Bedroom Makeover: Complete!

In anticipation of baby #3's impending arrival, we've made some bedroom switcharoos around here.  What used to be the nursery (our tiny bedroom) has become Audrey's very own big girl room, so Norah and the baby can share the larger bedroom.  

Here is the before photo:

Ugh.  We literally did nothing to this room when we moved into this house.  Left the walls as-they-were, hung up some curtains that we already had because they 'kind-of' matched, and called it functional.  So this room was ready for an overhaul!

A good friend advised me to keep our first baby's room neutral before Audrey was born, even though we knew we were having a girl.  "You'll have her whole life to do something girly," were her exact words.  And by keeping our baby stuff gender neutral, we were guaranteed to be able to use it for all of our kids.  And I'm thankful for that.  But...nearly 4 years later I've been itching to do something girly.  This was my chance!  I found my inspiration here.

Without further ado...the after:

What started off as "let's (Tim) paint the bedroom," quickly became "let's (Tim) paint the trim...and the window frame...and the closet doors...and add crown molding...and oh, while I'm up here patching holes, I think I'll go ahead and scrape the popcorn off the ceiling..."  But I think you'll agree with me...all his hard work paid off.  I think it looks SO. MUCH. BETTER. than it did before!  And it feels much bigger, too!

I already had these letters from Audrey's last room.  I simply picked out new scrapbook paper to match the new color scheme and mod-podged that directly on top of the old stuff.  SO cheap and easy.  And this go-around I added ribbon too; just a bit more girly!

You might remember from this post that we re-did a chandelier.  Thanks to my parents renovating their cabin, I got a free (gold!) chandelier.  One can of white spray paint, a few skinny pop cans cut down to size and sprayed to match, 5 synthetic flowers, one strand of clear plastic pendants, one hot glue gun and 2 blisters on my fingers later...it's my favorite addition to the room.

(Sorry for the grainy photo, it was really dark so I had to edit it to get it to show up!)

I found this dresser on Craigslist.  All we had to do was replace some missing hardware, so I snagged some pink knobs at Hobby Lobby on one of their 50% off sales.  

And I love that it has built in photo frames.  I printed out some of our favorite Audrey photos from the past 3 1/2 years.  Such fun memories for her bedroom!

This lamp was the only thing I bought for her bedroom brand new, not on sale.  I just fell in love with it at Target, and love how the glass beaded stand ties in with the pendants on the chandelier!  Scratch that, I guess I bought the alarm clock new too.  But that wasn't really part of the bedroom makeover...that was due to the 5:45 a.m. wake-up calls we've been having over the last month.  But I'll save that for another post.  

Trick to making small bedrooms feel bigger...add more mirrors.  (Check out that baby in the background!  Getting harder to hide it!) ;)

We (as in Tim) still have one more coat of paint to do on these closet doors and then the room will officially be complete!

And the pièce de résistance...homemade curtains.

These were probably the most ridiculous project I've ever undertaken by myself.  I don't sew.  Really, all I've done are pillowcases and straight valences, and that was with my mother-in-law's help.  The original plan was to choose one fabric, and sew a straight valance.  Problem was, they didn't have enough of the one fabric I picked out.  So instead I chose 7 different patterns, and thought I'd piece them together in a patchwork quilt-like valence.  (Can you say crazy-pregnant-nesting-brain?  What was I thinking!?!?)  Thanks to my sister-in-law's helpful advice and the use of her serger, that part came together well, but when I hung it up it looked kind of blah.  For all the time I spent on it, I really wanted to love it, you know?  So I decided to try gathering it up in more of a balloon shade style.  That looked great, but then my valance was too narrow for the window.  Luckily I had a little more fabric left that I was planning on using for a throw pillow, so I whipped out two more gathered panels and ta-da!  Finished project.  It's girly, it's unique, and I'm happy with it.

So there you have it.  Baby can come anytime now, I'm ready.  Well, almost.  I'm still finishing up Norah's baby book.  Gotta get that done now if I'm going to have any hope of staying caught up...

Just Checking In

My apologies to my Grandparents who faithfully check this blog for our happenings.  Clearly, up until last week, blogging has gone by the wayside as life has gotten busy.  What have we been up to?

School: 
Audrey is almost reading.  Yesterday I heard her sound out at least 4 new 3-letter-words all by herself, without any prompting whatsoever from me.  So fun!  We opted not to put her in preschool this year, and instead I have started, quite unofficially, to homeschool.  This involves about 15 minutes each some mornings after breakfast.  We are slowly going through The Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading and I must say it's going quite well.  She loves it, and asks to do it in the afternoon if we skipped it that morning.  We have gone through all the vowels, and are to the letter T in consonants.  She started teasing me a few days ago when we were talking about "S," asking if Norah's name started with the letter "S."  I asked, "is her name "SSSSSnorah?"  Audrey smiled coyly and said, "Mommy, can we give Norah a new name?  Can we call her SSSSSnake?  Or SSSSSnotter?"  Also contributing to the reading skills is her newfound love of starfall.com.  I have to limit her to an hour of computer time after her nap, (she would spend all day on that site!) and she's getting good with the mouse, too.  Yesterday I caught her in an advanced activity, sounding out the word 'grass'!  Tonight for Tim she read the words "octopus" and "rocket," without any pictures to prompt her.  She amazes us.

Laughing:
We've been having some interesting conversations the past 2 days.  Randomly Audrey asked me, "Mommy, last days, (her version of asking anything that happened in the past,) how did I get into your tummy?" I opted to forego the birds and the bees discussion, (I've had way more of my share of those talks with S over the last month,) and settled for "God put you there."  She wasn't quite satisfied with this answer.  "But I don't remember that happening.  I didn't see it happen."  Sheesh. 

One day last week we dropped off Norah at a friends' house so I could take Audrey to an appointment at the Iowa Sleep Disorders Center to see a pediatric sleep specialist.  Our friend was changing a little boy's diaper when we got there.  Audrey (in awe):  "Look at his bottom, Mommy!  He has a ball on his bottom!"  And thus ensued a short discussion about the differences between boys and girls.  Fun times.

Two weeks ago I called Audrey to the bathroom and I heard her whispering a self-narration as she came running, "down the hall, over the rug, as fast as my legs could carry!"

Last night we let Audrey listen to some music as she was having a hard time falling asleep.  This morning she told us all about listening to "Greve Steen on the rodeo."  (AKA, Steve Green on the Radio.) 

Norah's been talking up a storm lately, too. My favorite new word of hers is "good-bye." It comes out more like "bug-eye." It's adorable.  She also answers most any question with "k."  Or "okay."  It's very sweet.  Tell her or ask her anything, and she sounds very agreeable.  By my, oh my, does that one have a temper.  Yesterday she caught me eating a Dorito, and started signing and saying "please, please, please?"  I just shook my head 'no.'  She looked up at me and shook her head 'yes.'  Complete nonverbal conversation.  At 17-months-old.  Nothing gets by her!  Other favorite words include "shoes" and "tutu."  She's very into accessories.  Anyway, moving on...

Trouble-shooting sleep:
I decided to go ahead and schedule an appointment for Audrey with an MD who specializes in sleep disorders after a few horrendous weeks about a month ago including multiple screaming episodes in the middle of the night, 2-hour bedtime battles, 5:30 a.m. wake-ups, and 2-3 hour stretches of her being awake in the middle of the night, nearly out of control, and unable to go back to sleep.  We left the appointment with multiple diagnoses, and not a lot of solutions.  More on that later. 

We've also been trying to figure out how to keep Norah-Lou-dini in pajamas at night. The girl can get out of anything, and will spend hours after we put her to bed playing and undressing herself. She has woken up in only a diaper by morning.  A few of our workable solutions:

funny looking, but effective.

 Didja catch that?  They're on BACKWARDS.

This one works well, but makes diaper changes annoying!  Anyone else have any more ideas?

Redecorating:
I've also been busy finishing up a few final details on our bedroom project, and I can finally say, "it's done!!!"

Here is the before:  (pretty dark and cavelike, if you ask me.)

When we moved into this house, I had no idea what I wanted to do with our bedroom.  In lieu of white walls, we painted our master the same color as our living room to avoid the hassle of choosing something else, and just used our current bedspread, but both ended up being way too dark for the small room. 

A few months ago we upgraded to a King...which led to new bedding...and a new headboard and footboard...and a total overhaul of the rest of the room. ;)

Here is the after:

(Thanks to my mother-in-law for helping me make these throw pillow cases!)

My new favorite wall:

Dusting:

See previous pictures.  Trust me, it had been awhile.

Foster Parenting:

S is still living with us, but we have no idea how long it will last.  She could be here through May or she could decide to leave tomorrow.  The last few weeks have been a roller-coaster, but we're hanging on for the ride!

That's all I have the time and energy for now.  You can stay tuned if you want, but I make no promises that I'll blog again this month! ;)

Norah's Room

I had a few requests for more pictures of the nursery after I posted a look at Norah's bedroom letters, and I can now say it is finally finished! And she's not even 5 months old. :) Ha.

Norah's room was almost completely furnished with what I already had from Audrey's 'baby' room. When Audrey was born I purposely chose gender neutral decor that we could use for each additional child. That way we can get fun and creative changing up bedrooms as our kids get older and develop their own personal preferences.

So here's how we did this baby room on a budget:

• left the paint color as-is. It was neutral, so we didn't see a big enough reason to change it. Nor did we have the time!


• borrowed the crib



• repainted a garage sale dresser and added new hardware; dresser doubles as a changing table


• found a space-saving corner bookshelf on Craigslist, and repainted it as well (don't look too closely at the picture in the frame. It's actually Audrey. I haven't had time to update it yet. Don't tell Norah!!)


• used curtains we already had and tried to incorporate the new color into the scheme by adding it to the quilt's color palate (many many thanks to my amazing mother-in-law for making this baby quilt for Norah. Isn't it beautiful??? I love how the colors turned out, how they match what we already had, but how they bring a bit of modern into the room. Thanks, JoDi!)


• painted the artwork myself (back before Audrey was born, when I actually had time!) I really wanted to use square canvasses, but for some reason they were way more expensive than rectangle ones. One week when they were having 50% off wall art, I found 3 square paintings, discounted to just $4.99 each. They were black with high heels or something on them, so we just sprayed some leftover wall paint over them and I added the animals. For how-to instructions on covering & distressing your own letters, visit my friend Steph's blog. Again, I bought these letters on 50% off sale at Hobby Lobby, so they only cost about $1.50 each, plus some change for the scrapbook paper.




• the only new piece of furniture in the room is the glider. We got a really nice gliding-recliner when Audrey was born, but it was simply too big for this little room. Thankfully, we found a brand-new-in-the-box glider for cheap on Craigslist!

Just for kicks, this is what our first-born's bedroom looked like shortly before she arrived home from the hospital. I was a little more ambitious that time around. And, sadly, we moved when she was just 4 months old. I'm pretty sure the couple who bought our house painted over the stripes too. I try not to think about it.

Bedroom Progress, and other randoms

My grandparents were here to hang out with their newest great-grandchild for the past 4 days, so I took advantage of the extra sets of hands and finished the tree project. Here is the final product...

I was super-stoked to find this little birdhouse on clearance at Hobby Lobby for just $3.99!

Here's a close-up of one of the bird decals. Isn't he adorable?

And I'm almost done with the letters for Audrey's wall. I got the A and the U sanded the night I went into labor, but needless to say, haven't had much time for extra projects since then! They look decent enough to hang on her wall until I have time to distress the rest of the letters and put one final coat of Mod Podge on them to seal the paper. So this one might wait awhile before it gets officially "finished."

Audrey continues to adjust fantastically to her little sister. (Her "nursing" basket has come in quite handy, more on that in another post.) And I am surprisingly un-zombie-ish even in my sleep deprived state. We ventured out for our first set of errands, just mom and kiddos, today, and arrived home successfully with no meltdowns, blow-outs, or emergency feedings. Whew! I chose Jax, of all places, for our first stop. Not exactly a kid-friendly store, but I've been wanting to get Audrey a spill-proof BPA free sippy cup. After doing quite a bit of online research, I decided to try out this one. So far it's working great; she drank out of it all afternoon, and it didn't leak once!! Our Avent sippy cups have driven me crazy for the past year, with multiple pieces to take apart and wash, and they leak ALL THE TIME. So I decided to fork over some dough and try out one nice one. So far it's passing the test.

Many more thoughts rambling about in my head, many half-composed blog posts waiting for the time to type them out. But this is enough for tonight...I'm going to hit the hay since I have no idea what time my littlest one will be awakening me tonight!

The Tree Project: Parts 2 & 3

So I didn't really get a picture of Step 2, which was the leaves. This is the closest I came...ignore the partially painted flowers. :)

Step 3 was adding the flowers. I used a paint pen to do the outlines, then filled (most of) them in with a brush. I'm trying to decide if I want to fill them all in, or leave a few as outlines only. I kind of like the look of a few open flowers. Makes it feel a bit more modern.

The finished product:

Finished product, close-up:

I ordered the birds on Etsy today...in the color lilac. I will put a few in the tree and a few flying around the room. Audrey's name is on the opposite wall, in white wooden letters, so I may put one bird perched on one of the letters. I'm considering stealing my friend Stephanie's idea and distressing the letters like this. Eventually. If I have time. This is another project that may hinge on when Baby decides to make his or her appearance.

Here's a picture of the bedspread I found (on clearance!) at Pottery Barn Kids a few months ago, that ultimately inspired this whole "garden/tree" themed room. Coincidentally, it's called the "Audry" quilt.


Too bad she's nowhere near being ready for a big-girl bed yet, so for now the bedspread will wait in its package in her closet. I'm having fun redecorating, but am in NO hurry to rush her out of her crib. There's something to be said about knowing your child will stay in the same place for a certain period of time...

The Tree Project

Here are a few of the trees that inspired my idea to paint my own. I love the simpicity of this one, and the fact that it has both leaves and flowers. And birds. But I wasn't digging the bird cage.
Again, this next one is simple and sweet, but I wanted something more substantial to fill up an entire wall.

And though I like this one, it's a little excessive. And priced at $100, definitely more than I needed, or wanted to spend.

These are the sweet little birds I'm thinking about ordering. They're a steal at just $7.50 for the set of 5, in any color I choose!

And here is my actual progress from Day #1. Surprisingly it only took about an hour and a half to sketch it out and then paint the branches. All in a good day's nap. (She slept in the pack n' play in our room.)

I added leaves today, but wasn't super happy with the way they turned out. Now I'm debating about whether to paint my own flowers, or order decals to stick on for those too. Found out that they sell those separately on Etsy also! It would be a tremendous timesaver. Maybe I'll let baby McCollough decide...if I go into labor tonight, I'll order them. If not, guess who's painting again tomorrow?

More pictures to follow.

(Above images can be found at www.etsy.com, from sellers walldecors, OldBarnRescueCompany, DaliDecals, and sixunderatree, in order of appearance.)

System Update

I'm only one day into my October resolution and I've already fallen short. Went to bed last night with dirty dishes on the counter and none of Audrey's toys picked up in the living room. (But that really doesn't count, since I said I'd start today, right?) Actually I did fold some laundry and pick up some things off the dining room table, and it felt like extra credit since I was doing it ahead of time! (Visualize me patting myself on the back.)

So...last night, or rather, early this morning, I decided my plan has one major flaw. What to do when I wake up at 2 a.m. and can't go back to sleep? Do I really get out of bed and start my day then? I admit I tried to go back to sleep until 3:45, at which point I gave up and went out to the living room to read. (And tripped over numerous toys in the dark...note to self...pick those up tomorrow!) By 4:15 I was able to fall asleep on the couch, only to be awakened by a screaming baby at 5:15. -Sigh- Thankfully she ate and went back to sleep at 5:45...and slept in until 9!! Crazy stuff, that RARELY happens in this house. But I was thankful because this momma needed some more ZZZZZs this morning too. All that to say, the whole 'getting up when I wake up' thing is going to need some tweaking.

The other thing that has suprised me about our new system is my husband's sudden and surprising motivation to tackle a few projects. Apparently he didn't realize how much they were bugging me until he read that last post, or he just forgot that they needed to be done, or he just jumped on the bandwagon to help me out. Who knows? I'm not going to complain! This morning he did all the dishes by hand, straightened up Audrey's books in her bedroom and the living room, cleaned off the dining room table, and completely emptied out the craft room. As I type he is in the storage room breaking down empty boxes and taking them to the garage. Don't worry, I was helping him earlier. And I even sorted our laundry and took it to the laundry room in preparation for tomorrow, 'laundry day.' And I put away our folded laundry from last week. More extra credit, right? Then I remembered that today I am supposed to "rest," so I decided I needed to get on that. :) Here are some photos of Tim's progress so far:

(Just in case you're wondering, no, he didn't arrange the fall decorations. That was something I got done yesterday evening. He's not quite that domestic.)

Yes indeed, I have a rockstar husband!

Our other eventful moment of the day: WORD #3 by the little tyke. "Uh-oh." So cute. And repeated much more often than "Jesus." Hopefully we'll get it on video soon.