Evie's Big Girl Room {A Gallery Wall}

Progress on Evie's room has been slow going. I have had ideas and plans since we moved in (last August!!), but then life happens and projects take time and things cost money and you get knocked up and your buddy craigslist forsakes you. Sigh.

But some progress has definitely been made, so I thought I would share a bit today. Is anyone even still reading this little blog?? I know I've been absent!

Here is the original amateur inspiration board I put together for her room:

 

I've stayed pretty true to the colors and feel of the board. Using that floral fabric to make her curtains definitely helped. I love how fun it is.

 

I actually had another gallery wall up across the room, above her dresser, for a while. But then I decided to hang a mirror over there instead. Not long after, I came across this awesome pic on Pinterest and fell in love. I think it's so cool and different than your typical gallery, and I love how they went all the way up to the ceiling. I would need to gather some more art to truly replicate it, but I'm loving things so far!  

 

 

Everything up there is a diy project of some kind... framed gift wrap, a diy mirror made from a charger, a framed brass butterfly (flea market find), some original art, etc. I just finished the two watercolors (in the gold frames) and I'm not totally satisfied with them, but I needed to get something up! So those will likely change, and I may add a few other tiny pieces to fill things in.

 

This Shakespeare quote is puuuuuurfect for my girl. :)

 

Hopefully I'll have more to share of her room soon!



Evie's Big Girl Room {Inspiration Board}

We've been in our house for over 5 months now, and I am just finally getting around to working on Evie's 'big girl' room. 

When we moved in, we put all of the furniture, etc from her nursery into her room, but I didn't hang anything on the walls because I knew I would be redecorating soon and didn't want to bother with the extra holes in the walls. And of course, there was the whole time/motivation factor. Let's just say her room quickly got moved to the back burner.

But now that she's in a big bed AND I have a nursery to plan out and decorate, it's time to get this bad boy on the road! I went back and forth on what color scheme I wanted to use (as seen by some of my random pins to this board), but her walls are a medium/light grey and I knew I wanted to use lots of crisp white. I am what one might call a fabric hoarder, and have picked up various fabrics I thought I might use in her room over the last year (or two!). I've had the pink/white stripe fabric for a long time and always intended to use it to make her an upholstered headboard. Then when I went to hunt down a fun floral or print to bring in more color on the curtain panels and pillows, I almost scrapped it, but luckily it made the cut!

Here's my ghetto inspiration board, thanks to a Picmonkey collage. Mama needs some photo software.

My plan is to pull lots of fun color from the floral (teal, coral, pink, yellow) and temper with tons of white and hits of gold. I've hung some white floating shelves and have plans for some fun and easy DIY art for the walls. I need to track down some pillow fabric and I definitely need to repaint her dresser. I still like the pale blue I originally painted it, but it reads all wrong in her room now, with the grey walls. And I want it to really pop in there. I'm leaning toward a deep teal with new hardware- probably brass or gold! Though I did really like the coral one above, too… we shall see!

So far I have the curtain panels done and hung, and the headboard is 98% done and will hopefully get hung this weekend! The other big thing I need to tackle is her bedding. My plan is to make a white ruffle bedskirt and I'm leaning toward a white duvet cover.

So that's the plan! I will hopefully have some pictures to share of her room soon!

Five on Friday {Welcome to the Neighborhood}

1 // The Cleanse // I meant to let you guys know how my little cleanse went. Overall it was fine, but I definitely didn't get an A+ from Gwenny Paltrow. The first day was fine, but let me tell you- that veggie lunch smoothie was not easy to choke down. It wasn't necessarily bad, just, well... green. Very meaty, in a veggie sort of way. It's hard to explain. And the dinner smoothie with the cayenne pepper definitely had a kick to it. It was weird. So by Day 2, I was more than happy to 'cheat' at Bible Study (which happened to meet at Panera that evening). Overall? I would really like to try and commit to a cleanse again sometime. It wasn't all that hard mentally, and I actually felt pretty full most of the time. It's just, you know... I like to EAT!

2 // Where the wild things are // Two days before we closed on our house, Evie and I stopped by, only to be greeted by a little snake in the garage. NOT my cup of tea. But since it was just us, I was all prepared to do what I had to do to get it out of our house. But as soon as I got close to it with a long stick, that thing started wiggling and shaking it's tail and flicking it's tongue. Yeah, I don't think so. Luckily, our contractor was parked down the road, so I called and asked him to help. Then, on our second night at the house, we were woken up around 1 a.m. to the sound of howling coyotes behind our house. At first I thought it was the neighborhood dogs all riled up, but soon it was very clear that that was not the case. Nope, just a pack of wild coyotes, howling away in the backyard. I could hear them running in the field from one end to the other. Also NOT my cup of tea.

3 // Two year molars // Heaven help us. I feel like Evie has been getting these things for.ev.er. It has seriously been a solid month of angst around here and I just feel so bad for my girl. When does it end?? I haven't even seen the top two pop through yet. Oy vey.

4 // Purge // I feel like I took bags of stuff to the Goodwill while I was packing up to move, but here I am ready to do the exact same thing while I unpack. We just have so much stuff! First on my list is hubby's closet. ;) Seriously, though, seeing it all piled up in the garage, waiting to find a nook or cranny to get stuffed into in the house and then forgotten... ugh! Makes me want to just toss it all. I'm trying to go with this feeling, though, and sift through stuff while I feel the urge.

5 // Neighbors // We met a few of our neighbors last night and it was so nice! I'm really excited to meet more and get involved and get to know other families. That is one thing I'm really looking forward to here- other young families and friends to hang out with. The lady I spoke with said that all the young families a few streets over sit out on someone's driveway each night talking while the kids play. I love that. It reminds me so much of our neighborhood growing up, where we did the exact same thing.

Happy Friday!

 

feels like home

Ahhhh... much better.

Yesterday I got a little energy back and was able to make a lot of headway in our massive pile 'o stuff in the garage. Though hubby didn't really seem to think it looked any different when he came home. Whatevs. And then on to my favorite part- pulling out all the random décor I've collected over the years to start making this house our home. I've only set out a few things and started on some vignettes- and chances are none of it will stay where it is- but it feels soooo good to do.

New House: Paint Colors

(L-R) Gray Owl, Coventry Gray and Chelsea Gray

So this past weekend our new house got painted! Honestly, it was all a bit of a whirlwind last Friday, when I HAPPENED to call our builder to check in and see what was next on the books. That's when they let me know that a crew was there painting and would be done painting the whole house this weekend. SAY WHAT!?

Luckily I basically already knew what I wanted, but I still wanted to see some paint samples up on the walls before making the final decision. I had already decided to go with Benjamin Moore's Decorators White for the cabinets and trim, so by the time I got there they had already been painted. Then it was a mad dash to hold up swatches in each room and narrow it down to a few choices. They told us we could pick TWO colors for the entire house (interior). SHHHMMMM. That's not easy, in my opinion, but we all know I'll be painting rooms in no time. Also? We have tall, vaulted ceilings in a few rooms, so the color would flow all the way up... I didn't want some weird, dark color on our ceilings. In the end, since the builder is a friend of ours, we got to choose 3 interior colors. (All Benjamin Moore paint. He's my boyfriend of the paint world).

SO! What did I pick??

Shocker Alert! I went gray. :)

I really wanted to keep things light and airy in the main rooms and have lots of natural light bouncing around. Gray Owl was the winner for the family room, kitchen and basically 87% of the house:



 







The middle pic above reads as purple, but it's definitely not. I think that last picture represents the color the best. Also? I am LOVING the light (unfinished) floors in that last picture!! It's totally opposite of the dark floors we've been planning on this whole time, but light wood floors have seriously been growing on me lately...

For the master bedroom and Evie's room, I went with a deeper gray- Coventry Gray. I knew I definitely wanted a medium gray for Evie's room, so I just went with the same color for our room. 



 

 

And for our third color choice, I went with Beach Glass. I really wanted the powder bathroom to be something different and fun, but then when it came down to it, did it really make sense to have our third color be only in one small room? So I ended up having them paint the upstairs bathroom the same color. Since there are no windows in either of these bathrooms and no lights, it was hard to get a picture of this color. It's actually a really pretty, soft blue/green.

 

 

 

So there you have it! It is amazing how different and REAL the house looks now that it's been painted. And I just got word that they've started installing our countertops, so we'll be heading over there to check it all out in just a bit!

 

 

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New House Progress

They are making lots of progress on our new house! I stop by basically every day to keep tabs :) and snapped some pics with my phone to share. It's exciting to see the cabinets in and really get a feel for the rooms!

Kitchen

 

Pantry shelves! No, I didn't end up leaving a note :)



Checking out all the workers in our neighborhood. There are TONS of them.

Super excited for these lockers in the mudroom.

Getting close!

New House: In the Pantry

This weekend when I stopped by the house, I could see they were working on the trim and shelving in all the closets. This set me in a momentary panic, as I had planned to map out exactly how/where we wanted all of the shelving in our master closet and pantry. But no worries- I quickly talked myself off that ledge and decided the master closet would turn out just fine. Obviously ours wasn't the first one they had ever constructed.

But the pantry. Oy. They hadn't started installing anything in there yet, so my plan was to measure the room (it's a walk-in), then scour Pinterest for ideas and get to work drawing up some plans. Then I would tape up said plans in the pantry with a sweet little note, my phone number (should they have questions) and maybe some cigarettes a donut or two??? Seems like a plan to me!

So here are some of the gorgeous pantries I'm drawing inspiration from. Our pantry is good sized, with room for a wall of shelving and a small (wet bar-sized) cabinet/counter-top. I'm super psyched about all the storage. And eventually I would like to do something fun in there like fun wallpaper, a chalkboard wall or fun paint.

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So.. any advice on the pantry? I want to make sure and leave a large space beneath the wall of shelves for bulk items and recycling bins. And I can't wait to get in there and get everything organized!

big news!

Nope, I'm still not pregnant! :(

But...

We're building a house!!!

This is one of the reasons I've felt so busy and distracted lately, aka, a bad blogger. Tons of thought and prayer have gone into this and we are super excited (and a little nervous!) to be building. Ground has been broken, plumbing installed and the foundation laid. We drove by today to see stacks of lumber ready to go up. Yeep!

If you follow me on Pinterest, I'm sure you've seen the countless pristine, bright white kitchens I've been pinning. Clearly, I have a type. :) I'm trying to be diligent and research and shop around for good deals to get the materials and look I'm hoping for in the kitchen, while not driving my husband and our builder completely batty. We'll see how that pans out! It's a fine line for me, to get what I'm envisioning ... all the while keeping our budget and eventual resale in mind. 

But for now, here are some of my favorite kitchen inspiration pics:

 

 

All images can be found on my kitchen board on Pinterest.