I was so excited to find out I was having a baby girl a few years ago. I can’t believe that was almost 3 years ago! Once we found out , my next mission was creating a super girly nursery. I knew I wanted lots of pink, white, and cream. My amazing Mother-In-Law made the cutest bedding. She can sew like nobodies business. I was able to pick out my fabric which was the base for the rest of the nursery decor. I picked a pastel pink colored fabric for the main print that had some damask throughout. I also picked coordinating trim and cream fabric to go with it. She also sewed the curtains to match the bedding. Next, I wanted a ceiling fan but also a chandelier. This was a BIG DILEMMA. I even thought , at one point, about doing a chandelier fan. Have you heard of these? It’s a ceiling fan but the light kit on it is a chandelier. Because our ceiling was only 8 feet tall upstairs, I thought the chandelier fan would hang down too low in the room. My alternate solution was to use a plug-in chandelier, like a lamp. In the picture, you can see it over the cute table where the diaper cake is sitting. I put a cord cover from Pier 1 Imports to cover the chain. The frame collage, on the wall by the rocking chair, came from my Mom’s collection she has had for years. I spray painted (I’ll have another post about my favorite spray paint and technique) them to match the decor. The big ornate frame between the candlesticks is from IKEA. I especially love the cute newspaper bows on each candlestick holder. My Mother-In-Law made them for my baby shower (along with that diaper cake) and I wanted to use them in the nursery too.

The super comfortable rocking chair you see is from Buy- Buy Baby. I picked a light colored chair so I draped a white blanket over it from IKEA. This chair was a life savvvveeerrrr. Those all-nighters holding a baby were so comfy in this chair. It rocks, reclines, swivels, and has a leg rest. BOOM! If there is one thing you should invest in for a nursery, it is a GOOD rocking chair! I spent half my babies life in this thing. The crib and changing table were definitely a splurge. Since it converts to a toddler bed and full-size bed, I figured we would keep it for a while. ( I know I said that about my sons too and then I made a cute headboard for him.) I love the shabby chic style and how intricate the detail work on the crib looks. This time, I really do plan on using it in her room for years to come. Those paper lanterns are from a local decorating store called Thai Pai. We used extra fabric scraps left from the bedding to tie to the bottom of each one. I hung them from the ceiling with fishing wire.

The shelf above her changing table was a garage sale find that I spray painted. The “Aylie” name strung under the shelf was made by my Mother-In-Law. The letters came from Hobby Lobby and were spray painted. She then took bronze craft wire to string the letters , curling or bending the wire as she went.

The flowers on the shelf are in one of my favorite vases. A painted Mason Jar. I had some cream paint laying around so this was an easy project. I finished if off by tying a ribbon bow around the jar.

I love how everything came together so perfectly. It is so girly and I can’t wait to set it all back up when we move into our new house. The final design appointment is Monday. We are moving right along. It seems so far away (probably because it is), 8 months to be exact. You know what they say, good things come to those who wait. I’ll be posting Monday all about our builder’s design center and what we have picked out. Stay tuned…..

You know those days where from the moment you wake up, you are running like a crazy person to get things done??? Kids fed, up ,and ready to drop at school. Then a million errands and other things that have to get done that day. And when you finally return home, after picking up the kids from school, all you want to do is eat a bowl of cereal for dinner and call it good. BUT NOOOO. You are going to cook something for dinner because secretly you really are hungry for something good. So you throw on some spaghetti. While the water is boiling you then walk into the bathroom, only to step into a puddle of water covering the bathroom floor. OMG! Just what was needed. Panic mode set in thinking of all the damage. So that was how my day was on Tuesday. Just in case you were wondering, the pretty little faucet got left on a slow drip from 8 a.m. until about 4 p.m. It was just the right amount of drip to catch on the back of the sink, run down the side of the vanity and down to the floor. The good news it only expanded the wood of the vanity a little at the bottom. However, it did go through the floor to the other side of the carpet in my daughter’s room. But my awesome mom had a floor fan that we borrowed. Because we caught it soon enough we only had to lift up the carpet and pad to dry out. We didn’t have to rip anything out. So It was a lessoned learned. CHECK THE FAUCETS before you leave in the morning. Little ones always manage to find their way back in after you check. So be sure you’re the last one to check! By the way, that bathroom was only finished a few months ago. So, it was a sigh of relief that no major damage occurred! Other than that my Thursday was just peachy :).

I went to this amazing garage sale this talented local blogger was having. Turns out her entire neighborhood was involved in the sale. So we went to a bunch of houses and got a lot of amazing things. One of them being this chair. Now, this chair was from the definition of a “cat lady.” I’m talking old and smelly chair from a house full of cats , owned by a sweet old lady. But it was a bargain at $5. I love the lines and shape of the chair. Now this was a few years ago. It sat in my garage for a long time. Until I was getting ready to move into our townhouse and I had to clean out the garage. I couldn’t get rid of it so I decided to make it pretty and take it with me. First, I took off the cat fur infested fabric which uncovered a smelly foam cushion. I went down to Hobby Lobby and got a new foam pad and this cute modern gray trellis fabric. Once I glued the new pad foam onto the wood seat base (that was still usable), I reupholstered the new fabric to the seat. Next came painting the chair. You know I went to my go-to spray paint Krylon and chose white. I wanted to add something more to the chair than just all white. That’s when I busted out the frog tape and decided to add a gold racing stripe. I just love how it turned out. It went to a new home when we sold our townhouse but It was a fun easy change.

 

 

 

 

In our townhouse, we really wanted some kind of accent wall going down to the basement. I was tempted to do board and batten, but I wanted to try something new. I looked all over trying to decide what I wanted. I finally arrived at shiplap or a planked wall. Now planking would mean I would hook tongue and groove boards together in order to achieve the look I wanted. It would also be quite a bit thick. Shiplap is also very similar and both are more expensive than what I did. Now my idea of shiplap is really a faux shiplap I guess. I decided to go with this because it was thinner. Off to Home Depot to get some cheap sheets of plywood or utility board ($13 a sheet) ripped into 6-inch strips.  I got home and sanded them slightly to get them a little smoother where they were cut.

First, I painted the wall white where the planks would go.  I spaced them slightly apart using a nickel and I didn’t want the tan color to peek through. Then I started priming the planks. It was kind of hard to do this before I even had nailed them to the wall, so I quit half way through :). I bought a cordless nail gun for this ya’ll! So I just started nailing them up to the wall using a nickel to space in between the boards. We had a weird curve towards the top of our ceiling and we just used our jigsaw to cut that since home Depot only does straight cuts. It wasn’t perfect but I caulked, filled , and painted so no one will ever notice. Once all my boards were up I filled all the nail holes and caulked. Then I painted three coats of white paint with a foam roller.  Now if you get paint where you spaced the boards, just use a spatula or putty knife to scrap it out. I wanted to hang three pictures but I couldn’t decide if I wanted white frames or silver. I ended up choosing the silver frames from IKEA. What do you think?

 

As you know from my post about the stripes on my entry, I kind of have a thing for stripes. So when I needed curtains for my master bedroom , of course, I wanted big stripes. The only problem is any curtains of 96″ with stripes are sooooo expensive . Let’s be honest, my sewing skills are not that great either so you know I wasn’t going to even try sewing them. That leaves paint. Yup , hat’s right, paint! The best place to get long , inexpensive curtains is IKEA! I purchased a pair of plain white curtains and got to taping off my stripes. That was fun! Try having a one-year-old and six-year-old stay out of the dining room while your taped curtains take over……ummmm yeah. I used the same method as I did for my entry wall. A big long level and light pencil mark all the way across then put my tape over the faint pencil line. Next is the fun part….paint. And it will take a lot, let me tell ya….those stripes were thirsty :). After a few coats of paint, (put plastic down under because it will soak through to your floors) I let them dry nice and good overnight. The next morning I had crispy curtains.lol Once I hung them and put them into the shape I wanted, you couldn’t tell they were that hard/crispy. So what are you waiting for? Go get some curtains from IKEA and get to painting! Also, my bedding is from Target. The square accent pillows and rolled pillow are from IKEA. The round decorative pillow with the jewel is from Ross. The blanket on the end of the bed is from IKEA too ( I love that store). This darling ruffled bed skirt is from Wal-Mart. If you need any more details just email me or leave a comment! 

My son had a four piece convertible crib for a long time. I mean, it converted to a full-size bed so why would you need anything else? Wrong! When you have a constant urge to redecorate everything, you obviously will not keep that bed forever. So I wanted an easy and cheap solution that would look good. So off to Home Depot we went to get 1×6 pine. They cut straight cuts for free. We had the boards cut to full-size headboard length. Now this is the easy part…..I laid them down in my garage with a tarp under and rubbed Minwax Jacobean stain on them. Once they were dry I stacked them like they would look on a headboard. Then I (and Mr.Whitelane) used two longer 1×6 boards as my feet post and support brackets to screw it all together. Done!