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!

We Shall Dine In Yellow and Green and Black and White...An Update

I blinked and the weekend was over.  Just.like.that.  No plans, no where to be, just a weekend home with my family and working on my "new" dining room.

The room is certainly getting there, but the most time consuming piece thus far has been painting our table and chairs and constructing (and installing) the custom window treatment.

It's certainly not for everyone (Hubs is even still on the fence and he trusts my decorating, this isn't the first time I've done this ya know), but I am loving it.  I love bright and bold colors.  But this is by far the boldest I have been in my 33 years.  Hubs called it bold when he saw it for the first time and so I will continue to refer to it as such in honor of him. :)

I was so, so, so very tempted to take a vacation day today so that I could keep going, but I didn't.

The goal for this week is to get the second coat of poly on the top of the table, poly the rest of the table and paint and poly the chairs.  Between working, momming, wifing, working out, I think that is enough for 5 days.

I'm having the fam over for Good Friday, so the goal is to have it done by then.  Two weeks is plenty of time right?

Here's a sneaky peek:

And because, well why not.  She'll brighten anyone's Monday.

Hope you all had a nice weekend!

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!

We Shall Dine In Color

I have a renovation problem.  Like whoa.

In my next life, in fact, I will be a interior designer.

I hate my dining room.  We never use it.  It's a total waste of space, but I know that in some point in time (in my head anyway) we as a family will sit down for dinner together other than 1 or 2 days a week and we will need that room.

And even if we don't, this room needs my attention badly.

I thought the kitchen/laundry would be next, but let's just say the Hubs and I are not on the same page with a few hundred things, so we'll pause on that project for a moment while I work on getting my way (it's just the cabinet situation - everything else is cool - the granite, the new sink, the tile, the paint - just not the cabinets, which need to be white - they just won't work how they are now - they are dated and if we leave them the same there is no point in doing anything to that room until he is ready to modify the cabinets).  I'm not a control freak (pinky promise).  I just know what I want when it comes to design.  I love my Husband dearly, but he should really leave these decisions up to me.  After all this time and all the things I've done, he's never not loved the finished product.  I value his opinion, yes, of course, just not when I don't agree.  And there you have it.  Our perfect little marriage.

I'm loving the greens, yellows and black and whites right now and was really inspired by the decor in the spa I went to over the weekend.  I love color, always have and I'm not afraid to use it in my house.  I have some ideas rolling around in my head.

I'm way excited.  I came across some amazing furniture that will a little TLC will be perfect for this space. In fact, our next two weekends are relatively free, so I'm going to get started this weekend.

Likely will not use both in the dining room, but see potential for the black metal framed bookshelf in our family room.

I'll do before and afters.

Happy Decorating!

Big Girl Room Update

If you've been keeping tabs on me, you would know that I'm currently working on the "work in progress" big girl bedroom for Mia.

I knew one thing and that was that it was going to involve owls.  I have so many ideas going through my head and Pinterest is making it worse helping.

She got her bed just before Christmas and along with it came her new quilt set and shams.

Target, how I love thee, has frustrated the bageezus out of me with their Circo Love n' Nature bedding collection.  The sheet set, in a full, has been out of stock for almost two months.  Supa dupa annoying.  I've checked every Target in our area, multiple times.

I would like to announce that in checking their website today, I found that one location in my old hood had some IN STOCK!  I never in a million years thought I would stalk Target stores over bedding, but the time has come my friends. They have one on hold for me.  Pray for me will ya?  I mean this is major, world problem type stuff.

Here's What I Still Have Left To Do:
1. Find and purchase perfect bedskirt, preferably a ruffled one, similar to this but preferably with more layers and in a color.

2. Purchase this pink boa canopy because I could make one but for $30 + coupon, not worth the hassle.

3. Hang white shelf (that has been painted since last spring, ahem Hubs...waiting on you homey.)

4. Come up with something crafty to do with her letters that will be removed from wall where canopy will go. I'm thinking of framing them and putting them on her shelf as mentioned in item #2.

5. Paint a tree on one of her walls for her owl/animal decals that she got for Christmas that match her bedding and are all too cute and perfect.

6. Paint furniture (likely a spring project, but time will tell.).  We came across some great antique-ish pieces: a night stand and armoire courtesy of a great find from my residential real estate agent cousin!

7. Project chandelier.  I have a vision.  I just can't wait to see it come together.  Just need to find the perfect one that I can add my special touches to.  I'm going to start with a brass fixture because I absolutely refuse to spend what stores are asking for for white chandeliers.  Nutso.

8. Make a door wreath.  Oh Pinterest and your inspiring craftiness.  Check and check.

Have I mentioned how much I love decorating and how much I love decorating for a little girl?

No?  Well, I do.  A lot!!!