A Home For Us.

I have mentioned a few times about our plans to move. We have been going back and forth with working on this house and decided (after a lot of exhaustion and stress and just being over it all) that it would be in the best interest of our family to just move into something that was "done". I really want to focus on these precious years with our children and to be more present both at home and in creating these businesses that I've started, and living in a constant work zone kind of took away from that.

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At first, we were going to build with a professional builder, but after running the numbers about a million times and having to downsize, and downsize, and downsize some more to fit it in our budget we decided to back off. The whole point of this thing, after all, was to get to a place that we could just "be", without having to worry about moving again.....you know, something that our family could grow in to.

SO. So, we backed off and kind of dropped it for a few weeks...and then lo and behold, Bryan found a lot. Like a legit, for sale lot. Come to think of it, I have no clue how he stumbled upon it, and when he first brought it up I was all "UM NO", but we eventually got into the crazy conversation of building this thing ourselves. Now, you guys.  I completely realize that this is kind of counter-active to the whole "being done" and "saving on stress" thing. But here's the deal: We have always talked about doing something like this. And to be honest, the only way we can get into a house that won't require a lot of work and that we can stay in for the foreseeable future (or even forever) would be to do it ourselves. AND: I think (I don't know, but I think) that there is a huge difference between living in a construction zone (think renovations) and working on one while living elsewhere. And also, this lot is perfect. Two acres, backs up to a little farm, in a really great neighborhood, great schools, etc.

So, we are building a house. (!)

At least we will be if everything goes according to plan, which so far it is, so that is a great sign.

We plan to close sometime in February, and will put our house on the market sometime in the next month.

We have been obsessively searching house plans online and I am SO pumped to get this show on the road. My personal dream has always been to live in a two-story with a wrap-around porch and dormers (oh, the dormers!), so that is I guess what we are looking at for the most part (but with more brick because we live in Texas and that's what everyone uses). The wonderful thing about the neighborhood is that all of the homes are different sizes and styles, so we are pretty free to do what we want. (There is a committee that has to approve our elevation, just FYI.)

Here is my tentative wish-list:

1. Lots of windows and light

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2. Formal dining room

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3. Larger laundry with some counter space and utility sink

4. Plenty of counter and cabinet space in the kitchen

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5. Higher ceilings in some of the rooms

6. Bonus room for a play/game room

7. I would really like a desk/command center built in somewhere if there isn't a study so I can have a workspace.

8. Plenty of closet space...ideally a big closet to store alllll of my craft supplies (I've already accumulated a lot this year with MOPS and Joann, and I had quite a bit to begin with!) and also my seasonal decorations.

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My inspiration photos are way too extreme for us....but a girl can dream! Ah. So fun.

What are things you were happy you put in your home or wish you had? I would LOVE to hear suggestions!

Thanksgiving Tablescape

I am back with another project for Jo-Ann that's I'll be sharing today on KAMR at 4:00. Excuse me while I do a fist pump....these are so fun!

With the big eating and thanking day looming, I wanted to show a bit of a nontraditional Thanksgiving tablescape that is easy, affordable, and incorporates both new and old, elegant and rustic.

I wanted to feature these birch tealight candle holders that are extremely easy to make (if you have a handy husband) and are featured on the Jo-Ann Maker's Guide. The originals are actually dipped in gold paint which I LOVED, but I decided to keep them plain to draw more attention the other elements of the table.

For my family, at least, we always seem to mix and match each other's styles, dishes, and decorations to make our Thanksgiving table. I personally think it's really great to capitalize on this and use several different styles to make your table interesting and cozy. It ain't 1960 anymore...we can have a bit of fun with "formal" decor!

I decided to use my mother-in-laws 35-year-old china which is gold-rimmed and super fancy. Add the gold tapers (Jo-Ann), crystal holders (MIL), silk napkins (mine), and pretty stemware and you've got all the elegance you need.

To counter this, I threw in the birch candle holders which have stolen my heart, some fun and casual patterned ribbons to tie the napkins with, and black "chalkboard" place tags and thankful cards (great prompt at dinner!), to add a bit of rustic fun. (Use a dressmaking pencil to write with...easy and cheap!)

The happy mediums in this whole setting are the linen and gold trellis table runner I sewed super quick (fabric from Jo-Ann....I spent a whole $11 on it), and some grocery store greenery (a $6 bunch) fresh pears, and squash. Oh, and the giant fake pumpkin that JA had on sale (I got two of them...they were cute.)

So that's that! What do you plan for and consider when planning your Thanksgiving tablescape? I would love to hear ideas. 

Have a wonderful Wednesday!

A Few Of Our Living Room

I've had these on my computer for months and forgot about them until this morning. Ha!

I guess the main reason I haven't posted these it because I'm still not satisfied with this room and I feel it needs a lot of explanation. I've had a love/hate relationship with the living room in this house ever since we moved in. I love all the space, but I cannot stand how dark it is. The builder was loco to put a tiny window on such a huge wall when we have a covered patio outside.

I threw the pillows together at the height of pregnancy hormones. Some days I love them, other days I want to change them. I love how the patterns still go together somehow even though they don't match at all. That was not on purpose but I'm happy it happened to work out! My preggo brain couldn't handle any more decisions at the time. ;)

I love my Goodwill chairs, but they are too small for the couches. I picked them out though because A) I needed low chairs to not block any more of the limited light coming in, and B) that's all the budget would allow. You can't find nice substantial arm chairs for under $250, so I made it work! I was hoping the upholstery job would somehow mask their smallness, but alas, it did not. ;)

What I would do, though, if I had the budget, is get really large armchairs (for the giant men that will roam this house some day) with really pretty lines---some pretty wingbacks would be nice. My in-laws have some that recline and I LOVE them. Maybe in a light gray-ish brown leather or a green velvety fabric. 

I would also love to swap out some of the accessories for nicer items (like a lot of the faux greenery which I did myself from Hobby Lobby...now that I've been to Market my eyes have been opened!), and I would also like to add a pretty wooden rocker (think colonial) and maybe some ottomans. 

I love our Craigslist dresser SO much. It holds all of my gift wrap, cards, boxes, ribbons, tags (including Christmas).  

I also DIY'ed those "linen" botanical frames and still love how they came out. I think they look pretty high end in real life and would like to make more. I used utility fabric that looks like linen, cream cardstock, and antique botanical prints that I ordered from Amazon years ago. They are 16x20 and cost me about $13 each. 

I would also love to get a giant gilded mirror to replace the smaller two but that's not in the budget right now, either. (Which is okay! Make it do.) 

AND, I would love to get my sister's painting framed at some point. It's on my list! 

So anyways, a lot of what we have in here was purchased due to a limited budget or was found or handed down via our generous parents or re-used, but I do still love it for the most part. Working on my home is something I love to do and this house is FOR SURE always a work in progress.

Have a wonderful Wednesday!

Etsy Pillow Options For A Boys Room

Hello! Hope everyone had a good weekend. We have bacon on the stove, lots of family coming into town for the big wedding this weekend, and shopping to do today, so I am happy girl.

We finished Parker's big boy room last September and have absolutely loved it, BUT there were a few things I never completely finished due to me being very pregnant and overwhelmed with other "nesting" duties. Since we are back to a normal routine now, I thought it would be good to tackle these last few items in the big boy room.

The first priority is adding a cute decorative pillow to each bed.

Part of me is still on the fence about doing this since it's for a 3-year-old boy's room and there are already two pillows on the bed…but the impractical give-me-the-pretty-things part of me is calling for something cute to top everything off.

1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 

Here are my favorites that I found on Etsy. I had originally found another ABC pillow when I was planning his room, but now the shop that is was from is closed. Bummer, man. I obviously want them to be on both beds, although they don't necessarily have to be the exact same. The other bed will eventually belong to Hayes so I was thinking of monogramming or adding their names to something as well.

Thoughts? Suggestions? I love them all, it is so hard to choose!

We have a lot of color in the room with the book wall and PB quilts, so I can really go with anything on the pillows. 

There are also several airplane themed items (the frames from Bryan's grandpa and the curtains) so I don't know if I should stay in that direction or do something completely different. I'm kind of thinking of doing something different since I don't want to be too theme-y. Yes?

So there you go. Hopefully I will get this narrowed down in the next few weeks. (It's only taken me 9 months…)

Have a great Monday!

Our Bedroom So Far

I have learned one thing in the last two years: decorating while you stay at home with kids takes a WHOLE lot of time, like two years of it. A couple of weeks ago, I finally FINALLY sat down to sew us a bedskirt and pillow for our bed. After living here for so long, this makes me one happy lady! I am an *extremely* visual person and very much obsessive so this has been hard for me to go so slowly when decorating our house….but I've managed to do it, so far, at least. Does this happen to anyone else or is it just me?


Anyways…here is some of our bedroom, which I am really starting to love!

The bookshelves were given to us by my in-laws. We painted them white and I styled them with things we already had (and all of our books). FREE!

I finally found my nightstands for $50 each on Craigslist. They actually weren't even listed, but we went to meet with the seller to buy a dresser for our living room and he had these there as well and asked if we wanted them (they match the dresser).  Fate, I tell you! I l-o-v-e these. They are extremely nice, solid wood, dovetailed drawers, and are exactly what I had envisioned. (Also painted.)

I already talked about the fabric--all from Hancock. I paid $5 for the Robert Allen on the pillow! The curtains are my favorite white panels from Ikea, and the lamps are from TJ Maxx which I got right after we moved in. Quilt is Overstock and Euro shams were clearance at Dillard's. I've had most of this stuff for about 2 years now and didn't really buy any accessories new…I had all of it because I am a home decor hoarder. (It's a problem.) Oh, and that headboard. I spent all of my birthday money on it 2 years ago. TJ Maxx. My favorite headboard ever.

Still working on the dressers and wall art on the other half of the room but it is coming together! I found some awesome mirrored frames on clearance at HomeGoods (I feel so weird typing that, we finally have a HomeGoods!) and just ordered some of our wedding photos to fill them. 

Oh, and there's this kid, who happily played by my side while I played photographer. (I had to crop train tracks and random toys out of several pictures.)

That's about all I got. Hope you liked it!


Sharing at The Shabby Nest too!

Here's the Plan for Our Bedroom...

Hello! 

So, back to our house. We have been knocking out a TON of projects lately, and quite truthfully, I haven't been dealing with the mess very well, but it feels good to finally see real progress. FINALLY. 

More on those later :).

Another project that I have managed to be crazy enough to start during the existing chaos is making over our bedroom. I cannot take it anymore. Did you know that it is seriously depressing to wake up to this every morning?

These pictures are from our walk-through, so we currently have a bed in here and our dressers from our last bedroom, but that's it. We have not painted (I KNOW), we have not hung anything on the walls, and we definitely have not replaced that icky fan or the water-damaged carpet. 

(creepy mirrors)

I do want to say though, that I LOVE this house. I love this bedroom. I love the size of it! It is huge and it has the perfect spot for a king bed (underneath those creepy mirrors), room for all of our furniture, and plenty of space left over to play and walk around. I've always wanted windows on either side of our bed and now we have them. I am thankful--but I am ready for things to be pretty again.

The main reason we haven't done anything in this room (or most of the house, for that matter) is that I have been trying to save up some money. Well, I did that (!) but then was torn on how I wanted to decorate everything. When we moved into this house, I said that I was going to be more bold in my decorating choices...but I just can't. I am drawn to soft color palettes, natural textures, and clean lines. And I am happy with that. :)

With ALL of that being said...I have finally gotten around to selecting paint and fabrics and putting together an inspiration board for our bedroom. Here it is:

We already have the headboard. It's a Drexel Heritage and I got it at TJ Maxx for $250. It was extremely discounted because it didn't have the frame with it, which was fine because I was just wanting a headboard anyways. I LOVE this thing. It is huge and substantial and a true statement piece but in a subtle way.

The paint color that I have chosen is Benjamin Moore Refined. I'm going to use it at 50% though. I have about seven paint colors on our wall right now and this one is SO pretty and soft. It goes super perfectly with the fabrics for this room. I ordered about 30 swatches from fabrics.com and am SO excited to use these together. (Sidenote: When asked if he cared about using a floral fabric in our room, Bryan immediately rolled his eyes and said "I'm a guy, why would I care?" And that is why I love him ;)

I've already gotten a new quilt from Overstock (this one), and we just got it in the mail two days ago. It is awesome. I also went and got king-sized pillows last night so now we actually have pillows that fit our bed!! If only I could convey my genuine excitement over this fact--it is ridiculous.

I'm still on the lookout for an awesome couple of dressers and have my eye on several bedside tables. I would really like a mirrored set to add another layer to the room. Let me see....a woven bench or set of stools would be amazing for the foot of the bed---something light and airy though--gourd lamps are a must, and so are my favorite bamboo blinds, also from Overstock (I like that place a little too much). I'm also thinking of sticking with my favorite white curtains from Ikea for both windows. They are so airy and nice looking in real life!

We eventually want to replace the old carpet with something like sisal or a natural fiber (along with new baseboards), but that will unfortunately be the last thing we do in the house since we have so much dust and construction going on. I'm trying to be patient about that one but it is hard to wait!

We also have something fun planned for the ceilings and the only thing I'm still truly torn on is whether to stick with a new ceiling fan since we do actually use it throughout the summer (SO HOT), or go the pretty but less practical route and get a glitzy ceiling mount like the one above.

ALSO. There is this weird little corner in the room. It's about 3 feet deep and 6 feet long and neither of us know what to do with it. It's driving me nuts!

Originally we talked about building a desk for me to work at. But then I didn't want to bring work mess into our room, so that idea was nixed. Then we talked about building bookshelves, but we have those in the living room (though they can be moved...), then we talked about being a small sitting area....and then about closing it off to be an extra closet. (We each have our own walk-in closet in our bathroom though.) What do you think? Any ideas? I'm having a hard time finding inspiration for this particular problem and am just stumped.

So that's where we are with that. It's so exciting and refreshing to get going on this. I hope to hear some of your thoughts and suggestions!

Have a wonderful weekend! 

Parker's Christmas Nursery.

 

Hello there! Just wanted to pop in and share a few pictures of Parker's nursery all done up for Christmas. Here we go!

 

 

 

I know, you are all just SHOCKED that I decorated with neutrals. ;)

 

 

I did lots of fresh greenery and garlands (even though they made my hands itch like cra-zay), and my favorite white poinsettias. Love love love.

 

 

 

 

I also got a rosemary tree for the first time this year. At first, I bought Parker a fake mini tree... then I decorated it, decided I didn't like it, and swapped it out for this little cutie.

 

Yes, I am a fickle decorator.

 

 

 

 

I wrapped the container in some extra burlap ribbon that I already had and got that little silver star in the Target dollar spot. (best section ever!)

 

 

 

 

I made this cute cute cute little wreath with some linen that I already had. I just followed the instructions for the Nonna Wreath from Jones Design Company. I'm slightly obsessed with Emily, I pretty much think we should be friends. :)

 

I love this little guy. I also made a friend for him that I hung in our kitchen. Can't wait to show ya'll that too!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So that's that. Pretty simple, but I love it. I've really been looking forward to decorating Parker's room for Christmas ever since we finished it, so I'm happy that I'm happy with how it turned out :). Don't you just love when things work out like that?

 

Talk to you all later!

 

 

Our 2012 Christmas Mantle.

 

 

It's the most wonderful time of the year! And I love our mantle. Again. It didn't change much at all from last year, but here it is for all who want to see it:

 

 

 

 

Obviously, we painted our house, which I LOVE. I moved the stockings over to one side and added a mirrored ball thing that I got at TJMaxx a few years ago, as well as another apothecary jar that normally sits on a dresser in the corner of our living room (our tree is there right now). The last new addition this year are a couple of wired baskets filled with grapevine balls and ornaments.

 

 

 

 

This year I decided to jump on the bandwagon and buy some real greenery to mix in with my ever-faithful faux greenery. I like the look, but not the mess, and definitely not the rash that it gave my hands! And it made me wheeze. I am a loser.

 

 

 

 

 

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So here is our mantle last year:

 

 

(OH my gaaaawsh. I pulled this up and yelled "Peach Crayon!" How did I stand that color for so long? I really need to do a updated home tour with the new paint color--sorry about that.)

 

And here is our mantle now:

 

 

 

Ahhhh, pretty much the same, but SO much better. :)

 

 

Linking this at Ten June and The Lettered Cottage!