Decorating

The heart of our house is certainly our open-concept family room and kitchen.  They are a nice size, they are comfortable, and they are homey.  When we designed our house, we chose to have the family room (and adjacent study) carpeted.  I'm sure some people would disagree with our decision, but I am so happy we opted for carpet in just that space.  It was the right decision for our young family. 

Another unusual (odd?) decision we made was to not put in a fireplace.  I do love a fireplace (and a mantel!), but I don't love gas fireplaces, and neither does Jim, and that was the only feasible option.  If it couldn't be wood burning, we knew we would never turn it on, and it wasn't worth the cost.  So... I got a photo collage wall instead! I've always wanted a wall of beautiful black and white photos.

The rooms are still very empty.  They needs drapes, another small lamp, something in the corners of the family room to fill in the space, and, don't tell Jim, but I secretly wish we could do board and batten on the walls.  (I think that would be way down on the project list.)  I also plan to redo some of the pillows in black and white to bring in black from the kitchen, and I plan to make a large chalkboard over the dresser.  We also want bar stools for the island.  I have so many projects to do in this house I'll be lucky to finish before my kids graduate from high school!

How happy am I that I painted our kitchen table??!!  Soooo happy.  It looks fantastic in this space!

The house is coming along, one room at a time.  I know it will never be done, but it is sure nice to not live in chaos!

Remember what my kitchen table and chairs looked like before I attacked them with a bottle of liquid sander?  Well, here they are now:

Yay!!!  Love, love, love!  I'm so thrilled!  It may have taken a whole month to get it all done (thanks to the many steps involved and two very needy little people), but it was totally worth it.  (And yes, it really is the same table... we just put the leaf in because Jim's parents are here.)

These babies went through stripping, two coats of primer, three coats of black paint, countless sandings, and more than three coats of poly, which my fantastic father-in-law applied for me this week.  They should be able to withstand our busy family, for sure.

I can't wait to see the table and chairs in my new kitchen, but I have to admit, I am really going to miss the view in this house.  It has been my favorite part of living here for the past two years.

I also have to admit that I have wanted to do this project for years, but I was too afraid.  This was such an empowering experience!  It gave me confidence that I can do things by myself and that I can have what I like without spending a fortune.  I have got to start trusting my gut more.  How about you?  What furniture or things in your house have you always wanted to change?  What's stopping you?

I can finally post a picture of Cora's room with her name on the walls!  A few weeks ago I went looking for wooden letters to paint, but instead I found great black metal letters at Hobby Lobby.  I had thought about framing the letters themselves with fabric behind the letters, but I really want to have a place to display Christy's beautiful photos.  (Speaking of photos, we had Cora's newborn portraits taken yesterday, and I cannot wait to see them!  I will post a link to the sneak peek later today!)

Another project I worked on was this set of plates for Cora's room.  I painted them at a nearby pottery painting place so they could be hung on her walls, and I thought they would be a great keepsake later in life.  I believe they are dishwasher safe, so she could even use the platter some day if she wants to.  

Several people have asked how we picked Cora's name.  Her first name was chosen before she was conceived.  Jim was working on his family tree (he loves researching his ancestry) and was reading some of the names to me because there were a lot of repeats.  When he read the name Cora, I said, "I love that name!  That would be a great name to use if we ever have a baby girl."  Jim said, "I was thinking the same thing."  And that was it.  When I got pregnant this time, we knew exactly what her name would be without even discussing it. Cora's middle name took a lot longer to decide.  In fact, it wasn't officially settled until right before she was born.  After my grandpa died this past spring, I was heartbroken that he would never meet his great-granddaughter or even know she was a girl (I found out shortly after he died).  I wanted very much to honor him, but with the name Bernard Edwin, I couldn't come up with much.  I have always loved the name Katherine, and Grandpa had an infant sister named Katherine who died when he was a boy, so we decided to use that name as a way of remembering him.

Isn't it amazing how people start to look like their names?

I have finally finished all of the details for the baby's nursery, and I am itching to share the final photos!  Sadly, I have to edit the pictures carefully because the baby's name is now hanging in the room in two different places.  I'm going to take her name down tonight, but I wanted to get the nail holes in and everything placed so the room would feel finished.  I didn't count on Brennan trying to sound out her name when he went in the room earlier.  I thankfully ushered him out before he worked too hard at it! We have managed to keep the secret this long, and I don't want to blow it with just days remaining!

I finally finished the lamp shade I had mentioned in a previous post.  I used some leftover fabric, inexpensive ribbon, and expensive fringe (why does trim always cost so dang much??) to customize the shade.   I love the way it turned out.  It's so french-looking.  I plan to do a post with step-by-step instructions for recovering a paneled lampshade sometime soon, so if you want to know how I did it, I promise to let you in on all of my secrets.

My new favorite part of the room is this make-shift window seat.  I love, love, love it!  I have always had a thing for window seats, and although this doesn't technically qualify, it at least gives the illusion of being a window seat.  The view from the window is beautiful, overlooking the gorgeous Tennessee hills across the road.

We originally bought this black bench for a specific wall when we lived in Dallas.  It held Brennan's books and toys when he was a baby, and it was a wonderful storage solution.  Since we have moved to Nashville, however, it has basically taken up space, and it has not served much of a purpose.  I decided that it would be better off in the nursery where it would look attractive and actually store some toys.  I plan to keep books in bins on the bottom shelf, so I either need to find another pink one or get two new ones.

After the baby arrives, I will post shots of the whole room.  It won't be too much longer!

As I mentioned in my last post, Jim worked hard to hang things in the nursery last night.  I'm so grateful!  The room isn't done (you know how I am about calling a room "done"), but I'm excited to share what it looks like right now!

Here is the crib with the picture frames on the wall.  Those frames will eventually hold beautiful black and white photos of the baby taken by our talented friend and family photographer, Christy Johnson.

Here you can see the crib with the finished curtains, lined in blackout fabric.  That room will be plenty dark for baby girl when we need it to be!

One of the projects I still want to tackle is a custom lamp shade for that tall lamp.  We really can't afford a new lamp, but it really isn't quite right for the room.  I'm going to see what I can do about that.

I also have plans to hang something on the blank wood above the changing table.  After all, the baby will need something interesting to look at while she is getting her diaper changed!

This corner might be my favorite part of the room.  I'm crazy about the window, the chair, the table...

I bought the window for $5 at an antique store down the street from our house, and I loved that the paint was chipping and imperfect.  I just cleaned up the glass, inserted some black and white scrapbook papers, and, voila!  Beautiful art for just a few dollars!  And of course, the picture frame on the table is a Lissalaneous original! 

It would be fun if the walls didn't have to be white, and I still have a few details up my sleeve for this room, but now you've seen the starting point!  I hope you like it!

Back in January I wrote this post about my attempt to turn our loft into a useable space and all of the challenges that have gone along with that. 

I think for now we have done all that we can do, making this space into a craft room / play space / server room / guest room.  I am thrilled to have it mostly done.  There are still several projects I want to tackle, but don't I always say that?  To stay focused on the positive, I'm happy that when we try to accommodate our parents on an air mattress on the floor next month (the guest room is now a nursery), they won't have to search for a space to lay down.  

Here is my craft table which hides the huge server cabinet underneath.  I'm really pleased with it, especially when it is clear and I can actually work there!

This is an overall view of the room, with a train table that doubles as a coffee table! 

Please forgive the over-saturated light that comes from taking pictures in the middle of a sunny afternoon.  I know most self-respecting bloggers would wait until the light was better, but I was too eager to put this post out there and prove that I have accomplished something of late.

In the photo above you can see some piles on my craft table that I still need to put away.  They are the final things I need to put away before I can check this room off my "nesting list."

While I am working in the loft, here is what Brennan does:

And here is how we have to temporarily store his toys:

I know I have to invest in some better storage for this space, but I'm hesitant to pay for it since we won't live here forever.  It really needs to be done since we could end up being here a few more years, but the part of me that's in denial wants to pretend that it's a short-term problem!

I'm not completely satisfied with this loft, but at least it is functional, organized, and semi-attractive.  Until we have a house with more rooms that are dedicated to various purposes, it will have to do.  And at least I'm not mortified to take people upstairs anymore!

Things have been super busy around here. I have worked my fingers to the bone on the nursery bedding, and I just have a few things left to do. I think I may be days away from a completed nursery! Here is a little sneak peek to whet your appetite!

You'll have to come back to see pictures of the completed room and bed, but I'm not quite ready to reveal it all yet.

While I've been working on sewing, my saintly mother-in-law has been working to clean and organize our loft and upstairs.  The transition from guest room to baby nursery was not an easy one, and without her help, I would have been completely bogged down and overwhelmed. (I already felt that way anyway, just sewing the crib bumper!)   Now I can walk through my upstairs and focus on getting ready for our little angel!

Today we went to a birthday party for Brennan's twin four-year-old friends.  Their mom just started a new job this week and has been working like crazy, so I offered to make the cake for the bug-themed birthday party.  I can't take credit for the design... The idea for the shape came from the internet.  But I was pleased at how well it turned out.

The kids listened to The Very Hungry Caterpillar while they ate their cake, and it was fun to watch their little faces fill up with green frosting.

In other news, I spent six hours today working on the crib bumper for the nursery.  I kept running into the most irritating setbacks:  My bobbin kept catching, my thread kept ripping, I realized I had only made half as many silk ties as I needed, I sewed all five hundred feet (okay, small exaggeration) of the ruffle inside-out, and at the end of the day, Brennan accidentally got pure butter on a piece of silk fabric that I needed to work with.  

On top of all of those annoying things, my feet are like balloons today.  I haven't had much swelling up until this point, but today my feet are puffy and really hurt from being stretched beyond what is normal for my skin..  I'm going to blame it on the Chinese food we ate last night and the fact that I didn't have enough water, and I'll hope that tomorrow things will be back to normal.

I saw some amazing cookies featured on Everyday Celebrating, and when I went to check them out for myself, I couldn't believe what I saw!  These cookies are gorgeous, and I found some that perfectly match the decor of my nursery with the black and white damask and pink with black (too bad we're not sharing the baby's first initial!). 

Amber, the creator of these artistic confections, is a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, and her degree is in baking and pastry. So, you can bet that the cookies are going to taste as good as they look!  The next time I am hosting a baby shower, I may have to send her a swatch of the baby bedding and see if she can custom create cookies for me.  I'm certain she could!  

Go check out SweetAmbs on Etsy!

Well, Jim's parents arrived on Saturday, and I have been crazy busy since they arrived, trying to tackle the many, many tasks that need to get accomplished in the next four weeks before they are gone. Four weeks sounds like a long time, but it will fly by.

On Friday, I went and purchased all of the fabric to use to make bedding for the baby's room. We are going with black, white, and pink, since I have so many black and white elements left over from Brennan's nursery. On Saturday afternoon I cut all of the fabric to make a crib skirt, and I sewed it on Sunday and Monday. Today I trimmed it up with some black and white gingham ribbon so it would tie in better with the rest of the room, and I just put the completed skirt on the crib. It is so luscious and girly and rich looking! I still can't believe we're having a girl!

If you're nit-picky like me, I can assure you the trim is on the skirt perfectly straight.  It's just that the bar from the crib points out that I don't have the skirt perfectly adjusted under the mattress.  I'm sure I'll have to fix it or it will drive me crazy.  :-)  Actually, when the mattress gets lowered one setting, the ribbon will fall below the bar, and the skirt will puddle just a little, which is exactly what I want.

Next up... curtains!  I'm having a Sip & See for a friend this weekend, so I may not get as far as I'd like, but stay tuned... I plan to have the curtains up and the room semi-organized by the end of next week!