My Misters & Me

Dining Room Before & After (Old House)

2016-08-08T17:30:00.001-05:00

I've been in the new house for about 10 months now, it's finally starting to feel like 'home'. I firmly say that I love the new house and neighborhood and though there are things I miss about the old house, on the whole I don't miss being there like I did at the beginning. So those are all great things!

Before I begin blogging too much about the new house I want to wrap up the old house with a few rooms that I never got around to featuring. It's funny to me how hindsight is always 20/20. There were always spaces in the old place that never felt done or felt like I needed to redo or tweak them more. I'm not going to bash our old style too bad because we used our spaces well and thoroughly enjoyed the life we had in them - which if you ask me is the true measure of a home, no matter how 'styled' and well put together they really are.

I feel so silly writing this post! Clearly it isn't stopping me too much since I'm going through with it. I just feel like I need to 'preserve' it here on the blog for prosperity. So here we go, let's start with a pretty world class 'before':

Dining room with two tone floral wallpaper and coordinating border

With our first house we inherited rooms full of floral wallpaper. Sadly this wasn't the worst wallpaper in the whole house, and honestly it wasn't the first room that we planned to pull down (that would have been this one), but on moving day a dear friend of ours saw a seam of loose paper on this wall and riiiiiiiped it down! And thus, makeover #1 was on the books!

I never hated this room, but it never felt quite right to me either. Looking back now I see all the reasons why. We chose and bought the paint in the store, we chose the wrong finish, we decided to stain all of the outlet/light switch covers (still not sure why we did that), the curtain rod and curtains were bought on clearance and were okay...but not a wow. The table was purchased in the excitement of new house buying before we moved in and so was a little big for the room and we never found chairs that we loved to go with them so we always used these mismatched ones from our wedding (11 years in and they are still in use). The light we bought from a big box store (our first foray into changing out light fixtures) and in retrospect is not something I'd choose again. But we got the wallpaper down (WALLPAPER!!!! GRRR) and paint up and spent a fair amount of time updating the space and in the 9 years we lived there it was good enough.

In staging the house for listing we took out the small buffet and replaced our dining table with an oval table. I'm not sure how but the room felt smaller. Our house sold fast but we lived with the staged version for about 2 months before moving and after living with less furniture in there it is kind of funny to think that we had all of that in such a small room! Here is the listing picture to give another look at the space as well as a few more pictures of it without the small buffet and with the round table.

So that's the reveal of a room that we no longer live with and that I was ready to redo :) In total I lived with the space in a variety of forms (but always with the flat Havana cream-yellow) for 9 years. I was ready to redo it by then, how long does it take you to feel like your rooms need a refresh?

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Birthday Party

2016-06-08T10:04:00.001-05:00

My baby is getting ready to turn 5 in a few weeks. I literally can not wrap my head around FIVE. I just keep turning it over and over in my head wondering how it has went so fast. (And then I read this by Katie and this by The Nester and I basically just sob because it never stops. Parenting is so lovely and strangely hard. #bittersweet) Anyways, back to the point at hand - Ninja Turtles! When my nearly-5 baby was nearly-4 he desperately wanted a TMNT birthday party. Because I take a long time to process my thoughts and am a terrible blogger who doesn't post things anywhere online in a timely fashion this post is a year late. But somehow it feels ok to share this party in honor of his upcoming birthday, which I know makes no sense to anyone but me. #thatsok

I love, love, love being a boy mama. I love the loud, dirty, wrestling around, skinned knees-ness of boys. But one of the things I struggle with HARD are characters. Oy, the characters. And boy characters pretty much all follow the same themes - they fight, they defeat bad guys, they have super powers &/or are weird. So when TMNT came up I fought it. I am fighting the good fight for all of us character-disliking mamas out there - and I am epically losing. Bleh. So when this came around as the toy/character of choice I decided that I would be ok with the fun-happy-silly turtles of the 80's, not the mean, aggressive, grunting TMNT of 2014. (I'm hoping that I'm not the only mother out there who has grossly over thought this.)

But I digress. So, how about if I actually talk about the party? After over-analyzing if we should do this theme or something else I knew that our kiddo would love it the most and we went for it. Honestly I had no idea how to make it fun. I wanted it to be interactive and not just a lot of cutesy decorations. I decided pretty early on that I needed a few basics to do this party.

Pretty simple, right? This party was very easy to set up. We created a maze that had Turtle silhouettes on foam core at the entrances. The maze was made of plastic electrical conduit that was cut in thirds, Dollar Tree pool noodles, and crepe paper streamers. The whole maze cost around $20. We had clothes line poles at our last house and we hung balloons at varying heights from the clothes lines. That was the biggest hit of the whole party with the kids! At the entrance of the maze we set up a tub with foam swords (also from the Dollar Tree) and DIY TMNT masks. We didn't have many girls at the party but I can attest that the boys LOVED the swords and fighting the balloons. Those things didn't stand a chance! If you are throwing your own Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle themed party this is the one thing that you have to do!

I wish that the pictures of the yard weren't so blown out. But that's what happens when you have to shoot in full sun, you get the harsh sun/shade shadow. To do the maze take your 10 foot electrical conduit and cut it into 3 pieces with a saw. Then take a rubber mallet and tap them into the ground. Slide your pool noodle over the tubing and then wrap the paper around streamers around different sections of the noodles making 'walls'. Seriously, the possibilities are endless with this idea. For the turtle silhouettes I picked up the black foam core from the Dollar Tree (#unofficialsponsor) and had my friend from Sprinkle The Kindness make me the turtle silhouettes. She also cut the letters for the Happy Birthday sign behind the cupcake/gift table.

The rest of the party was just as simple. I did paint the TMNT peg dolls for the cupcakes, but those were mostly for me because I thought it would be cute (my son declares that he 'hates peg dolls') and I wanted to do them. For something similar you could look for something on Etsy or just use smaller figurines. I had grabbed the green 'Pizza' banner after Christmas because I had a sneaking suspicion I would end up doing a turtle party. I used some striped washi tape to spell 'Pizza'. I used a scrap piece of wood to make a 'Mutagen' sign for a batch of green punch.

And that's that! If you are planning a TMNT themed party what are your plans for the day?

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Looking for more birthday party inspiration? You might enjoy these too:

Reading Themed Birthday Party

Little Mister Birthday Party

TMNT Pinterest Inspiration Board

New House 'Befores'

2016-03-23T09:56:00.001-05:00

I've been in the 'new' house for almost 4 months now and I feel like I can finally say that I'm ok with it. Apparently I don't do change well. It took me almost 3 months to get to the 'ok' point but once I got there things started clicking for me. In the beginning every time I looked around all I could see was a roadblock, and it seemed like every time I meagerly attempted a project something came up that stopped me. But now I am feeling inspired and ready to start tackling some things around here. The only question is to decide where to begin!

Since I never really showed off this house today I'm going to show off all of our 'before' pictures. As a little bit of background our house was built in the late 70's as the model home to our neighborhood. (Side note: I'm LOVING our new neighborhood! It's small, friendly, and walkable!) Lots of people have said that the house doesn't look like my style - and I admit that I was very afraid of that (I still kind of am) but I have always like this style, I just never had a reason to explore it before - now I do. The house was occupied by a family whose patriarch was a self-employed graphic artist for 30+ years, which just makes me feel like this house has good vibes. I'm pretty sure that the majority of the house has not been updated since it was built (except for a few things here and there, certainly no over-hauls) so we will have lots of room to put our own stamp on this space in the future.

These are the listing photos so they show all of the previous owners furnishings and decor. There are a lot of things I am itching to change but I'm not going to knock their choices, they were perfect for them. Now it's time to set about making this place our house! It's hard for me to not interject a paragraph in between each photo with everything that is on the to-do list, but those things will come over time. I will say tho that that family room has already gotten some changes (it's amazing what a coat of paint and carpet will do to a space!). I think I've come up with a loose-whole house plan that is going to work and I'm excited to see some of those things happen in the near future.

Have you moved homes? What did you this was the most challenging part?

Valentines Day Family Party (2014)

2016-01-29T08:03:00.000-06:00

Well I couldn't help but start this blog post with that picture because seriously, those faces. See these little baby munchkins? These are the kind of pictures that grab at a mama's heart and never let go. This was our Valentine 2 years ago (yep, I'm that kind of blogger - late!) when H was just a few months old and our Davis was 2. BABES. Chris and I got this picture and knew we'd better stop while we were ahead because this was just too perfect. I found this free 'LOVE' PSD overlay on Pinterest and the simplicity of it was too much to resist.

The same year as we did this picture, Davis hosted a Valentines party. He was just old enough to kind of grasp the idea and he was ALL IN. At the last minute he even put on a sport jacket on his own free will. I can't make this stuff up people. This kid was born with the hospitality gene because he loves to have people and arrange parties and stuff. It's adorable and hilarious.

We basically decided about a week before Valentines day to host this party so we didn't do invites and it was all pretty basic. Which is just about all you need for a little family stuff Valentines party. We cut up some paper hearts and I think we made a simple banner. We decided on some minute-to-win-it games that were really fun (men get into competition no matter what the game).

These pics are pretty rough - I will never paint a room yellow again. This was the first room Chris and I ever decorated and we chose the paint at the store (mistake). I don't think it read bad in person but it did make the room a lot harder to photograph. Of course not using some sort of external light while photographing at night in a yellow room *probably* isn't a recipe for success anyways, today I'm going to blame the yellow paint. ;)

Pretty basic set up - a light dessert bar with a chocolate fountain. The dining table was set for games. We did a few games with conversation hearts, including one that seemed to be a hit where you were paired together and had a minute to stack as many hearts together as you could. The other fan favorite was trying to fly an airplane into the heart 'target'. Sarah got a pretty great action shot of that one below from her phone. I love how serious all of the men are!

I kind of remember thinking right before people walked in the room that I should take a few pictures of the set up. Oops. So this is what I have to show for my efforts. (Yes I know I photograph details for a living. You can totally tell in these pictures can't you?!)

That's my main mister there in the middle. Love that guy.

My little mister was such a great little host that night! After the party his dad made sure to take some pictures of the two of us (Happy Valentines to me!). I adore these, he looks so proud!

What are your Valentine plans? Do you ever do silly things like this with your family?

A Mustache Valentine - Repost

2016-01-25T06:10:00.000-06:00

For a short time I briefly started a family blog. Then I realized I really wanted to come back to this blog. From time to time I pop in and repost something I wrote at the other blog. (Confused yet?!) This was my oldest Mister's 2nd Valentines day and I felt inspired to decorate the house up for the day of love. Since Valentines Day is just a few weeks away maybe you'll be inspired to dig out all your red too!

Little Valentine

I don't know what got into me this year but out of the blue I decided to decorate for Valentines Day. I've never done it before, in fact I can't remember ever decorating for any holiday other than in the fall/winter. Mom and I were out at Good JuJu and I found the funniest little pillow cover. It was sitting around the house taunting me with it's cuteness. So I packed up the little dude, bought fabric, came home and sewed a few coordinating pillows. Then I shopped the house and pulled together a few more items and suddenly we were in the Valentine spirit! The polka dots, bunting, and pops of red have been so fun peeking out at us. I am going to be sad when it has to be packed up!

I had been wanting to take some photos of D wearing a mustache for Valentine's Day to send out to our family members. Luckily Sarah and I caught him in a good mood - we got the cutest pictures of him. Though the mustache wasn't much of a hit we did get lots of good smiles - especially when Auntie tickled and bribed with cookies!

Oh man I love this kid!

Happy Valentines Day!

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Seriously how has this been almost 3 years ago?! Where has my baby went?!?!

Huffington Post Feature

2016-01-18T11:37:00.000-06:00

Last December in the midst of our move I clicked over here to the blog to try and write a post when I noticed that I had a lot of page views coming in from a Huffington Post link. I thought it was weird so I clicked on the link and was very surprised to find that our play kitchen make over had been picked up (likely via Pinterest) on one of their features in the Parents section. (Click here for the feature.) Apparently the original article ran in June of 2015. I've never had any of my work featured (on this blog or through Creative Event Studio) without being notified...it felt kind of weird and really gave me a check about how small the internet really is.

The feature is a slideshow compilation of various plastic play toy make overs. (Why are toys made to be so ugly?) Of course it's incredibly flattering (and very exciting) that our project was chosen out of all the stuff that's out there (especially considering the indoor, unstaged/styled photos) and if you'd like to take a look at feature click on the image below to see all of the different projects. Our kitchen is number 13. To see the original post about our process and before/afters click here.

Has something like this ever happened to you? If so did you have mixed feelings too, or is that just me?

Howie's Grey & Navy Nursery

2016-01-13T07:38:00.001-06:00

After posting all of our house listing photos I realized that there were several rooms I never did a full post about. Sadly Mr. H's room is one of them! I'm not sure how it got missed because I even had this post done in draft. Better late than never, right?

Poor Baby H has the smallest of our 3 bedrooms. The room measures in at just 9 x 11. In the past we always used this room as a guest room and I loved knowing that a full size bed could fit in the space. (You can view pictures of the guest room here.) This room is right across from Davis's room so I wanted the spaces to tie in together as much as possible without them 'matching'. I liked the colors in Davis's room but I knew that they were not right for Howie. Early on I decided I wanted to use navy, but after deciding that the rooms should coordinate I opted for grey on grey walls with aqua and navy accents.

The stripes on the walls were done using the time-tested flat/semi-gloss method where you use the same color paint in 2 different sheens and paint them in stripes. The stripes were just enough to give the room some interest and help the room feel a little larger.

The crib is the same one we used with our older son. It was handmade by my dad. The wooden tree mobile was a first Christmas present (because what do you buy a 6 week old for Christmas?) and the deer head was a DIY left over from his first birthday. The crib blanket can be found here.

One thing we did that helped tie the two rooms together was buy curtains of the same pattern in different colors. The curtains are Waverly's Lovely Lattice. The artwork on the right is a painting we bought at an antique store in Limmerick Ireland (which seemed right considering we found out we were pregnant while overseas). The painting on the bottom left came from Chris's grandparents and the coins in the top frame are leftover Euros.

One thing that I don't have pictured here (I need to dig it out) is our changing table. The room is too small to accommodate the chair, dresser, and crib so the closet doors were removed and the dresser sat inside of there. Chris built a changing table that was anchored into the wall and had a slide out changing tray. It was very cool!

Even though I went into designing this room with the idea that the two rooms should coordinate they have really different 'feels'. This room is calm and relaxing where as Davis's room is energetic and playful. I used the exact same grey and aqua in both rooms but the accent colors really helped direct the tone of each space. When I was pregnant I made a comment to Sarah that I thought Howie's room would be a place he would go to as a retreat to rest where as Davis's room would be a place he would go to retreat and create. I have found both statements to be true! Do you feel like your environment influences you or that you influence your house? Or both?

We are moved!

2016-01-08T07:42:00.002-06:00

Well I missed blogging over Thanksgiving & Christmas because we moved. My excuse for everything over the last month and a half has been the move - it's getting lame even for me - but seriously folks, moving is a lot of work. We've been in the new house just over a month. We set up our Christmas tree on the first night (so thankful we did that) but the entire month was a BLUR. We had lots of help with unpacking and getting everything straight (you know who you are, THANK YOU). So we didn't have to live surrounded by boxes for super long (it felt like forever though). We just kept reminding ourselves that we had been here 1/2/3/etc weeks. Now that it's been a month (officially on the 4th) it feels like we really can't say that anymore though!

So as a 'close' on our last house (ha, pun) I thought I'd share the listing photos from when we sold. I did not take them (the realty team we used have a specialty real estate photographer). Also as a precursor to viewing, this is the house stripped down. We cleaned and decluttered and touched up like mad men in preparation for these photos. Also our outdated kitchen NEVER looked that good in real life, haha.

Exterior Front:

Exterior Back:

Formal Living Room (read more here)

Sitting Room (read more here):

Family Room (read more here):

Sunroom (read more here and here):

Dining Room:

Kitchen:

Second Bathroom:

Master Bedroom:

Master Bathroom:

Entertainment Room (read more here):

Second Bedroom (see more here and here):

Third Bedroom (see more here):

Basement (see more here):

It's weird looking at these after not being there for a month. It still feels like our house. I cringe at some of the things that I never got to finish (I never felt like I got it right with the family room decor and that kitchen...oh that kitchen) and then other things make me want to dig into our new house and make it more 'us'. I also realize that there were several spaces that I never blogged about (how did I not do a post about the dining room? Weird.). So if I find myself around this space a little more maybe I'll revisit some of them if I have the photos.

In closing I just want to give a shout out to our realtors, Joy & Donny Engle from The Engle Home Team here in Kansas City. They are, without a doubt, the absolute best. I'm not saying that because they give me warm fuzzies or anything, I'm saying that because they are ON IT. We got great communication and helpful negotiation. And sometimes we had to hear things we didn't want to hear (like that we should pass on a bad house even though we LOVE LOVE LOVED the area so much we were delusional to think of making it work). So if you are in KC (MO or KS) do yourself a favor and check them out!

Halloween Table Setting

2015-10-27T15:07:00.002-05:00

I popped over to the blog today thinking I'd post something else but found this sitting in draft with no text. Go figure!

This is a halloween themed table scape from a few years ago that I did on the fly for fun. To me it reads a bit like 'Dracula'. :) I used a red damask table cloth with black candlesticks. To add some gore I dripped red wax on top of some white candles. A sharpie turned some tin cans into ominous vases for seasonal mums. For the place settings I used my great-great grandparents anniversary china that is black and white transfer wear with lots of wear. The white pebble napkin rings remind me of teeth/bone in this context.

All in all I think it works pretty well for Halloween!

I prefer to keep Halloween specific decor to a minimum, though my husband would definitely take it up a notch if I was into it (I'm not). What does your Halloween decorating look like?

Feeling beyond blessed - our house is under contract!

2015-10-19T21:21:00.002-05:00

In my last house selling post I said that we bought a house and were getting closer to listing our house. Last Monday the photographer came and photographed the house and Thursday the house was listed (it went live at midnight). Going into Monday we were REALLY stressing and workin' our behinds off trying to finish up a huge to-do list of things we wanted to get done in preparation to list. We've been working for a few months on listing-related stuff but the last 2 weeks were INTENSE. Chris took a week off of work and he drove us into the ground making sure we got as much done as we possibly could. Needless to say it was not a relaxing week. Before the photos on Monday I took the kids to my in-laws house and rushed back home for my cousin, who was visiting, and I to quickly rake, sweep and do any last minute touch up we could think of before the photographs were taken. The next few days were spent making sure nothing in the house got messed up. We wanted to make sure that once we listed we were ready for showings as soon as we got the call. We just hoped and prayed (and prayed some more) that the right buyer would find us quickly so we didn't have to live in a 'showing ready' state for long.

Fast forward to Thursday morning. Chris is in Tampa (which FYI is A LONG way from where we live) at a work conference. I roll over and check my Realtor app to see if our listing is live. It is and I text it to Chris. The listing looks and reads great. We exchange a few texts about how nervous we are and about how much we hope all of the work was worth it. The boys and I puttered around most of the day trying to stay out of the house to keep it clean when shortly after nap I get the text message asking for a showing for 4:30 that evening. I respond 'YES!' to the text. I highly doubt that the messaging service appreciates the '!' but I don't care - I'm excited! Over the next 2 hours we get 2 more showing requests for that evening! I spend nap time vacuuming, re-straightening, and re-wiping everything I can for the showings that evening. Then I wake up the boys, get them in the car and we head to my parents house for the evening.

While eating dinner at my parents house our realtor calls. She says that there is an offer and wants to know if we can conference Chris in on the call so she can go over it with us at the same time (remember, he's in Tampa). We finally get the connection straightened out and she tells us that the offer is a bit OVER the asking price and that they want to close the same day we are set to take possession of our new house! YOU GUYS!!! I can't even begin to describe how relieved we were to get that call. The buyers were in our house something like 10 minutes when their realtor called and said not to accept any offers until they saw ours - I wonder if they had even looked at the whole house at that point?! Here we are taking a week and a half and seeing our new house twice before making an offer and this guy walks in and in TEN MINUTES makes an offer for over asking price. Awesome and hilarious.

Sooooo, right now we have finished the inspection on our new house and all of that has been worked out with the sellers and the inspection on this house happens on Wednesday. Fingers crossed it goes smooth! There are so many words about this situation that are fitting - though none of them fully encapsulate the experience. We were so torn and apprehensive about listing our house and the idea of moving. We LOVE this house. This has been a great home for us and we've been happy here. I think we both worried that the selling would be hard and intense and stressful and frustrating and that there wouldn't be another house that would make us as happy as we'd been here and that when it was all said and done we would regret leaving our home. Right now, we'll see in 6 weeks when we move, it feels completely the opposite. The people we are buying our new house from have been WONDERFUL to work with. I'm not sure exactly why (I've not even met them, though Chris was able to) but I feel so welcomed into our new house already. And the fact that our house went under contract in 17 hours - still feels crazy to say that - feels like SUCH A BLESSING. So yeah, we are feeling great about the whole situation. Which is a pretty far cry from where we were 2 months ago.

I have so many thoughts about this process and the new house but for right now I'm going to wrap up. This is already probably about 2,000 words or something. But I can't end without giving all the glory to the One above. This situation has felt so expertly and wonderfully arranged that neither of us has any doubts that we are being provided for right now.

Giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ

Ephesians 5:20

We bought a house!

2015-10-10T09:41:00.000-05:00

You know the whole 'we are selling our house' thing? Yeah, that's still happening. We list next week so we're still doing all the projects to get it ready. It's kind of intense around here to say the least. BUT in the midst of all the house listing stuff we ended up buying a house! We had really been focused on moving to a historic district, in probably a fixer upper that we could utlize a FHA 203K loan. (If you haven't heard of it and are interested in a fixer upper that's a great program, just FYI.) We looked at some houses that fit that description and the idea of them was so so so lovely. The reality wasn't panning out. We were hopeful and determined but the houses that were available needed more work than what our budget would allow when figuring in the asking price and neither of the ones that we had high hopes for had parking. Or a yard really. With 2 boys a yard is a must, even if it is a small one, and in about 12 years we are going to need additional parking space for two teen drivers. So no parking really wasn't going to cut it in the long run.

So we did something we didn't think we'd do, we went and looked at a bunch of houses outside of the narrow scope we'd been looking at. All of the houses were finished and met all of our size requirements and had some sort of character to them, they just weren't historic. There was a house that we had been looking at and thought looked cool that had been on the market for a while. We went and looked at it and honestly we pretty much loved it from the beginning. It is just so livable. I was standing in the living room and felt like I could actually see and hear my kids playing and running around. When that vision comes true I may actually cry, we'll see (I'm a sap like that, luckily the guy I'm married to is as well).

There were some things we weren't totally sold on so after looking at the house twice we sat on it for a week. We figured it was worth the time to think about and if it sold it wasn't meant to be. I have to say that was a very healthy way to be about it. We are not fast decision makers. And that's ok, that's our process ;) So when we made our offer we felt good about it. We had heard some bad stories about the sellers agent and he did try and bluff our agent when we made our offer but the sellers were really fast with their counters and within a day we had successfully negotiated a sale! It felt like it happened really fast! Obviously we have not met the sellers but so far we get a really good feeling about them and it really has made the whole process so much smoother.

Our current house gets photographed on Monday and listed on Thursday. We still have a bunch of small projects to complete before Monday but I can't tell you how good it feels to know that we have a place to go after this place sells. I also can't begin to describe how very much I hope this house sells! I am hopeful that another couple will see all the things we love about our house and will make a (very generous! ;) ) offer the day we list! (Just kidding, though that would be amazing.)

Wish us luck, we're going to need it!

Purple Craft Baby Shower

2015-08-27T15:04:00.000-05:00

During my blogging hiatus I had the great joy of hosting a baby shower for a friend of mine from church. This mama is crafty and her favorite color is purple. Instead of doing an elaborate theme I decided to keep things simple with everything tied in through the color palette. I used purple fabrics that had accents of brown to make tassels and sew pillow covers, did a white themed dessert buffet, and set up a onesie craft station for the guests. It came together well and was the perfect amount for the guest of honor, which means it was just perfect.

To make the tassells I simply ripped strips of fabric and tied them with yarn. I chose not to cut the fabric because I wanted them to have a more relaxed feel.

Anytime I throw a shower where I know there will be lots of guests I do a Bingo game. It helps keep guests interested in what is happening and helps the gift opening move a little faster.

For the craft station I picked up several plain onesies and set out a variety of different craft items (paint, buttons, iron on patches, stamps). Because I knew that not everyone at the shower would be able to come up with an original idea quickly I also printed out some prompts and set them on the table for inspiration. The craft station was lined with brown craft paper.

My shower was in the mid afternoon, which meant that a full menu wasn't necessary. Instead I opted to do a dessert bar tied together with a neutral color scheme. I focused on white desserts and served water and coffee. I found the chalkboard several years ago and painted it for the coffee house bridal shower. It gets a lot of use whenever I host events, usually as a menu sign.

I really enjoyed being able to host this shower. I loved the simplicity of the decor and the opportunity to use a looser theme. If you are hosting a similar event here are some tips to keep in mind:

When using colors as your theme vary the shades and patterns
Always remember to add texture. In this shower I used cotton fabrics, pom poms, paper, and purposely tore fabric.
Think about how you can switch up your normal decor to tie in the event. For this shower I sewed a few pillow covers to match the party.
Don't go over board on your menu. It's easy to over think food and feel like there won't be enough but many showers aren't held at a typical meal time, which means that you don't need to serve a full meal. Also remember that many people won't eat one of everything you put out.
Shop your house before buying! For this event I purchased the wooden letters to spell 'BABY' and 2 bags of purple and tan pom poms (not counting food). When you purchase entertaining supplies throughout the year try and keep them neutral (white and clear glass always work well for me) so that they can be used over and over again.
HAVE FUN! There is no point to hosting the event if that means that you aren't going to be a part of the event. Do everything you can as early as you can so that once your guests arrive you can relax and enjoy the day!

And then we decided to move

2015-08-25T13:27:00.001-05:00

A few months ago we were toying with the idea of moving. When I say that we were 'toying' with the idea, we honestly weren't seriously thinking of it at all. We were looking at real estate listings online and dreaming. Our oldest will be starting school in a few years and we'd never envisioned him going to school in our current area. We don't live in a bad district but for whatever reason it just wasn't on our (my) radar. Through a series of events we felt we really needed to move. There are a lot of things that have went into this decision, and honestly it's something that we have faltered over. Moving is a B-I-G thing. Especially when you love your house. And you live down the street from your best friends.

We feel heartbroken about the decision. This is our HOME. We love our house. It's not a perfect house, it has quirks and is a little wonky here and there, but we love it. This house has encapsulated so much of our lives together. We moved here just after our first anniversary. So much of our history is here. This house is where we learned how to be adults (ok, we're still learning). And then, this is the place we brought our babies home to. This is where we prepared a place for our children and where we have watched them grow. This house is their world right now.

[This is where I start being a real downer.]

Can I just say that we haven't even listed it yet and already this feels GINORMOUS? We are both super stressed about getting everything ready to list. And then who knows if the house will even sell? And then there is the added bonus of not knowing where we are going to go. We don't even know what town or area we want to live. I feel like we are living in a limbo with all these things out there looming and it honestly really sucks. I know this makes me a complainer, but right now I don't care. I am having a really hard time right now wrapping my head around the whole thing. It feels huge and overwhelming and hard. Yesterday I spent 4 hours with two kids in tow going to six different stores looking for replacement lights for our hallway. By the time we got home I was spent, I had no lights, and the kids were exhausted. The best part was that I had accomplished nothing. So then I basically sat in a funk all day about the whole thing.

[I'll try and wrap it up now.]

So that's what I'm up to these days. Sorry I can't seem to be more consistent with my posting! But nothing's better than a long absence ended by a long whiny post right?! Glad you're with me! I have some things in draft that I still want to publish but I do *hope* to blog more as we go through this experience. If you're reading this any prayers for our selling/buying process would really be appreciated!

DIY Fort Kit

2015-04-30T10:30:00.001-05:00

I thought I'd pop in today with a great little DIY project for all the kiddos in your life. I made this Fort Kit for my nephew's birthday. I love the idea of tents for little kids, but often they are large and require space that many of us don't have. This is a great alternative that let's kids have the experience but that doesn't require the space commitment.

Once you have your supplies this project can easily be completed in an afternoon in less than 2 hours (I'd estimate it to take about an hour, maybe a little more). This is not a tutorial. If you're crafty you don't need it. (And if you need some hand holding there are tons of instructions online.) I used a canvas bag, leather string, letter stamps, black paint, green dye, a plain white sheet, yellow paint, a stencil, and a paint brush. For the completed kit you will also need 4 clamps (I picked mine up at Lowes). I also included a glow stick flashlight that was a big hit.

For the bag I found a canvas bag at the thrift store. I cut the handles off , cut a small hole in top hem and threaded leather string through. I had some RIT dye at my house so I quickly dipped the bag in it on my stove top. I ended up with a soft green. I also used my stamp kit to print 'FORT KIT' on the front.

DIY Fort Kit for kids

I used a white sheet from the thrift store (I brought it home and bleached it, but made sure in the store that it was free of staining) for the 'tent' part of the kit. For the stars I used a stencil from Hobby Lobby and randomly painted them with yellow paint all over the sheet. Once they dried I washed the sheet. I did not use fabric paint, just regular ole craft paint.

I should have taken a picture of this all set up but I didn't! To assemble the fort just use the clamps to secure the sheet over the backs of chairs, doors, or whatever your little one is desiring. I love gifts that don't have one specific way to play with it and this is definitely something that can be used over and over in millions of different ways.

DIY gifts are something I really enjoy making. (If they are enjoyed as much upon reciept may be another question!) Out of the childrens 'toys' I've made this still ranks as a favorite. Do you like making gifts? Do you know any kids that would like something like this?

Rustic Glam Baby Shower!

2015-04-14T10:01:00.003-05:00

I'm in today with the final photos of the baby shower I co-hosted for my sister-in-law. You can see the invitations here and the inspiration board here. The starting point for this shower was 'rustic glam' but honestly by the time we finished setting up I'd say it was more of a 'pink+gold+mint"' recipe, and you know what? That's ok - it turned out very cute!

I know I've mentioned that I live in an older home. One of the things you get in an older home are lots of little rooms - no open floor plan here! So we set up the main shower area in the formal living room and the food in the dining room.

We debated about taking down the wreaths on the doors but felt that it looked too empty when we did, and they tied into the shower so they stayed. The ribbon banner was a DIY (seriously SO easy). The pink mason jar drink favors were from Micheal's (2.99 each) and we used a heart punch on glitter paper to dress them up. I created all of the printables for the shower games using the same Craftberry Bush design as the invitations. The custom name glitter cake topper is from my friend Jeanette's Etsy shop, Sprinkle the Kindness.

I printed these calendars out and had our family write their name on the date they think the baby will arrive! Printable calendars from Coco & Mingo.

I just love hosting these little celebrations and love it even more when it is simply the backdrop for genuine relationship with others. Overall the shower was just the most wonderful afternoon spent with our family. Which in my book counts it as a win.

BONUS! Since I already had the shower games designed I figured I'd post it here as a free printable for anyone else hosting a similar baby shower! Click here to print the PDF! The PDF includes cards for Wishes, Advise, and the Price is Right game. Also included are the questions asked for 'He Said, She Said'. Enjoy!

Digging into Lightroom

2015-04-10T15:41:00.001-05:00

Last year for Christmas my sweet husband gifted me a new computer and Lightroom. I have always heard that Lr is a beast to learn and I was a bit apprehensive about getting into it. For the past 5+ years I've used Photoshop for editing and have either managed (in the early years) by manually sorting my photos (GAH) or have used Picasa for sorting. It's not a great system but it's gotten the job done well enough. Well tomorrow I am shooting a very exciting styled shoot and I thought that since I had a few hours of down time I'd try and figure it out.

HAHAHAHAHAHA

Now I'm knee deep in open tabs and tutorials and my head is spinning. Please say a prayer for me. I have finally found a trail of tutorials that are helping me get a grasp on the basics. If you're in the same boat and aren't looking for video tutorials (I know everyone is obsessed with video but I'm not. Am I the only one?) I'm find these extremely helpful. So if you're out there just starting out with Lightroom I wish you good luck. Hopefully you won't find me with my head in the oven.

(Yep, no pictures on this blog post.)

Rustic Glam Baby Shower Inspiration

2015-04-01T15:58:00.002-05:00

This past weekend I co-hosted a baby shower for my sister-in-law. I showed the invitations for the shower here. I meant to post this blog last week but the days got ahead of me so it didn't go live - oops! I used the design from Craftberry Bush for the invitations and continued it on all of the printables used at the shower too.

We used a lot of glitter accents at the shower. We DIY'd a ribbon banner that we had glitter strands in and had a friend cut a cake topper similar to the one shown. If you are planning your own rustic glam baby shower here are some links that may interest you:

Wood Chargers with Glitter

Bear Hug Print

Deer Head Silhouette

Oh My Charley Ribbon Banners

I'll be back soon with pictures of our little shower. It was a small but sweet celebration! What are you celebrating lately?

On being the memory keeper

2015-03-24T06:00:00.000-05:00

I've always been the type of person that has felt bittersweet about the passing of time. Having kids has only made that worse. I've tried so hard to be intentional about the days I have with my boys because I know that they will be gone before I know it. There have been times when I have done nothing but watch (and stare) because I want to impress the memory deep inside of my brain so that I won't ever forget. One day when my oldest was an infant I was worried and upset about how fast his little life was moving and that I wasn't going to remember it all. Despite my husbands best attempts at comfort I was becoming quite emotional and I blurted out, 'But it's my job to be the memory keeper!'. He looked at me like I was crazy and continued with his soothing words. But the reality is that I am a mother and I do believe that a big part of my job is to remember. I think that there is such value in the oral histories that we pass down to our children and instilling them with roots of belonging. A big part of that, I believe, is telling them their stories.

I know I won't remember everything, and that's ok. I do my best to record the big things obviously, but also the day to day little stuff. One of the things I use a lot is the Mom's One Line a Day journal. I got it a few months after having Davis and I've loved having that brief space to record. I have a lot of grace with myself about doing it each day and there are times when I don't update it regularly. But one of the things that I LOVE LOVE LOVE about it is now that it is filling up (I only have 1 year left on some of the dates, crazy) is looking back and seeing what we were doing on that day in the years prior. It's like the manual version of time hop. :)

1 day I've managed to write on each day for the past 4 years in my One Line a Day Journal

Mom's One Line a Day 5 Year Memory Book

I'm a photographer by trade which means that I have thousands of amazing photos of my kids, thank you Sarah, and equal amounts of iphone photos as well. I hate the idea of those photos just being on a computer or link somewhere. So I also keep scrapbooks (I've switched over to the project life system because it's easy enough I can keep up with it.) Both of my boys have a small box under their bed with some keepsakes from the hospital, letters that we wrote to them before they were born, and other special mementos. I want my boys to know that they were wanted and valued since before they were born. I think one of the biggest gifts we can give our children is knowing that they belong. I have a lot of thoughts on that subject but I'm not sure that they are coherent enough to pull into a blog post, or really relevant enough for anyone other than me to care about.

It is definitely something I do to myself but does anyone else feel this pressure to remember it all? Do you keep journals, scrapbooks, or something else?

Davis's Gray, Green, and Mint Toddler Room

2015-03-16T22:08:00.000-05:00

When we found out we were pregnant with little boy #2 we knew that changes would have to be made to our oldest bumpkins room. The boys are 2.5 years apart but Davis was still securely sleeping in his crib. I credit this in large part to the fact that our crib was handmade and has a very 'large' presence. I honestly don't think that the idea ever crossed his mind that he could get out of it! I knew that the crib would be needed for our newest baby, but I'm a sentimentalist and couldn't bear the thought of 'taking it away' from Davis. I loved decorating his nursery and suddenly it seemed that it wasn't just moving him from the crib, it was redoing his whole room. It didn't end up being a whole room redo, but we did make some changes in there that have worked really well as we've gotten into the toddler years, and if I'm honest, I actually love his room more now than I did as a nursery. I never did a nursery post of his room on this blog but we were really honored that Apartment Therapy picked it as a feature on their website. You can see pictures of the nursery at this link.

Green, gray, and mint kids room.

Most of the room stayed the same but the crib was replaced with an antique toddler bed. The bed was made by my great-great-great grandfather in 1885 for his twin sons. The bed is quite sturdy and has been updated with a modern mattress. We feel so blessed that our son gets to have such a unique piece in his room. (This bed has been used by many people in our family including one of my brothers.)

Antique toddler bed, made in 1885

The dresser was a Craigslist find. I answered an ad with no photos and was taken to an old man's attic. It wasn't at all what I was envisioning and I have debated about replacing it many times. But Chris really loved it and after we changed the room into a 'big boy' room it seemed to fit in so much better. I do think that at some point the drawer fronts will be repainted white again.

The boys rooms are close to each other so we thought it would be nice to try and give them a bit of a flow. We ended up finding the Waverly Lovely Lattice curtain panels in both navy and green.

The art work above the bed contains a vintage camera (a nod to our artwork), a painting aquired through my senior art show painted by a fellow student, 2 vintage prints, and a Fleetwood Mac record (Bare Trees).

The changing table was taken out and replaced with a table and chairs. I honestly dreamed of having an art station in this room before he was even born. I love having all of his masterpieces around our house.

Kids art station

We live in an older ranch house. That means that we don't have fun nooks or extra closets. This closet has turned into a favorite spot in our house that is functional and fun. Shortly after our son was born Chris installed these shelves into a shallow recess in the closet. They have served us very well (this kid is a massive reader). The pillow was something I made for Davis that ended up in here. I used silver craft paint and carved a stamp from a potato and willy-nilly stamped the walls. We have spent many moments together in here snuggling, reading books, and laughing. What a wonderful little spot it has turned out to be.

How did you decorate your kids rooms? Did you know exactly what you would do before you started or did it evolve over time?

Simple St. Patrick's Day Decor

2015-03-15T10:26:00.000-05:00

I love celebrating all the little holidays, especially now that I have small kids. They get such a kick out of anything out of the ordinary, adorable. I also have a soft spot for Paddy's day since finding out we were pregnant with our 2nd son while in Ireland over St. Patrick's Day. (Ironically he looks Irish, complete with pale skin and red hair.) So I decided to mix up the gallery in our formal living room for just a touch of festivity.

Since I'd only have these decorations up for about 2 weeks I kept it very minimal. I draped a green bunting banner (found here), added a 4 leaf clover to the the floral frame, and placed a journal card on the shelf. I also tossed a (new to me) pillow from the thrift store in an adjoining chair because the colors worked perfectly.

The shelf in the gallery is the perfect spot for mixing up seasonal decor. I generally switch out the pictures for the season, but you can tell I didn't do that this time. The 'LOVE' print of the boys is their Valentine from last year. I could eat those two up. The small picture on the left is my Howie baby at 1 month through the Christmas tree.

Isn't that little vintage pillow adorable? I couldn't pass it up. But as a major 'take-me-home' bonus it had no tag so they let me have it for $0.50! I think this is the perfect amount of dressing up for this little day.

Do you decorate for any of the small holidays?

Litle Tykes Play Kitchen Make Over

2015-03-13T06:00:00.000-05:00

Last year my psuedo-niece got a darling little play kitchen for her birthday. The thought of a play kitchen had never crossed my mind until we were visiting and my oldest son became quite enamored with it. He began asking to go to her house and play kitchen! A few weeks before his birthday we were at the thrift store and they had 2 vintage plastic fisher price play kitchens - for $3 each. With him being a boy I honestly never imagined having a play kitchen. I had considered a work bench but had never done anything about it because I really dislike large toys, especially ones that I don't have a place for. Upon seeing the kitchen in the thrift store Davis was like a moth to a flame. He took it pretty well when we left the store but kept asking me to go back and play with it, silly kid. I talked it over with the hubs and considering the 'investment' we decided to get one of the them and make it over. There are tons of tutorials online about how to paint plastic furniture. This is not a tutorial, it's just a good ole before and after. When I was looking around I couldn't find any kitchen make overs on this 'model' of kitchen, so maybe this will add something to the blogging world (doubtful).

Little Tykes Play Kitchen - Before

I'm not sure what this kitchen's previous life was, but if I had to guess I'd say a daycare. It was pretty gross looking. Lots of grime and lots of crayon. Luckily the hose did wonders on the grime and the rest came off easily with a magic eraser. Those things really are magic. I'm not entirely sure what my cleaning looked like before I discovered them.

After getting a good scrub down we let it completely dry out. That was hard because it's hollow plastic, so it took a few days. Once it was dry I took some sand paper and roughed up all of plastic areas I was planning on painting. I gave it another wipe down and then taped it like crazy. I don't want to brag (ok, I guess I do) but I did a kick a$$ job taping that thing. Some of the plastic make overs I saw online didn't look like that great of an improvement to me because the execution was pretty bad. I get annoyed when things are done half way (even when I am the one half doing it) so I was pretty set on making sure that I didn't have accidental over spray or that I was doing a bad job overall. I think I used an entire roll of painters tape and then some extra masking tape. It was totally worth it though.

Krylon spray paints for plastic, formulated for toy make overs!

The roof of the kitchen went from baby blue to navy. The stove top went silver for a stainless steel effect. The faucet, phone holder, and misc other accents got oil rubbed bronze spray paint. I did purchase the Krylon navy paint that was specially formulated for plastic, the others were left over from previous home projects. I've read and had mixed reviews of the Krylon paint and I left this experience feeling the same. The paint goes on evenly without drips, but I'm still not convinced of the adhesion. The kitchen has been in use for about 8 months now. We don't have many scratches, but there are a few. If it were a more 'high traffic' area and not a roof I think that there would be more. I did have some issues with the silver paint splattering when I was spraying it. I ended up with a few splatters that I had to sand off and even a few places where I had to get out paint thinner (then I washed, washed, washed it!). Overall this project was easy to do. This kitchen model came apart well which allowed me to separate out a lot of the pieces to paint. It also was in good shape and was a nice neutral white and not something crazy that I was trying to paint over. I think that was a huge help.

And here are the after's:

The dishes were also found at the thrift store and are the perfect size for the kitchen and little hands! The black square is chalkboard paper for grocery lists ;) The phone is a grandma gift that happened to fit perfectly in the phone spot. It doesn't match but it works and they love it.

We added a hook on the side that holds measuring spoons and usually an apron. Who knows where the apron was this day. There is a good chance it was being used as a cape somewhere else in the house.

My husband thought that the heavy iron cast burners were necessary to help 'man' up the kitchen. We attached them with liquid nails - they aren't going ANYWHERE! The 'stainless' stove top is my least favorite part because the paint did not spray evenly.

Little Tykes play kitchen - after

When I bought the kitchen I thought, 'it's $3, I've got paint at home, easy peasy'. Honestly that is more or less how it went. In total though we ended up putting about $30 into the the kitchen when I count the navy paint, the cast iron burners ($6 each), chalkboard paper for the chalkboard, and misc kitchen accessories. It's still not bad for a big kitchen though! Now that we have two boys old enough to use it the kitchen is getting lots of use from both boys, they love that thing. I think it was worth bringing home and doing! Have you made over any piece of furniture?

Rustic Glam Baby Shower Invitations

2015-03-11T06:00:00.000-05:00

I have 2 sister-in-laws. One of them is getting ready to have a baby! It's quite the stir around here because she is having a girl - and our family doesn't have girls! We're a pretty small group but my other sister-in-law and I decided that this definitely warranted a baby shower. We're loosely going for a rustic glam theme. Obviously we'll be using pink! Gold and glitter are also on tap. Though the invites don't have much of a rustic vibe (at all) they are pink, girly, and glam!

Supplies for this project included textured grey cardstock, gold glitter cardstock, brown kraft envelopes, a corner rounder, gold striped washi tape, scissors, rubber cement, and embossing gun, clear embossing powder, an embossing pen, and a paper cutter. I had all of the basics at my house but had to purchase the grey and gold papers, rubber cement, envelopes, and clear embossing powder. The total for all supplies was around $17 at Hobby Lobby.

Gold glitter envelope liners

I love lining envelopes when I make invitations. In my mind it just takes the entire 'experience' up a notch. It's very easy to do. I'm not making a tutorial of how to do that, it's easy enough to find one on Google. But basically you use use a piece of spare paper and cut to fit inside of your envelope to make a template. I lined these envelopes with gold glitter card stock, using rubber cement to secure them. Tip: when glueing the liner in place only put glue on the top part of the liner (the piece that lays against the flap of the envelope), this allows for the liner to move as the envelope is folded and prevents accidental bubbling/creasing. I also sealed the package with a strip of gold striped washi tape. Love washi tape!

Invites made with a design from Craftberry Bush

Confession: I ran a little short on time in designing the invites, oops. I had come up with a few designs but never could settle on one I loved. I found this free watercolor design on Pinterest and knew it would work perfectly for what I was needing. I used it for the invites, registry cards and envelope labels. Done, done and done.

DIY embossed invitations

To bump these invites up a notch I used a textured cardstock (which unfortuantly did not photograph well) and then did some selective embossing on the floral design. I love embossing for these small projects!

I'll be posting our inspiration board for the shower next week so make sure and stop back by to see what we've got in mind. Are you guys planning anything lately? Pinterest has completely changed the way most of us approach our event planning, how much do you use it for your parties?

Formal Living Room

2015-03-09T06:00:00.000-05:00

This is one of my favorite rooms in my house. When we first saw our house my biggest complaint was that it was dark. Our house is about 95 years old and has been added on to twice. A portion of this room was part of the original structure. (To see before photos of this space click here.) Because of the additions, and the age of the house, natural light is hard to come by in this place. The window in this room is one of my favorite things about our entire house. I also love the all white color pallate that allows me to throw in different colors and patterns throughout the year as I feel like switching it up.

When we moved in there was wall to wall carpet. It was in good shape but we knew we wanted to have hardwoods. Part of the reason there was carpet throughout the house were because of the additions. About 3 feet of this room (and the bulk of our hallway) did not have hardwood under the carpet. New hardwood had to be laid and then we had all of the floors refinished to a dark walnut stain. I don't think you usually see floors quite this dark but we love it.

The light fixture was a flea market find, as were the two chairs. I recently switched it up by adding black to the candlesticks for a bit of contrast. The pew bench was cut down and made by my dad.

We 'finished' this room several years ago, but I'm really itching to get back in here and switch some stuff up. The clock is ticking on the mirror and lanterns. I still love the small gallery. I am always adding and switching the items on the shelf around for the season/as the mood hits.

Our couch and coffee table belonged to my husbands grandparents. I had a custom slipcover made for the couch (at a steal - $100!). I LOVE our coffee table. It is one of my favorite pieces in our entire house. The tray I found at my neighbors garage sale. It's big and just the perfect size for a table this size.

One thing I love about living in a ranch house is that you can interpret the decor any way you want and make it totally yours, where as sometimes when you live in a particular style of home you feel like you should honor that type of decor. Do you have a favorite room in your house? What makes it your favorite?

Reading Themed 2nd Birthday Party

2015-03-04T11:05:00.000-06:00

Davis LOVES books. He had a favorite book at 6 months old. So when we started thinking about his 2nd birthday party we decided to base it on his favorite thing - books. Our alma mater, William Jewell College, has an adorable little schoolhouse on it's campus (the Dale Patton Schoolhouse) that is available for rent. It was the ideal setting for the birthday party. It's also when we discovered how great it is to host events not at your house!

I decided on a red, white and blue color scheme. I was thinking primary colors would work well - unfortunately Davis's birthday is a few days before July 4th so as I was buying all the things I was really afraid it was going to look like a big USA bash. It turned out ok but it definitely makes me think twice about what colors I use for his birthday from now on.

We read two books during the party. One was 'Little Blue Truck', which Davis was really liking at the time, and the other was an older book called 'The Traveling Coat'. We made a book report for 'The Traveling Coat', but inadvertently made it WAY to hard! I'm pretty sure that most of the guests gave up by the second question! (Also washi tape makes everything more fun.)

I pulled together 2 banners for this party. The one above is the easiest thing EVER. We strung a piece of jute twine across the room and then used clothes pins to pin open vintage Golden Books. Easy and adorable, just what I like :) The other banner was a pennant that I quickly sewed together. When I make pennant banners I use premade bias tape from the sewing department and stick the pennants between the fold as I'm sewing, no pins required. The banner across the chalkboard was made with navy bias tape and vintage book pages from a book I found at the thrift store.

The party was at 2 in the afternoon so we served a handful of snacks. I was very worried that we wouldn't have enough food but it ended up being the perfect amount.

My main mister and I waiting for our birthday boy to arrive. I was about 5 months pregnant in this picture and look how tired I look! Even though I look a little rough and we're dressed like an ad for USA it was a wonderful day spent with our family and friends celebrating our oldest little mister.

Entertainment Room

2015-03-01T21:20:00.002-06:00

I'm updating our house tour photos and thought I'd start with our Entertainment Room. Chris is a bit of a film snob (for proof click over to his blog), and when we bought our house Chris was adamant that it be big enough for him to have a movie room. Our house is about 95 years old and has had 2 additions put onto it. This room is original to the home. When we bought our house the wall with the large window was covered in faux-brick paneling that we removed and had to drywall. To see the before and in progress photos click here.

Oddly enough this room hasn't seen a large number of transformations. It has been painted like this pretty much since we moved in and although Chris has switched out some of the posters over the years (to better reflect his movie preferences as they change) this is basically how it has looked. My requirement for this space was that I did not want to have open storage for all of his DVDs. The large DVD cabinet was a custom build from a local ready to finish company.

One thing that has changed many times over the course of the years is the furniture in this room. For the majority of the time we've lived here all of our computer and home accounting items were house in there. Additionally this room basically got the left over furniture. It had a chair and love seat, then it had 2 chairs, then my step-mom called and said she was bringing me a couch (who does that?!) so we had a couch and a chair in here with a coffee table. Want to know what changed that? A trip to the ER. We had been home 3 days with our youngest son from the hospital when our bigger boy ran into the Entertainment Room and crashed his perfect baby head into the corner of the coffee table. There was blood, there were tears (from all of us), it was emotional and crazy. And the coffee table left.

We had always talked about getting a small sectional for this room. After the stitches we decided it was a MUST. Out went the table and in came this beautiful beast. (We have a slight love affair with this couch.) It would be a lie to say anything other than this couch has been a game changer for the way we live in our house. This room was always a room we used but now this is our main base. (I kind of feel like we are cheating on our family room.) There is room for everyone to pile together on the couch if we want. The ottoman is on wheels and has storage for toys. We cleaned out the small cabinet next to the window and organized it for toys. The computer and accounting stuff moved to another room.

Thanks for hanging with me on our tour of the Entertainment Room! Do you have multiple living spaces in your home? If so, do you use all of them?