Payton's Big Girl Room

I finished Payton's big girl room and we both LOVE it.  My favorite view is from inside her reading "castle" as she calls it.

I still need to get some decor for the dresser, but that is going to have to wait.

Nesting

Nesting has officially gotten the best of me.  I am so excited to start decorating our little baby boy's nursery.  His room used to be the "I don't know where to put this" room.  It was full of storage boxes, things that needed to be organized, things to sell, the list goes on and on.  So last week we finally got everything put away and put up Payton's old crib, rocking chair and changing table.  We even put up some curtains.  But that is about it.  The walls are completely blank and it is really starting to bother me.  So I have found a way to decorate without having to spend more then $100.

So the curtains (navy blue and white pattern pictured behind the rocking chair) we already had from the Layton house.  The 3 picture frames we already have as well, I just have to paint the two outside frames navy blue.  The arrow and "Be Brave" prints I printed for free at home.  The deer print I am buying off of ETSY for $20.  The Scrabble letter is $12 off of amazon.  We really like the name Oliver but we aren't set on it yet so we won't actually buy that until we see him and decide what name fits.  The splurge item are the grey arrow crib sheets.  They are $50 on ETSY.  I CAN NOT sew so I  don't want to go the cheap route and buy the fabric and make them myself.  That would be a complete disaster.

The thing I am most excited about are the deer antlers.  Tyler shot this 4 point buck last year and we have these awesome antlers.  

We just need to buy a wooden mount and some cool fabric that matches the curtains and make it look something like this.  It can't be too hard right?  

So the total cost is:

Deer print: $15

Scrabbler letter: $12

Arrow crib sheets: $50

Wood mount and fabric: $15

Total: $92

Payton's room is also a work in progress.  Right now there is only one thing up on the wall, but I am working on a gallery wall to go above her dresser that will look like this when I am done.

I have everything already except for the wooden P that I bought for $5 and turquoise paint for the P and the heart frame.  I love decorating for cheap.  It is the best.

Adding some color to our blank walls

I have been really putting off decorating our rental, but I finally adding some color to our off white walls.  I love it and now I want to do more.  I'm pretty sure it is because I am nesting.  Now we actually have a family picture up (even though it was a family picture taken a year and a half ago).  At least we have one up.

 

On a side note....this little tinker bell is pretty much potty trained (at least in our own home).  We will attempt to face the public in a few days.  

Out With The Old...In With the New & Improved

So after using our bedspread for 6 months or so I HATED it.  

But I told myself I wouldn't buy a new one unless I could sell this.  So I finally sold it and our bed no longer looks like this.  

I have been dying to get a new headboard for so long and it is still on my wish list.  I also want to switch up the curtains that are behind our bed.  I like the solid blue curtains by the door but I want all three curtains behind the bed to be matching and more subtle.  

So after a lot of time spent looking up fabrics, headboards, nightstands, pillows etc. I finally found everything that I want.  

So in this list we already have the dresser from IKEA and the blue curtains for our french doors.  The dresser I actually have been eyeing for a while.  It is $229 at IKEA, but I actually found someone selling the exact one on ksl for $150.  Score.

Here is a list of where everything else is from and the prices:

                               Curtain Panels - IKEA $12.99 each

                      Headboard - Target $350

Euro Shams - fabric.com $17.98/yd +$12 for 1 pillow

Comforter - Overstock $72 + $18 for king pillows

Throw Pillows - Spoonflower - $17.50/yd + $16 for 2 pillows

Gold Pillow - $20

Nightstands - IKEA $69 each

Lamps - Target $24.99 each

Gold Pouf - Target $49.99

Arm Chair - Target $279.99

Corral Polka Dot Pillow - Target $16.99

 
                                      Total - around $1250

After selling a few items like our old dresser, the old bedspread, an old camera and some other things I was able to have enough money to buy a few things on the list.

New white comforter - En Route to my house

White & Gold Curtain Panels

Fabric for pillows - My awesome sister in law agreed to make the covers for me

She has her own etsy shop and is amazingly talented.  Check it out.

So now I need to find a few more things in our house to sell in order to complete my dream bedroom.

My Dream Bathroom

One of the main reasons we fell in love with this house are the cathedral ceilings.  We have three rooms in the house where the ceilings are high and gorgeous and make the rooms feel huge.  The living room/kitchen, our master bedroom and our master bathroom.  

Although the master bathroom is HUGE and has a ton of potential this is what it looks like at the moment (except now the closet is full and we took down those nasty curtains)

We have put this off because 1-we don't even know where to start and 2- we want to do a massive renovation to it that we wouldn't want to do on our own

So our goal is to save up some money over the next few years and then turn it into our DREAM bathroom (on a budget of course)

I did a ton of research on how to save money on bathroom remodels because next to kitchens they are the most expensive room in the house to remodel.  

A few tips that I am going to use are:

-keeping the bath and sink in the same location 

-we are switching the shower and toilet but they both have water hookups there anyway

-buying all appliances and materials ourselves 

-hiring sub-contractors for each job not a big company that remodels bathrooms

-look at second hand stores for some appliances (toilet, shower heads, etc.)

One thing that we are doing that makes things more complicated is knocking out some walls to expand our bathroom.  I know that sounds stupid especially because it is HUGE already, but to the right of the bathtub and behind the toilet is a second washer dryer hookup that we aren't using because the laundry room is downstairs.  

So we plan to knock out the wall behind this toilet and switch the shower and toilet so we can have a huge shower with two heads.  I have always wanted that.

So here is a layout I set up with the exact measurements on this nice website

So the major changes you can see are switching the shower and toilet and putting up two doors (one for the bathroom and one for the main entrance to replace that curtain).  I'm also super stoked about getting a vanity across from the sink and a nice claw foot soaker tub!

Here are the designs I plan on using with these specific products from various stores.

Paint color: Colorado Gray by Benjamin Moore

Tile: Cork Wood Tile - $3.98 SF from Home Depot

Double Sink Vanity - $499 from Ikea

Four Light Chrome Lighting - $112 from Overstock

Moroccan Wallpaper - $160 from an Etsy shop

Chevron Rug - $30 from Target

Desk - $90 from Ikea

Tall Storage Shelves - $110 each from Ikea

Whicker chair - $80 from Ikea
Art - DIY
Same lighting as the one over the sink

Crystal Chandelier - $157 from Overstock

Soaking Tub - $1163 from Lowes

Art - DIY

Bath rug - $23 at Target

Silver frame around fireplace - custom

Toilet - $150 from Lowes

Art - DIY

Bathroom Storage - $69 from Ikea

Toiletpaper holder - $8 from Ikea

Grey subway tile for shower wall - $2.39 SF at Overstock

Blue circle tile for shower floor - $5.70 SF from Overstock

Rain Shower Heads - $288 each from Lowes

We also plan on opening up the closet so that it is longer and getting custom closet space like this.

So this is what I will be saving for over the next two years.  It will be SO worth it.  I can manage using this bath tub for another 2 years

 knowing that one day my bathroom will be AMAZING.

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree!

I love decorating for Christmas.  Especially with how much work we have put into our house.  I really wanted to go out and buy new decorations, but I decided to just use what I already have.  

Here is how it turned out.

Payton LOVES the snow.  She begs me almost everyday to go out and play in the snow.  She always brings me her gloves and makes me put them on her inside, even if we don't go outside.

Gallery Wall

For the first 3 months of living in our house we had no decorations upstairs.  Usually when you first move into a house after unpacking the first thing you do is make it feel homey by putting up decorations.  Because we had so much to do at first (painting, ripping up tile, carpeting, and more painting) we got so tired and just gave up on the whole decoration thing.

Now that things have slowed down we can now put up some decorations to make the house feel more like a home.  The first place to start.  Above the fireplace.

You can tell from this picture that despite our best efforts of filling holes and painting, you can still see damage to the wall above the fireplace.  I debated putting up a big mirror in the middle like this by my amazing sister in law at Simple Sage Designs, but it wouldn't cover up the far left and right part of the damage.  

So we decided to do a gallery wall.

I bought a bunch of different sized frames from my favorite budget friendly decor store lately (DI) and painted them all white.  

I filled the left upper two frames with leftover fabric I had.  The bottom left was a free printable that I found online.  The right two pictures are obviously art that I did myself…haha.  I will blog later about those two FREE projects. The middle frame is the only thing I paid for.  The wooden R was a few dollars from JoAnns on sale and the fabric was $1.  So this project including the frames cost a grand total of $10.

So I read several blogs about the best way to hang a gallery wall in one try without putting a million holes in your wall. A lot of blogs like this one said to use paper to cut out the exact size of each frame and tape those to the wall first and then use nails for the real frames.  If we had a larger gallery wall we probably would have done it, but we just positioned it on the ground the way we wanted it.  Other then that all you need is a tube of toothpaste (yes toothpaste) and another set of eyes.

So you put the toothpaste on the back of the frame where the nail would go like this.

Then you place it up on the wall where you want it using someone else behind you to tell you if it looks center (or how you want it).

And the toothpaste is left behind on the wall.  

So then you simply nail where the toothpaste is and wash it off.

Works like a charm.

So we kept doing that process picture by picture and it literally took 5 minutes.

No re-nailing.  There are only 6 holes in that wall.

 Here is Tyler enjoying our cosy living room after working up a sweat hanging pictures.