A Little Boy's Baseball Bedroom

A while back we started to transform our son's room from a fairy tale nursery to a little boy's baseball bedroom.  It took a while to get it together and it still isn't finished.  But I thought I would share the progress we've made.

You can read more about how we added baseballs to the bedposts here.

My mom gave us this shelf that once hung at her dad's house.  I painted it deep blue and hung it over the window.  I found some hardware at Lowes (for hanging closet bars I think) and hung the curtains right between the corbels.  That bat was an old Busch Stadium giveaway from when I was a kid.  It is laying on a notched out piece of scrap wood so it won't roll off the shelf.

The toy box got a new paint job with the same paint as the shelf.

This is what the toy box looked like before (in all its crayon colored on glory!)

This summer we moved the kids' play kitchen into Little R's room.  He plays with it more than the girls so it works well.  It has seen better days but the kids love it.

We also added a cute baseball lamp that my father-in-law found but my picture was blurry so I'll have to take another one tomorrow.  :)

A Little Patio Love

The days are longer, the weather is warmer, and the back yard is calling!  I finally got around to sprucing up our patio post renovation.  The renovation cut our patio space in half since we enclosed the covered side.  I went digging through my computer files to find this picture I took on our first visit before we bought the house  over seven years ago.  The first summer here we took down the lattice, got rid of the bushes, and put up a privacy fence on that side of the yard.  We also hung a ceiling fan and planted grape vines that grew wildly up the posts.

Here is the horrible before picture taken a couple of months ago.  The covered patio acted as a catch-all for anything and everything.  Birds kept trying to nest in the grape vines and ceiling fan and left little presents all over the furniture.  Yuck.  This space was such an eye sore that we barely used it.

Then came the renovation this spring.  We enclosed the covered patio to make a room for our parrots.  At first I was very worried about how everything would work out.  I didn't like the idea of more cheap vinyl siding taking over the back of our house.  However, siding plans changed when we discovered extensive termite damage.  All of the old dirty siding came down in order to make repairs and we replaced it with composite Hardie Boards.  This picture was taken in the middle of the chaos.  Yes, that is a large parrot cage on the patio.

And now, drum roll please.....

We have a functional and visually appealing place to hang out!  I moved most of the furniture off of the patio since space is very limited.  Usually the kids sit at their picnic table in the grass so this is adequate seating for our normal day to day life.  And the patio gets plenty of shade during the day so I can hang out and watch the kids play without scorching in the sun!  

The chairs needed to be redone so I took a deep breath and painted them fun colors (I hinted about it here).  The green color inspiration came from an unlikely source- the kids' legos!  We went with Sassy Green (Valspar Ultra Exterior Paint + Primer).  The purple is Royal Plum, left over from our new shutters.  I was nervous about going so bright but it totally works!  

Our water "bubbler" needs a little TLC still.  The horse tails are spreading and growing like crazy.  Unfortunately, one of the dogs ran through them last week and broke a bunch.

Ryan made a new cooler for the porch with old barn wood we had laying around.  I'll post the details separately.

We finally hung our old bottle opener and bottle-top catcher.  Ryan has had the opener since his bachelor days and he bought the catcher in St. Louis after taking an Anheuser-Busch Brewery tour a few days before our wedding.  It only took seven years to hang it!

The harsh Oklahoma heat hasn't killed our flowers yet!

And my lime tree has six baby limes growing!

We have one more porch project on the radar.  We'd love to cover and extend the concrete slab with bricks or pavers.  We found a ton of these old red bricks and are trying to negotiate a purchase.  Making a patio out of these will be a huge undertaking, so we aren't in any rush!  These things are HEAVY!

The weather is so gorgeous here today that I think I'll have lunch on the patio!  Happy Monday!

Board and Batten Shutter Reveal!

My new shutters are finished and hung!  Painting them purple (Valspar's "Royal Plum") was a big risk, but I really like the way they look.  They add some personality to our house.  Even though this was a relatively small project, it feels good to cross it off the to-do list!

Taking Care of Business

Hi Feathers and Fingerprints readers!  I'm sorry for the long absence of posts.  Life got pretty hectic for a while between adding a third child to the family and changing jobs!  I left first grade after 7 years to teach gifted and talented education.  It has been a huge change but I am so glad I took the leap!  

Now that life is starting to settle into a routine again I'm finally getting around to showing you the finishing touches in the hall bathroom project!  To be honest, we spent so much time in the bathroom this summer potty training our 2 year old that I had no interest in blogging about it!

Let me remind you where we started.  You can read more about the reno here, here, and here, and see the last reveal here.

Hall Bathroom Before

Finally we have a shower curtain and towel bar!  The shower curtain came from Home Goods and the towel bar came from Ikea.  I picked up both items while traveling this summer.  Unfortunately, we don't have either store in my home state.  I sure wish Home Goods would come to Oklahoma...

Tree Shower Curtain

The towel bar fits our needs perfectly.  It provides plenty of hooks for towels and swimsuits.  I hung it low enough that the kids can hang their wet items on their own.  And the price was insanely cheap so I'll have no regrets if I want to replace it with something nicer later.

Bathroom Towel Bar Hooks

Next, the mirror got an upgrade.  We reused the original mirror and made a frame from wood trim.  There are many tutorials on the web if you search.  The frame was a cheap and easy way to add character to the room.

Bathroom Framed Mirror

And, because I love the frame around the mirror so much, why not add one around the toilet paper dispenser?  I've never been a fan of the built in toilet paper holder.  I wanted my husband to rip it out and fix the drywall when he was repairing the other walls.  Unfortunately, I forgot to mention it.  Oops.  So, crazy thought, lets fix this eyesore by framing it.  I think it totally worked.

Toilet Paper Dispenser Frame

There you have it!  My finished bathroom!

Thanks to our hard work, creativity, and careful planning, this entire renovation was completed for under $1000.  That's some serious budget DIY! 

What projects do you have going on?

Hall Bathroom Project Reveal!

We worked really hard to complete our hall bathroom renovation in just two weeks! Most of the work was done on the weekends since my husband had a couple of trips out of town for work.  You can see our progress here, here, and here.  

Drum roll please...

BEFORE {Previous Owner Status}

BEFORE RENOVATION {2 weeks ago}

AFTER

The vanity, tub, tiles, and fixtures are all from Lowes.  Ryan and I did all of the demo and construction with some much needed help keeping the kids entertained from my mom and good friend Amanda.  {THANK YOU Grandma Jane and Amanda!!!}  There is still work to be done but as it is now the bathroom is fully functioning!  And fully functioning is good enough for me!  I'm off to enjoy the rest of my spring break!  Here's to hoping it stops raining soon!

Room for a Boy

I've been busy "nesting" for the last week as we prepare to adopt a little boy.  You can read more about that here.  We still don't know when our little guy, who we've been calling Little Brother, will actually be ours, but we're hoping it will be soon.  

I thought I would share some pictures of Little Brother's room.  This room was the nursery we brought our girls home to and then became the guest room when we moved the girls into the Princess room.

I found this quilt at Target and instantly fell in love.  Our Ugly Doll OX matches it perfectly.  Fortunately, it was on clearance and I got it for a great price.  Unfortunately, it didn't have a coordinating bed skirt.

The pink changing table pad will be replaced with blue or green as soon as I can get my hands on the right fabric.  I spent a long time painting the castle on the wall 5 years ago and haven't decided if I can really bring myself to paint over it.  I'm also itching to make roman shades, but again, I haven't found the right fabric.  

I'm picturing roman shades with a fun fabric like these:

{Source}

I can't wait to paint the furniture midnight blue.

 I love the blue furniture in this picture:

{source}

If I muster the courage to paint over the castle we'll probably go with a vintage baseball theme.  The old glove was my husband's grandfather's.  My whole family are Cardinals fans so I'm sure I'll find a way to bring some birds in.  :)

Here are a few more pictures that inspire me:

{Source}

{Source}

{Source}

Bye Bye Nursery

 This is the picture I took of the third bedroom when we moved into our house.  Love the formal curtains and tan trim, don't you?  ;)

A little over a year later we were expecting our first baby and the third bedroom became a nursery.  The walls and trim got fresh paint.

My husband built an amazing crib.  I sewed the crib bumpers and skirt.

Hubby also built a changing table to match the crib.  I took down the big heavy curtains and sewed lighter curtains to match the crib bedding.

I spent hours and hours painting a castle on the wall.  We also hung some puppets to complete the fairy tale theme.

Both of our girls slept and played in this room for the first year or two of their lives.  Now they share the larger Princess bedroom.  The nursery slowly changed into a guest room and the crib was disassembled and moved to the attic.  Now this room is undergoing yet another change.  

The nursery is becoming Little Brother's room!

I recently shared our good news about being selected to adopt a little boy.  As we go through the required steps to bring him home I have been busy preparing his room.  I'll be sure to post more as the room comes together!

My Corner Office

My home office is located in a little corner off of the dining room.  Almost a year ago I posted about my office and how I organized it.  At the time I was happy with the space because I was happy to just have a home office.  However, as time progressed the office kept getting messier and  messier because it wasn't functional.  And there was too. much. stuff.  Just staring at me.  Making me crazy.  So I spend a full day going through everything.  I removed most of my craft supplies.  I moved some things to a closet.  I got rid of a lot of stuff.  

And it felt good.  

Until all the dust left me sneezing and itching.  

After a good cleaning I brought in some bins and baskets to organize and hide all of our stuff.

This little corner gets a lot of natural light through the skylight.  

The baskets hold stationary, envelopes, and paperwork. 

 I already had two magazine files and since I couldn't find any more matching files I made my own.  They hold paper, magazines, pictures, and the kids' artwork that I'll eventually put in books.  The framed photo and vase are from our honeymoon in Costa Rica.  

I kept a couple of jars for office supplies and small electronic pieces and plugs.

I'm really happy with the space now that I got rid of the clutter and put things away in baskets and bins.  It has taken me almost two weeks to get this post written and my office is still clean!  Its amazing!  A little organization can go a long way.