Graham's Nursery

Well that took longer than anticipated!  Graham just turned four months old a few days ago and I just completed decorating his nursery.  I had fully planned to bring Graham home to a beautiful completed nursery, but little did I know he was going to come early.  At least that's the excuse I'm going to use; little is it known that I am the most indesisive person when it comes to decorating a room.  It takes me FOR-EH-VER (said in Sandlot tone) to decorate a room.  I have this problem known as "perfection," it's a good and bad problem to have.  I'm just happy that after twelve months of decorating his nursery I can finally call it PERFECT!

When I found out I was pregnant I knew I didn't want to have a theme to my babies nursery.  I wanted everything about his nursery to be a piece of both me and Trevor.

Graham's nursery is now Remington's new favorite place to be.  He loves that little boy more than anything in the world.

I love that this picture has elements of both Trevor and I.  The sporting equipment is an element that Trevor wanted in his nursery, they are all sports that Trevor has played and loved.  Then hanging on the wall above his crib is the lyrics to the Lynyrd Skynyrd song Simple Man which is one of my favorite songs and only appropriate for my son. 

I love the shelves that we created to house all his knick-knacks and all of my (or should I now say his) Dr. Suess books. I found the idea here. 

I love how Graham's nursery turned out, the final piece to complete his nursery was the framed picture of one of our maternity pictures. 

Kitchen Chronicles: The Begining

With six weeks until we host Thanksgiving at our house I should be creating a menu, shopping for centerpieces, and starting to invite friends and family. That is the rational Amanda talking; instead we have decided to tear apart our kitchen for a kitchen "facelift."

Since moving into our 1991 house a year and a half ago, we always knew that we were going to remodel our kitchen.  It will probably be another 10 years or so before we take on the full remodel, so we planned to give the kitchen a facelift until then.  I have been putting this job off for a while now due to the size of our kitchen and what I want to do.  The problem lies within painting all 28 oak cabinets, inside and out!  Doesn't that sound like fun?!?!? So this weekend we made the first move...sanding!

 

Which then turned into priming last night. Well one side at least.

 

 

Since this is the beginning of my Kitchen Chronicles a picture to reminisce over. Oh terra cotta floors, how I DON"T miss you!

 

 

On to more priming tonight...

 

 

 

 

 

Not made in Sweden

I feel so grown up, I no longer own any furniture from Ikea!  The last piece of furniture that I was working on replacing was our media cabinet.  While on the hunt for a replacement I had to fall in love with Pottery Barn's Andover Media Cabinet, but at $1200 it was a little unrealistic to me.  I began to search Craigslist for a new media cabinet but come to find out, most of those are from Ikea as well, or the dimensions wouldn't fit under our TV.  So I started to look for ones that I could refurbish, that was until Trevor decided we were going to build one!  I ended up finding on Ana White's website building instructions for the exact same Pottery Barn media cabinet I wanted (project instructions here). SCORE! 

I did not take many pictures through the work stages of the project, but here is the completed garage phase of our new media cabinet.  Archie decided to photobomb the picture.

Apparently my fur kids want to be seen! And I need to learn not to take pictures at night with my iPhone! I am so excited to no longer own any particle board, falling apart, cheap furniture! So long Ikea!

Be Our Guest

How long does it take one to post pictures of their new house? After moving into our new home back in February I'm just now taking the time to put pictures and floor plans up.

Welcome to our new home...

Living Room, looking to the Foyer

Living Room, looking to the Patio

Family Room

From the Family Room looking into the Kitchen and Breakfast Nook. So Glad the Terra-cotta floors are gone!

Kitchen.  Next big project after the upcoming built-ins is to refinish the cabinets.

Laundry Room

Dinning Room

Bedroom #1 - Office

Bedroom #2 - Guest Room

Hall Bath

Master Bedroom

Master Bath

Look at that glorious shoe storage!!!

Exercise Room

Backyard and Deck, perfect site for a future Hot Tub!

Looking at all these pictures now it makes me want to work on a project...off to finish my kitchen table!

Moving On...

On December 10, 2007, freshly married and ready to start our new life together as husband and wife, we moved into our first home! "How long do you picture us living here?" Five to Seven years is what we said.  On December 10, 2012 we had our house appraised and ready to sell!

The things we wanted in our first home were the things you can't buy at Home Depot; we wanted mature trees, a good sized yard, and location location location, the rest can be bought.  We went into our house hunt knowing and even wanting to do the work ourselves.

Our hearts and souls went into this 1200 square foot place we called home!

THE KITCHEN

 Got to love 1980's oak cabinets right?  Wrong! In the kitchen all the appliances got replaced with new stainless steel.  The cabinets got a much needed overhaul.  The fluorescent lighting fixture came down and new track lighting went up and a granite composite sink went in.

THE DINING ROOM

Not Much happened in the dining room, a new light fixture went up and it got painted

THE LIVING ROOM 

Throughout the house all the mini blinds got taken down and replaced with plantation blinds.  In the living room built in bookshelves were added (so sad to leave them {tear}). The front door as well as back door were replaced. The fireplace wall was painted to accent it and accent blocks were painted behind the TV to distract from the large wall which the TV hung on.

HALL BATHROOM

Throughout the house all the fixtures, door knobs, faucets, etc were replaced to brushed nickel.  This bathroom got a new rain shower head and new low flow toilet.  The oak cabinetry once again had to go!  The builder grade mirror was replaced and the fluorescent lighting drop box was taken out as well. Those lovely yellow countertops are actually still there!  No it's not a camera trick, it's a painting trick!  If you paint the walls a few tones darker than the unwanted counter top color, it will disguise them and not make them stand out as much.

GUEST BEDROOM

Got to love my wonderful picture taking abilities of a corner!  In all three bedrooms the carpet was replaced. A new coat of paint was also much needed.

OFFICE

All the bedrooms got new ceiling fans.  As much as I would love to have chandeliers or pretty light fixtures in the bedrooms, I live in Texas, ceiling fans are a must!  The office also go a new coat of paint.

MASTER BEDROOM

It's that same empty bedroom corner shot again! New paint in this room as well.

MASTER BATHROOM

In the Master bathroom we repainted the cabinets.  All the fixtures were replaced in here as well.  The fluorescent light box was also taken out of this bathroom as well.  The mirror was also replaced with a score-of-a-deal from Habitat for Humanity ($10). The broken shower door was removed and never replaced (oops).  We also painted the shower to match the rest of the bathroom. 

THE DECK/YARD

Welcome to the Jungle, we've got fun and games! Upon moving into the house the backyard had not been mowed in some time.  The deck was the first project that we took on in the new house, that little 5x5 slab of concrete just wasn't going to cut it for us. So a 700 sq. ft deck was constructed!  The two level deck comes complete with built in fire pit! We also added a vegetable garden in the backyard as well.

THE GARAGE

It's not a fixer upper unless there's wood paneling!! In the garage we took down the wood paneling and put up new drywall and built a work bench.  The floors also got epoxied as well. Oh and I can't forget having to replace the AC the first summer we lived there!

I couldn't have asked for a better first home! I look forward to our next adventure... 

Much Love,

Amanda