Baby's Room!!!!

Now that Adelyn is in her new bedroom, we were so excited to get working on the baby's room. To be honest I was stressing about this BIG TIME! When we were pregnant with Adelyn we had the room set up and ready to go by the 4th month of pregnancy (at least)... so being 8 months pregnant and not having anything in this room accomplished REALLY freaked me out. I am so happy to say that this room turned out exactly the way I wanted it too. I could not be happier to be bringing my baby home to this wonderful space!

Here was the room the day we moved in. The previous owner used this as a dinning room (hence the old school chandelier).

I actually kinda liked it, and would have loved to refinish or paint it, but that would have only worked if our baby is a girl (which we have no idea about!)... so we played it safe and decided to change out the light.
AND for the record, like I just said... we don't know if this baby is a boy or girl. Everyone thinks that because the walls are a blue-ish/turquoise color, it means we are having a boy. We may or may not be.... you know as much as we do. :o)

If this baby is a girl, we will be adding some soft pink accents around the room. It will look so fantastic with the turquoise walls!!!

Change table.

Comfy chair. We actually had a different chair that we were going to use, but the slip cover got wrecked in the laundry (boo!)... so this chair was plan B. It's not totally my ideal nursery chair (as far as looks go), but it is really comfy and any breastfeeding mom knows that is really your #1 concern for a chair!

These are the curtains I made for the room. I really wasn't sure at first, but once we hung them up I was so happy with the way they turned out. They match the crib bedding (which I also made).

Here is the crib bedding. I finished this project way back in November and was so happy to finally see it set up in the crib!! I love it.

We will be putting to black and white photos of the baby in the frames above the crib, and the baby's name will go into the frame on the white shelf.

Lamp, monitor and clock.

New light up close.

We will also be putting a picture of the baby in this frame.

The baby's name will go into this frame. 1 letter per section. This is my favorite part of the entire room!

Box shelves. The baby's first initial will go into the middle box.

New door knobs. We are slowly replacing all the door knobs in the house (as each room gets painted). They were old, gold ones... but these one's make the house look so much more modern.

So that is the baby's room! Let me know what you think... I would love to hear comments on this one!!!

Big Girl Room!!!

Yay! Adelyn is finally in her new room. This has been a project that we started last summer, so it's been a long time coming! It feels so good to have finished it up, and now we are free to move on to other rooms in the house. She has been sleeping in there for a week and a half and has done extremely well. She has never slept so good! Yay! She loves the room and the colors, and she is always excited to show people who come over "Ananyn's room" (that's how she says her name... it's so cute!)

So, here it is.... FINALLY!

This is the basement when we first moved in. We split this big long room into 2 sections... the back half became Adelyn's new room and the front half became a nicer family room (pictures of that are coming soon!)

This is the back half of the room, that became Adelyn's room.
Framing. We are so lucky to have my handy father help us out with stuff like this. So much better than having to hire someone to do it!
Drywall. This was our first time doing drywall, and I must admit that it is more work than it appears to be. It was pretty fun never the less.
This is the wall heater that was in the basement. We got a new furnace put in the house and had them run extra heat to the basement, so we didn't need this anymore.... not to mention that is was full of asbestos... blah! This is after the heater was ripped out (by my wonderful father).
This was an awkward space in our laundry room that became Adelyn's closet. It had no purpose and we aren't too sure why they developed the basement this way... but it worked great for Adelyn's closet.
This is the awkward laundry room corner from the other side. We took out the middle stud and re-enforced the rest of the studs.
So, here is the room design. It was so much fun to come up with a girly room!! The room turned out pretty similar to the design, and I couldn't be happier with the results. The only thing missing is her toy chest... but Shaun will be refinishing it this summer, so stay tuned for that! Here is the room all painted up and ready for carpet.
:o) Adelyn wondering what the heck we are doing to the basement. LOL. Adelyn "helping" The new carpet and baseboards... we saved so much money by doing it ourselves! Apparently my dad once worked at a place that installed carpets.... I had no idea. :o) The closet almost done. Finally!! Here is the finished product. Adelyn's bed is so tiny in this huge bedroom. :o) Here is her bed with the Ikea wall flower lights above it. I painted petals on the wall to make the cords look a little cuter. She LOVES these lights!!!
This is the other side of the room. Adelyn's name framed on the wall.
The closet finished! We were going to add a curtain or door of some sort, but we are still undecided.
Adelyn LOVES to paint and draw, so we framed some of her artwork. I just love having them displayed... she is quite the little artist!
More Adelyn artwork!

Shelves with the artwork on them and dresser with change pad. We decided to put a change pad in her room even though she will be potty trained soon. That way we can still change the new baby downstairs without having to go very far for supplies, etc. There is a diaper genie on the other side of the dresser that we got for free off of facebook (can't beat getting something for free!) We also have a monitor in her room so that we can hear every little wiggle she makes, etc.

So that is Adelyn's new room. Sorry for the ridiculously long blog post. I'm so happy with the way it turned out, and I'm even more happy that she LOVES it!

Projects On The Go

Just wanted to give you all a quick update and a glimps of what's to come soon...
We have built the chunk of fence that was missing from the backyard, all that is left to build is a gate and then painting it to match the existing fence. Fence pics will be up shortly!!!
I'm hoping to add some plant to the backyard at some point this summer, so check back for that too!

As for the inside of the house...
-We have had the electrical panel upgraded recently. I'll blog about that soon as well.
-We have stripped down most of the original wood trim upstairs and have started to paint it a gorgeous white.

We will hopefully be getting to some of the bigger projects within the next few weeks, so keep checking back!!!

Tiles, tiles, tiles!!!!!

Tile pictures are finally here! Yipee!

The upstairs bathroom had never been shower proof... in other words, you had to make sure you didn't spray the the wall since there were no tiles or backsplash of any sort.

Without further ado, here are some easy steps to tiling a shower:

1. Have a plan. Make sure you know exactly what you want before you start. Have all of your tiles, thinset, grout and tools ready and at hand. Make sure you have enough tiles to complete the job (you can always return extra's later, so it's better to have too many instead of not enough!)

2.  Mix your thinset and start to trowel it on a few rows at a time with a notched trowel. Spread it evenly. 

3.  Set a tile into the thinset by twisting it slightly. Remove the tile to make sure you have good coverage on the back. Put the tile back on the wall and keep setting tiles using spacers in between.

4. Continue to install the tiles one row at a time until you reach the top of the shower stall. Measure up from the top of the last row. Mark a line with a level as a guide for the next row.

5. Carefully use a tile cutter to cut any tiles that need trimming. We had a window right in the way of the shower, so we had to carefully cut a tile to fit in that space. 

6. Once you have tiled to the hight you prefer, let the tile set for 24-48 hours. 

7. Grout the tile. Mix up your grout and use a sponge float to smooth it into the joints. After 30-40 minutes you want to wipe the excess grout with a damp sponge in a circular motion. Continue wiping the tiles down until the tile is clear of all grout. 

8. Let the grout cure for at least 24 hours. Then caulk all the edges of the tile. 

Voila! That's all there is to it.

Aren't the tiles gorgeous!!!! Thanks to my wonderful father-in-law who taught us how to do it! Him and Shaun did an awesome job!