Sleep Under the Stars Nursery (An Update)

At 26 weeks pregnant, we figured we should really get going on little boy's nursery!  Since I have delivered 4 weeks early with my other two pregnancies, we figure it's a good idea to finish ours early.  The last few weeks I might (but hopefully won't!) be on bed rest.  Therefore, when I'm still in the "feel good" stage of pregnancy, we usually get busy & get to work!

We didn't have that much work to do for this nursery because all the furniture was staying the same!  Little girl had been sleeping in here and we bought very gender neutral furniture that can easily be translated to a boy.



I made this mood board a few weeks back as an idea of what we were going for.  The main thing that hasn't stayed the same?  The paint color!  We tried a pretty gray like the photo above and in our home, with the lighting, and the space, it looked SO cold!  It reminded me of a hospital and in case you're wondering, that isn't really the look we were going for.

We eventually settled on Early Morning Mist by Benjamin Moore.  It's very understated and has a bit of gray and beige in it.  It's absolutely calming and perfect for the space!

While we aren't done (we still have a gallery wall, bedding, etc), here's where we're at today!

 We're loving the progress!  We thought about making the teepee ourselves and eventually decided to just buy it.  BEST decision ever!  I got it off etsy (BE Little You and Me) and the price was really reasonable.  It took two seconds to set up and this baby is going to have so much fun playing in there one day!

The curtains are a Home Goods find (I had seen some on Land of Nod but they were $50/ panel!  That would be $200!  NO WAY!).  These were $40 total ($10 a panel) and were perfect.  I didn't want anything distracting from the pops of color I had planned around the rest of the room (gallery wall is obviously goign above the changing pad).

The bunting in the background was designed by me and the rug is from Joss & Main.  Got it for < $100 and honestly, it might be my favorite piece. Crazy huh?  It's just a plain rug.  It's just so perfect for what we wanted that it makes me giddy.

The other side of the room is moving along too.  Our print by Katie Daisy is surrounded by a wooden Hobby Lobby frame.  The shelves, crib, and chair are all ikea from the old nursery.  We made the chalkboard ourselves.  The lamp, trash can, and lamp are all Target finds.  The lantern is Hobby Lobby and the globe is from TJ Maxx.

As for the bedding, the blanket is staying.  I made that blanket when I was about 9 years old and we couldn't believe it has stars all over it! TOO perfect!  Such special meaning and though it's not a perfect match decorating wise, it's definitely a perfect match for our family. :)

The mobile has a fun story behind it.  I was going to make one myself but then hubby & I took an overnight babymoon 2 weeks ago and found this at the art museum's giftshop we went to.  It has birds all over it, including a cardinal (which holds a lot of significance to my family).  It looks awesome!

I'm loving the progress of the room and can't wait to finish it up over the next few weeks! 

A Shared Girls Bedroom

It's been a while since I've shared some progress on our home!  As I've mentioned before, the hubby and I LOVE DIY projects, decorating a home on a budget, and making it a truly unqiue and special place.  With hubby working really long hours and my being pregnant, these obviously slowed down.  However, we've done quite a few things nonetheless and we're pretty happy with the results!  I always say rooms are never 100% done b/c you can always tweak, always add, always take out, etc.  But the girls room is about 90% done.

Before even discovering we were expecting baby #3, our girls expressed a desire to share a room.  We knew we would be trying for baby #3 soon and gladly gave in to their request!  Sharing a room is so much fun, we knew they'd have a blast!

We thought about painting the walls but truth be told ... we didn't have it in us! When we first moved to the house, we painted the walls the same green we had in our old house.  Turns out that's a horrible idea.  Each space, each room, and each house looks different!  The green in our old house was a soft, sweet muted but fun color for a nursery.  In this house it looked like radioactive nuclear material!  Just petrifying!  We lightened it up and repainted.  Eh.  It looked only half decent.  So, we painted a THIRD time.  Yes, a THIRD time to a very light pink and although it isn't my favorite paint of all time, it was significantly better and we've left it at that.

When we moved in, this is what the room looked like (not our furniture, just the paint and the rest):



The paint color was too dark for our tastes and we knew we' want to change that.  The built-ins are divine but you can't tell in the photo above that they were painted a yellow white.  We painted those white and now today, our girls share their room in here! :)

As you can see, our solution was bunk beds!  We bought the bunk beds & fun lamp from Ikea, the curtain from Target, the table and chairs from Ikea, the rug from JC Penney (it was in my younger ones nursery and we just brought it over here instead), and the bedding from Target.

To the sides of the bunk beds (not pictured) is a rolling toy cart and storage solution. That way the girls have plenty of room to play with all those toys in the morning!

I'm not going to lie, our book cases still need lots of organization.  For now, they're mainly used to keep things out of reach of a 2 year old (for isntance, the huge bottle of lotion that she got all over everything a few months ago).  We also have SO many books and there just isn't a pretty way to store tons and tons of beat up books.  But it's a practical thing for the girls right now and I feel that decorating a space shouldn't be for others.  This is the best solution for us, for them, and I'm happy with that!  It's our kind of beautiful.

I made this bunting to go above the mirror since it looked kinda empty.  The "think happy" and "follow your dreams" one were purchased at Altar'd State, a chain that I had never heard of until I saw it at a shopping center here, and the rest was done by yours truly.  The girls loved the fun and bright addition.

There is nothing sweeter than hearing the girls playing in the mornings.  I think a shared room is a total blessing to them.  It's made them closer, it's given them more independence (since they can play together instead of having to come get their parents), and it's given many many bouts of laughter.  Mission accomplished.

The Kitchen Makeover (Part II)

We've been working on our kitchen makeover.  Last post, I discussed the taking down of the banquet.  As a reminder, this is what we started with when we decided to make the kitchen over:

Too dark!  So the first thing we did was take the banquet out but we had those gaping holes in the ceiling.  The hubby went to Home Depot and bought all the materials to fix the holes but upon further consideration we realized this is just one of those times that DIY isn't necessary and we'd probably spend more money in the long run trying to fix it.  So we hired our painter to do it.  It took them SEVEN hours (would have probably been 20 hours had we done it ourselves) and the price was incredibly reasonable.

The texture isn't done on it, but you can already see how open it looked.  While they were fixing that, we started with the DIY portion.  We got a quote to paint the kitchen and while we know it is a lot of work, we also knew WE could do it for MUCH cheaper.  We ended up saving about $850 by doing it ourselves ... totally worth it!

Hubby spent time caulking a ton of items in the cabinets.  The BIG tip is to make it look good BEFORE painting, especially when going lighter.  Light paint just highlights inconsistencies so do the job well.  Caulk any areas that need it, sand and fill in holes if they're there.

Then take down the cabinets and either go to the garage (or in our case, paint in your living room b/c the garage is cold in the winter).  We sanded some, although I think how much you sand depends on the finish of the cabinets.  Ours weren't shiny and didn't have a finish so that was quite  helpful.

Get a FLAT roller and your primer and begin!  We put two coats of primer on each side.  To paint the sides, we just put little pieces of wood underneath so they'd be up from the floor some.

We decided not to go with a SUPER white paint, but a white that had a little bit of warmth to it.  We chose Swiss Coffee by Benjamin Moore and only needed one gallon for it (that shocked me!).  We bought the Advance Benjamin Moore brand in semi-gloss finish.  We thought about getting it in a matte finish but I read somewhere that it's easier to wipe them down (remember ... two small kiddos in this house!) at semi-gloss so that was a big factor in our decision once I read that! :) 

TODAY this is what it looks like from the same view!

We still have more to do!  We want to buy some shelves, paint the fridge (yes you read that right!), make a pantry, paint the dining room table, etc.  BUT this is just BEYOND what I expected!  I LOVE walking by the kitchen all the time now.  It's bright, airy, and so fun.

Yes it was quite a bit of work to paint the cabinets, but well worth it. It took us about 2 weeks, but that's because we only worked about 6 evenings.  It's hard to do these projects when the hubby is gone so much, but we made it work and couldn't be happier!

A little kick of fun is the inside of the cabinets.  They're painted Birds Egg by Benjamin Moore.  I just bought a sample from them and it covered it, so the little kick only cost $5.

We bought a bigger rug (kitchen rugs are usually too small.  Something a little larger is much warmer and nice on your tootsies) and the towels from our favorite place, Target.  We had some Target gift certificates from Christmas and didn't spend any money getting these so it was a nice touch.  I still want to change a few other accessories, but with time.

ALL with time, but in DIY it's important to take the time and notice the huge steps.  And, I'm lovin' it.

The Kitchen Makeover

You probably think we've been lazy here at Lacey Fields.  While some nights that's true (we just don't have it in us to DIY EVERY day or week for that matter!), that isn't the case.  We've been busy redoing our kitchen the last 6 weeks and while it might take some 2 weeks to do this work, it takes us longer.  The kids, the unforeseen circumstances (such as holes in the ceiling, yes you read that correctly), the husband's job (this one is probably the biggest reason we can't work on evenings), and the fact that we just finished Breaking Bad, all contribute. ;)

When we first moved in to our house, we really were big fans of the kitchen.  But you know how things go.  When you start LIVING there, you realize you wish a few things were different.  And then you go on Pinterest.  You know Pinterest right?  That website that EVERYONE loves / hates?  I love it b/c it gives me fascinating ideas and let's me be creative. I also hate it b/c it gives me fascinating ideas and let's me be creative.

 The before shot.  Our living room no longer looks like this and neither does my office in the background, but this gives you an idea to where the problems started.  Do you see just how DARK it is?  This photo was taken in the middle of the day!  We needed some LIGHT and to OPEN things up!

And this is how it started.  You can see a hubby just getting home from a hospital (and the wifey already putting him to work! haha).  My brother was fortunately visiting at Thanksgiving (hubby had to work so my family was kind enough to keep us company while he was gone) so we put him to work too.  With a BIG mess, lots of sippy cups (4 babies in a house will do that!), and about 45 minutes to work, they took this cabinet and banquet down.

I must admit that pulling the banquet down was the husband's idea.  For starters, the construction

on it (not done by us) wasn't done to our liking and would show many areas if we painted.  Also, it just closed things off SO much!  We'd only be losing one cabinet of storage (that we have a solution for, stay tuned) ... SO ... DOWN it went!

Once they removed that a few issues arose (as always happens with DIY projects right?).  The lights hadn't been properly installed and were wired through a cabinet and plugged in (according to the electrician that came, this was a major fire hazard.  Thank goodness we fixed this!)

ALSO ... there were HOLES in the ceiling!  We don't know why, who, what, when ... they're a mystery that obviously had to be fixed.

We went to Home Depot and bought these three lights.  We didn't even CONSIDER DIYing the electric work ourselves.  After calling 3 electricians, we found one we really liked and he did an amazing job.  If you live in AR and need a reference, email me!

  After that, this is what things looked like!
(forgive the 3 year old in the pic ... she was caring for her Amarylis).
 SO much more open! SO much fresher.  And SO much work left to do! :)

As of today, we're about 75% done with stage 1 of the makeover right now (the kitchen doesn't have holes, and the cabinets look WAY different!) so I have more updating for you and will be back soon.  STAY tuned! :)

PS Step 2 might have something to do with these gaping holes that terrified me for 4 weeks ...

Pumpkin Painting Extravaganza

My husband's favorite time of year is fall.  As a result, we've carved pumpkins for over 6 years and had our 3rd annual pumpkin painting extravaganza this weekend!

Each year we have more fun as our girls get to enjoy more and more!

My youngest, G, really had a great time this year --- as you can see.

Bath time. STAT!

For our 3 year old, L, we actually had her give us a work of art this year!  I just took masking tape and made an L with it (for her first AND our last name).  Then I told her to go to town!

Look at that painting pumpkin focus!

One recommendation I have is telling the kiddos to paint in different areas.  If they go over the same area you'll just have an ugly brown pumpkin.  L was patient (which is kinda a miracle) and painted in different areas.  She got to choose the colors and had a blast.  I think out of the three pumpkins, hers was my favorite.

Here's L posing with our masterpieces!  From left to right -- the hubby (boys aren't quite as patient huh? BUT it's actually so cute on a table on our porch!  A simply painted ghost pumpkin is kinda essential).  L's is in the middle and as you can see, it came out just amazing!  I waited about 30 minutes after she was done to remove the tape and it was so crisp.  Mine was the one on the right!

All I did with mine was paint the entire thing white and wait a couple hours.  Then I thought about taping the lines for the chevron but decided --- NO. THANK. YOU!  haha.  This is supposed to be a fun day for us so I just did the Chevron in gold by hand.  I waited 30 minutes and then wrote BOO in a Sharpie marker.  Then I went and painted in black on top of that.  VOILA!  

L's pumpkin is the first one anyone sees when they come to the door and she's just in love with it!

Happy October!