Operation: Cleanse and Paint (Nursery Sneak Included)

Seriously.  Nesting is in full swing yo.

Saturday I managed to fill 5 trash bags and one box, all items that will be donated to Goodwill.  Haven't used it in the past 2 years, we don't need it, so it's leaving my house.  Cleaned out the guest bedroom and hall closet and organized all of my crafting things that were suffocating the office.  The Hubs is losing his office space temporarily to make room for the nursery, so it's been Operation: Cleanse for a while.

I didn't nest with Mia.  I didn't have a house to nest in, so I'm making up for it with this one.  Kinding.  Well, not really.  Just ask the Husband.  "Melissa, I'm telling you, you are overdoing it." "Sit down."  "You're going to end up on bed rest if you're not careful."  "Go take a nap."  This was him all day yesterday while I cleaned out the laundry room, cleaned the kitchen and the bathrooms and did laundry while he watched football.  Some days I question if he truly believes these things just miraculously happen or if he's just not concerned with them getting done.  Such a question. But I wouldn't trade him for the world and he deserves a day off a week, so I don't argue that fact, but the likelihood of me sitting there all day with him is highly unlikely.  I need to work on it though because it certainly wouldn't kill me to chill the eff out sometimes.

Annnnnnnnnnnnyyyywhooo....

Saturday is officially game time.

I have a painting day planned.  My cousin, sisters and Mom & Dad are coming over to paint and help me with whatnots for the nursery.  Mark's taking Mia to dance and then they are having a Daddy/Daughter day so I can have the house to myself.

See, I have this problem.  I always have a list of projects that I want to do.  That's just my nature, not my problem.  But when I get started?  That's my problem.  I go until it's done.  I don't like things to linger.  If I start it, I need to finish it.  I would like to thank my Dad for that trait.

Want a sneaky peek of the nursery...

Well here you go...

Bedding - Land of Nod

Wall color inspiration

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Wall art inspiration

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Who better than to make my wall art inspiration come to life than the lovely Kristen of Little Laws Prints.  She's so great I can't even find the words.  But you'll have to wait on the finished product.  AND she's the only one besides me and the Hubs that knows the baby's name.

The rest you'll have to wait for.

Hope you all had a good weekend!  Talk to you soon!

Design Inspiration - My Kitchen

So I'm working on my post for the Dining Room reveal and once I upload the pics from my camera I can finally post it.

In the meantime, let's move onto the next project and the one I am most excited about.  Mostly because I don't have to do the work.  I just get to pick out all the pretties.  We agreed to hire someone for this one.  Lots of time and I couldn't even begin to imagine how long it would take us to get done if we did all of it ourselves.

Our kitchen.  It's excited.  I can just tell.  She knows she's getting a face lift and she's pretty happy about it.

Three things will be happening in our kitchen:
1. Paint - walls and cabinets (white cabinets finally!)
2. Granite - can I get a Woot! Woot!
3. New flooring

Let's talk paint.  I want a gray.  A smokey gray or would it be grey?  Like these:

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Here's some of my fav visions via our friend Pinterest.  I've shared some of these before and yes I'm sharing them again.  If only my kitchen actual resembled the size and detail of some of these, but it helps.

Dark countertops with the white cabinets.

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Love the backsplash and floor (but we're not doing wood - that's crazy talk with a toddler and two dogs)

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I love the idea of the detail/wainscoting on the island.  We have one and discussed doing something similar. Oh and these dark floors make me smile.  No more light floors again until after children.  And the dogs?  Don't even get me started.

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I need this sink.  Our current sink is cracked so miraculously, a new sink is getting thrown into the mix now too.  Happy Dance!

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Do you watch Suburgatory?  If you don't, you should.  That is my dream kitchen.  If I had the nerve to be ballsy with a back splash like that.  Tried to find some pics, but couldn't find any. If this was our forever home...I'd do it in a heart beat...but it's not so somewhat simple/neutral it shall be.  And there is something about Jeremy Sisto.  Maybe it's my love for the movie Clueless.

Now the granite.  We want dark.  Like black dark, not brown dark.

Not a huge fan of this decor, but the granite is perfection.

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Now flooring.  We're definitely doing tile, but there are so many options and colors available.  Here's some tile colors and styles that I like.

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Hopefully we'll be shopping for granite very soon.  Can't wait.  So excited!

Happy Decorating!

Hope you're all having a great week!

And So It Begins

I wrote about this a few weeks ago and this weekend it is officially starting.

I love (big puffy pink hearts, unicorns and rainbows kind of love) to decorate!

Love, love, love, love, love...

We have one of those awesome, rare weekends where we have absolutely NOTHING planned.  Nada.

My Dining Room.  The room we never use.  The room that I dislike most.  It doesn't do anything for me.  No theme or pops of color.  Just a whole lotta nothin!'  As I've mentioned 804 times, I love color.  It makes me happy.  I love it in my home.

All this fun (and yes I think this is fun) begins Friday.  It will take me most of this weekend and likely another day or two to finish, but I would like to get mostly complete by the end of the weekend (or so I think).

When it comes to me and projects, once I start I work until I finish.  I try to never have more than one project going at a time.  I just don't have a whole lot of extra time to design and decorate, so I try to plan accordingly (i.e. no plan weekend).  Having multiple projects going only adds to my already lengthy to-do list in my everyday life and in our house project life.  I try to eliminate any additional pressures, whether self-induced or not.

Here's an idea of what I'm including:
black, white, pops of yellow and green
stripes
casual, comfortable and airy, less of a formal feel - we aren't the formal type

There is a decent amount of painting involved.  I'm painting our existing (and currently super ugly and dated) dining room table AND chairs.

I'll do a before and after post once I'm finished, but if you want to see more on my inspiration for this room, check out my board on Pinterest.

Oh and this has now officially been added to the house project list too.  We're thinking a good fall/winter project for this year!

via Pinterest via imaginedesignblog.com

In other news...The Hubs started ripping up our deck last night.  When we bought our house 2 and (almost) 1/2 years ago, it was only 8 years old.  The deck, well the floor boards of our deck, already rotted.  Nice, huh?  The positive, we weren't in love with it anyway, so we are going to be making it bigger.

Have I ever mentioned how much I love that fact that my Hubs is so handy?  Seriously I have yet to see him fail at fixing one thing.  Not to mention the amount of money it has saved us!

He's pretty awesome.

Plus I find a hard working, sweaty man super sexy :)

Happy Tuesday!

Thankful For...

My new header!  Yay!  I was ready for something new and different and was contemplating paying someone to do it for me, but I was pretty sure I could save the dinero and do it myself.  Thanks to one little thing that I couldn't do and a little help from my friend Lindsey, I shall present to you...my new header...

So what do you think?  Anything I should do to change or make it better?

Thanks for the input.

Much appreciated.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Much love,
M