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! 

Master Bedroom Makeover

Over the last couple of weeks I've shared two makeovers we've done in this Lacey Fields home:

The Office -- a makeover where we painted, made an office, and helped Lacey Fields be born!
The Exterior Makeover -- a makeover where we did new landscaping, painted a front door, put rocking chairs and a swing, and painted the entire outside of the house!

And today?  Today we're unveiling the 90% done Master Bedroom!  I say 90% because we still have some ways to go ... but we've still accomplished a ton & I wanted to share the progress. 

First let's look at a before image:

The main things we wanted to do were lighten the walls, put curtains up (but leave our beautiful view of the trees), and add a second dresser!

Today, this is what our room looks like:

Lighter and our sanctuary! :)  This is a room where you can get some nice rest!

We bought my husband's dresser from Habitat for Humanity for $35.  After painting it, we mod podged some wall paper (that we bought at a carpet store here in Little Rock) and screwed in the handles.  Is it perfect?  Or course not!  BUT for less than $100, it was an affordable, large, and great dresser for our needs.  We customized it to what we wanted!  The lights and candles on top of the dresser are nice, simple, and romantic.  I bought the lamps and candles at Hobby Lobby.  The rocks are from Garden Ridge.

My dresser was from a little Antique store in San Antonio, Texas.  It's moved with us and we just painted it to match the other dresser.  The lamp and vase are from Home Goods.

I bought the cushion on this chair off etsy and it's what started the inspiration from the room.  The chair was SUPER cheap at TJ Maxx on clearance.  The gallery wall was actually the husband's idea.  Instead of doing a ton of pictures of us (which is nice, but we wanted a change ...)

We boght ALL these frames from Target (talk abotu a lucky snag that day!) and put a picture from our favorite places: left is a mission in San Antonio, the tree is from College Station, Texas (gig 'em aggies!), el Morro in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and the small one is Arkansas.  The largest is oru wedding picture with one of our favorite qutoes: "Marriag is not an end or a ritual.  It's a long, intricate, intimate dance together."

The two pictures above the nightstand were printed and designed by me.  I still have to change them a little (the color is off) but you get the idea. ;)

And one last view:

Source List:
nightstands: built by my handy husband and painted by us
wall color: Palladian Blue by Benjamin Moore (my favorite color ever)
Cushions and throw on bed: TJ Maxx
two lightstand lights and floor lamp: TJ Maxx
comforter and sham: Target
chair: Home Goods (on clearance for $40!)
dresser up against window: habitat for humanity (we then painted it and mod podged wall paper on the drawers)
mirror up against curtains (the inside is a jewelry cabinet): Kirklands
curtains and rods: Target
headboard: Pier 1 imports
mirror above bed: IO Metro

Still to go: some decor for the nightstands, a little more decor for my dresser, an area rug, and installing the wood flooring!  But for now, we LOVE it! :)

The Exterior Makeover (from blah to YAY!)

A few weeks ago I read this post on one of my favorite blogs, Young House Love.  They repainted their door this beautiful, bright, and lively blue color (called Blue Lake by Benjamin Moore).  I. WAS. SOLD.

I mean, literally within a week I had gone to Benjamin Moore and repainted.

But let's start with the before picture shall we?

So before we moved in the house was dark.  VERY dark.  I mean, here in Arkansas we have so many trees that light inside a house is a luxury.  So we always knew we wanted to lighten it.  We originally painted the door a grayish blue.  It looked ok. But it definitely didn't transform the house like we wanted.  When I saw the Blue Lake color, it started a bit of a ... well ... transformation of sorts.

Here's the door after I painted it AND after I had my husband remove the storm door.  The front door is super protected so the storm door really isn't needed.  A diy trick we've learned is to use your neighbors for observation.  We realized the vast majority of our neighbors didn't have storm doors and we have one of the largest porches, so even more protection.  A couple hours later, the storm door was off and it started looking a little better.

But we weren't done yet!  After much pinterest pinning and looking, I came up with this:

We started with the columns ...

I wanted to paint the columns.  My husband wasn't too sure if he agreed or not.  He thought it would look strange to have the dark gray contrast so much. But he's a sweety and agreed to try it.  The columns are White Dove by Benjamin Moore. The second we did it, we saw a huge difference.  We started getting a vision.  Our pocket books started burning, but we knew it was worth it.

But obviously one thing we really needed to do was clean up the damage from taking the storm door off.  With patience, wood filler, and caulk when needed we prepped to make sure it would look great.

And here we are today! :)  I love the door.  I mean, it is so welcoming, so fun, and just wonderful.  The door paint is blue lake by benjamin moore and the trim is white dove by benjamin moore.  We bought the mat at Target.  One little thing I've learned --- get a BIG mat!  Most porches (unless you're in an apartment) require a bigger mat than your average size.  They're only $2 more and actually fit the space.

But remember how I said our pocketbooks started hurting?  Well, after we had this done we knew we couldn't stop, so we hired painters to do the rest of the house.  They were AWESOME (if anyone in Arkansas needs a painter, email me and I can give you the name.  We were VERY happy and as much as I like to joke, they were very reasonably priced).  So in a couple days, our house looked like this ...

I'm not gonna lie.  I was pretty panicked those 3 days.  Ladders, taller ladders, and spraying, oh my!  But when they left, we knew it was a great idea.  The house color is Revere Pewter by Benjamin Moore (and so is the garage -- which we painted ourselves).

The hubby & I painted as much of this as we possibly could to save on money so we did the columns, front door, porch ceiling and trim, shutters, and the garage.  It was probably close to 20-30 hours of work on our part and it took us about 5 days ... thank goodness for great daughters that played in the kiddie pool or took naps at the same time, or played in the playroom in the front lawn so we could do it!  The painter said the work probably saved about $700, so worth it for us!

And today ... here we are!

Wait wait ... let's look at a before again:

And now! :)

So much better right?  To recap colors, main body is revere pewter, columns are white dove, door is blue lake, and shutters are hale navy (all by Benjamin Moore ... I'm obsessed with BM paints).

As you can see, we also put some fun goodies on our porch!  All our porch furniture is from Garden Ridge - the swing, rocking chairs, and bench.

This is one of my favorite makeovers ... the view from the porch.  It's just so inviting.  The porch ceiling is Quiet Moments (by BM).

I painted the bench a really light blue color from BM (can't remember the name!  I think it was the lightest color on the swatch with blue lake on it) and we bought a couple cute cushions at this random rug store! ha!  We have spent SO much time reading, chatting, sharing drinks etc on this porch.  It's our family hangout, and we love it.

And there you have it! :)  I'm so in love with it all.  All the work is always worth it ... in all these big projects just have to say "it'll be worth it, just keep swimming!"