Heirloom Wedding China

I realized that I never posted about this since I hung these during my “hiatus” from blogging.
I have seen collages of plates on walls before and I thought that would look really pretty in our dining room since we have some small square windows high up that are too funky for window treatments. I then thought that it would be awesome if I could call around and collect a piece of wedding china from relatives just hoping to get a few but fully expecting people to tell me they didn’t want to give up a piece. Look at how many I was able to get!! Thanks to my wonderful grandma, who is amazingly organized and remembers everything about everyone and everyone name, birthday, anniversary, etc, she had lots of pieces from relatives I didn’t even know. It was so much fun going through the family trees to find how exactly I am related to some of these people. She even labeled the back of the ones she sent so I can remember. I can bet you that a few of these pieces are at least 100 years old! I was also able to find several from Jeff’s side of the family too. I have mine, my 2 sisters, my mom’s, all 4 grandma’s and then some up there. I love that this is not just a collage of random plates I found at thrift stores or such, but there is a story behind each one! I hope this wall can continue to grow over the years!

Spring is on its way!

We got excited this morning (probably a little unproportionately so) because our bean plant sprouted! This momma does not have much of a green thumb so I was praying her bean would grow. It was so cute, after we planted it, she would stand in the window staring at it waiting for it to pop out of the dirt. Let's just hope it has a long life!!

Breakfast Nook Remodel

I am so mad because I can not find my before pictures ANYWHERE!! I know I took some when I decided to take this project on but the only thing I can imagine is that they are on my old phone which is no where to be found (my kids love playing with our old phones so naturally it is MIA). I was able to find this photo from when I was selling our old table. It at least gives you the idea of how boring this corner was.

No window treatments, a tiny table that only sat 2 people, TV trays used for extra table space (BOO!), a not so pretty chandelier. I at least had something hanging on the wall, which I have not found anything to replace with yet, but overall it needed help.
When this all began I wanted to get a larger table for our growing family but I did not want to spend a fortune (surprise surprise). I knew that this table was going to get a lot of use and damage since Avery was starting to get into crafts. We have a craft room that I can trust her in but I really like to keep my eye on her so this would really be the best place. I started looking on Craigslist and found a table that I liked but needed some immediate TLC. Long story short, the lady fell through on me and sold the table to someone else just hours before I was supposed to meet her! Some people really annoy me! It was all for the best, though, because I kept shopping and was able to find an even better table for less $ and it needs some work but nothing major right away. I found it on the same local site that I found my new office chair. The lady selling it wanted the same amount of money that I had sold the small table for so I broke even!! I was over the moon!!! Here is the table after we got it home.

It’s a little old school but I LOVE the legs on the table and the little details like the knobs on the corners of the table. I also love the little metal piece that covers the screws at the base of the legs. There are 2 leaves that are each another 12” and when you open the table to add them, the gears are awesome! I would love to know where this table originally came from and when it was made. I doubt it is really that old but I think it was well constructed! I was not in love with the chairs but I thought they could be painted and be really cute. Like I have said, wood furniture with good bones can always be refinished!! As you can see, there’s already puzzles and crafts on the table; did not take long! lol

I decided to pain the chairs white to give the set the two tone look that is popular these days. That was a horrible mess!!!! I did a lot of research on painting wood furniture and found that you could get spray primer called “cover stain.”

It was supposed to work great so you didn’t have to strip and sand the furniture first. That was a MESS!! I do not recommend this stuff at all!! it came out chalky and bumpy and did not go on smoothly at all! I ended up having to sand anyways but then I was sanding the primer on top of everything else. I have read and heard a lot about chalk paint by Annie Sloan so I think that will have to be the way I go next time. After about a week of getting the chairs painted, I was basically forced to distress the chairs since the painting was such a disaster. All in all I think it turned out ok to have them distressed. I have lots of other distressed pieces in our house so it wasn’t out of place. Here are the after pictures now that it is all done (about 6 months later!!!)

Here is the new chandelier that I found for only $20!! There is a place in Houston where Habitat for Humanity takes all of their left over items and sells them for dirt cheap. I found this among the pile of light fixtures and thought it would look so cute with the table. I realize it is intended to be an exterior light, but who cares, I like it. It was missing a piece of glass but lucky I have glass cutting tools (what? you don’t? lol) so I just found a piece that matched at Hobby Lobby, used one of the good pieces as a stencil and Voilà! it was fixed. Next was an all day endeavor by my husband to get it hung since he had to rewire the whole thing. I told him we could just scratch the whole idea since it was only $20 but it became a manly pride thing that he knew he could do it! lol After he got it hung I was kind of disappointed. I like the look of it but it only holds 40w light bulbs so it doesn’t light up the space well enough. Jeff put so much effort into getting it hung that I think it is staying lol.

I found some green seat cusions at Pier 1 that I loved but they are about $30 a piece I believe and once again, I knew that they were going to be spilled on and food smashed into them, so spending $120 on seat cushions was not ideal. Luckily I found some at Home Goods that were the exact same color (just not as frilly) for $20 for all 4!!! I think I get a high from a good deal haha.

Here is a close up of the table leg with the little metal piece I talked about. love! You can see some of the wear and tear on it; one day I will refinish it!

These little yellow pots are from this post. This set of plants is the third round of plants. I do not have a green thumb, despite my best efforts

Here are the curtains I made. I found the fabric online and I love the colors. You cant tell in the pictures but it almost has a sheen to it and the green seat cushions go perfectly!

This is my least favorite spot. I had these hanging before and I still don’t love it. The watercolor pear painting is something that I made in college and is one of the only pieces from that art class that I like so I want to keep it hung but I really want to find a large painting or art piece for this wall. I am going to The Woodlands Art Festival in April so I will be keeping my eyes open!

Case In Point

This is why we do not buy expensive furniture with kids. Luckily it is just chalk and wipes right off but it could have (and has been) worse!

Guilty toddler in the background.

Cure For Dry Chapped Lips

Everyone wants silky smooth lips, right?!  I have searched and searched for a lip exfoliator that will help my horribly chapped lips. I think I have chronic chapped lips; I use medicated chap stick constantly!
Years and years ago I used this stuff from a company called Beauti Control but I really wanted to find something that didn’t cost $22 a jar (plus shipping) and was more natural.

I came across several ideas on Pinterest but the one that stood out to me was the simple mixture of honey and sugar. I love it so I had to share.

Let me just say, you should stop reading right now and go to your pantry and mix the two together and rub the mixture on your lips! (but please come right back) you will thank me! They will feel AMAZING and be silky smooth for days! I love doing this about once a week. It’s cheap (everyone has honey and sugar in on hand, right?), it’s fast, and best of all it works!! You really only need a fraction of what I have in the picture above but my honey came out really fast lol. I like to put a little Burts Bees chap stick on afterwards but you really wont have to.

Enjoy!!

New Office Chair

I know I said that I was not in a hurry to find a chair for our office/playroom…. well I lied. Just kidding. I was telling the truth when I wrote that but I came across a steal that I couldn’t pass up shortly after I wrote that post.
See, you know how there’s online classified websites like Craigslist? Well, there is one for my little community and it is terribly addicting! I don’t normally buy something used unless it is a real gem and a steal (oh and I have a rule that it can’t be upholstered either. Never know what is growing in that fabric! eeeek!!) ha! Furniture with good bones can always be refinished! I was on that website just browsing around and I found an antique office chair for sale for only $50!! I had my eye on one of a similar style from Restoration Hardware:

Or Potterybarn:

but there was no way I was going to spend that kind of money on a chair that will probably get blueberries squished on it and juice spilled on it!

Here is the one that I found. I love it but it needs a little TLC and a seat cushion. I will have to wait till I am no longer pregnant to refinish it but I can add the cushion to my list of projects to do pre-baby 3. It works great in here and I think it looks great with the trundle bed!

Playroom Makeover Part 4… Before and After

If you follow my blog you will know that I have made several posts on this remodel over the past several months. It takes me that long to ever get stuff done; if only I could do a whole room in one weekend like HGTV.  If you want to go back and read those, you can here:
Part 1
Makeover concept
Makeover concept… take 2
Part 2
Part 3
Again, the whole makeover began when I got pregnant and our guest room was to be turned into the 3rd nursery. We still wanted a place for people to sleep when they come without having to get out air mattresses. Combining the playroom and guestroom has worked better than I ever thought!
Here are the wonderful before pictures. ( I took these on my phone so they aren’t the best quality) I was using some cheap shelves from Target which worked ok but since everything was right at eye level for the girls, everything was immediately thrown onto the floor. It was such an unorganized mess ALL OF THE TIME that it stressed me out just to go in the playroom. The only place for me to sit was the rocking chair which really isn’t that comfortable without several pillows so I pretty much just sat on the floor…. No window treatments, an old handy-me-down dresser for movies which the drawers didn’t even fit DVD cases correctly so they were a mess in there too. The desk was a disaster but I addressed that in Part 1.
BEFORE:

And, here is the state it pretty much always stayed in. I could not keep up. They would get upset when they couldn’t find pieces to things and then be tripping all over toys just trying to get to their bean bags. Looks like a child case of Hoarders. TERRIBLE!
Can you find the child among the toys?? lol

I started with cleaning up the desk area. I still need a computer desk chair but we never sit at the computer any more since we got ipads; only when I need to edit photos here and there or blog, but right now I am sitting in our recliner in the living room. Needless to say, I am not in a rush to get something.

I moved the chalkboard to the opposite wall and hung the tins of chalk next to it.

The wood doll house is awesome! it fits 12” dolls so their princess dolls and Barbies work great in there. The best part is that everything is very durable and there’s no small pieces!

The shelves are just simply amazing. I love how they frame the TV! Not going to be long though and we may have to add on!

The Daybed is great to sit on and watch TV or for me to hang out on while the girls play. In fact, the bean bags pretty much never get sat in anymore and Avery is convinced we put it in there just for her. When we were setting it up she kept telling us “I just love it! Thank you mommy, it’s my favorite!” haha That kid! Jeff watches TV in there more than in the living room!

The tall cabinet to the right of the day bed is filled with dress up clothes. It also is starting to over flow!

AFTER:

Some of my favorite parts of the room are the curtains with matching throw pillows I made. Also, the trundle was free from my inlaws! I couldn’t find a day bed bedding set that I liked that also matched the curtains so I just got a grey quilt in queen size to act as the cover and bedding, got some ivory sheets and throw pillows, along with the green throw quilt and sham that will be the bedding for the trundle bed when needed. I think it all really came together. The best part is that when the toys do get out of control and messy, it never gets as bad as before and I have a separate tub for each set of toys so everything can easily be found. It never takes me as long to pick up.
I think the girls have a pretty awesome playroom and one that they should be very thankful for!! lol

Jackson’s Nursery

I was going to wait until his nursery was 100% done but I think that will be another few weeks since I can’t move the dresser from Norah’s room to his room until her furniture comes in. Since that is the only piece missing, I decided to go ahead and show it off; it’s 99% done anyways.
When I was looking for inspiration for a boy’s room, I posted about them here. I really wanted to do something that was rustic buy not too western. I was calling it “rustic chic” but Jeff kept telling me not to use the word “chic” when describing something of his son’s lol. He married a designer, what do you expect??!! Anyways, I am a huge stickler on not spending a fortune on kid stuff since it will not be around for long and will probably get destroyed, but I also want a nicely decorated room for them. It’s a balance that I always try to maintain. I am so proud of the deals I found for this room and I think it could easily be a contender for the show “Design on a Dime!” Anyways, here’s a few pictures:
I painted the walls all white using Sherwin Williams “Snowbound” and did the stripes on the right wall in Sherwin Williams “Sand”. I love Snowbound and use it almost every time I need a white paint.
The cowhide rug I found for a steal at a store in Tomball. I was having trouble finding one this size for anything less than $300 but this one was only $150!! I was stoked!
The framed flag by the window is something that Jeff got in Fredericksburg. It is the very first Texas flag design. I found this site you can read a little history about it if you like that sort of thing.
Furniture is the same set I have used for all three kids so I am so glad I chose something neutral and versatile! The glider was the best investment I made. Moms and dads spend lots of time sitting here at night so a comfy chair is critical! I spent more on the glider than I did the crib and dresser combined! lol (ok ok the furniture was on sale, but still!)
I got the hamper at Target, along with the curtain rods and navy blue curtain panels.
OH! and the rocking horse was made by my dad when Avery was born!

I found these picture frames at Target on sale for $2 each! I spray painted them navy blue and put some of my animal photos in them. I had big plans to do a rustic piece of 3-dimensional art using slices of wood logs but I decided such a large heavy piece would not be wise to hang over a crib… boo. I like the animals, though. Brings in some other prints. The giraffe print Nap Nanny adds to the animal print theme. This was given to me by a friend when Norah was born and once again I love that it works in Jackson’s room too!! I just love it when things work out perfectly without planning!!

The star I had in the garage getting dusty. I never hung it anywhere because I couldn’t find a good spot for it outside. It was meant to be! I also got the navy throw blanket at Hobby Lobby for 50% off. I didn’t even know that they had blankets like this but I just happened to walk by it and grabbed it up!

Here is a better picture of the striped wall with the collage of picture frames and antlers. (Just imagine a dresser under this with a changing pad on it) The antlers were my dad’s and I rescued them from his barn. I bleached them white and nailed them to the wood plaques that Jeff’s dad had laying around (also spray painted navy blue). The one on the left was his first deer he ever shot; how special!! I hope we can preserve it for a long time! I got the cross hooks at Hobby Lobby for about $5 each (I had planned to get the star hooks but they didn’t have any in stock but I like the crosses now that they are hung) and the frames I got on their 50% off week. The tiny frames will have Jackson’s baby pictures in them one day.

The frames I filled with little song quotes or other quotes that I thought were cute. the “I love you forever” one comes from the book “Love You Forever” by Robert Munsch; that book makes me cry every time I read it! The “Have good cheer little flock” one is from one of my favorite church hymns we sang a lot as a child. The other ones are just silly lol

I made these initials out of floral foam and wrapped them in twine then added navy blue ribbon to hang them with. Such a quick and simple little project that adds another element of texture to the room.

Overall I am very happy with the room. I think it turned out very cute while still being masculine and is rustic without being cheesy. Hope you like it too!