up 4 feet then goes back down. Not sure why, perhaps it was so an old person could turn the water on and off without having to bend over? No idea.

I had re-wrapped the pipe in insulation last winter when we had the freezing temps because those pipes are just asking to freeze.

Was going to call a plumber, then decided to tackle it myself. An hour and a half later and it looked like this:

Used brass fittings ---- about every little piece in that photo cost over $10, so total price was around $80 and sore hands! But cheaper than a plumber.

More Garage stuff

So, I was browsing on Craigslist the other day and came across an ad for this: 

The perfect thing to hold all of my screws/bolts/etc. So I called her and she said she still had it and had some other cabinets like it too. She was cleaning out her dad's garage.

So I drove over there. She had two other cabinet units that had these small drawers. I asked her how much she wanted for all three, and she said, well, you know I think they're worth $40.

Done.

Got them home and into the garage ----- am going to build a workbench over them I think ---- the small unit might just sit on top and under the cabinets:



Small bin has built in dividers ---- the grey one has removal dividers:

Also, I restored this Wilton vise ---- stamped 12-46 (made in December 1946): 

Before: 

After: 

      

Our new nightstands

Rachel and I have been pondering a re-do to our bedroom ---- getting rid of the black and replacing it with cream/white furniture.

To do this, we were going to repaint our current nightstands, maybe get mirrors to place on top, and small brass dangly drawer pulls. Sounds like a lot of work, hence why it's only been discussed.

Until I saw these and Rachel said "I want those!"

Cream, brass drawer pulls and gold mirrored tops. Done. 

Our new TV console!

So as mentioned we got this office credenza from the Salvation Army for $25 (it was priced $50 but Saturdays are 50% off days). We went there looking for a TV console, didn't really see anything we loved, but we stayed there and got a little more creative before finally realizing we could make this thing into something fairly awesome. The color of the wood is kind of hard to see past.

I used a circular saw to cut off what acted as the legs, then I added the trim pieces to the front doors. Some new decorative feet and silvery knobs and of course the greyish paint ----- we're beginning to only use Martha Stewart colors from Home Depot ---- you get fewer choices but that's kind of a good thing. In the photo below the piece is on furniture dolly so that I could roll it in and out of the garage. If you look closer, you can also see the unpainted turned feet.

All totalled we spent:
$25 for the credenza
And about $60 for the supplies (paint, wooden feet, knobs)

We bought this last Saturday, so in less than a week, we got a new piece of furniture and we couldn't be happier at how it turned out.

fill it up

Rachel is beginning to pack her card catalog drawer unit with all of her supplies and tools ---- having 24 medium sized drawers rates pretty awesome on the organization scale.

Just as a reminder, here it is in the office a year ago (note the lack of a top, and stained carpet, also the fronts were really dirty): 

Now that it's not in our entry area anymore, we have this huge space for something. Were going to take the current TV stand/cabinet and put it in the entry area and use the new media center cabinet I posted yesterday in the living room.

Transformation in progress

We picked this up at the Salvation Army on Saturday for $25 ----- its transformation into our new TV cabinet/media center is in progress...

We also got a large wooden mirror for $15 that'll go in the front room. Bonus is that it all fit in the wagon along with Rachel and Adeline and Adeline's stroller!

The carpet's here

and Olive wants more cuddle time

ordered the rug...

Rachel had finally decided on an area rug for her office, though, when we went to order it, "sold out".

I ended up finding this one on eBay actually but from the seller rugsusa.com which has a pretty good website.

It's 7.5 feet by 9.5 feet:

 

I also got the white outlets and white light switches installed this weekend too. 

WHITE floors

When I started this project 2 weeks ago, I told Rachel I'd have the room done (painted) before she picked out the rug to go in it.

I'm proud to say, I won the "race":

Still a few more things to do:

• replace the almond outlets with white ones
• paint the ceiling fan white

Office progress

I got the floors sanded and patched over the last few days. There was a glue that they laid down which ended up staining the floors ----- which means its great that we are planning on painting the floors rather than staining them:

Speaking of painting, my Dad is heading over there today to put down at least the first coat of paint! 

Kelly Moore makes a cement floor paint that should be durable, we went with straight white in the gloss. 

Rachel's Office

This is the last room that we haven't touched with the decorating stick. And it showed, here's the perfect "before" photo, this is like rock bottom, hard not to make it any worse right?

Now that life is settling down a bit, we decided to give it a go. We had always thought we'd paint the room in some kind of green:

Then, Rachel saw this room and wanted to use these colors in her office: 

We were thinking, the "spring tip" in the above photo. So we bought some paint samples, then a few more, then a few more, and they never looked right: 

Then, on a whim, Rachel had me get a sample of "Pink Granite":

Every time we've picked colors for a room, we've gone through 4-8 paint samples, and every time we almost settled on a color. Then, we put on a new sample and it's "perfect". This was the case with the pink granite also, a kind of mauve.

The photo doesn't do the color justice; it's a difficult color to photograph, sometimes looking more brown than lavender. I had originally pulled the carpet out of room, then realized it was the perfect drop cloth, thus why it's still in the photo below.

To do list:

• pull up carpet to see condition of concrete slab underneath
• tear out tack strips
• repair holes left by tack strips
• pick a color
• paint ceiling
• paint walls
• paint baseboards
• secure internet cable line to the baseboards
• sand old glue off of floors
• paint floors white