Kids' room make-overs

I don't think I ever posted pictures of when I made-over the boys' room, so since I sort of changed up the girls' room with Callie's new big girl bed, I figured I would just post pictures of both rooms.

Here is the boys' room before:

Here is the after:

I painted one of the dressers, got the headboards from my Grandma, Julie made the drawing on the wall for Kent a few years ago, but it went perfectly with their room that I decided to put it in there.

I found this shelf at the Goodwill and loved it.  I painted it white and loved it.  I am kicking myself now because there was another one just like it and I should have bought it so that both boys would have his own shelf, but I was trying to not spend a lot of money so I didn't.  UGH!  Now I totally regret my decision!  I repainted the boys' initials (except the blue ones) to match the room too.

My SIL, Erin, made this cute French picture holder for me and it also went perfectly in their room, so I found some pictures I loved and made prints to hang on it.  It turned out so great!

So here is the girls' room before:

 And the after:

We are going to add some throw pillows to add more colors from the sheets and make the quilt a bit more girly looking.  Morgan may even make some herself!

I wanted to do something else to add the colors of their sheets to their room, so I found some ribbon I had and bought a few more colors to match and then glued them to the lampshade.  I love the way it turned out!

I found this nightstand at the Goodwill and painted it white.  The shelf below is perfect for a bright basket of books!  My SIL, Kelly, gave Morgan the CTR shield for her baptism.  Morgan wants a cute alarm clock to add to her nightstand. :)

The other dresser we used when Callie was a baby was perfect for a changing table, but there just wasn't enough room for it anymore, so I inherited my Grandma's dresser and painted it this bright, cheery yellow.

 I really want to get the boys and Morgan loft beds so they have room for a desk or some more storage because their rooms just won't fit much else besides their beds and dressers.  Morgan is dying for a desk, so maybe for her birthday this year we can make that happen.  BUT I do love the way it all turned out and I was able to do it so inexpensively!

New furniture!!!

So after 12 years of marriage, we FINALLY bought our OWN, NEW furniture!!!  I have been waiting for this day for a LOOOONG time! :)  It was a lot of fun looking for just the right style and size and especially fun picking out the pillows!  I love the light aqua blue and wanted to incorporate it into my color scheme, but didn't have the budget to completely throw all my other decor (which I still loved!) away and start over, so I was ESTATIC to find a fabric pattern that had ALL the colors I wanted in it PLUS I loved the pattern!

 This one-and-a-half chair can fit two people comfortably, and FOUR kids a bit uncomfortably. :)

Since I didn't have any aqua blue decor, I used some of my birthday money and bought this awesome little ceramic vase.  I also added the flowers I used for Morgan's baptism to the mantle as well.

Before getting the furniture and pillows, I was thinking that I wanted to paint this little table the aqua blue for another pop of color, but once I had everything in place, I realized that if I painted it blue, it would be too much blue since I have two blue pillows as well.  So I thought about painting it red, but then my sister pointed out that my curtains are pretty bland against the wall and that maybe I should use the red for the curtains, which would then leave me wondering what color to paint the table again.  I don't know yet.  But I do like the idea of getting red curtains.  Maybe with Christmas money I can do that.

I haven't had anything on top of the entertainment center since we moved here except for displaying Morgan's baptism pictures, so I decided to add some color to the room that way too.  I saw this beautiful red ceramic platter at Hobby Lobby, but 1) it was WAY to expensive and 2) it was ceramic and BIG, so I didn't want it to get broken by some toy being thrown around.  SO I remembered I had this fun silver platter that I could transform into a "faux" ceramic platter - a lot less expensive and definitely less breakable!  It turned out great!  So now, besides painting the dresser at some point, I am pretty much done updating and decorating my house!  I love it all and it makes me so happy looking at it every day!  If I am going to be home, then I want to enjoy my surroundings! :)

A new look!

So Kent's aunt and uncle gave this hutch to us about 6 or 7 years ago.  From the beginning I wanted to update it but for some reason Kent wanted to hold on to the look of it since it had been passed down to "him".  I think he thought it was treasured family heirloom passed down from generation to generation or something.  After asking his aunt, she said she had just bought it at some garage sale for $75.  But Kent had some kind of attachment to it and still didn't want me to do anything about it.  Why a guy cared about what a hutch looked like, is still kind of a mystery to me.  When we asked all his brothers if they would care whether their wives painted and updated a piece of furniture, they all said they could care less.  It was kind of a sore subject between us and I think he was just being stubborn, BUT I won't go into all that. :)  Anyway, once we bought a house with a fence and he was able to get another dog, he FINALLY agreed to letting me update this piece of furniture that had HUGE potential!  So, I used some of my birthday money to buy the paint and new knobs and handles for it.  Here is the before (it also used to have glass paneled doors  on the two upper sides that I took off a while ago so I was able to showcase things better):

 

Look at those spindles! I tried rearranging and adding things to see how I wanted it to look after I painted it all.

After A LOT of puddying in old holes and re-drilling new holes (b/c it was so old they didn't make pull handles that size anymore!) priming, painting, touching up, and adding the new hardware - it was finally finished!!  I am TOTALLY in love with it!

 

My friend recently repainted and added new knobs to a buffet she bought at a garage sale and used all different knobs.  I LOVED the idea, so I copied it!

Look! No more spindles!!!

 I have an old, mid century style, long, low dresser that a friend of mine from college gave us when Tyler was just a baby that I am also going to paint black and add the same/similiar knobs to.  The two pieces of furniture are totally different styles, but I think the black and the knobs will tie them both together nicely.  It was perfect to use as a baby changing table with lots of room for baby clothes, diapers, AND blankets/burp cloths, BUT since we are done having kids and we didn't have room for it in the kids' rooms, I moved it downstairs to give us lots more storage for "stuff".

The rest of my birthday money went to updating the decor in the family room that will match our NEW FURNITURE AND PILLOWS that we are getting next week!  Once I get it all put together, I will post pictures!

Updated decor

So since I really couldn't buy many clothes for my birthday, I decided to use my birthday money to update my home decor. Plus now that I have nice walls to decorate (instead of paneling that was SO hard to hang things on!) and we have nice carpet everywhere and tile floors where they need to be (like in the bathroom!) I decided I was ready for a fresh update. Not everything changed of course, but I found some cute ideas that I wanted to incorporate, so I did! I made a few things that I think turned out nice, so I will explain it all.

Here are some of the additions to the living room. (I've got some fall decorations up, so I guess permanently it won't always looks this way). I bought some willow balls to add to my metal bowl on the piano, bought matching lamps, painted the green A on the collage wall, and made a coat rack since we use the coat closet for food storage/garage stuff (thanks Candy for the coat rack idea!) My dear friend, Ashley, sent me this vinyl lettering quote that fits perfectly above it! I also made another that is behind the door where all our backpacks, umbrellas and purses hang. I also painted all the frames black that I had to match better. My sister painted the little square canvases for us for Christmas one year, so that added some cute pop of color to the frames, and I decided to have kind of an "A" theme to it as well.

Ashley also made me the "cooking is love made visible" quote and I couldn't figure out where to put it b/c there aren't a lot of spaces in the kitchen, but I had a piece of left over wood from the coat racks, so I decided to paint it, add the quote and then copy the design from a piece of sb paper that I used to made another decoration for the kitchen and then paint the design . I love the way it turned out! I also put together the flower picture that is hanging in the downstairs bathroom. The flowers are at my Grandma Elzer's house and I love the peeling painted shed behind them! I found a perfect use for my dark brown baskets I had in my breezeway in Waynetown. They made cute storage! I decided it was time to give up my shabby-chic clock and bought this nice big black one. I cut out the back of the shelf that had a heart cut out of it (SO not into hearts anymore!) and painted it black. I bought the wheat grass to add to the shelf. I was originally going to set the framed A on the shelf, but it was just too big, so I hung it in the kitchen. I painted my rod-iron basket black (it was kind of a dark gray) for a cute way to store my bathroom towels and bought the boxwood topiary. I found that bathroom sink set up on a fun blog. I loved re-fashioning all sorts of things and making homemade items, because it was a super cheap way to update my decor!

I decided to go with the colors I had used in the breezeway since we don't have a breezeway to put the pillows, table, etc in. I found the candlestick, lamp, vase and brown wooden vase at Goodwill this summer. I love finding cute things there! And of course, as I already posted, I painted the nightstand and dresser to match.

Now on to the bathroom. I was so sick of my shower curtain, having had it for 9 years, plus it was getting faded and stained, so I found this one at World Market - thanks Kelly for introducing me to that AWESOME store! Anyway, I was so proud of myself because if I hadn't looked for deals, I would have had to use almost all of my birthday money on the bathroom. BUT because I am such a savvy shopper ;) I was able to spend HALF of what I would have paid for everything!!! I also got the cute blue containers at World Market as well as the floor mat. A friend of mine bought the wall hanging at Goodwill, painted it green, but didn't have a good place to put it, so she gave it to me. Thanks so much Tiffany!!! I got the towels at JCPenny's white sale (plus I had a $10 off coupon!). Oh, and you can't see them very well, but I got the shower curtain hooks and the toothbrush holder (not shown) at Kohls.

So anyway, I love how everything turned out! It's so nice to be able to decorate the walls (it was driving me crazy having plain white walls to look at all summer!) and to have a newer looking home to live in. I had a lot of fun putting it all together. It makes me happy every time I look at what I did and gives me a sense of self-satisfaction and accomplishment. I was able to do a lot with all the good deals I found using coupons, Goodwill finds, and refurbishing things I already had.

Christmas is all around . . .

Just thought I would post some of my Christmas decorations. I absolutely love my tree this year, but the pictures don't do it justice! It's so tall I couldn't stand back far enough to get the whole thing in the picture! I have been collecting matching ornaments, trim, etc for the last couple years and it just looks so warm and inviting - like one you would find in an old-fashion Christmas card! I wouldn't mind getting some light green textured ornaments to add to the mix.




We made these ornament hooks at the RS Craft Night this year. They were very time-consuming, but I enjoyed making them. I made some gold with red and white beads and some silver with green beads. I love how they snaz up the red ball ornaments!

This is a good assortment of the different ornaments I have collected. We still added all our individual ornaments, but these help unify it I think. I love the round, white beady ones with the red snowflake! I actually gave these kind out to each of the families at church one year for the Christmas party when I was in charge of it. There were a bunch left over, so I kept all the white and red ones!

This is our "gift to Jesus" box and the box where I store all my previous Christmas cards. It adds a little sparkle to the tree.

I love my little forest of miniature Christmas trees!

My village collection:

When uploading this picture I realized poor Joseph fell and is laying on his side (bottom right)!

You can't really tell it's hanging in the middle in this picture, but Kent insists we hang mistletoe every year!

The stockings were hung on the banister with care. . .