After we took Max out of the original Nursery, I wanted to make the room a little more "girly" since it was now exclusively Clara's room. We brought the bench up from the entryway which automatically girlified the wall where Max used to sleep. I blew up one of my favorite pictures of the two of them together, spray painted an old frame my mom gave me, and made a felt ball garland. 

The handmade dolls were Christmas presents from Green Stitches, a local shop that has the cutest dolls. I've been wanting to get one for Clara for a while, and was on the fence about getting a boy doll for Max. As I was going through the dolls she had sitting out, I looked down at the tag on this little boy and his name was "MAX"! It was meant to be. Right now Max could care less about the doll, so they are both residing on Clara's bench since she has already fallen in love with them. It's pretty cute. 

You may or may not recognize the polka dot pillow... I used remaining fabric from Clara's dress I made her this summer to make the pillow. 

The felt balls are from the Felt Pod on Etsy. I just strung them together with some string. Easy peasy!

So there ya go. Nothing big, just some quick updates that were pretty much free! Can't complain about that!

The "other" nursery

You may remember the Gender Neutral Twin nursery I made for Max and Clara before they were born. I love, love, love this room - it truly was a labor of love. I worked so hard to make a calming, peaceful room made for two different genders (not an easy task, trust me!). After our babies started getting older, it became obvious that having Max and Clara share a room was not the ideal situation. Max is just not a good sleeper (sigh...) and I didn't feel it was fair to Clara to always get woken up by her brother. It was stressful for everyone! We had Max in a pack n' play in the guest bedroom for a really long time until I finally conceded and just moved his crib permanently. I would be lying if I said I wasn't a little mad about this! We lost our guest bedroom and I worked so hard on their nursery... now I had to make a whole new room for that little stinker! Haha. Well, luckily it soon became a fun design endeavor that I actually really enjoyed. 

I present Max's "other" nursery:

My main goal with this room was to try and use what I had around the house and not spend too much money. For instance, the curtain rod was an old black rod that I spray painted gold. That chair is actually a dining chair from World Market we bought on clearance a few years ago. And we've had that bookshelf since we moved into our house (a random lucky find from the online classifieds). I just gave it a new life with some bright paint! This bright green is way out of my decorating comfort zone, but I love the result. It's "Once Upon a Time" by Benjamin Moore, matched at Sherwin Williams. Here's the before:

And the after!

The lamp used to be in our bedroom (from Target a few years ago). The gold "M," whicker baskets, hexagon box and feather print are all from Hobby Lobby. The diamond basket used for diapers is from Home Goods.

I used most of the same art from his collage in the first nursery. The "woodland creatures" print is from the Painted Arrow. The rug, curtains, tan pillow and yellow storage ottoman are all from Target. :)

And how can I not mention the fun triangle wall?!? I love this wall. The lovely people at Walls Need Love hooked me up with these 2" triangle decals after I used their circle decals in the first nursery. I love their products, and their service is amazing! I would recommend Walls Need Love to anyone. Check them out! Getting those triangles perfectly aligned took more time than I expected, but the OCD in me had to have every triangle straight and perfectly spaced. 

The deer head is from Hobby Lobby. I was going to buy it from an online shop, but found a black one at Hobby Lobby for more than half the price. Spray paint is my friend!

 So there you have it! Max's new space. I really have loved this little project and love his cozy little space. I'm pretty sure he loves it too :)

Now can you just sleep better, Max?! Thanks in advance, buddy! 

The Master Bedroom

I have been updating our master bedroom over the last year or so, and I feel like it is finally complete. That word, complete, is one Russ anticipates hearing with every room in our house. I'm sure I'll update it over the years or so, but for now, it is complete. (see what I did there?) :)

It's interesting because it's not like I started thinking "hmmm, I want to decorate the master bedroom." Everything somehow has just come together slowly over the last 4 1/2 year of our marriage. It's slightly miraculous that it works. 

My Christmas present was a new bed. I have talked about the "Colette Bed" from Crate & Barrel for years, so imagine my shock and surprise when Russ actually surprised me with it! We had an Ikea wood frame bed, which we both pretty much hated. I enjoy sitting up and reading in bed, which was super uncomfortable, but now I could hang out here all day. And sometimes the babies and I do! Haha. 

The pillows are from Caitlin Wilson Textiles that I bought second-hand from a friend of a friend. (Unfortunately that color is no longer available). The duvet and sheets are from West Elm. After years of hunting them down, I finally found the sheets at Downeast Home, a local discount home store. 

The starburst mirror is from Target. It replaced a homemade shelf we had made years ago. That link also shows the Ikea bed and our hand-me-down bedside tables before they were painted white. Because people have asked, our walls are painted Cliffside Grey by Benjamin Moore. It's the perfect GREY - not warm, not cool, just grey. I love it. 

Another reason I have always loved our room is the view. We sure love that river and those mountains.

The clear lamps, lamp shades and frame are also from Target. Oh Target, you suck so much of my money.

One update that I actually really love are the DIY curtain rods. I applied some gold rub n' buff to cheap $7 Ikea curtain rods using this method. I wanted them to match the mirror and was pleasantly surprised by how much I love them. The curtains are from - you guessed it - Target, that I picked up on clearance almost 2 years ago.  

And finally, I put the pictures and art that used to be above our bed in a cascading pattern around our sitting chair. It was nice that I didn't have to buy a single piece of art or frame! I did, however, apply some more rub n' buff to that bottom frame to tie it in with the curtain rod. The sitting chair is actually a dining chair we had bought from World Market about a year ago. It ended up being too big for our table and we put in our room to put shoes on, etc. 

So that's our master bedroom. I really have loved all of the updates we've made. It's such a peaceful and calming space to call our own!

A Gender Neutral TWIN Nursery!

 the view from the hallway/door

I'm so excited to show the twins' nursery today! This room has turned into one of my favorites in the whole house. It took a while to come together, but I am in love with the finished product. 

When we found out we were having twins, the room that had been intended for a future nursery was going to be way too small. We had to overtake the guest bedroom, move out Russ's office, and do all sorts of rearranging. I was sad to change the guest bedroom -- I actually really loved it! But it all worked out. The room started like this:

I was way overwhelmed by the idea of decorating for two genders in one room! I wanted to do more than just "gender neutral" -- I wanted to give each twin their own area that was obviously theirs. I think I achieved my goal. It's clean, simple and calming with enough personality throughout.

I started by repainting the room Edgecomb Grey by Benjamin Moore. It's the perfect "greige." I knew I wanted modern cribs, but dang those can be pricey! And when you're buying two of everything... well, you know. Anyway, I found these perfect grey cribs at none other than Walmart (they've actually gone up in price since I bought them).

I knew I wanted the bedding to bring out the different genders. It took a (long) while to pick out all the fabrics and make sure they coordinate with each other yet allow boy vs. girl to shine through. My amazing mother sewed the bumpers and made the quilts. (although I must add that my sister and I helped hand quilt the blankets while we were on our houseboat trip this summer, so there, I did do something :)) I absolutely love them!

The fabric is from www.fabric.com, although I don't think any of those fabrics are on there anymore. I think you can find some of them on etsy or other fabric sites! Here is a list of a few of the fabrics I used:

Blue zig zag: Indie Chic Woven Blue by Riley Blake 

Coral circles: Pearl Bracelets Peach by Lizzy House

Yellow stripe: Glimma stripe in Dandelion Yellow by Lotta Jansdotter

Flowers: Glimma flower pods in gold/grey/white by Lotta Jansdotter

The art above each crib also was a fun way to show different genders. I found the coordinating woodland creatures here. I also bought two coordinating prints from CinnamonInk. I stamped their little footprints and simply glued the piece of paper into an embroidery hoop. The remaining prints were gathered from around the house (i.e.: old Snow & Graham calendars). I made the "I Am a Child of God" piece above Max's crib using the same method I did here.

 Clara's wall

Max's wall

I bought the rug from Rugs USA during some huge Labor Day weekend sale (I think it was like 80% off or something crazy). It is super soft and plush. It's still shedding a little bit, but I can tell each time I vacuum it gets better. I love how it ties the whole room together. 

And the dots! Oh, how I love the dots. I call it the "confetti wall." I bought the 2" vinyl decal dots from Walls Need Love - best idea ever! Covering an entire wall with this method is super affordable and fun. Using the image from the website as inspiration, I just kept the dots a little more condensed in the corner to make it look like the confetti was literally "exploding." I love, love the end result. 

That recliner/glider has been one of the best purchases (we found it at Babinski's Baby, a local store in Utah). I had been looking at some other gliders that were perhaps a bit more "stylish," and then my wise sister encouraged comfort over anything else. I ended up buying the exact chair she has. Best decision ever! I have spent so much time in that chair already, and these guys are only 4 weeks old! 

And how have I gone this whole time without talking about the beloved dresser?!? I had been eyeing this dresser from West Elm for years, and then one day I saw it at DownEast Home (a local discount home decor store). It was my very first nursery purchase, I was just barely pregnant. It was a total splurge, but with it being more than half off of what West Elm had it for, I haven't regretted it one bit. :) And plus, it can be used forever as it doesn't scream "baby!"

(oh, the fun owl lamp is from Target)

The bookshelves are just spice racks from Ikea that I spray painted a sage-y green. They have already been used a ton. I am sure once we continue to accumulate more books we will need to figure out a system with more capacity, but for now the racks are perfect.

So there ya go! That's the nursery! Aaaaaaand... If you are still reading this you deserve a prize. :)

Laundry Room!

One of the few projects we were set on completing before the babies came was our laundry room. I love our house, but I had always HATED the laundry room. It is in the worst location (in between the garage and the kitchen). It is cramped. It allowed zero room for "dumping" the every day items before walking into the kitchen. These factors then translated to everything flooding into the kitchen resulting in constant clutter. Let me show you our "laundry room" before:

The shelf above the washer/dryer was nice, but it was very hard to keep organized (and was so visible!). We knew we wanted a new washer/dryer -- especially with all the laundry we will be doing very, very soon. We had bought our used ones from an old retirement home when we got married for $300 combined. They were very used. I was also positive we needed front-loaders. Since there was no counter top, we would place things on top of the washer, then when it came time for laundry I would move the clutter either onto the counter in the kitchen, on the floor in the kitchen, etc. And then when it came time to clean up, the clutter ended right back on top of the washer, and the cycle continued. 

After racking our brains on the best arrangement of our new washer/dryer, cabinets, shelving, and hangers, we finally came up with an arrangement that has made life a lot easier (and cleaner).

We decided to stack the washer/dryer and add a cabinet and counter top that would be the perfect "dumping place" for the purse/mail/keys when we came in from the garage. 

We used the original shelf and just cut it in half and added brackets. These shelves are the one area where things didn't work out as planned - I wanted a small rod on the bottom shelf to hang clothes that shouldn't be dried. However, after we finished the shelves and almost placed the rod, it was too shallow for hangers. DANG! If I knew this wasn't going to work, we probably would have hung the shelves a little lower, but such is life. We ended up removing the door from the closet and hung the rod there - this is basically where I'm standing in the picture. This is also where we can now take off shoes and store laundry baskets during laundry time (as opposed to the kitchen).

The baskets and mail organizer are from Home Goods (and the baskets are actually empty)! The cabinet ended up storing everything! I'm sure I'll find stuff to put in there before too long. :) The magnetic chalkboard is an old magnetic board I had from Freshman year of college that I bought at Ikea. I just spray-painted it with chalkboard paint so that you can write on it as well as hang up invitations, coupons, etc.

The cabinet and drawers have been soooo nice. All the cleaning supplies and odds and ends can be placed in this cabinet rather than in plain sight above the washer/dryer. I painted the cabinet (that is just from Home Depot) one of my favorite paint colors - Benjamin Moore's Palladian Blue. The counter top was the left over butcher block from our DIY island project.

So there ya go. My main "nesting" project is completed, and I am oh-so-happy about it. Besides the new washer/dryer, I think we ended up spending maybe $200 total since we used a lot of supplies on hand (i.e.: the counter top, shelf, magnetic board, etc). It feels good to get such a big project out of the way before these two crazy babies turn our world upside down!

Finished Island & Kitchen Upgrades

I've had a handful of requests to finally see the finished island. We started it forever ago, I think last November? And true to DIY form it took longer than expected. However, I am so proud of Russ. He built this thing from scratch. Neither of us knew what we were doing, but he kind of just learned as he went. The paint color was also a decision, not surprisingly. At first I painted it a beautiful blue-green color that tied in with my wallpaper, but with my dark cabinets and everything else, it just wasn't working. So I decided to embrace the contrasting cabinet look and painted it the same white as our trim (Sherwin Williams Milk White).

 It's been in it's current state since the spring. We have been at a standstill because we still need to add "fake drawers" on the cabinet side. We went to Ikea to buy two handle bars to match the rest of the kitchen, and wouldn't you know it? They no longer make that style. AWESOME. So, the island is still missing fake drawers, but I figured you guys could look past that, right?! :)

And here's the side where all the cereal-in-the-morning magic happens. Since having our island I've realized how much I missed it! The extra storage space and working space is nice, but we also love just pulling up the stool for a quick bite to eat. You can find those stools on Overstock.com, but for all of you Utah folk, you need to go by the Overstock Outlet. It's a total hit-or-miss place, but when you "hit" you really hit! We found these stools for $16 TOTAL. Yes, $8 a stool. SCORE! They've been great. Easy to clean and easy to move around and stack.

The butcher block counter top has been one of my favorite aspects of the island. Butcher block can be really expensive, but Ikea saved the day once again. We bought Numerar counter top and trimmed it to size.  We first applied a pre-stain by Minwax, and then stained it "Dark Walnut" by Minwax. We finished the job with a few coats of Polycrylic to give it the nice, shiny finish. 

One of the major upgrades we sprung for was finally getting a new oven. Whoever built our house put in the cheapest, crappiest electric coil stove-top oven EVER. I hated it from the day we moved in. We had thought about wiring in gas so we could get a gas stove, but soon realized it was going to be either really expensive or really dangerous for Russ to attempt messing around with gas lines. :) So we opted for this great LG double oven. The two different ovens have really been a life-saver. I would highly recommend it!

The final major upgrade we made was a new table and chairs. Once we had built the island, our table really wasn't working. (You can see it here) It was black, which wasn't working with the wood tones of the island, and it was a counter-height table which was awkward as it was the same height as our new island. There needed to be more dimension. We sold it on KSL and bought a new table for less than we sold it and the matching chairs for! Can't complain.

We found the grey-tufted dining chairs at World Market for about half the cost. Finding deals makes me happy.

Russ made the bench from scrap wood he found around the neighborhood (there is still new construction going on, so Russ finds joy in a little dumpster diving).

And finally, the Overstock outlet I mentioned above pulled through again. We found 4 tabouret chairs for less than $40 total! I'm still looking for the perfect chair pads, but until I find them these outdoor pads from Ikea have done the trick. 

 And finally, no more boob lights!!!! I'm not sure if you understand how happy this makes me. We found a great deal on some LED recessed lights at Home Depot. After sending in a rebate and selling our old fixtures, they came to about $10 each. You can see in the picture below from a few years ago, we had way too many boobs to handle. Thank goodness this situation has been remedied. (You can also see another picture of our old table). The only one left is in the living room -- still hunting for the perfect replacement.

....  and now, such a clean ceiling. My happy place. 

So I think our kitchen is a million steps closer to being a kitchen I love. Now only if I could convince Russ that white cabinets and wood floors are essential... They are, right? :) 

The Bench

The front room is where I teach piano lessons and has continually evolved over the last year. It started out with just a piano and a little chair for me. I quickly realized I needed some other things in that room to keep it functional, most importantly seating for students who come early or are waiting for their ride. We found the perfectly sized white sofa (because that room really is quite small!) and a $35 bench on the online classifieds.

It was actually an old church pew. But I loved the shape and the size. I was unsure if I was going to keep it natural or paint it, but after living with it a few months I finally decided to paint since it was pretty beaten up in some places. I also felt like the black piano, white sofa and brown bench just were not meshing. 

I have plenty of neutrals and blues in the house, so I wanted to be brave. Sometimes I'm bad at being brave. I turned to my entry-way rug for inspiration. I went for a medley of the orange and red, and I'm quite pleased with how it came out!

My amazing seamstress of a mother whipped up the cushion for me. I bought some foam at Jo-Ann's and wanted a neutral cushion to even out the in-your-face coral bench. :) The Ikat pillow is from this etsy seller.

My friend Laura was moving across the country so I bought that fun chevron-cushioned chair from her as my official "teacher's chair." I love it. The lamp, vase, and picture frame were from the new Threshold line at Target (is anyone else obsessed with that line?). 

This fun mirror was on clearance at Home Goods. Everyone needs a mirror right by the front door!

My mom also helped me make a pillow cover out of some leftover fabric from my roman shade in the kitchen.

I feel like the bench still needs a little something above it. Coat rack? Shelf? Frames? Not quite sure yet.

Even though the front room is not quite "done," it's come a long way. I think it's quite a cheery and welcoming entrance when you open the front door! Welcome all!