new beds for the little girls

While we were in Maryland for Thanksgiving we made a trip to IKEA to buy new beds for the little girls room.  My neighbor is in the Navy and has to stay on the ship every 4 nights for duty.  For the last year or so her little girl has been staying with us when her mom has duty.  She was not yet 2 when we started watching her and was happy to sleep in the pack-n-play each night she was here, but she is about to turn 3 this month and the pac-n-play was getting a bit too cozy. 

Plus, this tiny room was even smaller with a twin bed, a crib, and a pac-n-play in it.  I knew we were not ready for traditional  bunk beds yet, but the IKEA Kura bed seemed like the perfect solution.

We put them together last week and the the girls have been happily sleeping in their new beds and LOVING all the play room they have in the room now!  We were even able to pull most of the play kitchen down from the attic - something Addie has been asking to do for awhile now.

And last night I finally finished the binding on Addie's Briar Rose rainbow quilt!  I am so pleased with how this turned out!  My quilting skills are definitely improving and the binding was not half the nightmare I remembered it being after watching a few tutorials online.

For those who are interested, I used this pattern as my basis but altered it (changed the square size and added rows and other fabrics from the Briar Rose line) to make it fit a twin bed.

apron rack

Once again I am way behind on posting... I actually finished this project in October but just now loaded all the pictures onto the computer!  Anyway - I needed a place to hang all our aprons in the kitchen and have been loving the old yard stick coat racks I've been seeing around the web.  I didn't have any old yard sticks and I was not about to pay the $8 per yardstick I was seeing online.  Instead I found wooden rules on clearance at Office Max (I think I payed about $0.50/ruler), some scrap wood in the shed, and hooks to match my knobs and drawer pulls at Walmart.  After I cut everything to the right size       I used wood glue to attach the rulers to the wood and then rubbed the whole thing with Americana Decor deep brown Creme Wax (from Michaels) to make it look vintage.

Don't look too closely, some of the hooks are a little crooked!

Such a happy little corner in the kitchen now!

And the keepin' it real, unedited photo :)

no more painted sub flooring!

It's official!  We are at the very least getting new floors in the Little White Schoolhouse! I placed my deposit on enough bamboo to floor the entire house! 

We are still awaiting bids on kitchen stuff, but I hope we will have come to a decision by this time next week!

dreaming

The hubby and I have been talking about possibly redoing our kitchen and maybe even putting down some real flooring (we ripped out all the carpet in the house and painted the sub floors awhile back).  I haven't blogged about it because I am still not sure when/if it will happen, but I have been spending a good bit of time the last month or so researching and talking to contractors and cabinet companies etc.   So, I though it might be fun to share some of the things that have inspired my plans so far...

We want to take down the wall between the kitchen and dining room and have a nice big peninsula like this:

more pictures here

I love these built in hutches: 

 

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back splash

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This is one of the counters I like:

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I LOVE LOVE LOVE these stools, but I have not convinced the hubby yet that we need rainbow stools for our peninsula.

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If you want to see more kitchen inspiration check out my kitchen pinterest board :)

my happy crafting space!

This room serves many purposes in our little house.  It is our office, schoolroom, craft room, and when we have company over it is also the dining room.  Until last week that little blue book shelf on the right was jam-packed with school books and sewing supplies.  There was so much stuff bellow my sewing desk in the corner there was no room for my feet, and I won't even mention the boxes and crates that were lying around the room full of fabric, projects, and inventory for craft shows!

I am so very excited to now have all this shelf space just for my craft stuff!  I still have a little work to do, like sorting through all my fabric scraps, and organizing my patterns, but at least they all have a place now!

My little corner of the house makes me so happy!

Look!  Since my table is clean I actually had space (and time) to begin quilting Addie's quilt!  I am so totally loving this quilt.  The colors are so bright and cheerful.  I can't wait to finish it and put it on Addie's bed!

one project done

After years of talking about creating some sort of divider between the "boys room" and the "laundry room" we've finally done it!  And it only took one day, two bookcases, and a curtain! Now the boys have a defined space as there room with a door curtain to give them some privacy!  My laundry area is a little dark now, I will have to get a light to hang over that side of the room, but otherwise we all love how it turned out!

I meant to take before pictures but in the excitement of shelf building I forgot. This post probably has the most recent pictures of the garage for comparison.  I only have a few things left to put away in the dining room and I will have picture of that too... that is if Emmy will ever let me put her down and finish cleaning up!  For some reason she is only happy in my arms this afternoon!

road trip

Two of my good friends and I took a road trip over the weekend.  I pulled all but one row of seats out of Big Blue and we drove 3 hours to the nearest IKEA.  My mom met us there and the four of us shopped the afternoon away.

I think we ended up with a combined 13 book shelves and at least 5 of those big blue bags filled with IKEA goodies.  This is us and our stuff after 5+ hours and two trips through the store :)

And here is my mama.  Have I ever told you all how awesome she is?  Not only did she shlep through IKEA with us all afternoon, but she still came home with me, even after I told her that multiple kids had thrown up that morning!  She's here all week and has been helping me assemble shelves, and dig through and organize all my crafting stuff. 

And in case you are wondering about this picture, Addie had my camera and said she wanted to take a picture of Grammy, I leaned in hoping to get a shot of the two of us, but I guess Addie was serious when she said she wanted to take a picture of Grammy, she cut me right out of the frame!

Anyway, this is what we've accomplished so far.  If you could have seen the complete chaos that was my craft space before we started... I am loving the new space!  I'll post more pictures once it's all complete.

bag # one

I've been thinking a lot recently about stuff and how it directs our lives.  We have too much.  It is keeping us from doing the things we really love to do, and from living the life we want to live.  The Hubby and I have always had a passion for hospitality.  We love to open our home to friends, neighbors, family etc., weather it be for a meal, bible study, craft night, or just some fellowship time.  But all too often I am finding myself having to put off inviting company because our house is such a mess!  Don't get me wrong, I don't need my house to be perfect to invite someone in, if that were the case no one would ever get passed the front door, but I would like our guest to be able to walk through our house without potentially harming themselves on the plethora of stuff that seems to constantly liter our floors.  I would also like there to be a clear surface (say maybe the dining room table) to be able to serve my guest some sustenance!  Right now it feels like we spend hours cleaning and organizing all our stuff only to find it all a mess again the next day!

If you were to ask my kids they might tell you I talk a lot about us not needing any more stuff, but the hubby would be quick to point out that as soon as I say "no more" I turn around and buy something new!  Most of the time I'm not thinking about what I am doing - I see something I love and I must bring it home - I have temporary amnesia and forget that we don't need any more stuff!  Ugh!  So, last week I had sort of made an unofficial commitment to give up buying things we don't absolutely need for Lent.  Then I started reading Clutter Free with Kids and was even more inspired to not only stop buying, but also start "de-owning" as Becker calls it.  Really it is something I have been longing to do for years, but have been paralyzed when it comes to actually execute it... that was until my husband pointed me to a link he had seen Facebook.  40 bags in 40 days. 

So, with the encouragement and support of my husband, I packed my first "bag" today and listed it on Craiglist!  It only took about 15 minutes to put it all together, photograph, and list it.  I did have to give myself a few pep talks, but in the end it feels great to let go of something that was not really getting used, but was taking up space in our not so big home.

There will be one major exception to my "no buying" during Lent.  Some friends and I have been planning a road trip to Ikea for over a month now and I have been saving my pennies for some new book shelves and organizational stuff for our school and craft supplies.  I have a list though- the trick will be sticking to it once we are in the Swedish wonderland :)

in between illnesses

I found a few days where no one was too sick in the past month to do a couple room makeovers for the girls.  They are not totally finished, still things to hang on the walls and curtains to be made, but the painting and and carpet removal is done.  Here are a few photos of both rooms...

Regan and Tallulah's room

Here are some before pictures of both rooms and another after we got the bunk beds.

Adelaide and Emmaline's room

Here is the progression of the stripes from this to this and now the gray and white stripes.

i'm still here...

Wow, how has it really been nearly a month since my last post?  I miss blogging and really hope to be back here more often!  So, I am going to do a little catch up posting this week- try and document some of what has been happening around here the past few weeks!

My parents came to visit a couple of weeks ago.  It was their last trip out in the RV before winter.  When we moved away from the DC area, one of my dad's requirements was that we find a house with a driveway big enough for the RV to park in.  Lucky for him (and us too) our driveway ended up to be the perfect length for their coach.  It is pretty nice for them to bring their home with them when the come to visit- instead of cramming into our little house with all the noise and chaos.

We were lucky to have them stay for a full 5 days this time, but not so lucky to have it rain the WHOLE time they were here (boo!)  My mom had brought stuff for s'mores but when it became clear we were not going to get a dry night to roast marshmallows by the camp fire, we ended up standing under the umbrella on the deck, while we roasting them over the camp stove.

I love to roast marshmallows and am actually pretty good at getting the nice golden brown color, but I don't eat them, so instead I roast them for all the impatient roasters in the family who always catch their marshmallows on fire :)

Regan has been asking for a beam in the back yard (and bars, and mats, and a trampoline) for forever.  My dad had planned to make her one earlier in the summer, but ended up not being able to come visit with my mom, so it got put on hold until this visit.  Here's Lulu showing off her stuff on the new beam :)

Last year the hubby's brother (and fam) bought a new (to them) house.  This chandelier was hanging in their new dinning room and for some reason they did not want it- needless to say, I was more than happy to have their cast offs.  It's been in storage for a few months, because it needed to be re-wired, but my dad rewired it and hung it while they were here.

It's hard to take a good picture of it, but is is super fun and sparkly :)  It is also significantly brighter than our previous light- so much so we had to install a dimmer!

new storage shelves

Grandpa and Grandma Bev came down over the weekend and installed storage shelves in our garage/boys room/laundry room/pantry.  The kids were really hoping they could use them as lofts, so grandpa gave them a chance to climb up there, just this once...

We had no problem filling the shelved almost completely.

A good bit of those boxes used to be stacked on the floor in the boys "bedroom", so they are very glad to have them up and out of their way!

Thanks Grandpa and Grandma Bev!  We LOVE our new shelves and extra space!!!

over the weekend (part 1)

I am playing catch up and spreading out the happenings of our weekend over 3 posts so I don't totally overwhelm you!  First up, the greatly dreaded anticipated room swap!  After more than a year of talking about where we were going to put baby Emmaline once she outgrew the cradle we finally came up with a plan last week and moved the girls to their new spaces on Friday.
Adelaide and Emmaline moved to Regan's old room (actually, Addie will get this room to herself for a little bit as I am just not ready to move Emmy out of our room).

Addie also moved to her big girl bed!

Regan Moved in with Tallulah.  This move has been especially hard for Regan, but I am proud (most of the time) with how well she is taking it.  I know it is hard for an 11year old, who's used to her own room, to suddenly have to share with her 6 year old sister.

In an effort to add at least a little bit of excitement to the move my mom and I took the girls shopping for new bedding.  They each picked out new sheets and comforters and got those fuzzy blue pillows you see bellow (on clearance at JC Penny).

I also found this desk on Craigslist that just happened to be a perfect fit for the small space at the end of Regan's bed!

Our kitchen has been in a state of flux since Emmaline was born.  Our cozy, eat-in kitchen was getting a bit too cozy with 8 people now to fit around our little 4-6 person table, and since our dining room table typically looks like this:

eating in the dining room (schoolroom/craft room/office) really isn't an option.  So, for the last 4 months I've been moving furniture, measuring, and perusing the Ikea catalog in search of some inspiration for how to make our kitchen work a little better for us.  I picked up this dresser at Ikea while we were in Maryland and I think we found a way to better use this space. (this is what our kitchen looked like before.)

I also finally bought some curtains for the kitchen windows.

And the other big kitchen purchase was this 4 slice toaster.  Really we should have gotten one of these a long time ago!  Preparing breakfast goes so much faster with this!

Totally unrelated, here is where we found Tommy this morning :)