House Tour

The Kids' Room
What a labor of love.  I'm a natural nester, anyway, so this was such a fun project to work on.  Combining a small space for two kids of different ages and different genders was a challenge, but it was a fun one.
 

 We picked out the paint first (50% of Aquatint from Sherwin Williams), and then found the crib sheets at Target (clearanced, naturally).  It took some time to find bedding for the Sunbean that fit the bill (girly + aqua + brown + affordable), but we found this at Pottery Barn, and it was perfect.


 We're all fans of the reading nook, especially the Sunbean.  Sorry about the wonkified wall...it's the Sunbean's name spelled out in wooden letters.  I have to protect her from the boogie man that reads my blog, you know.


 We scored this dresser on clearance at Target, and then haggled the manager down even more.  Score!  The number knobs are from eBay, originally Pottery Barn.  We added a fan to help reduce the risk of SIDS, and a few brown bins to catch all of those 'things' that accumulate with kids.


 We found this crib at Walmart.com, and fell in love.  I love the modern lines and small presence (perfect for a small room).  The storage drawer underneath is just the icing on the cake.


 MacGyver is so handy that he just whipped up this sweet light fixture with Ikea lights + light kits + a cap from Lowe's.  The whole thing was less than $20 and I LOVE it!


This is also a good shot of the ceiling color (Limelight) and the crown moulding.


 I picked up these 'Alphabeasties' flash cards at a boutique in Florida (I've seen them other places, though) and mounted them on scrapbook paper.  The letters A-Z are hung throughout the room.  And of course, I had to add those white flowers that I seem to be obsessed with.


 I made these with Photoshop, though they were heavily inspired by some artwork I found on etsy.


So far, the Sunbean is a fan.  Hopefully Little Dude agrees.


The Master Bedroom
Our master bedroom is probably the most dramatic project we've done to our house.  When we got married, MacGyver's parents gave us a beautiful bedroom suite.  I loved it, but it took us nearly 5 years to understand that when you live in an '80's ranch house, large sleigh beds with several matching dressers just don't fit.  Sigh.

We use the bloggers over at Young House Love as our inspiration, and added wardrobes to each side of our bed to create a 'built-in' nook to use instead of dressers.  MacGyver, of course, took it one step further and actually built a header.  Love that guy.


Here's a view from the foot of the bed.  I love how soft and romantic the curtains make the room feel.  We added an already-owned (and DIY-ed) ottoman at the foot of the bed to give the room some depth.


My favorite part of the whole room is the crown moulding.  I've never had crown moulding before, but I seriously love it.  I was afraid it would make the ceilings look short, but painting the ceiling the same color as the walls solves that problem.


This is the back wall.  We'll have to come up with another plan for that corner after this belly bean of mine starts sleeping in his crib, but our bassinet fits perfectly for now.  The artwork on the wall was all DIY Photoshop stuff, along with some personal mementos and family pictures.

It's just crazy how big this makes our room look and feel.  MacGyver was a little worried about how the wardrobes with curtains would look (he just doesn't have my vision), but we both love it.

The Kitchen
Our kitchen has probably seen more paint-brush-action than any other room in the house.  Hey - I spend a ton of time there, so it should make me happy, right?

 After four years of living with this awful tiled countertop, we were able to install granite at a steal of a deal.  We used the color of the stone to inspire the rest of the kitchen.  We replaced the almond appliances (gag) with my in-law's white hand-me-downs.  Hey, I'll take a free stove, dishwasher, and fridge any day of the week.  Especially when they look like new and work just fine.


 A few trips to Ikea netted the rest of the accessories.  We especially love the area rug.  We painted the ceiling just a tad lighter than the smoky blue walls.  It really makes the ceilings look nice and tall.

 We cut down our bar-height table so it would get more use (totally true for us) and added some DIY artwork and cheap accessories (Ikea again).

 The curtains over the sliding door were made from canvas and extra large grommets from Joann's.

 We finished it off with a mini-mudroom.  This was a half wall that we filled in when we installed a fireplace on the other side.  Now this wall is a great place for dish and cookbook storage.

The Master Bathroom

 Ha!  That's a joke.  It's the only bathroom.
 I'd been pining over these Amy Butler towels at Bed, Bath, and Beyond for a few months, and so we finally bit the bullet and gave our bathroom a face-lift.  I love the bright, bold colors and how fun they look all together.

 

I bought a plain white cotton shower curtain at Target for 10 bucks, and added these ruffles.  I stole the idea from Anthropologie, who wanted something to the tune of $80 for a similar curtain.



Here's the finished project.  The paint looks pretty lime-y here, but it's a great bright and fresh pale green.  It took us for-ev-er to pick the color, but we love it.  We re-purposed the existing mirror (and hidden medicine cabinet) and made our own vanity out of scrap wood.  We put a tin on the back of the toilet that ties in with our fixtures to hold extra washcloths and extra toilet paper.  The artwork was re-purposed from other places in our home, but it originally came from Ikea (our mothership).

I was worried about having the white cotton curtain and the white rug, but they wash very well.  We got a machine-washable and machine-dryable rug, so it just gets washed with the whites.