Project Paint: Samantha's room

To be perfectly honest, I had ZERO intention of redoing Sam's room again. We had just painted her room three years ago when we did the nursery for Grant, and I liked the aqua color.

 

But as soon as the paint started going up elsewhere she immediately declared that her room needed to be PINK!

 

I hopped on pinterest and pinned a few ideas for her.  Her room was feeling very crowded and she is quite the keeper of ALL THE LITTLE THINGS.

 

 One idea I fell in love with was a pottery barn kids book shelf/window seat combo. I could NOT figure out how to do it for less than $250 though.  Then one night I had a bam! moment and realized I had a set of matching bookshelves in my sewing space I could use in her room.

Dave custom built her that bench to go between them. She loves that space!

The rug is a super, super plush $60 Amazon buy. (Particularly helpful since I have been carless.)

 Her bed went white again. I tried a lot of different stuff on this wall and ultimately just put the quilts back up. The kids are rowdy so nothing fragile could go there. And since they are rowdy, nothing that is so precious I could cry over could go there either.

Besides, I love the quilts. I made sure her shelves hold a big stack of them still - she had been asking to use them with her dolls.

 I bought that swag on instagram, the chalkboard thing is  an internet freebie printed on a free reusable sticker from Walgreens.

 One of the main goals of this was to get her a nice big play space in the middle of her room as she likes to go in there to get away from the boys. The photos don't show it, but that has been achieved in her tiny room.

 I bought this pottery barn kids quilt for her when she was a baby and FINALLY pulled it out of the closet.

 The bench fabric is slightly wrinkly because it's a clearance organic cotton KNIT curtain panel that was horribly sized and never fit on a single window. The knit shifts, but it's cozy.

 She did a VERY good job helping me weed through her toys and books. I explained they ALL had to fit on these two shelves now.

 This wall was super easy, and another pinterest idea. It's just washi tape.

 I will say it is not sticking nearly as well as the originator of this idea claimed though. I find myself pushing it back on every so often. I think a putty knife or something might make it stick better, but I do NOT want to be the one to have to take that back off in a year.

Since I used my sewing room shelves in her room my sewing fabric had to have a mini makeover too. I used some cube shelves we had been using to hold toys in the playroom. I actually really like them there. The extra floor space makes that room feel bigger too.

I am on a painting hiatus for the moment after her room!

Project Paint: the long hallway

It's been two weeks now without our second car.

I am not going to lie - it's getting ugly. I have tried hard to keep busy, but I am starting to just be physically exhausted from the work of painting. (It is like moving without the truck.) I have four rooms done and four to go. I've basted a quilt, made small sewing projects but LORDY give me back the car!  The back to school stuff is starting with a vengeance and my kids don't even have a pencil yet. The supply lists are miles long too.


Anyway. The hallway went from yellow to white. The last yellow room is the living room.(One of the biggest jobs and the most dreaded.)

 This was the hallway before the remodel - just for fun.

I rearranged all the frames, weeding out ones I just didn't like anymore.

 It's very bright in there now!

Sammi's room is done too. It took FOUR DAYS to clean out the messes in there!  I am waiting on her rug to arrive, then I can show it to you.

 

Jack's room is up next. I have a plan for colors and layout and a few upgrades. I suggested he spend the morning today starting to weed out stuff he doesn't need or want anymore.

Want to know what's in that pile?

 

NOTHING.

 

Good luck to me! LOL

 

Flea market Sunday on Monday

The kids only have one more Friday of summer camp just as I have finally started to get my yard sale groove on. It only takes one good sale, as evidenced by all this loot!

That cellophane bag is holding a super thin ornament, the horns on the bottom are metal. I am not in love with them, but the paint is charming enough to keep them from the donation bag for now.

I am pretty sure I have seen these Santa costumes in my Halloween collectibles book. Finding one has been on my list forever, and when I saw the pic of it in the ad, I got my behind there as soon as I could.

I think this is actual art And not a print, but I thought it would be sweet in sammi's room.  Her room is nearly done and I haven't found a place for it in there yet though.

These cuties are shop bound. 

This little table is adorable. I think it will live in the living room once I make over that room. The can on top is super heavy and totally amazing. I  cannot even believe I scrounged it out of a basement for two dollars. The st Charles dairy used to be located not far from us. 

I am still knee deep in totally redoing our house! I have two more rooms done and will be back with those soon!

Dress up with wigs

Rapunzel, complete with hair.

And a wizard and a turtle.

Flea Market Sundays

These photos are awful. We are having a very dark, stormy morning here.  Which, on the one hand, is swell because my children who have been waking up at 5 am actually slept until 8. But not so good for blog photos.

This wasn't a great flea market week anyway. The best find of the week was a lot of new old stock cotton birds I scored at a garage sale on Friday.  The photo of those is on instagram. I nearly peed in my pants when I spotted them!

A few random Christmas things.

Very, very tiny cotton Halloween heads. I am plotting a haunted Halloween house already and these will be perfect.

A set of card games just like the ones I used to play with my grandma. These will be used for playing with the kids.

Oh man, these are so awful they are good. German Dresden devils. They are HUGE! As tall as a Ziploc sandwich bag. I can't decide if they are too awful for the Halloween swap or not...but trust me, I am considering it. (evil laugh here, LOL)

4+ yards of this grey 1950s fabric...

and 4+ yards of this turquoise 1950s fabric. I can't decide if they are keepers or shop bound.

This is a keeper - I wish the light was better. It's peach colored with copper glittered dots, also 4+ yards. Even if I have to keep it for a prom dress that will never be for Sam, I will find something to make with this gorgeousness.

Halloween was out in full force this week.  Wooohooo!

And a partial set of Bill Ding stacking clowns for the kids.

 

Happy Sunday to you!

Project paint: master bathroom

This is the room that's been bugging me for a loooong time. 

The pink in here was always a way more intense oink than I had intended, but by that point in the remodel it did not seem wise to suggest painting it again. 

Now that it is a nice bright white, it just feels "right". 

I took down the IKEA mirror and hung a vintage one.

I printed my hippo photo on a canvas. I LOVE HER SO MUCH!

I took a vintage quilt top that Erica sent me and after a million hours of repairs and alterations I had a gorgeous shower curtain. Half is at the foot of the tub -

And the other half is at the head of the tub.

I hung up those folk art ducks from the flea a few weeks ago. I also have a serious crush on those. (Did I even mention those here? Or only Instagram? Who knows anymore.) Isn't it awesome though?

My medicine chest corner is unchanged other than the duck.

And my old door has a quilty curtain now.

Next up on the paint list - basement stairwell. Yikes!

Ginty boy rocks old school

Dave is still working until ten pm, so yesterday Jack and Sam went to Oma's house for a bit.

It's shockingly quiet with just one two year old.

I find myself wondering what to do with all my free time.

I used it to send a whole years worth of photos to Costco (gasp) and catch up on making two years worth of blog books. Because apparently I can do my regular mother/housewife gig and sew but nothing else. (Like decorate, paint, run a business, organize anything, keep up with photos, blog, etc.)  

Anyway. Digging in the photos and the blog made me realize I miss this space. Two years from now I am going to want to remember something and it won't be here, which is sad. This time passes e dr so quickly and the blog is more faithful than my old brain ever will be at remembering.

My current quilt is  a pain in the ass, so the break is welcome. 

Grant is inching so close to three already! He woke up yesterday with about a hundred new words in his vocabulary. Lately I've been thinking he is scarily like Jack - knows the alphabet, easily counts to twenty, has an advanced vocabulary, is building crazy train layouts, is stupidly intense with the crazy tantrums and frustration.

He has totally different loves though - vacuums and cords and cooking!  And totally different tantrum triggers - "broken" food, injustice, you daring to do anything for him that there is even the slightest chance he could do for himself. 

 I cannot even believe he is about to be three! 

In fact, I am sure that Sam is still only three.  

Speaking of Sam, she is taking a very rare nap at the moment after running around here screaming and crying like a child possessed this morning. This was despite us doing what she wanted to do while grant was with Oma. We played a matching game, made a pie and made a suncatcher she has been bugging me about. 

I do not even like pie (the crust usually put me off), but strawberries were dirt cheap and I have to get them all used up. I had a piece of this after lunch and oh.my.word! I might be a pie convert.

Alright, time to sort out swimming gear I think. My hippo is on the truck for delivery, so bathroom paint tomorrow I think. 

Project paint: the foyer edition

When Dave asked me what I wanted for my 40th birthday, I said I wanted the bathroom painted.

It wasn't the only thing I have been itching to paint though. In fact, my list is six rooms long.

The bathroom is done but I am still waiting on a canvas I ordered to go in there, so how about we look at the foyer instead?

I am just going to say right now I am still unsure about this color. This was the first space we painted what I think of as "my yellow" when we remodeled the house. Seeing my yellow in this space it really start to feel like home.

Six years of kids and high traffic left it a mess and I was getting tired of touching up the paint.  I stuck a blue paint chip up in there over a year ago after seeing a GORGEOUS blue house in Martha Stewart Living.

Spurred on by all the tv ads for how durable the new fangled paint is I took it all down this weekend and painted it.

A blurry before (really only taken to help me rehang all that stuff!).

The yellow was warm and cheerful.

And after:

The color is pale flower from Lowes. I don't know which company because I had them mix it in Valspar Reserve. (It was a historic color, I remember that much.)

I had to repaint the dresser too. I really did prefer that thing in blue.

That shelf is working very well for holding a million messy kids shoes. Each kid knows where his/her shoes are, and they do get returned there. It doesn't exactly look tidy, but whatever.

Hopefully my canvas will arrive soon and I can show you the bathroom!

 

Next up on the hit list - basement stairwell, Grant's room, the living room and Sam wants her room pink.

 

If I live that long? Painting is hard work man!  I knew there was a reason I asked for it as a gift. Hmmmm.