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Girls’ Room Reveal

Earlier this year, I unveiled my big plans for redoing the girls’ shared room/nursery , and after months of adding little things here and there (and just barely managing to finish up the furniture painting a week before River was born), I’m pleased to say that their room is finally complete!

I stuck with the mint/pink theme that I originally wanted, complimented with some nice grey accents. The entire room has such a different feel to it than it did back in February, and it’s a place for the girls to just relax in and enjoy!

It’s also not super girly, but just enough. 😉

One important thing to note about the space is that nothing was overly expensive, although I did splurge a bit just to make sure everything turned out super cute and cozy for my girls. A lot of the pieces seen were purchased at Target, and you know I got them when they were on sale 😉 (hence why it took a little while to get it all done). 

wire basket

Hadley’s little spot to hang all her favorite coats. Especially her red sweater because, you know, she’s Daniel Tiger. 

mint and grey bins

Pretty much the first thing I did was remove the closet doors, which really made the room feel more spacious and open. It also allowed for the changing table to be placed in the closet and out of the way. 

wicker baskets / pink bin

The changing table originally had a natural wood look, but it was just a hint too dark for my liking, so I went with this awesome shade of grey and it was exactly what I was looking for!

And of course the crib had to match! The sheets and skirt I made myself, which you can find the tutorials for here and here. 

“hello baby” / arrows

shelves / sign 

Ah, the reading nook. This is probably my favorite part of the room, and Hadley loves it too of course. 🙂 Be sure to check out how I made this awesome DIY giant floor pillow and also our shelves for under $20!

comforter / bear pillow

“never stop exploring” / triangles

I just love Etsy. I mean who doesn’t, right? Their downloadable prints make it super easy to just buy, print, and hang! And the black frames were actually purchased from Dollar Tree, believe it or not. Whenever I need frames, I always check the dollar store first. After that, it’s the thrift store. 🙂

I told you I was gonna do something with that ugly door. Although I really would’ve loved to paint it, I settled for just hanging some bins to provide a little bit of storage. They were found in one of my favorite places on the face of the Earth: the Target dollar section!

Although it’s still a bit of an eye sore, at least now it serves some sort of purpose! (It’s where the furnace and hot water heater are located soooo not much I can do about it.)

This rocker was given to me by my sister, which was given to her by her sister-in-law. Oh, how I love hand-me-downs! Originally, it had kind of a blah color to it…

So all I did was sew a new cover using this tutorial. Super quick and easy! I used the same fabric that I used for the floor pillow, so it ties in very nicely. 

print

This table. One thing I absolutely love is a good thrift store find. I had been telling Michael that I wanted a cute, small table to go next to the rocking chair, but I didn’t think I’d find one so quick!

I went to Value Village just to see what they had, and there it was!

And for five bucks?? Score! It too got a few coats of pretty grey paint (after a good cleaning) and that was that.

This shelf is something that had been laying around for years. The cardboard letters were from the craft store, which I just covered in scrapbook paper. 

curtains / rug

I am really pleased with the way everything turned out. I think Michael and I did pretty good considering we didn’t have a very big budget. The girls will be spending a lot of time in this room and I’m just glad that they have a space now that they can call their own! 

♥

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Our Indoor Herb and Veggie Garden!

One thing Michael and I have always wanted to do is start our own little garden. We’ve tried growing various herbs and veggies in the past, but have never really gotten serious about it… til’ now!

About a month ago, we spotted these little $1 and $3 seed starter kits at Target and decided to give them a try! To be honest, I wasn’t really expecting much for how little we paid for them, but we were pleasantly surprised!

This is our kitchen window! Originally, we tried growing them in the dining room, but they just weren’t getting the sun that they needed. Once we switched everything over to the kitchen, things really started to take off!

Again, most of what we have started off as little dollar section starters. As they grew bigger and bigger, we transferred them to planters with adequate space. 

I found these planters at Dollar Tree and it was actually Michael’s idea to drill the holes and hang them from the ceiling to free up more space along the windowsill. Along with the basil, we also have oregano and thyme, all of which we replanted a couple weeks ago and are doing extremely well! 

Down below, we have parsley, rosemary, cherry tomatoes, wheat grass, peppers, and celery. We found these little colorful buckets in the Target dollar section as well, and they’re the perfect size for getting seeds started!

These are our little cherry tomatoes, which we started just a couple weeks ago and are already ready for a bigger pot!

The peppers are the ones that I’m actually a little surprised about. I wasn’t really expecting them to grow this quickly, or really even at all. I’m excited to see how big they get!

See the adorable little sign? Also purchased from Target, in case anyone was wondering. (Because, where else would it be from?) And if you look to the left, you’ll see the newest additions to our little garden…

Our succulents! I’ve always wanted to grow these and now we finally are! We knew we needed to have them in the window in order to receive adequate sunlight, but there wasn’t a ton of space leftover. So on our trip to Home Depot (which is, in some cases, a more dangerous store than Target), we found these nifty little magnetic pots! 

And Michael, being the crafty little man that he is, thought of using these thin metal sheets to hang them on. I think it turned out super cute and we’re planning on doing the same thing on the opposite side!

Tips for starting your own window garden:

  • Choose your window wisely. The sunniest window in the house usually will do just fine!
  • Don’t over water. When your seeds are just starting out, it’s best to use a spray bottle to mist them twice a day or so until they require more water. 
  • Use a good plant food. We use EcoScraps Organic Tomato, Herb, and Vegetable and it works great!
  • Experiment. Not everything is going to grow perfectly, and that’s okay! Try out different veggies and herbs until you find the ones that work for you. Also, do some research on different plants to see what works and what doesn’t.
  • Have patience. Everything will come in time. 🙂

And most importantly… have fun! Get the whole family involved! Hadley absolutely loves watering the plants and I’m so excited for her to grow up around gardening and maybe one day have a little garden of her own! ♥

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DVD Organization- Perfect for Small Spaces!

I don’t think I’m alone in saying that I absolutely hate clutter. Can’t stand it. I’m more of a “everything has its place and it has to go there” kind of person (and again, I know I can’t be the only one who feels this way). Because of this, I am constantly looking for new ways to organize our house. 

One of the things that had been bothering me lately (well, mostly Michael, actually) was our lack of DVD organization. At our old place, we had a bunch of built-ins that provided plenty of storage, so this was never really an issue. Since we moved, though, all of our movies had been sitting in the ottoman in our living room, and yes, it was completely unorganized. 

See? Not good. Finding anything in there was extremely frustrating and annoyingly time consuming. It’s about a foot deep and over two feet in diameter, so it can hold a pretty good amount of movies. So after opting to not watch movies for a couple months just so we could avoid the sheer frustration of trying to actually find them, we finaly decided that enough was enough.

This binder holds up to 240 discs and 120 covers. For me, keeping the DVDs with their covers was extremely important; it makes it easier to navigate through all of my movies and if I ever wanted to go back to cases again (for whatever reason), I’ll still have all the covers handy.

With four sets of rings, I dedicated the first two to adult movies PG-13 and up, and the other two to kids movies, PG and G. I alphabetized each section to make it even easier to find exactly what I wanna watch- and fast!

Although this binder is originally intended to hold only one cover per page, I thought this was kind of silly and I really wanted to utilize as much space as I could. So, I decided to double up covers instead! This method actually worked quite well, and although the covers were  a bit snug together, they fit perfectly without having to be bent and I personally think it looks better this way!

The only exception was for movies with two discs, which I obviously used one whole page for. In doing the doubling up method, I was left with a ton of space left over for future movies to be added!

It’s super easy to find any movie I want to watch now without having to dig through piles and piles of cases! Look at them all! You bet it felt good to get rid of all that junk. 😉 I actually ended up keeping a bunch of the ones that were in better shape. The only thing left to do now is look up projects that can be done with DVD cases!

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Front Porch Makeover Under $40

Making the new house our own has been a fun and exciting journey. Every little project we do just makes it that much more cozy, slowly making it into a home. And since we had already done quite a bit of work on the inside, I figured it was time that the outside of the house got a little bit of attention as well.

This was our porch two months ago. And this is exactly how it had looked since we had moved in in December, complete with the collection of broken planters and dead plants. Immediately, I knew that I wanted to make a noticeable difference without going too over the top or spending too much money. 

My main goal was definitely to add some color. The plainness of it all was just so dull; so… blah.

Much better. If there’s one thing that can brighten up pretty much any space- it’s color. This entire project pretty much consisted of buying a few key pieces, adding a bit of paint, and relocating some plants. For the minimal amount of effort that was required, the end result makes quite the bold statement. 

The best part about this makeover is that everything came to just under $40 to complete. 

  • “Hello” sign- $3 in the dollar section at Target
  • Pillows (here and here)- $10 each at Target 
  • Welcome mat- $12.99 at Target (yes, I shop at Target way too much  )
  • Bench- done with leftover paint from our hutch repurpose project

Total: $35.99
(Note: Prices listed may vary.)

Being how I am, I am constantly striving to save money and find a way to really stretch our dollar, so I think that this project was a total success in doing just that!

My favorite piece- the welcome mat! It’s so bright and adorable, I just love it. And take a good look at that 32 week bump! 😉

When Hadley noticed that I was outside taking pictures, of course it wasn’t long before she was out there posing. Love her cheesy little grin!

Self-explanatory. This sign had been hanging on the front porch of my childhood home for close to twenty years. Since I was the first of my siblings to have a child of my own (followed closely by my sister), my mom passed it down to me. 

For obvious reasons, it’s extremely appropriate. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. 😉

Until the next project!

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DIY Repurposed China Hutch

When it comes to updating the home, there are two routes you can choose from; the “out with old, in with the new” route, which involves buying entirely new pieces, or the “work with whatcha got” route, which involves taking pieces you already have and giving them a fresh, new look. I, for one, prefer the second option. Not only is it more frugal, but I also just think it’s fun to experiment and try to find the true potential of furniture instead before it’s tossed to the curb.

This is our hutch. It was given to us by a family friend when they moved, and for awhile we were using it to store our glasses and dinnerware. When we moved into the new place, though, we converted our other hutch to use in our dining room, rendering this one as useless. Or so we thought. 

It didn’t take me long to figure out that this hutch would make an excellent TV stand; nice and wide, adequate storage underneath for all of our movies and other electronics, and overall just really appealing to look at. I measured out our TV and once I found out that it would fit almost perfectly, we set out for some supplies and got started!

Step one: removing the doors. Easy peasy. Removing the beams that separated the doors proved to be the more challenging part.

They were pretty secured on there, but with a good hammer and some of Michael’s super strength, they came off no problem!

Next came the shelves. Now these things were really wedged in there. Michael ended up sawing each one down the middle then pretty much kicked them out. (Not recommended, but it definitely got the job done.)

All cleared out! The only real problem we ran into with this process was something we didn’t anticipate; the inner walls were notched out in order to hold the shelves in place a little better. To remedy this, we globbed on a ton of wood filler into each of the notches and let it sit for a few days.

We used the Elmer’s brand, which I like because it starts off as purple and turns white when it’s ready to sand! We also used it to fill in the hinges from the doors.

And while Michael was doing all this demo-type stuff, I decided to tackle a much easier job…

Painting! (After Michael sanded it down, of course). The color we chose was a bit of a modified egg yolk, and I think it turned out great! Yellow is definitely an accent color in our living room, so I thought it was a terrific choice.

These doors were a doozy! They have so much detail, it was a bit time consuming to make sure everything was coated evenly. It all worked out in the end, though! 🙂 I purchased new knobs to better match our color scheme, and all we had to do was wood fill the old holes, sand them down, then drill all new holes and paint!

After the bottom was all painted, we were eager to get it inside so we could start using it to hold our TV. Although it looked nice the way it was, I knew that I wanted the full effect so we quickly got to work on finishing the top!

Painting was a piece of cake. The harder part was applying the wallpaper. I had never worked with it before, but once we got the hang of it, it turned out to be a pretty simple process. We measured all the pieces out, stuck them on, let them dry overnight, then trimmed up the edges and voila!

And lastly, came the shelf. I knew I wanted to store all the consoles up high, since a  certain little boy named Brodie kept pushing all my buttons (quite literally)! To accomplish this, we picked up a 3/4″ plywood board from Home Depot and had them cut it down to size. To secure it, we measured out where we wanted it, then drilled two holes in either wall, then screwed it into place. 

One thing I noticed with the wood we used was that it was slightly bowed, and appears to “droop” now that it’s all put in place. Although it doesn’t bother me much, a quick solution would be to just add a couple supports underneath to give it a little boost. 

And now… the moment of truth! Our finished product!!


Wow! It’s almost unbelievable that this is even the same piece of furniture. Plus it really seems to brighten up the room, which I just love! I decided to leave the bottom drawers out altogether and instead add some fun baskets to add a little more character. Also, the TV fits like a glove!

I think this is a great example of how you can spruce up your furniture and really bring out the true potential. I’m glad that we were able to find a way to keep this hutch in our home and I can’t wait to see what else we can redo to continue making our house more “us”. 🙂

Some tips:

  • Always prime before you paint. Although a lot of paints nowadays come as a paint and primer in one, it’s always a good idea to add a coat or two of primer beforehand to help the paint stick and to smooth it out. The extra effort is worth it!
  • When using wood filler, the more the merrier. Since it gets sanded down anyway, it’s okay to add a little extra just in case. I’ve come to find that if too little is applied, it’s more prone to cracking and chipping when sanded. 
  • The air bubbles will come out when using prepasted wallpaper. After we applied the first couple pieces, we were nearly driven crazy trying to get out all the little groves and bubbles! After letting it dry overnight, though, we were pleasantly surprised to find that all the bubbles had worked their way out!
  • Wood quality is important. Because I am a true saver at heart, I made sure to buy the cheapest wood I could find for the shelf. (Especially since they’re only sold in larger sizes). While this worked for us, if you want a higher quality product, it’s worth it to invest a little more money. I personally think the shelf adds character, though! 😉 

Until the next project!

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