Wire Photo Holder...

I don't really decorate for holidays. I'm entirely too lazy to, first, put things up in a timely manner and, second, to take them down in a timely manner. The first year we were married was the year I figured this out. We were in an apartment and decorated our entertainment center and had a tree and put lights in the window. It was very festive... Until probably almost February (thank goodness it was a fake tree). We finally packed most of the things away. Everything except for this:

Our card/picture holder. It never did come down... until we moved. Then it was put right back up when we moved into our new place, 6 and a half years ago. It transforms as the year progresses. It starts out with Christmas cards from the previous Christmas then will acquire some Valentines Day cards and birthday cards, then Easter cards, thinking of you cards and pictures of new babies and old babies that have new pictures taken of them.

When we run out of room it's usually because we get an updated picture of someone, so the older one gets taken off and put in a picture box for a safe keeping. They are rotated likewise. I just love watching the kids grow and people have new families. It's exciting and special. The display is so bright and cheerful, I hate to take it down. So up it will stay, at least, until we move again.

Elijah's room - The Finished Product

It's been a year and five months since I started talking about remodeling Elijah's room. I will fully blame the fact that I was pregnant for 9 months for not updating about this for about a year. However, with all that in the past I can finally show you a semi-clean, almost completely done remodel of his room. You can see the previous posts here

This is what it looked like before:

It was definitely just a room to sleep in.

But now it's a room he likes to play in

I'm sorry for the lighting, it was a very bright day out. A little update on things we decided on... We went with a regular boring old, cheap, lamp from Ikea. Joe's parents gave Elijah the TV for Christmas and we bought a super cool arm mount from Costco, so no matter where the bed is moved, in the room, the TV can be turned towards it.

We ended up buying the curtains that I linked to in a previous post, because they were 70% off, on sale. I went with shorter curtains too, so he wouldn't get the urge to play in them.

This is what you see when you come into the room. For the clothesline I just used two eyelets, screwed them into the wall, then strung twine across it. The things are held on by binder clips. You can see the "ELIJAH" poster we bought him from the fair last year. It has Elmo on it, cause at the time, he loved Elmo. We call the beanbag chair and the Cars chair his "sitting area", so he can entertain people and have places for them to sit. (cause, you know, he's sooo popular)

We keep the chalk for the chalkboard wall in an old Lego container (the Legos are stored elsewhere) and the bed, is the end of the tour. It was laundry day, that is why all the linens are off his bed. It was the only time I was at home that I remembered to take pictures, so I figured no one would care.

You know what is ironic about this post and these pictures? His bed was soon going to be exchanged for a twin size bed, cause Caleb needs the mattress for his crib. So, this past weekend we moved Elijah into a new bed and Caleb into Elijah's old crib. Everyone seems to be adjusting pretty well...

Until next time...

Wall Hangings - A Preview

If you have been following the whole remodeling of Elijah's room, you'll know how I wanted to buy some scrapbook paper to frame instead of buying posters. A few weeks ago I found some at JoAnn Fabrics, it's from DCWV, a stack called "The Grade School Stack".

It was perfect AND 50% off, so I had to get it. It has a "Sesame Street" feel to it with the colors and ABCs and 123s. A few of the pages even have open spots for pictures and journaling, so we could make a simple scrapbook page with the pictures of him with the characters from Sesame Place, if we wanted to.

I think my favorite paper out of the stack is this one though:

It's so fun and colorful. I also love how each picture corresponds with the letter next to it. I actually have already framed the ones I am going to use and Elijah loves this one the best too. He sits there for 20 minutes at a time saying the letters and the corresponding picture. And as much as I hope these will stay up on the wall, after I hang them, I have a feeling little hands will find a way to get them down. But oh well, I guess that's why I thought ahead and bought frames with the glass that is almost like plastic. :-)

I hope to have another entry soon about his finished room. The main thing holding up the "finishness" of it, is that I can't find curtains that I like for a decent price to save my life. So once that is done and I buy the things to hang up his art work, the room will be ready for showing off. So until then...

Just be patient, I'm a work in progress...

Alan Jackson said it best and it certainly applied to Elijah's room a month ago... When I started this blog entry (oops). First we had to clear out his bedroom, so it could be painted. Joe had to move furniture to other rooms, we had to move Elijah into our room and then the rest of the stuff got piled in the middle of the floor and covered with a drop cloth. This is what the room looked like the day after Joe and his dad finished painting.

They did a wonderful job! (That long thin white thing that is resting against the wall with the closet is the molding that is on top of the blackboard portion of the wall.) That next Friday and Saturday (it needed two coats), Joe and I painted the blackboard paint. This is what that looked like before the molding was put on.

Oh my, what a sight! No carpet, painters tape around the edges and uneven paint job on the top of the blackboard, nothing on the walls, no curtains, no plate covers, no light switch cover. What a mess! Fortunately, everything was falling into place and even though it looks a mess, it's just a work in progress and we could finally see it taking shape.

That Sunday we put the molding on... with my dad's help. Then Monday the carpet people came bright and early to install that. Once the carpet was installed it really started to look like a bedroom. We moved his toy box up there a few days after and soon the other furniture followed. Plate covers and light switch covers were "installed", his dresser was fixed and moved in there and his bed was moved in there that next week. So now he's sleeping in there and he loves it, but I think when it's really completely done he'll love it even more.

We ended up buying one other thing for his wall. It's a wall plaque with his name on it. We are going to do that instead of putting up the train letters. However, you could say this wall plaque is special because of what's on it... BUT Joe has sworn me to secrecy... Even Elijah hasn't seen it yet. I guess everyone will have to wait and see it when I post the pictures of how his room looks when it's all finished. Hopefully that won't take another month. :-)

Transformation of a Bedroom - Part 3 - What Should I Put on the Wall?

We're almost done the planning portion, which is exciting, because the next portion is the doing portion. After all the research and decisions it'll be nice to finally see the finished product.

A few weeks ago we were all ready to order the carpet at Lowes, so it could be on it's way while we were working on prepping the room. So we go there and established quite quickly that we will not be getting the carpet I wrote about in the last entry. First, I had the wrong measurement for the room. It's actually 10x11, not 9x10. Second, instead of being able to get 10x11 like we needed, we would have to get 10x12 because they come in 12' rolls. So that bumped up the price to about $270. I couldn't bring myself to pay that much money... I just couldn't, not unless I looked at every other option before doing it... And that we did.

We looked at the "in stock" carpet at Lowes. Better prices per square foot, however it was about the same price because they came in 15' rolls. After basically chalking Lowes up as a last resort, we headed to Home Depot the next day. This is why I love Home Depot more than Lowes. There "in stock" carpet comes in 12' rolls and we found carpet we like for $.85 per square foot. It's a little darker than I would have liked... it's more of a sand color than an off-white color, but it still goes with the paint color. His room will just have an "oceany" feel to it. If we end up going with this newly found carpet it will be $181 for carpet and premium padding. We shall see what happens when we go to get it.


Now onto "What Should I Put on the Walls?":



This was my original idea... Hanging his art work on a clothes line with clothes pins. however when I was searching the internet I found all sorts of different ideas stemming from that one.









This is one of the favorite ones that I found. I was going to hang it along one little wall, three tiers high, like this and use the binder clips instead of clothes pins. They will probably look nicer and hold better.









I also like this idea, but it's on a wall with a window, so I feel like it would be too much curtain rod for one wall. However when we move I might do this instead of the clothes line, depending on how the room is laid out.







To go along with that, there will also be a clock that we already have.


We also bought these little train letters years ago that spell Elijah. We just need to paint them.







I also was thinking about getting him a growth chart. I wanted a big bird one, but there were none to be found, so I googled Sesame Street Growth Chart and up popped this from Wal-mart (my home away from home). We can even personalize it. It's a resonable price, but not cheap, so Elijah might be getting it for his birthday, since we are probably doing a Sesame Street theme for his room.








We're not changing the colors of the room or anything, but while we were at Sesame Place (a post about the trip will be coming soon) we saw these cute posters, however I was cheap and didn't get them. So, instead, I'm gonna see, if I can find some brightly colored alphabet or Sesame Street scrapbook paper and frame it to hang on the wall above the chalkboard.

Right now I'm thinking this sounds like a lot of stuff, so I guess when we start getting everything put in there we'll start with the stuff we already have and go from there. I hope you enjoyed hearing about the planning stage of this project. Hopefully in the next few weeks we will be able to start putting things together, so I can update with the progress. Have a great day!

Transformation of a Bedroom - Part 2 - Furniture and Accessories

It's been a been a busy few weeks and we are just getting around to actually making some decisions about what is going on with Elijah's room. It was partly because we were trying to decide which room to redo. It was either the room he is currently in or the bigger second bedroom. We thought about it for a week or so and decided since there are dogs who bark early in the morning, next door, it would be best to keep him where he is, so he wouldn't be disturbed while he was sleeping.




But anyway, we went to Lowes and Home Depot the other night to look at some things and check out prices. First we looked at paint colors because I was still kind of undecided about the exact color. With the help of that nifty little contraption that let's you see what the color looks like in sunlight and under florencent lighting, we chose Behr's "Winsome Hue".

This color goes great with the carpet we found last night that was only about $2.30 a square foot w/ padding. So to carpet his room it would be about $210. Not too shabby. It's Stainmaster carpet and is an off white/cream color. The two look really nice together. But onto the main reason for this post.... Furniture and accessories... here goes nothing:





We are toying with the idea of putting a ceiling fan in his room. If we do, this is the one we would get. It's from Lowes and is the dirt cheap price of $24. The only thing we would have to worry about is someone to install it. If we don't go that route we'll probably get a floor lamp.

If we do get one this will probably be the one that we'll get. It looks much more fun in person. I also didn't notice it had pink in it, so either I was too distracted at the store or the pink looks red, in person. But what can I say, it's a $19 lamp...

He already has this bed that we bought at Buy Buy Baby (awesome baby store). And I don't have a picture of the dresser that we got, but it's long and relatively short, which is good because I want to put a TV in his room too.

I want to get a little night stand for his bed, so he can put his books, or whatever, on it and store his secret things in the drawer. I searched for days and days and found this one at Amazon.com. The $60 price tag, in my opinion, was ridiculous for a night stand. I just couldn't bring myself to pay it, but I really liked it. By chance I happened to look at Walmart.com to see what I could find and I found the exact same table for $33.54. Score!

The only problem with that table is that it's 22" tall and I'm not sure if it will look right next to his toddler bed. I figure if it's too tall I'll just use it to hold the chalk and eraser for his chalk board. Then when he gets older and into a twin size bed we'll use it as a night stand then. If that is the case, we'll be getting this night stand I saw at Ikea.

Either way, we're getting a little lamp for on top of the table. I saw this lamp at Ikea that would be a nice "reading at night" lamp. The best part of this lamp is the easy way to turn it on and off. You see the white dot on the bottom of the lamp? It's silicone and all you have to do is push it down to turn it on and again to turn it off. Totally toddler safe. I love it.

For the windows I want to get Navy colored curtains. I found these at JCPenney... they are a bit pricey, but they are also thick and have some special thing on the back to help keep out the cold and heat, so I guess if I want to spend the money it would be money well spent. Plus when we move this is actually something that can come with us.

For a toy box we are moving the one we have in the living room, upstairs. Since it has a bookshelf on top that saves us from having to buy a separate bookshelf, until he gets older.

I think that's it. Hopefully it'll all fit... Haha.

The last installment of this little project will be coming soon. It's entitled "What should I put on the walls?" I already have some ideas, so make sure you come back and check them out.

Transformation of a Bedroom - Part 1 - Planning

We have lived in our current residence for 5 years, this month, and there's tons of things I would love to do to the house to make it more homey. Unfortunately, we only rent, so I feel like anything we do to the house will be throwing money away, because we won't be able to get any money back from our investment.

That being said, we still feel the need to fix things up and change things to make a house, a home. But instead of investing hundreds of dollars on remodeling, we try to do it as cheap as possible. So comes the next series of blog postings... We are going to re-do Elijah's bedroom.

This is what it looks like now. White walls, gold(?) shag carpet, empty walls... for the most part, a few necessities and that's it.

Before now, a nice bedroom wasn't needed because he only slept in the room. I mean, who needs decorations and a nice color pallet to sleep? But since he's getting older (he's just about 2 and a half) and can go up and down the steps as he pleases, Joe thought having a nice bedroom for Elijah would be good.

After much discussion, friendly (and not so friendly) debates and looking at Home Depot, Lowes and pictures online, we decided on the following things:


We are painting this room in Behr Disney color "Blue Balloon",

or something close to it, and doing white trim.

We are installing a chair rail along the one wall where his bed is now and painting below it with chalk board paint. Kind of like this picture, but upside down.

We are also planning on re-carpeting. When we remodeled (if you want to call it that) our bedroom we got a really good deal at Lowes for carpet that was only like $1.50 a square foot, with installation and a free padding upgrade. We ended up getting our whole master bedroom (20x17) and closets carpeted for about $500... with carpeting left over. We plan on trying to get the same deal with Elijah's carpeting.

Even though they did a wonderful job installing it, we decided since his room is square, that we would buy the padding and carpeting and do it ourselves... to save a bit of dough. The carpet is probably going to be a light beige color, but I'm not sure. Right now, money is more important than color... to a point. If it's not exactly light beige, I could deal, as long as it looks good with the walls.

Of course things could change, cause this -is- just the planning portion. I will update as things go along. Also, make sure to stay tuned for the next installment: Furniture and Accessories.