I {heart} Built-Ins

I love the look of anything, well, almost anything, that's built-in. That's why when we decided to renovate the back room we thought it would be fun to add a little built-in to our little house. Since the back room was added on after the house was built, there are windows that look from the kitchen and spare bedroom into the back room. I actually like the kitchen one because it allows me to see into the back yard while I am in the kitchen, and it allows more natural light into the kitchen, which in my book is always a good thing.

The window in the spare bedroom was another matter though. I always had visions of someone breaking into our house and while we were busy walking into the kitchen to go into the back room, they would sneak through the window into the spare bedroom and have the jump on us. A little crazy, I know, especially since that window didn't even open, but I'm irrational sometimes. And really, what bedroom needs a window looking into another room in the house?

So we decided it had to go. We could have just covered it up on both sides of the wall and been done with it, but when you live in a small house you use any extra space you can get. So, we decided to turn it into a built in bookshelf. The first thing we did was remove the trim around the window.

Removing the trim enabled us to see the inner workings of the old window too. Gotta love window on a pulley system.

Then the window itself was taken out. Not to worry, the window didn't just end up trashed. Our friend Ashley took the window off our hands and  is planning to make a coffee table out of it.

After that we added the backing to the evolving bookshelf. We decided that we wanted the bookshelf to be on the bedroom side since it would have very awkward placement if it were in the back room.

Next Jake built up a frame inside the wall where the window weights and pulley used to be so that the whole thing would be flush with the hole left in the wall.

We primed and painted the backing before adding in the shelves. We decided to do white trim and shelves with a subtle color difference for the backing, so we used some of the Olympic Drifting Dune from the back room to paint the back. We may change the color of the backing at some point to make it more of a statement, but for now it works just fine.

We decided to make a slightly larger shelf for the bottom that would go with the trim, so it was a little more in depth measuring, but not too difficult. 

The shelves got cut down and then primed and painted outside and then brought in to be installed.

We measured out in the space where we wanted the shelves to land and then I held them in place as Jake air nailed them in from the back side. If you ever do this you want to be sure to measure several times from both sides to be sure that you will be nailing where the shelves are, otherwise you would end up with nails/holes sticking out of the back of the bookshelf. We also secured the shelves on the side of the built-in, just to be sure that they were extra sturdy. Since we were both busy doing something for this part of the project we didn't end up getting any pictures of this step.

The last thing left to do was to put up the trim around the shelves and call it good. Well, actually, we still need to go back and fill in the air nail holes and do the touch up paint, but it's functional. And the back side of the built-in got covered over with paneling when we paneled the wall in the back room.

We love the way that the project turned out in the end, and it is so functional too. It holds a good amount of our books, plus some pictures and other decorative stuff too since we don't want it too look too heavy like it might with just books.

Anyone else out there have a pointless window that you don't know what to do with? Or are there any other projects that you've come up with for the space where you took out a window? I'm thinking a Murphy bed would potentially be a cool way to change up an old window...maybe someday in some other house. I will have a Murphy bed someday, I'm convinced.

Nursery Designs (no this is not an announcement)

Our friends Tony and Angel found out back in late September that they would be welcoming a new family member sometime in early June. We were extremely excited for them and last night I got an assignment from Angel to help with the nursery. Since they won't be finding out the gender they are working on a nursery that could be for either a boy or girl. Angel found this bedding that she likes from Target, which I think is super fun.

    

Now for my assignment. They want to do a lamb themed nursery, and since we have yet to find much in the way of cute lamb bedding, we're going to have to incorporate them into the room some other way. So off I set on my lamb hunt search. The first place I checked was etsy, knowing that there are all kinds of awesome handmade things on there. I actually found this lamb mobile from eleni creative on there several months ago, when I was looking for Angel and our other friend Sara, who is also having a baby and wanting to do a lamb themed nursery.

Unfortunately, the price of this sweet little guy is quite a bit more than is in the budget for a mobile, but we might be able to whip up something of our own that's similar, so we'll just have to see.

I also found this sweet print from the Keep Calm Shop, we'd probably just have to change the color scheme to go better with the bedding (and maybe change it to "love lambs").

There were several other cute wall prints that I found on etsy too.
 

from here

from here

from here

Of course all of these would need a different color scheme to go with the bedding, but they were just some thoughts that were bouncing around in my head.

The next place I checked was, of course, pinterest. I didn't really realize until I searched "lamb" on pinterest how many recipes I would find, not exactly the most touching note eh? Anyway, I did find some cute stuff on there as well. Like a free pattern for making this lamb pillow.

Originally from here

And this fun little button sheep that we could put together in a cinch. 

originally from here

And although this has nothing to do with lambs, I think this rug would look awesome to add a little pizazz to the floor.

• 

from here

I have to admit, while looking for some cute little lambs I found some kind of crazy things too. I discovered that not only can little lambs be a little too cutesy...

from here

they can also be pretty creepy.

from here

So there you have it, a round up of the lamb nursery stuff I found while searching for Baby O.'s nursery. Anyone else done a lamb nursery? If you have any other links to great lamb nurseries (or creepy lamb stuffed animals for that matter) we'd love to see them, just post them in the comments.

Year End Wrap Up

As 2011 comes to a close we thought it might be fun to take a look back at what happened in the past year, and maybe take a look at some potential upcoming projects for the next year. But first, check out my awesome Christmas present from my wonderful husband who knows me so well.

 

That's right, a palm sander. I can't wait to break this puppy out. I have big plans for this little guy. Side note, I love that it came with a storage bag. 

And now for a short round up of the past year. We started out the year explaining how we came to have a blue door in the first place. 

We also went over the porch re-vamp. 

We gave a quick tour of the house, which can now be found on the house tour page.

We bought a new refrigerator that matches the rest of the kitchen much better than the old one did, and is much quieter too.

And the doozy (doozie?) of a project this year, the back room overhaul.

We also did a quick coffee table switcheroo.

 

And to end the year out we made a nice wintery wreath.

 

There were also several projects that we haven't gotten around to blogging about yet, like the built-in bookshelf and the brand new shed. Hopefully we'll get to those soon. Now here's a list of projects that we would like to do in the coming year. 

We bought this chair off craigslist a few months ago and I still have yet to do anything with it. I need to either clean the upholstery really well or else reupholster it. We'll have to wait and see what happens. We also need to replace the cushion, but that will hopefully be the easy part of the project.

We got this stool from Jake's great-grandmother several months ago. I've been planning to sand it down and paint it, as well as reupholster the seat, maybe now that I have my new palm sander I'll finally get to that. 

We are also hoping to get new kitchen counter tops this year, but we're saving up for them right now. (this is where I put our NEVER USE CREDIT TO BUY THINGS YOU CAN'T AFFORD plug). Anyway, as you can see in this picture, we don't have matching counter tops. We've been meaning to replace them for a long time, but it's one of those things you live with and actually forget about until you're reminded, oh right, matching countertops do look nice...

So there it is, a quick look back at 2011 and a small look into some ideas for 2012. Hopefully this year will be just as productive as last and we can continue to share it with you all. Thanks for reading!

Last Minute Decorating

If you're like us, you've had your Christmas decorations up since the day after Thanksgiving, however, if you are one of those people that wait to do things until the last minute (ahem, like me writing this post 5 days before Christmas..) then we may have a few quick decorating ideas for you. The first idea is my favorite new decoration for the year. It's our new wreath for the front door.

I got the idea from my pinterest page, but it was originally from here. I tweaked it a little bit though. I went to the dollar store and picked up these packages of snowflakes in three different sizes, as well as a white party streamer.

I picked up an inexpensive straw wreath from Michael's, and wrapped the streamer around it (leaving the plastic wrap over the straw part of the wreath to make it a little smoother). That took about five minutes. Next I heated up the trusty old hot glue gun and got to gluing. The snowflakes has a pretty good spot in the center to put the glue, so I just layered the snowflakes in varying sizes around the wreath. We decided the wreath was still lacking something though, so I used the strings that were already attached to the snowflakes to hang a few of them from the flakes that had been glued onto the wreath, in order to add a little depth and interest.

And there you have it, a simple, quick wreath to hang on your door or in your windows for Christmas, and you could even have this out longer for more of the winter since it doesn't have anything inherently Christmas-y about it.

Now for a quick look at tree decorating. Something that I like to do is to hang some ornaments on the inside of the tree, not just on the outer edges. They don't jump out at you, they just show through enough that you see a little shimmer and layering to your tree. To do this you have to make sure it's ornaments that are a little shinier or colorful to make sure that they show up enough and that you don't lose them when you're taking the tree down though. I like to throw some red and gold ones in towards the center of the tree. You can kind of see what I mean in the picture below, although sadly, it doesn't do it justice to real life.

And here's a look at our whole Christmas tree all lit up and even with a few presents underneath. 

One of our friends told us that whenever she sees the ornaments inside the tree like that it always reminds her of the Chip and Dale Chipmunk Christmas special where they're running through the tree. We're definitely cool with that though, it brings a little nostalgia to the tree.  

So there you have it, a simple last minute project, and a new way to consider decorating your tree. Anyone else made any decorations for Christmas this year? Or maybe have chipmunks running a muck in your tree. We're considering trying to find a fun little chipmunk ornament to stick in the tree, just for the fun of it. 

Circle Gets the Square

For quite a while now we've been thinking about getting rid of our old coffee table for something a little more modern that would be more kid friendly at the same time (no this is not any sort of "we're having a baby" announcement, we have 6 nieces and nephews that are over a lot, so we like to keep things pretty kid friendly for them). We had been eying this ottoman from Target for a while.

It's just so great, has a place for storage, and even a hard top on the opposite side of the top to make a table top, but the $170 price tag had us cringing, so we hadn't ever really looked at it too closely, other than the fact that I neurotically checked to see if it was on sale every time I went into Target. Well, the ottoman didn't go on sale, but we had a garage sale, and decided before hand that the money we made could go to buying the new ottoman. We actually went to buy it before the garage sale even happened just in case we didn't like it and wanted to keep our current coffee table (which we planned to sell in the garage sale). But of course we knew we would love the round one, the shape would make the flow from the living room to the kitchen so much better, and all that storage, how could we not...(this is what they call foreshadowing in literature). So we went out and bought the ottoman, confident that it would be great in it's new home. And then, it wasn't.

 It wasn't horrible, it just wasn't as great as we were hoping, it kind of felt too small and too big for the space at the same time somehow. See how it almost cuts off the walkway between the chair and couch?

So, seeing that the round one may not be quite right for us, we decided to go back and check out some square ones we had looked at while we were there too. (I couldn't find the exact ottoman on the Target website, but it's pretty much like this only without the legs.)

They were listed at $70, which would only be saving us $30, so when we thought we liked the round one so much better it didn't really seem worth the savings when we liked the round one more. But since we weren't as enamored with the round one as we thought we would be we decided to go back and get a couple of the square ones to see what we thought of them. We kept the round one too though, just in case we did end up liking it better still. So, off on another trip to Target (good thing it's only a few blocks from our house). We weren't terribly excited at the prospect of spending $70 a piece on the little square ottomans, but we thought we should give them a chance. When we checked out at Target though, we discovered that they were on sale for $51 a piece! That definitely made us like them a little more. So we happily came home with our two square ottomans, which with our Target debit card's 5% off plus another 5% off coupon we had, cost us just $100.39. Let me tell you, the extra $30 in savings may not have been that much of an incentive to us, but an extra $70 is definitely a good one for us. So we moved the round ottoman out of the way and set up the two square ones.

 

We immediately liked the look of the two square ones better, plus the extra $70 that we would be saving on them was still in the back of our minds helping us decide. We decided to keep both overnight though to think on it before making any rash decisions. We even set up the round one again so that we could wake up to it and see again what we thought of it. The next morning we still weren't feeling the round one though, so back it went that afternoon and we haven't looked back. We really love the square ottomans, and we really like the tray option that they have. We still haven't decided what we're going to store in them, but I'm ok with having storage space that's just free whenever we decide we need it. And they look so great in the space. Here's a look at the transformation from old coffee table to round ottoman to square ottomans. 

 

The square ones just seem to fit so well, plus since we plan to sell the old coffee table, along with a matching end table on Craigslist and if we're lucky we may come out right around even for the cost to buy vs. selling price. Not a bad deal for such an updated look that's more efficient (since they each have storage and are much more comfortable to rest your feet on than the old coffee table was) and they're more kid friendly! It's a win, win, win!

Anyone else out there gotten a much more updated coffee table situation lately? Or maybe made another trade off that you feel like you got the better end of the deal on?