Baby Delaney's Room {Our Home}

Delaney's room used to be her big brother Cole's room...he now shares a room with his big brother (I need to show you that still!) It also serves as our guest room, and my goal for this bedroom was to have it girly, without being TOO girly, and being something she can grow into without a major redo!

This room is filled with tons of projects and is now my favorite room in our house!

Welcome! 

This wreath was made by my friend and was put on our front door to announce Delaney's arrival. She orginally had a message written in chalk, but once I moved it inside, I used gold vinyl (cut with the Silhouette machine) to personalize. 

 The above picture is with the light on. I love the shadows this light fixture creates! 

{The light was purchased at Lowes on clearance for just under $50!!}

{A very full closet, it is so nice to have some pink and purple in our house!}

{her crib was painted with Miss Mustard Seeds Chalk Paint--Apron Strings and is the same crib used by her brothers who had used all of the edges to chew on...}

{this dog rocker was picked up at an awesome local marketplace, it reminds me of our dog Mason, and is holding our video monitor at the moment}

{a future play area}

{the dresser, updated with pink knobs, serves as a changing area}

{cute hangers I picked up at Gordmans display dresses I've made for Delaney, her hair bows, and random other things like her towel and tutu--that I also made but still haven't put on her!}

{The quilt made by her BeeMa}

{The quilt I made for her, the backing fabric is the color inspiration for the room; I also made the crib skirt and fitted sheet}

{Collage wall, put up last week when my mom was in town visiting}

{her personalized onesie inside a shadowbox--frames are from IKEA or Hobby Lobby}

{Painting the scallop wall was a fun project from last summer, I used freezer paper ironed onto the wall to make the scallops. I also painted the heart canvas. Inspiration.}

{The guest bed headboard was made for under $50 by my husband and I, and the quilt was made with the help of my mother in law.}

{This rack holds socks, hats, and tights...and you can see the changing pad cover I made peaking out.}

{my assistant}

Aren't you ready to come visit??

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Pantry Update

Last week I built a table for my sewing room. I brought it inside...bought some new bins + containers...spent a lot of time organizing all of the stuff, and then decided to update my pantry. {I'm starting to think I have some kind of A.D.D. where once I think of a crafting idea, I cannot get the idea out of my head...I'll be building a desk any day now, mark my words!} I need to show off my new sewing table, but have to wait until I actually USE it once!

I had initially wanted to update the pantry of my last house, so many of the containers I used for this update were purchased a year ago, before we moved!

I was inspired by the amazing pantry of The House of Smiths, and considered using my Silhouette machine to make a stencil or vinyl pattern, but ultimately decided to use the stencil of Emily at Jones Design Company.

My pantry wasn't even terrible before, it just was cluttered and disorganized, well and a little plain.

{before}

 

{after}

*yay for awesome iPhone landscape photo option, boo for terrible closet lighting!

I also made three crates to store lunch boxes and our emergency gear, more on that later.


The upper level stores cookbooks on the right, and tons of extra supplies along the top shelf.


But here's the good stuff: canisters, bins, labels, order. {ahhh}

Snack foods in glass jars: {from HomeGoods}

Baking supplies: 

Bins for crackers, chips, and cookies:

Lined up spare foods, candy, lots of home made vanilla extract {make some if you haven't!}

A pantry must have, a clear shoe organizer. I store vinegars, sprays, and the lower portion is filled with snacks the kids can grab easily.

I didn't paint behind the right handed shelves because they are less visible, and already have grey paint behind them, I just reorganized these shelves.

I store all of my cook books and recipes on the top shelf...I suppose that looks like it could be cleaned up {maybe tomorrow, I have no more energy for this project!}

I actually found the painting extremely therapeutic, but I will caution this was NOT the easiest project. Using the Jones Design Company printed stencil {printed to 75%} I had to hand draw each row of the design. I painted the grey portions and in most places took two coats. This is NOT perfect, some areas are thicker or thinner. I used a very fine brush and a 1" foam brush. I spooned paint into a plastic baby food container so I didn't risk spilling or dripping from the gallon can. 

It is definitely NOT for the faint of heart. 

I also did NOT have a good eraser and had to go to the store to buy one...in some areas the pencil marks were more visible. 

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Additional Entry Storage {Easy Update!}

In preparation for Christmas...and probably more accurately WINTER...I decided to update our hallway storage situation.

We were definitely having a situation, and it wasn't in a good way!

I found two rustic off-white shelves at Gordman's for under $20 each. I'm sure I would have spent more trying to create something similar once I purchased hardware!

Now the kid's are able to hang their own coats.

I stamped card stock to properly label each hook: everything needs a place!

This is what we were dealing with before: three hooks completely overflowing with coats (all mine...oops!)

This was a really easy update + has worked out perfectly to make the entryway less cluttered and messy looking. I would still like to pick up some hang-able baskets...but Rome wasn't built in day...maybe next month!

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{Double} Giant Photo Display {DIY + Tutorial}

When we moved into our house, we were excited to get settled and unpacked. I used what we had and started decorating. I have a LOT of things in the attic that I have to go through still, but in the 4 months we have lived in our house we've been happy with our progress. 

But, I wasn't really sure what to do with the large inset areas above the built in cabinets next to the fireplace. During the summer, I displayed some of the unit colors from when my husband was in the Army. It was nice having the bold colors, and the patriotic theme....but recently I decided I wanted to make a giant frame to fill this huge open space. And had to make two.  

Wanting to leave the some space between the frame + the wall, the finished frame ended up being about 4'x6'. Once the frame was completed, I used a twine/rope along the back about every 8" along both sides. I ended up stapling the rope down along the back side of the frame. 

This is the room before. 

This is the room after. Right now I just have random pictures on each frame. I love the idea of making some oversize posters or prints to hang. Or artwork from school. Or seasonal decor....

Mini-Tutorial to make a frame:

• Determine the size of the frame needed {again, mine were 4x6'}
• Use a miter saw to cut 1x4s to determined length
• Use a Kreg Jig to join the corners
• Stain the frame, being certain to stain top and bottom edges {don't worry about the back side}
• Once dried, attach a twine/rope string across the sides. My twine is from Hobby Lobby in a huge spool (from the back of the store near the leather and whatnot. Use a staple gun to hold down the two sides of the twine. I tied a knot on each far end, but really don't think that's necessary. 
• Attach hanging hardware on the two sides, I used the largest D-rings I could find in the picture hanging area at Lowes. 
• Hang + decorate! 

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How to Mount a Flat Screen TV on a STONE fireplace {diy}

When we moved into our new house, it was apparent that we were going to have a little challenge on our hands trying to mount our TV...well if we had a TV. We sold our previous TV with our old house...so first we had a buy a TV. After weeks of searching, and watching TV on a tiny 18" screen, we finally purchased a TV as well as {this} mount, and additional HDMI cables (we went with 15' cables, but they were very long!!) 

This project took my husband the better part of the day. I can take ZERO credit for this project...I actually even was in bed taking a nap while he was installing the TV. {He's awesome, btw!}

Here is how we did it: 

*Background: Our home is new construction. We knew the stone is a facade, about 1/2-1" thick, and is hollow behind the drywall. We actually took off the electric plates and used a flashlight to see what we were dealing with inside...just the exhaust for the electric fireplace. Niiiice. 

*Electric was already set up, the cable hook up was there, but it did not connect to the wall jack in the cabinet, {there were two existing cable jacks but they were not connected to each other} so we ended up not using the cable line on the front of the fireplace, since there is one that directly connects to the cable just a few feet away in the cabinet...

*We borrowed an awesome stud finder from our neighbors, huge, huge lifesaver! Once we determined where the studs were located, we actually DREW directly on the stone the rectangle where the studs are located, where the rock/drywall needed to be cut out. 

We started with the TV on the cabinet, but I like the symmetry of having the TV mounted. I especially like that the kids can't touch it. If you are considering mounting a TV, keep in mind the height of the TV if you are hanging it above a mantel. Our mantel is high, so our TV is mounted extremely high: makes for terrible ergonomics. I mostly watch TV laying down on the sofa, so it's not a huge deal, but it does stink to have your neck craned back trying to watch a movie. 

Another potential issue is hiding wires. We hid all of the TV and cable wires (and HDMI for the play station) but we purchased a Bose sound system that has wires...we would have had to cut an additional opening through the stone/drywall right above the mantel to install a special face plate just for those wires. At some point, we plan on doing something else to hide those wires, or mask them...right now, I can live with them...

This was an extremely messy/dusty disaster. Our shop vac was just blowing around the very fine dust all over the place. My husband was working alone, I was out of the house...and when I came home there was dust on EVERY SURFACE (the negative side of an open floor plan) so definitely cover furniture, tape off/close doors, etc. Be ready to clean when you're done.

Once the openings have been made, it's much easier to see inside the wall to feed the wires through the two face plates (behind the TV, we actually did remove the plate because you can't see back there, and the wires make the plate not sit evenly, so it's just better without the plate...) 

To actually feed the wires from the front of the fireplace through the inside and out the side, we used a semi-rigid wire...to be exact we used the poles from our dryer vent cleaning system (the Lint Eater) rubber banding the HDMI + power wires to the lint eater, my husband pushed the wires from the front of the fireplace, and I helped to direct them to the side opening, feeding the wires through the A/V face plate (as seen below) then screwing the face plate into the wall. {I think this is the face plate we did purchase for the side of the fireplace.} 

Once the wires were properly fed through the opening (check with your mount to make sure it will fit around the wires) the next step is actually installing the mount. 

As you can see in the photo above, my husband cut the stone wide enough to fit a piece of 2x4 wood, long enough for the bracket we purchased. He screwed the 2x4 directly into the stud + followed the mount instructions to attach the TV mount onto the wall. Here is the very up close side view of the back of the mount. 

And just for the fun of it, here are a bunch of terrible pictures of the mounted TV...terrible lighting, odd glare, what was on the TV?! 

We are going to buy a Radio Frequency Remote (the one we have isn't compatible with the Bose) that will work with the cable box inside of the cabinet (you can see the open door of the built-in on the right of fireplace.) And then we'll have to figure out how to hide those exposed wires...I might crochet some yarn over them...too artsy?

Have you ever done a project like this?

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