Noelle's Nursery

Welcome to Noelle's room! Here is how it's looking now. It's a happy place for me to be because it's pretty much the only room in our entire house that is always clean. I love that!

Just for fun, here is a picture of this room from the previous owners mls listing. It makes me realize what a big difference small things like hanging your curtains the right way can make.

 You may remember all I had done in here before was the relaxed shade. I added blackout curtains and sewed on the pink pom pom trim. Notice the finished window bench! I picked up the Nate Berkus fabric on the bench from Joann's on sale for only $8 a yard! We wrapped it over 2 inch foam and added a layer of batting, then fabric, and stapled it to a board.

 This is the dresser we painted in this post . Above is the painting the boys did for her. I think it turned out great! To make it, the boys worked on the red underneath first. After it dried, I gave them yellow, pink, and they mixed some grayish purple. I had to restrain myself but I didn't touch it- it's all their art! It turned out nice and abstract but I'm happy it goes with her room and has some meaning too.

Her crib is a Baby Mod crib from Walmart! I love it. I didn't do any decorating around the crib because dangling mobiles and even frames on the wall make me uneasy to have right next to her. It looks a little bare but I'd rather be safe than sorry!

And last, a picture of the little lady herself... snoozing away...

A bench for Noelle

We are just finishing up the last project in Noelle's room. A window seat bench using the fabric above. Stay tuned... tomorrow I will be sharing pictures of the final product and Noelle's finished nursery!

Finished ceilings and new fixtures in the den/kitchen

It feels good we are making some progress in an area of our house that was in bad shape for a long time. We removed the popcorn ceilings and were stuck there for a while.

We sanded, primed, and painted the ceiling and painted the walls too. It really motivated us to get it all done once we got the new ceiling fan and light.

Here are some before pictures and progress shots.

 Before

 Progress- Fan is a Casablanca Trident.  It works great and is much more our style.

 Before

 

 Progress- Pendant is from Ballard Design and is the Tours 4 Light Pendant. You can see in this picture we didn't quite finish painting the walls. We ran out of paint and need to grab more. The pink is the previous color and we covered it with BM white dove. Ceiling color is BM chantilly lace.

 Before

Yay for Progress!

Wood Shed

In the winter we heat our house entirely by the fireplace. Cameron is a fire starting pro and I on the other hand am the worst fire starter! A lot of the frustration for me came from the fact that our wood was always wet. Even though we had a tarp over it, or would store it in the garage for a few days to get it dry it always sizzled in the fire because of the moisture.

I read an article that said that even though wood is cut and "drying out" for a time, having it get rained on at all reverses the seasoning process. So to make fire starting easier for me we needed a more permanent covering for our wood.

We opted to move the wood pile behind the shed so it's not as much of an eyesore. Then Cameron added a roof over the top to keep it dry.  We went back and forth between a tin type roof and shingles. But it wasn't that much more to just do the shingles so we went for that. The structure is more about function than looking good though.

All done!

Pantry Refresh and Other Project Starts

Sorry for the last month of blog silence over here. This last month of pregnancy left me wanting to do nothing but sit and rest. We tackled most of these projects before Noelle got here but I didn't get a chance to update.

Our pantry always felt dirty and I could never get it clean because it had some of those laminate sticky papers on it. Even though we plan on renovating the entire kitchen some day, having Noelle almost here left me wanting a feeling of cleanliness now.

We just decided to gut the whole thing.

And now...

It got all new shelves, baseboards, every seem is caulked, and Cameron painted it.

Nice and clean!

The other project that got started was a sandbox made by Cameron. He found some old deck wood at the dump and recycled it for the frame of the box. We are still working on getting it finished.

The last project is the ceiling got scraped in the den and kitchen dining area. This is what I've been working on since Noelle has been born. Cameron patched the hole next to the fan and a few days ago I taped and mudded everything. I'm so ready for the ceiling to be done because then I can paint the walls too. They are desperate for it. I'm also on the hunt for a new fan.

A Furniture Makeover with Oil Based Paint

We've had this dresser sitting in our storage room for a while because I didn't have a place for it. It was given to us and in our old house it was in my painting room. So you can imagine it was pretty beat up. I already started to patch things but here is roughly what it looked like before...

I painted one other piece of furniture in our house with oil based paint and even though it was a little more work to clean up, its worth it because the finish is super durable. Oil based paint has another perk, it is self leveling. You don't see a ton of brush strokes or roller marks. After it dries it is smooth and glossy.

 I put Cameron to work on the painting portion since the stuff is super stinky and considering I'm expecting it wouldn't be very healthy for the baby. Since I painted with oil based paint before I knew some tips which I learned the hard way and suggested them to Cam. He did great. In case you ever feel like trying it here's what we've learned...

 Once you go over an area resist the urge to go back in the same painting session and touch up a spot. It will leave the brush strokes.

It's better go thick with the paint (not so much that it drips though). And believe it or not a brush actually works better than a roller.

 We used oil based primer plus two coats paint. Here is its now. I got the new pulls from home depot.

Garden- September Update

 Cucumbers have finally come in. I guess I just planted them late so they came late. And apparently I planted too many again. Do you see the wall of cucumbers on the back? Whoops. But I suppose I'd rather have to many than too little! Tomatoes have been good too. We've made a bunch of tomato sauce, salsa, and have had them in and on everything. Squash are still producing. I need more recipes...

I've also been clearing out the beans and ground cherries to make room for fall plantings.

I started red romaine, bok choy, a couple types of kale, and collards inside a month ago. I got one of those soil blockers, which is suppose to help prevent transplant shock. They are definitely big and ready to go in the soil but its still way too hot outside.

I take them out a few hours each day to try and acclimate them but the butter type lettuce especially doesn't like it (as you can see in the picture). Hopefully things will cool off soon. I'll be directly planting some more carrots, spinach, and a type of broccoli that is suppose to overwinter then grow in spring when it gets cool.