Caroline's Big Girl Room, Part One

So it's no secret that life as we know it is in complete disarray right now.  But the stress of it all is lowering by the day as my projects and nesting stage are coming to an end.  Today I want to show you all about Caroline's big girl room in progress.

Our house started out with an unattached dining room in which we never dined.  Over the years we turned the room into a playroom.  That was nice having a place to "send" the kids, but let's face it -- I was never disciplined enough to enforce the kids' keeping it straight, and you could see into the room as soon as you entered my front door.  So every time someone came over, I imagined the following dialog in my guests' heads:

"Oh, hi Emily.  I'm glad to be here.  Wow, your kids have some major crap on display here in this room."

Then came our little bundle of surprise and we needed another bedroom in this quaint little house of ours.  Hmm...how about reassigning this random front room once again?

Before:

The room has probably a 10' ceiling with a gorgeous light fixture.  By the way, I took my "before" pictures after all of the toys were cleared out.  I wanted to spare you the shock and awe of the experience.

From the entryway of the room, on the left-hand wall was a little lighted alcove which had (not pictured) glass display shelves.  On the other side of that wall below is a linen closet in my hallway.  These spaces will eventually be combined for a closet. 

Below: another view of the room from the little alcove.

Below: a view of the large window in the room.  This shot was taken after the wall was knocked down.

The room never had doors; rather it had a double wide, cased opening.  The first order of business when constructing a bedroom is to have a real door.  So here are some shots from the outside looking in and the inside looking out:

Next up, sweet C needs a closet.  Lucky girl may have ended up with quite a large closet, too, because we discovered we could go underneath that staircase pictured above.  See for yourself:

During the process, we also laid new carpet throughout the house.  Can you see now why I describe the past week or two as complete disarray?  But I am so glad we did this!  We chose a dark tan frieze (shag) that I absolutely love!

You can also see that the chair rail was removed and the walls were painted Benjamin Moore Wheeling Neutral -- my neutral color throughout my house.  It is a warm, light tan and it goes with almost any color scheme for your decor.

Now, about that dining room light...it was replaced by a ceiling fan which my brother-in-law Jason helped Bobby hang.

Finally the construction phase of the room was finished off by setting up her closet system, which we did on Sunday night. 

My dad had this gorgeous brass / iron bed in storage and a great, barely used mattress set, so he generously gave them to Caroline.  As of writing this post, she has already slept her first night in her new room and did great!  A special thanks to Papa Joe!

Now comes the fun part--decorating.  I'll give you a very small sneak peek of the bedding we chose, but I am far from ready to do a room reveal yet.

I found this sweet, Shabby Chic quilt at Target and I am pulling several different pieces together to mix and match the look.  Hopefully we will feel "finished" with her room soon and I'll do a total reveal.  But for now the room is livable which means the nursery is free to be readied for its third resident!  I just can't believe how much our family has evolved over the years.  But I am blessed beyond words and I wouldn't change a thing.

Mayhem, Madness, and Morris Baby #3...

So I may have mentioned a few times that Morris Baby #3 is on his way.  Like soon.  As in 6 weeks or less.  Needless to say, this momma of two (soon to be three) is starting to stress out.  It has been complete mayhem at Morris Manor lately.

For starters, we are tightly packed into a three-bedroom house.  We looked at moving, but we really want to stay in this area/school district, and there is really nothing that completely suits our needs right now.  We live a modest life; the only houses available in our area are either new construction in aggressively over-priced developments or older houses that offer nothing more than a new address.  So we took that as a sign that it's not the right time to move.  Hmm...what to do? 

We are about to start a reconstruction project on our house.  Watch the blog for some before-and-after shots soon, but in a nutshell I can tell you that our house came with a dining room randomly placed off the foyer and connected to nothing else.  Over the years we set it up for dining and used it 2x a year, maximum.  Then it evolved into a playroom that rarely, if ever, had room to walk around.  The kids are like tornadoes in there, I swear!  Did I mention it's in the foyer?  So every time someone visits, that Little Tykes / Fisher Price warehouse is the first thing seen.  Now we have decided to close it in and turn it into Caroline's bedroom, freeing her current bedroom / nursery up for Baby Will. 

As if that's not enough, we have decided that in order to keep our house market-current for the future when we do decide to sell, we need to replace our carpets in the bedrooms.  I met with a woman who measured and priced the job.  I am satisfied after shopping the big-box stores and another carpet warehouse that she'll offer the best price.  But she started going over a checklist of what to do before the installers come.  Have you ever replaced carpet in an established home?  You practically have to move out!  Let's not forget that I'm eight months pregnant, so I only have so much energy and strength left.  Yet I'm pretty Type-A when it comes to projects like this.  So now I'm morphing into the girl standing around bossing everyone else.

You would think that a sheet rocking/framing job and new carpet are enough to keep us busy; not so fast.  My dear, sweet husband (who cannot say "no" to anyone but me) has just been asked to help coach a little-league football team.  Practice starts Monday.  I'm leaving on Sunday to go out of town with my mom for three nights to help her work a book conference.  And construction starts Tuesday.  Fun times!  Stress free, for sure (yeah, right!)

Did I mention that with my first pregnancy I had severe hypertension and toxemia?  I am always worried my blood pressure will start shooting up.  I was okay while pregnant with Caroline, but I have enough tension in my veins right now to climb out of my skin!

For those of you reading (and you know who you are) close enough to help, please feel free to JSU -- just show up.  Over the course of the next 6 weeks there will always be something around here to be done. 

Buckle up, peeps...we're in for a bumpy landing!

My Painted House

Bobby and I have been in our house for 6 1/2 years.  For obvious reasons, our descriptin of this house has evolved from sprawling estate to cozy cramped family home. 

We have done various updates over the years trying to remain current with market trends and home styles.  The house itself is probably about 16+ years old and the exterior is a combination of masonite siding, stone, and dryvit.  One thing that I am now certain has never happened is having the paint and trim work updated.  Well, guess what:  we're doing it!  I'm so excited!

Here is a slide show of before shots and why this was such a necessary endeavor:

The front of my house "before".  I would best describe my color as greige, but something tells me it is a very sun-faded version of its original color.

Then, again, on the side of the house it looks less "greige" and more "beige".  The sun has a funny way of changing paint color over the years.

Notice the rotting trim work on the bottom left of the window...

My masonite siding is showing signs of water and weather damage.  Yuck!

I love my covered back patio.  It is the location of many documented events and gatherings.  But my back doors are an eyesore!

Well, enter the painters.  The first thing they did was update caulking and start on all the trim work.  I just have to share this picture below.  After the slope of our driveway, this guy must be over 2 stories up, and he's acting like it's nothing:

Compare this above to the picture of my darling hubby below back in November 2011.  He hates, hates, hates hanging our Christmas lights.  Each year when he gets to this apex he shakes, curses, and wishes he had a much bigger life insurance policy!  

Oh, if you only knew what it took behind the scenes to get Bobby on this ladder! Ha!

Okay, so back to the painting.  Picking a paint color may just be harder than picking baby names, but we decided on a mushroomy color.  It's ever so slightly darker than in the picture below.  It dries a tone darker.  But I can tell already I'm going to love it!

I cannot wait to see and then show all of you the finished project!  It won't be long, now!

Deck The Halls

Hi there!  Do you love getting to peek into others' homes and "Ooh" and "Ahh" over their holiday decor ideas?  Me too!  So here's my Christmas present to you: a peek into my home...

This year I put up three trees: our family tree in the living room and a tree in each of the kids' rooms.  Here are the details of my main tree.  (By the way, yes, I know the star is crooked.  I can't seem to make it stand up straight!)

The main tree is a combination of "pretty" ornaments and sentimental ones.  The tree itself is artificial, pre-lit, although I love a lot of lights, so I have added three more strands.  It is an eight-year old tree (purchased with wedding-present gift cards the first Christmas of Bobby's and my marriage).

A couple of firsts: first "family" ornament from '06 and first Christmas from '03

If you look at the above first family ornaments we were depicted by snowmen. I didn't realize it until just now that we are snowmen again when adding a 4th Morris to our family ornament!

I love this ornament -- a nod to our dear Houma, LA friends the 1st year we went to Mardi Gras down there.  This was also the 1st time Rob flew in an airplane.

Roll Tide!  Santa Claus put this ornament in Bobby's stocking in '09.  Little did we know that we would also be celebrating National Championship #13 this same football season!

Rob's tree also features a crooked star.  Perhaps I should just go with it and claim it's my style.  Ha!

I need to get a tree skirt for Rob's tree. There are so many cute ones on blogs and Pinterest these days, but I really am trying to keep Rob's tree as masculine as possible. Suggestions?

On Rob's tree there are plenty of sentimentals tucked in like this sweet ornament!

The hand print on the left is marked on the back -- 9 weeks old.  The footprint on the right is marked 14 months old.  Each has a partner/coordinating hand print/footprint that are on my main tree.

The football player is supposed to play "Yea Alabama" the fight song, but it needs new batteries.  The li'l doggie head is a Boston Terrier.  We had Zoe for 7 years, but she was adopted by a girl in Atlanta now.  Rob still misses her.

On the left is a wooden ornament that my dad made for me 30+ years ago. (Don't ask me why he painted blue PJs on his daughter...) When Rob was a baby, I saw this wooden ornament at a Craft bazaar and bought it for him, knowing it was so similar to my childhood one.

In Caroline's room, she has a pink tree that my dearest friend Amber bought for her when she was born.  Instead of a crooked star, I made a bow for the top of her tree.

She, too, had her hand- and footprint made as a baby.  These above were made when she was 12 weeks old.  She just recently had them made again, but they are not ready to hang yet, so I kept this set together on her tree.

Again I have used some of my childhood ornaments the kids' trees.  This one above likely has a story behind it, but I can't remember it.



 Now I will give you the bonus part of your Holiday peek: more decor.

Our Christmas mantle.  If you look closely, you will see our Elf sitting up there. He likes to move around the house, but this is today's perch. 

I also have a new found love of nutcrackers.  In the picture above, I have some kind of dramatic ones on the mantle, as well as a cute Santa's workshop nutcracker.

Beside the tree, on an end table I have a nutcracker grouping.  Notice the Rock Star in the back.  Also the ballerina/princess.  She was from Caroline's Nutcracker Ballet 1st birthday party last year.

In a corner of my kitchen I have corner shelf unit full of nutcrackers.  If you look on the top shelf you will see...

...the one that Rob says is his favorite.  He's been hot for pirates for a while now and it doesn't seem to be cooling off.

A third and final grouping of nutcrackers is near a lamp on my buffett.  What an odd variety, right?  A soldier, a vampire, a police officer and an angel.

Since I have your attention in my kitchen, I just love this!  It's a little trivet / tile that Rob made in school last year.  I am a huge sucker for sentimental decorations.  I plan to keep collecting memories and I hope someday my tree is full of Popsicle ornaments, etc.

Well, that's it for now.  May God continue to bless you this Holiday season and throughout the year.

Merry Christmas!

Men Love Tools

I'm not sure how well I have documented, but we love entertaining during the fall.  On Saturdays, we have become the go-to house for our circle of friends.  I love that it can be as casual or fancy as we want it to be -- that that decision is usually based on the ferociousness of the opponent. By the way, is ferociousness a word?

Not the best picture of my porch...this is last year's Iron Bowl

We have a TV outside on our covered porch, and the TV has been moved from one rickety baker's rack to another.  Finally, Bobby decided he wanted something more permanent.  "I want to build something," he announced.  (Insert screeching tires sound here.)  Bobby doesn't...build things.  "Okay..." I cautiously reply.

If this isn't the look of deternination, I don't know what is!

Well, I am so proud of Handy Bobby when he came up with this finished product below...(Warning, all photos were taken with Bobby's iPhone as he sent me pictures of his work to prove he actually built it himself.)

There's a power saw...On.My.Porch!  This could get scary...

Bobby even went to Lowe's and purchased some lumber (above) and plywood (below).

He had been taking these pictures unbeknownst to me.  I was out of town.  It was at this point that he finally alerted me to his goings on and said via text message "Oh, you're gonna blog about this."  Yep, Bobby, I am!

So at this point, once I knew what was going on, I started barking orders making requests.  Perhaps this is why he did not first tell me what he was doing.  I simply asked that he make it functional.  I didn't just want a pile of scrap lumber on my porch forever.

I have storage shelves!

He put a beautiful couple of coats of stain on it.  Also if you look closely, there are casters on the bottom!

...and Ta-Da!  His finished product is actually very sturdy and nice looking!  There is hidden storage in the back, and it is on wheels / casters for easy mobility. 

It's a little big, but I am very proud of Bobby for building (and finishing) it!  I am thinking of painting something on the front...maybe stenciling our family monogram?  Suggestions?

It's going to be a great football season!  Roll Tide!