Room Makeover- Chunk's Nursery finished!

Welcome to the final edition of Room Makeover- Chunk's Nursery!

While this will always be a room that evolves, I couldn't be happier with how it finally turned out.

Adding the artwork to the walls instantly added some color and visual interest.

The shadowbox still makes me smile every time I enter the room.

Organizing his closet allows me to make sure I keep on top of his clothes-- adding the too small ones to the box and rotating in the correct sizes.

And finally, I bought a small drawer organizer for the corner to hold his books and toys. I debated between a shelving unit with baskets and a drawer set, but ultimately the drawers won. I wanted to stick with the gray/navy theme, and felt a white shelving unit would stick out like a sore thumb, especially next to the wood furniture.

My original thought was to put it under the window, however with the air vent and the curtains, it didn't make much sense, so next to the dresser it went.

How cute is the black box on top (it has Darth and a Storm Trooper on it)?? For $5 at Target, I couldn't pass it up. It doesn't hold anything yet, but I know it will be useful in the future. It matched his little Star Wars theme perfectly, so I had to get it!

Oh, and his window. We painted the windowsill finally, but the screen may take a bit more work. The only thing we can do to it right now is tape it back together until we get a new window :-( It won't look all that nice, but it should be functional enough for the nice cool fall nights.

 (a panorama picture, so it looks way smaller than it is)

Some things I might still add: possibly his name with wooden letters like Booger's room (maybe by the light switch or hanging behind the crib?) and eventually changing the closet and adding more storage for toys and books as he gets older (though Booger is so good at sharing with him, he'll probably just use her toys in her room!).


And now.... you get to choose the next room for Room Makeover September!

Will it be:

A) The addition: 

This mother-in-law suite was added to our house between 10-15 years ago (so not part of the original home). It is a rather large, open space with a full bathroom and closet. The plantation shutters match those in our living room and are absolutely gorgeous.... but we never use this room. It has become more of a dumping ground.
What do we want this room for? Multi-function. It's right off of the living room, so if we have people over, we open up this room (especially because of the bathroom). We also like having the small weights and bench in there. It houses some of Husbands game systems and toys, as well as all of our movies.
I want to get rid of the baby toys (though they have to wait for Chunk to grow out of first), the shelving unit and possibly one of the couches. This room needs some direction and help! The hard part is the fact that it houses the crawl space opening, so nothing can go on top of that, and next to the closet is a weird nook too...
(These pictures depict the room as is in this current moment. I like to call it crazy chaos.)

 From doorway looking straight in

(see the odd area in the back? The door is the bathroom, and in the weird space is the hatch to the crawl space under the floor...)

 (I promise I don't normally display our teacups on the weight bench...)

 (Panorama shot taken from bathroom doorway)

or

B) the Kitchen: 

Husband does not want to do this, but I do! We are no where near able to do a full kitchen remodel for at least another few years. In the meantime, I think it would be nice to paint the cabinets white again (they are so old and dingy), put some nicer paper on the shelves, get some new hardware (drawer pulls, handles), redo the pantry shelving, and potentially replacing the counter top (such a small area, it shouldn't be too expensive).

 (yes, this is my entire kitchen... the door on the left goes to the backyard, door on the right is the pantry and the door at the back is to the dining room)

Husband says we should save time and money for the remodel, but knowing us, it'll be at least another 5 years before that happens (he says next year, but no way!). We have big plans for it, including opening up the wall behind the fridge into the dining room, relocating the sink to the back wall (which means replacing that window which is huge, but too low for cabinets) and adding a small island.



Leave me a comment with your choice, and tune in next Wednesday for the result!

Room Makeover- Chunk's Nursery Part 3

This week, I finally tackled his closet and got it nice and organized.

The problem with his closet is that it was custom made for my husbands militaria collection, which includes numerous shirts/jackets. Husband and his dad made shelving and re-did the closet just for his collection. It has two bars with a shelf in the middle, which is unusual for a normal closet. We chose not to change it at this time, as it is usable. Once Chunk is older and using the closet on his own, we may change it (I can barely reach the top bar myself, and I'm 5'7". Husband is 6'4" so he was able to use it easier).

Also, when we replaced our upstairs carpet a few months back, we did it in stages-- the kids rooms/guest room first, then the hall and master bedroom second. When it was time to do the master, we moved some of our items from our closet low bar into Chunk's room so they could access our closet floor easier. And there the clothes stayed for months. Husband actually thought I had donated some of his shirts he was looking for the other day (we did a small closet purge on Sunday), and lo and behold, mama found them in Chunk's closet! Whoops!

Now that our clothes are out, Chunk's have some more room on the bar. Since it's summer, he only has his little t-shirt onesies hanging. I'm not a huge fan of hanging every size (though there are some super cute clothes dividers out there!), so I only hang the size he is currently in. That also helps when Booger or Husband is getting him dressed. Yes, Booger picks out Chunk's shirt every morning :-)

I organized the other items in his closet as well: on the floor holds two toy bins with toys he is no where near ready to play with (but Booger would take out constantly, which is why they are in the closet for now), a large tub full of clothes (I was blessed with a family I taught swim lessons to that gave me a ton of boy clothes from their child for Chunk!), and a "too small" box. Did you know diaper boxes make great additions to any room of your house? More on that later this month! I have a box in each kid's closet, so as soon as I find something that is too small, into the box it goes. Once the box is full, the clothes get taken out.

Now that I have one of each- boy and girl- I don't have to store the clothes anymore. I either try to sell them to other moms for cheap (which is how I get a lot of the kids clothes), give them to friends who have kiddos, or donate them. We will be purging all the clothes in storage by the end of the month for sure (that garage sale we thought we would have never happened...)

Anyway, I didn't take a before picture because I did all the organizing while also helping Booger do other things and Chunk playing under his play gym, and I totally forgot. But here is the after! It looks so much cleaner, neater and more pleasing to the eye. 

Left to do:

** paint inside of window frame
** fix window screen (to the best of our ability so we are able to open the window in nice weather-- the whole window needs replacing, but we are not at that stage yet)
** fix closet doors (when carpet was installed, the doors became too long, so they drag on carpet)
** install shelving or some sort of organization for books and toys

Stay tuned: 

Next week is the last Room Makeover- Chunk's Nursery addition. I'll be posting two options for September Room Makeover for you to help me decide which room is next!

Also, I'll be posting more Kiddo Krafts, the final reveal for the family room bookshelf (the trip to Ikea earlier this week helped finish it off decor wise), and *hopefully* my likes/loves/needs from the new Ikea catalog-- if it ever comes in the mail!

Room Makeover-- Chunk's Nursery Update

Happy Wednesday, Thursday! Husband was out yesterday getting tattooed, which took longer than expected so unfortunately we did not get to our project until this morning...

Our week got kind of busy, so we haven't done too much in Chunk's nursery. However, we did manage to find and hang some awesome artwork we found on Amazon!

I typed in "baby star wars art" and one of the first results were these awesome watercolor-ish pieces. I loved them so much, I didn't even look at anything else. Husband loved them too, and I let him pick the final 3 pieces to hang. We got Rey/BB8, Darth, and R2D2/C3PO.  I absolutely loved the Yoda one, but we decided to stick with all vertical prints since we put them on the same wall.

Thanks to Amazon Prime shipping, we received them yesterday and practically ran to the store to grab some frames. Two of the prints are 8x10 and one is 11x14, so they were easy to get regular frames for (purchased at Target).

The back wall used to have just the crib, but once we got the rocker, we put the crib on an angle in the corner to make room for it. We centered the artwork on the wall, so eventually when the bed goes back, it'll still look right.

I love that the pieces bring some more color into the room, but don't look overly baby-ish. I think they're pieces that he can have for a while, which is fantastic.

The other wall piece we ordered was this vinyl decal, also from Amazon. We put it on the wall over the changing table/dresser.

The frames came with templates to put up so we didn't make any mistakes and have to put multiple holes in the wall. We measured, taped, and nailed!

Oh, and we had a little help:

Both Husband and I are in love with the artwork and how it really is starting to make Chunk's room feel more personal and lived in.

And the final results:

Next up:
** paint inside of window frame
** fix window screen (to the best of our ability so we are able to open the window in nice weather-- the whole window needs replacing, but we are not at that stage yet)
** fix closet doors (when carpet was installed, the doors became too long, so they drag on carpet)
** fix inside of closet and remove our clothing
** install shelving or some sort of organization for books and toys

Check back next Wednesday for another Room Makeover Update!

(PS- did you see a little addition to the wall by the window? Be sure to check for an update on that in the next few days!)

Room Makeover Wednesday

Would you believe that we've lived in this house for almost 3 years now?
By looking at most of our rooms, you probably wouldn't. Besides the 'lived in' factor, our house is desperately lacking in decor. While the walls are painted (some better than others, some a color I want to change), most walls don't have anything hanging on them, furniture is sparse, or the room is being used as a landing pod for this and that.

In hopes of sprucing the place up and making it look more homey and somewhat finished, I'll be posting a new room once a month, on the first Wednesday. I'll post the picture of the room, what plans we have or thoughts on decorating, and then get your opinion! Throughout the month we'll be adding the personal touches, hanging things on the wall, adding/subtracting here and there. I'll post each Wednesday with an update and reveal the final room on the last week.


This month, the room will be.....

Chunk's Nursery!

This room started as Husband's collection room when we first moved in. We painted the walls an ugly, dark chocolate color (sorry hubs. It was gross) and he got to work personalizing it.

When we found out we were pregnant with Chunk, we had two rooms as options for his nursery: my craft/ storage room or his collection room. Unfortunately, the craft room did not have a workable closet, and we did not feel like demo'ing walls to create one at the time. So Husband's collection room got moved into the craft room and Chunk got a nursery.

Sadly, second child syndrome set in and it remained mostly empty for a while. The old owners had some sort of flower decal on one wall, which when removed, left residue on the wall. We didn't notice it until we had already painted over it with the brown, so we left it at the time.

Once we picked out a color for Chunk's room, we hired someone to come in and fix the walls (imperfections, holes, decal residue) and paint. Then it sat painted and empty for a while longer.

Finally, we picked out some nursery furniture based on what would fit. We bought the crib and dresser/ changer top from Buy Buy Baby. 

Chunk's room stats:
**walls are painted Sherwin Williams Evening Shadow
** furniture is from Buy Buy Baby- Westwood Hanley collection
** colors are Navy and Gray

Here are pics of the room as it looks at this moment:

Standing in corner between rocker and closet

Dresser

Looking into room from doorway

 Rocker from doorway; closet is the wall on the left next to the giant dog

As you can see, there is absolutely nothing on the walls, no shelving, personalization, nada. The curtains just went up about 2 weeks ago, the rocker was added about 3 weeks ago. 

What needs to be done:

** fix the screen outside the window

** paint the window frame 

** fix the closet so it's more functional (and get our clothes out of it!)

** add items to the wall-- going for Star Wars theme (Husband wanted it!)

     *add pieces of art work; Weston's name over the dresser?

** potentially add shelving under the window for  books and toys (currently being housed in the closet or the bin on the floor)

** add a throw blanket for the rocker

** decor over/ behind the crib? new mobile that matches?

Time to get started! Let me know if you have any other fantastic ideas for this room! Or if you know where to get cute but cheap Star Wars wall pieces suitable for a baby!