Welcome to the new house! Today I’m going to walk you through the first floor as it is. I sort of cleaned, but I didn’t stage anything. I do not think its nearly as embarrassing as these before photos. I can’t believe I actually linked to them again. You don’t really have to click on that.

Anyway, coming through the front door leads you to an entryway. A foyer, if you will. A space that just didn’t exist in our old house. We have a real coat closet and the stairs start out in the open– not tucked away in the very back corner.

When we bought the house, this room and the entire second floor hallway was covered in wallpaper – probably one of the reasons why it sat on the market for so long. It really didn’t make the best first impression. We’ve since removed it, but we’ll talk about that more in a future post.

To the right of the entry is the living room, and to the left, through that opening above, leads you into the kitchen (turn right) and to the half bathroom (turn left), that’s where we’ll head first.

Look at that skinny little half bathroom door.

Kind of strange, right? Super skinny. HUGE vanity. I mean that honker is 36″ wide. THREE FEET! You almost feel like you have to shimmy past the vanity to get to the commode. It’s also so skinny that its hard to get any better angle for photos. Clearly, we’ll be updating this…it will still be skinny but I think a smaller vanity is going to do wonders…and new floor tile…and wallpaper…

On to the kitchen. This was actually recently redone, which is nice because even though there’s a lot of things that we wouldn’t have done, “redoing the kitchen” is not on our list of things to do. We’re just planning a few minor updates like paint, window treatments, and replace the faucet. Obviously I have loftier plans which we may get into in the future since I’m learning as I work in it that this kitchen has a couple major storage issues…

And No, before you even ask, you cannot fit an island of any kind in this kitchen. I’ve tried every possible scenario short of moving the basement stairs which are located behind that door smack dab in the middle of the kitchen.

And yes, that is a basket of rags that just sit out on the floor. It’s 1. Convenient, and 2. acting as a door stop. I wasn’t kidding when I said, “sort of cleaned, no staging” prior to taking these pictures.

We do need to find an actual place for those.

This shot above is taken in the family room. A room that was added on at some point, and if this house didn’t have this room, we would not have been interested in it.

It’s a huge room. Nearly 14’x20′ and just to give you a sense of scale, our old house had a total footprint of 16’x32′. The footprint of our old house is almost completely captured in that photo up there. As you can tell, we clearly don’t have enough furniture to fill it. I’m super excited for this room. It’s going to be a great place to hang out and just live. Plans are in the works, my friends! Currently the room is “filled” with Sully’s toys, misplaced furniture that has yet to find its rightful home, and a pile of “this isn’t staying here” stuff that hasn’t managed to actually leave the house yet.

Continuing around the corner from the kitchen we have the dining area. Since everything is so open it’s not really a dining room, just an area to dine. Our table is the perfect fit for the space, but we have enough room to actually put the leaf in the table if we need to fit more people around it.  Since we had the built in bench on the one side at the old house, we currently have stylish folding chairs to accommodate extra guests.

Finally we go to the living room. I switched it up on you and this photo is taken right next to the entry instead of continuing on from the dining room, ahem, area. This is where we currently hang out since this is our only place to really sit down. The TV is temporarily set up to the right outside of the photo frame. Ultimately the TV will move to the family room and this room will be a little more formal. We’ll keep the sofa in here and get a bigger, cushier one for the other room. We love that huge window looking out into the backyard. That window is 9 feet wide. It’s HUGE, but in a good way, not like that stinkin’ vanity.

That travertine table you see in the background is another predicament we’ve found for ourselves. That was the previous owner’s table and we got it during negotiations….along with an extension ladder. I was actually more excited for the ladder, B wanted the table. The previous owner was probably happy he didn’t have to deal with moving either of them. Anyway, it’s a nice table, but currently it is too big to go in front of our little sofa with that chaise. I’m not sure what the answer is yet, but having it sit under that fabulous window is not the final plan.

The rug that was once in Sully’s room is also temporarily there as a place for him to roll around and play. We plan to put our old living room rug down (you can see a snippet of it rolled up in the foreground) but we’d like to get it cleaned first and we’re waiting until we paint before really putting everything together.

We’ll end the tour at the fireplace. It’s both wood burning and gas log ready. We’re planning on getting some gas logs because who wants to deal with the mess of burning wood logs indoors?! Lucy likes to pretend the fire is already going and lays in front of it quite a bit. The mantle is beautifully styled with paint samples, a Christmas ornament of Sully, coasters, and some faux marble candlesticks (?) I found on super clearance at Kroger. Yes. Kroger.

And that’s the first floor! Next up, the upstairs.

We finished up the Nursery for our impending arrival. The yellow crib ended up being a no-go. (remember the plans?) Do you realize how hard it would have been to paint all those little rails?! And we were going to have to do oil based paint to get the finish we needed, which was going to be even harder to work with. At the end of the day we ended up with the Hudson Crib  and it was definitely the way to go.

photo by Derk’s Works

I tried out my hand at amigurumi and stitched up that elephant (this pattern) and little bunny guy (this pattern). I had plans to make so many more, then life happened and my amigurumi career came to an abupt halt (sort of like blogging??)

photo by Derk’s Works

photo by Derk’s Works

Regardless of lack of amigurumis, I’m definitely happy with how the room turned out! It was the perfect little space for our next adventure, Sullivan.

photo by Derk’s Works

Sullivan was born on June 4, 2017 at 5:43 am after a super smooth and speedy delivery – we got to the hospital around midnight and five and a half hours later, Sully was here.  He’s been an absolute joy for the past 8 months. He’s a pretty chill and happy baby – unless he’s hangry – a lovely trait he comes by honestly from his mom…

photo by Derk’s Works

Otherwise, he’s pretty perfect

Now at nearly 8 months he’s sitting, starting to eat food and really getting an adorable personality

I was fortunate to get to stay home with him for 12 weeks before returning to work at the end of August. During that time, our house got really small. Like, REALLY small. Although it is super efficient and has really great storage, a 1,000 square foot two-story house is always going to be pretty small. We had rooms to sleep, a room to cook and eat and a room to live, but there was no room to do something. No room for B to work at home, no room to sew or make much of anything without getting annoyed if its out for longer than a day or two. Needless to say, I started longing for another room…

The summer came and went, I returned to work, Sully started daycare, and I’ve had a perpetual runny nose since he started (better me than him!!). I continued to look at realtor.com ten times a day (not exaggerating) and was always showing B different houses. One day, one house struck him. It was terrible (the house that is). It was in really bad shape and not much bigger than our current house. But the location was fantastic – it was in the neighborhood we’ve always said we wanted to move to when we were ready – great schools and close to work and downtown Columbus. We ended up putting a really low ball offer on the house with plans to fully renovate and add on to it. Unforunately (?) it didn’t go through, but that gave the B the push to keep house hunting. Apparently he got the bug to fix up a house again…with a 5 month old…

What seems like a blink of an eye later, we ended up finding a house that needs some love, but not full gut love in the neighborhood we love. Then before we know it, this happened:

Our house sold in 48 hours. We closed the week a before Christmas, moved all our stuff to the new place and then left town for the holidays.

Now we’re back and the projects are about to begin. And that’s my last 11 months in a nutshell.

Here. We. Go.

As soon as word was out that I was pregnant, people have been asking what the nursery is going to look like. And don’t get me wrong, I’ve been thinking about it for a while now. We always planned on the office becoming a nursery. We purposefully didn’t do too much in there and just got some simple Ikea desks to tide us over until the day came that the room would be transformed for a new tiny human. Here’s our plans for making the room worthy for the new babe:

What’s Staying

We’re not starting with a completely blank slate. There are a few elements in the room that are staying that we’re making ourselves work around.

Paint Color. B and I are still painted out from painting every single surface of this house 3 times over. So that means we aren’t changing the paint color. I’m totally cool with that, though. We planned on those walls staying from day one. SW7674 for the win!

The Rocker (and the cushions). We just recovered those cushions about 2 months before finding out we were pregnant. They’re staying.

The Rug. The rug still looks fine. It’s neutral enough and if we don’t have to spend money on a new one that’s cool with me. It’s one of the few things that made it through from the pre-renovation house, and it will make it through yet another transformation.

The Shelves. Right, like we’re going to get rid of storage! The dresser/changing table will take the place of that desk, but the shelves and priceless storage above are staying.

The Dog. Duh. Luckily Lucy is mobile and goes with any decor.

The Plan

So here’s how we’re making it all work:

The Crib: We’re using my nephew’s old crib, which is a dark wood color close to the same color as the wood on the rocker. To freshen it up and to keep the small room feeling bright and open I wanted to paint it a bright color. Bright golden yellow seems to be the accent color of choice for us in this house (as seen here and here), so why not keep up the trend and paint the crib the same color?

The Bedding/Linens: If you didn’t catch on with from this inspiration post, I’m drawn to the bold black and white patterns, so the sheets and diaper changing pad will follow suit.

The Wall Art: Simple and modern, not too baby. I really like this set of prints and this alphabet print.

The Storage: Storage solutions of course are super important given how small the room is. I originally wanted some fun vintage dresser for the room, but when I realized this one fits in that nook absolutely perfectly, I don’t think we’ll find a better suited option. Most low dressers are much wider and wouldn’t fit in the room. This one is giving us the most possible cubic inches of drawer space for that nook. I also love these cute black and white baskets for diapers and toiletries, and then the natural wood baskets will be good for storing toys and other things that we want to be able to put away.

The Pouf: I’ve always wanted a pouf and I think I always put them in my mood boards but have yet to ever actually acquire one. We’ll see if I follow through on this one. But it seems like a good idea to go with the rocker, am I right?

The View

Just in case you need more help visualizing, here’s a quick sneak peek view of what the space could look like:

The one thing I’m still missing, because I have yet to find the right ones that aren’t uber expensive, are the fun / funky pillows I went on and on about in this post. I’m still on the hunt. It’s easy to find awesome stuff that’s 200 bucks and ships from Denmark. The trick is finding something a bit more attainable. If anyone finds anything please share!

That’s all for today. Happy Monday!

photo by Megan Barnard

Wayyy back in September we had our house photographed to be featured on Design*Sponge. It forced us to finally add the finishing touches we never got around to doing, like adding pillows, hanging up some artwork, and just trying to make the house look Design*Sponge worthy. I’m still not convinced it is worthy of such a high profile blog, but it is such an honor to be on it! Check out the full article and all the photos here! Click through to see a few of the photos that didn’t make it to the post:

Sneak peak and proof that we really did work on the outside of our house this summer! That planter box didn’t quite turn out how I hoped #crazysweetpotatovine.

Realistic bike storage during the warmer months….

Lucy had to be sure we knew she was present during the whole shoot.

We got a fiddle leaf fig for the bedroom, too.

That’s all for today. Happy Tuesday! (and Valentine’s Day!)

All photos by Megan Barnard

Part of our baby prep these next few months is going to be getting Baby P’s room in order. That means saying adiós to the office and welcoming yet one more (small) renovation project. You know what, I shouldn’t even call it a renovation, just a small transformation. The plans are still in the works, but here are some nurseries that I think are pretty cool:

image via Nesting with Grace

This image shows up all over Pinterest and for good reason! I love that its young but not “baby,” masculine, but doesn’t scream “boy.” I’ve also been eyeing that leather pouf or something similar for our rocker…

image via Kidsomania

One thing I’ve learned as I’ve been pinning nurseries is that I’m really drawn mash up of quirky, funky, odd shaped pillows. Clouds, mountains, cacti, all are fun! The only problem is, once the baby is actually sleeping in the crib, those pillows will have to get out, so, maybe I’ll need to find some cute little quirky pillow corner where all the fun pillows can sit while the babe isn’t snoozing.

image via East Coast Creative

This nursery is all kinds of classy. I’m drawn to the black and white with the green from the plants. I love the idea of having the hanging greens over the crib instead of prints, but truth be told, unless we go the faux greenery route, we’re probably not going to have any plants in the nursery. And we’re probably  not going the faux greenery route…but still, this nursery is pretty great.

image via Desire to Inspire

Funky pillows? check. Bright and happy? check. Not screaming “baby?” check! Looks like a winner to me. P.S. the whole house featured in the source link is pretty great.

Image via Project Nursery

I like the simplicity of this space. The wood tones warm up all the black and white.

Image via Oh Eight Oh Nine

Oh Eight Oh Nine Oh man do yourself a favor and check out this blog! All the rooms are great. So many fun pillows I love that this nursery is neutral and colorful at the same time. Such a fun space for a baby.

I could go on but I think you get the gist of what we’re going for for Baby P. If you still want to see more check out and follow my Nursery Board on Pinterest.

Hey there! It’s been a while. I know I’ve completely left you with a cliff hanger on that great curb appeal endeavor…rest assured we did almost everything on that checklist. But now everything is brown and dormant, so maybe in when things perk up in the summer I’ll fill you in with some photos. Or maybe not, because by then we’ll have our hands full with the biggest change of our lives – a new baby! 

I’m nearly 22 weeks now, so this doesn’t even feel like new news anymore, but I felt like blogging, and this seemed to be the obvious choice for the opener. If the blue didn’t already give it away, we’re having a boy and he’s due in early June. I made the little hat and booties over Christmas using this pattern by Lisa Auch for the booties and a slight variation of the Parker Newborn Hat by Sewrella. Instead of ribbing, I did a 5 rows of back loop single crochets to finish off the band. I also tried her Parker Baby Booties, which came out really cute, but really big. I sure hope those puppies don’t fit on Baby P right away! But the pattern is great and easy to follow, so I would recommend it, just not for a newborn size.

Everything baby wise is going really well. He’s healthy and growing and doing everything he’s supposed to do. I felt pretty nauseous in the beginning but I have been feeling pretty great for the past couple months. Here’s hoping it continues to go this smoothly!

And because I’m sure you’re all wondering, Lucy has handled the news of the new arrival very well.

Clearly she’s super excited!

And just like that, a month goes by and the blog is silent. I promised that we weren’t done with the house renovations yet! Oh, this poor front yard. I’ve definitely given it some love in the past. But that love, my friends, was merely renter love. I weeded a little, painted the door, even planted about 4 plants that soon died after I planted them because my renter love quickly faded. But now this is homeowner love. I’m serious now. We need to kick the curb appeal up majorly and really put some effort into getting this front yard up to par with the inside. So here’s the game plan:

Landscaping – No More Grass

I mean, obviously we’re gonna landscape, right? At the very least get rid of the dumpster tracks in the yard. But really, we’re going to get rid of the grass in the whole front yard and landscape the whole thing. Is that crazy!? Will we keep it alive? Gosh, I hope so. Homeowner love, right? Get ready for some plants and lots of mulch.

Hardscaping – Rebricking

The walkway is beyond simply weeding it anymore. So many bricks are all broken down and there are huge gaps between them. It’s time to dig them up and start over. We’ll also extend the house walk to the street to give street-parkers a way to get to the sidewalk that won’t be trampling through our new plants and mulch.

Add a Stoop

We’ve wanted to give a more proper entry to our front door even back when we were getting initial renovation quotes. I had plans for a big porch with a roof and everything, but those got nixed as soon as we saw the 5-figure quotes coming back. So our scaled back version is now a brick stoop, sans roof. Here’s a sneak peek:

We’re not going to have the concrete tops anymore and it will be all brick, but you get the gist. It’s going to be so much better! This project is currently under construction right now so if you follow B on Instagram you’ve probably seen a bit more.

Add an Awning

I never thought I would put an awning over our door. When I think of awnings I think of the candy cane striped ones with scalloped edges and one is always falling down. Not really part of my vision. But during many dog walks we conducted a very scientific survey in our neighborhood about which houses had covered porches and which had awnings. We probably said “Awning” at least half the time. So there you have it: at least half of the houses in our neighborhood actually have awnings over their doors And very few were striped. We’re going to do a simple brownish-gray awning with a straight valance over the door. Simple, but it will get the job done.

Add Street Numbers

We need numbers on our house! The numbers used to be on the rotting wood fence that lined our yard, but when we threw out the fence, the numbers went with it. Our temporary fix during the renovation was printing the numbers on paper, laminating it with shipping tape, and then taping it to the dumpster. Clearly a temporary fix. We don’t have that anymore. Luckily we are the only house on the street that doesn’t have numbers, so when I’m giving directions to the house I simply say: “it’s the house that doesn’t have numbers on it.” I probably can’t get away with that for much longer–we’re getting real numbers.

Sounds doable, right? I think so. We’ve actually already made a ton of progress. Hopefully I’ll be a better blogger and actually share it with you all. No promises, though.

Well folks, this is it! The final room of our renovation. The kitchen is by far the biggest transformation and also the most used space of the house. I easily spend more time in this room than any other in the house (while I’m awake, that is). If you missed any of the other reveals you can check them out here:

|   Main Bathroom   |   Home Office   |   Master Bedroom   |   Powder Room   |   Living Room   |

Now that everyone is all caught up – on with the final reveal!

Here’s a view of what it was before with the living room behind me. That big bump out is the laundry room and half bath that took up half of the kitchen. The track lighting was super dark and the cabinets over the microwave don’t match everything else because they had fallen off the wall.

Now the whole space is opened up.

Since it is so small, the house does not have an actual dining room. We had a really tiny 2 seater table in old kitchen that was right next to a bunch of pots and pans. By getting rid of the laundry/bathroom in this space we were able to make an actual dining area that can easily sit 4 at any time and could expand to seat 6. The table can actually fit 8 with the leaf – but probably not in this room. We bought the table with the anticipation of it being able to grow with us in a future house. The bench seating is made out of Ikea wall cabinets with a piece of stained pine on top for the bench seat. More seating and more storage all in one!

The black bump out also has some function and houses all the plumbing and some HVAC from the second floor that goes down to the basement. I knew we couldn’t get away with a totally smooth wall without some major HVAC finagling (which meant major $$) so we decided to play it up and use that bump out as a way to define the dining area. The black paint is Sherwin Williams Caviar. And how great is it to have TWO windows in the kitchen now? SO much brighter.

Those giant cabinets in the back are one the best decisions we made and house a pantry, broom closet, dog food, large dishes, and tons of other stuff, including a step stool to access everything since they are so tall. See exhibit A:

Fits adult humans with ease (Lucy could have fit in there with me, too…)

And Exhibit B:

So much storage!

Alright, we’ll move on. I promise not to spend this much time on each cabinet in the kitchen.

When were designing the kitchen we considered 4 different doors throughout the process.

From the get go I wanted a white kitchen. Its just clean, timeless, and happy. But I wasn’t sold on the Grimslov doors. I didn’t like the thick border; especially on the smaller drawer fronts which I knew we were going to have. We also toyed around with the idea of doing the bottom cabinets in the Laxarby doors and the top in white, but we didn’t like that the profiles wouldn’t match, and the space is so small we wanted to be careful not to do too much to overcrowd it. We also considered the Bodbyn grey doors. Which look really nice and I love grey kitchens, but (another but) we wanted the main paint color to be grey and grey walls and grey cabinets would have just been too much. Enter the Bjorket Door. I love the profile of that door. Definitely more shaker style than the Grimslov, but we didn’t like the light wood. It just felt unfinished to us and too modern for the house.

So we decided to paint the Bjorket doors white! That way we got the white kitchen we wanted with the profile we liked the best. We painted them our trusty Sherwin Williams Pure White (SW7005) that is the same color as all the trim in the house. We hired someone to spray them so they had a smooth finish. For the most part it was a good idea. (I’m sensing a future Ikea Kitchen post because this post is getting pretty lengthy already…)

We went back and forth on the sink for a while, too. One compartment, or two? Obviously, you can see what we decided on. One giant sink. And its huge. And we love it.

The counter tops are Misty Carrera Quartz by Caesarstone. We did a fun waterfall edge at the end of the counter next to the dishwasher.

Our once brick wall is now fully covered in subway tile and I don’t regret it one bit. It’s much easier to clean and you’d never know that the sink isn’t centered on it. The open shelves are pine that we stained. The rug is a simple dhurrie rug from Rugs USA.

*Sigh*Remember when it looked like this?

And of course, Lucy’s dining accommodations were also upgraded:

We found the placemat at the Columbus Museum of Art Gift Shop and thought that our pooch should be a little more cultured while she dines on her kibble.

That’s sort of a funny photo to end on, but I’m gonna do it. Thanks for sticking around for all the reveals! The house definitely isn’t finished and we still have some work to do, so stick around for our upcoming projects! Until then, the source list.

Source List:

• Wall Paint | Sherwin Williams March Wind SW7668
• Trim and Cabinet Paint | Sherwin Williams Pure White SW7005
• Cabinets & Hardware | Ikea
• Dining Light | West Elm
• Dining table and chairs | West Elm
• Rug | Rugs USA
• Window Treatments | fabric by Robert Allen
• Knife Magnet | Ikea
• Table Runner | Target
• Utensil Holder | Target
• Marble fruit stand | Crate and Barrel
• Dog Bowls / stand | Home Goods
• Dog Bowl Placemat | Columbus Museum of Art Store

Howdy! Ready for another reveal? Going into this renovation I didn’t think the living room was going to be that big of a change. We were going to laminate the ceilings, paint everything, and spiff it up with some updated furniture, otherwise it was just the same ol’ room.

ha! I laugh at my simplistic thoughts of last year, because this room has definitely undergone a transformation. Should I remind you of what it used to look like? 

*Sigh* Too much furniture, too much stuff, and so so dark! And remember wayy back when we were totally overloaded on overstuffed furniture?

Gah! I have no words. (If you must see more of the before you can check it out here)

Here’s where we are now:

Big change, eh? We still have a few lingering remnants of the old days: the Baumritter Chair (that I still need to recover), the harp, and the gallery wall, though that has been expanded a bit. B’s coffee table moved its way upstairs because it was too big with our new sofa.

New Sofa? Yes, that’s right! We donated our 25 year-old green sleeper sofa and bought a brand spankin’ new sofa. It wasn’t an easy decision – picking the new one, that is. Every Sunday for 6 weeks we went sofa shopping. We narrowed it down to three contenders by about week two and every week after that we went to the same three stores and just sat on the same floor models week after week.  All the store associates knew us and they didn’t even bother us after the 3rd week; they knew we were those crazies that just couldn’t make a decision on a couch.

We wanted as much sofa as we could get, but our room isn’t that big and we definitely learned our lesson about big furniture. So we marked out all of the contenders on the floor and moved around all our other furniture in the room to see which one would fit the best. Also, having a chaise was pretty much a non-negotiable. We both sit on the couch and having a chaise gives ample room for everyone (including the dog) to fully lounge.

We finally decided on the Jane Loft Bi-Sectional by Gus Modern and we love it. We have friends that have the larger version of the sofa and they have had nothing but good things to say about it.  Plus they’ve had it for years and it doesn’t look all worn out, which was a big deciding factor for us.

I know, I know, we need pillows. I’m completely over thinking the pillows like its a once-in-a-lifetime decision. I need to get over it and get moving in the pillow department. Hopefully soon.

We also need an end table for the chair, but I’m also wary of bringing more furniture into the room, so that hasn’t happened yet, either.

B’s mom stitched us this beautiful blanket. Check out that handiwork!

Ahh, the credenza. How awesome is it!? I’ve loved the Broyhill Brasilia line for years (and even blogged about it here) and I got B hooked on it when we were looking for a credenza here. I would search craigslist every day hoping one would be available in the area. One did come along but it was in pretty bad condition so we had to pass on it. Then on New Year’s Day, in the middle of dinner, B gets a mysterious text and promptly sends me upstairs to the bathroom with Lucy and puts noise cancelling headphones on my head. When I was cleared to come back down this had appeared in our living room. He had it shipped up from Florida. Pretty awesome.

One other thing that stuck around was the bookshelves. We cleaned them up a lot and got new (and more) storage baskets.

Our entry area was spiffed up with a new front door and a shoe storage rack that actually hides the shoes and looks a lot cleaner than the mismatched cubbies we had before. We ended up removing the legs and just wall mounted it because of the floor trim which I actually like better than having the two legs on either side.

And now just for fun, a little history of the transformation:

Before

during

The design

After!

Source List

• Wall Paint – Sherwin Williams SW 7668 March Wind
• Trim Paint – Sherwin Williams SW 7005 Pure White
• Window Panels – fabric by Robert Allen
• Ceiling Fan – Modern Fan Company – Ball Fan
• Sofa – Gus Modern Jane Loft Bi-Sectional in Totem Storm
• Pillow – Nate Berkus | Target
• Large rug – West Elm
• Entry rug – Target
• Bookshelves – Ikea Expedit (old)
• Bookshelf Baskets – Ikea
• Shoe Storage – Ikea
• Yellow Shelf – Ikea
• Credenza – Vintage | Broyhill Brasilia
• Vase (on Credenza) – Crate and Barrel
• Blue Tray – Crate and Barrel
• Coffee Table – West Elm
• TV Stand – Ikea | Besta
• Chair – Vintage

Happy Monday! Now that I’ve shown you the upstairs bathroom, office, and bedroom, it’s time to finally work our way to the main level. We’re kicking it off with the room that didn’t even exist before. Let me remind you of the plans:

If you remember in the kitchen we had the half bath and laundry room sticking out into the middle of the room which really closed off the kitchen.  The room needed to go. We found a place for the laundry upstairs in our closet, but we still needed to find a place for the half bath, not that we really use it, but for resale’s sake, losing a half bath on the first floor probably wouldn’t have been a smart decision. So we decided to move the half bath under the stairs. Best decision ever. Eh, maybe that’s a bit of a hyperbole, but, still a good decision nonetheless.

I knew from the beginning I wanted to do something really fun with this room. I love that everything is relatively simple in the house, but then you catch a glimpse of some crazy pattern peeking through, and you’re totally surprised when you open the door.

How fun is that?! The wallpaper is from Miss Print. I love so many patterns on that site that it was really hard to nail one down, but I’m happy with our decision. My mom and I hung the wall paper in an afternoon. Having decorated several houses in the 1980s, my mom is practically a pro at hanging wallpaper and luckily didn’t lose any of her skills.  I dare you to find the seams!

This room is tiny. Just under 36″ wide. But it does what it needs to do perfectly. I had originally pictured a floating shelf above the commode for cute bathroom things (and some storage), but when I got it in the room we just saw a “T” and the relationship between the shelf and the toilet just didn’t work. So alas, the basket is all we’re getting for now.

Just to make the room even more happy and inspiring we put the Holstee Manifesto I got B after he made the leap to do his own thing full time a couple years ago. If you’re ever having a bad day, and think a room is what you need to cheer up, my bathroom is just the place

Can we talk about this sink for a minute? Everything about this room is cute, and the sink is no exception. Because the room is so skinny, there wasn’t any room for a large sink to protrude out, but you definitely need a sink in a powder to wash your hands and that is absolutely the only thing you can do with this guy. But it serves it’s purpose, and its cute to boot.

The sconce above the mirror is from Onefortythree. The giant light bulb was in my light bulb stash I had accumulated back when I was asked to do something creative with light bulbs and I bought every size light bulb the ReStore had in stock. This is the only one I have so I hope it never burns out…

This terribly awkward photo shows the light/fan combo we put in. Because there aren’t any windows in this bathroom, code requires an exhaust fan, but there’s only a 3’x3′ section of flat ceiling that I really didn’t want to muck up with a light and a separate rectangular fan.

And that’s our tiny, adorable powder room! Only two more rooms to go!

Source List

• Wallpaper – Miss Print
• Sink – Duravit
• Mirror – Ikea
• Sconce – Onefortythree
• Artwork – Holstee Print
• Toilet Accessories – Delta Trinsic
• Faucet – Delta Trinsic
• Basket – Home Goods
• Rug – Home Goods
• Towel – Target