before and after

We have finally gotten to the end of the unpacking in one room and it's my 5 year old son's room. He has more toys than a toy store (no joke) and it took a lot of planning, throwing away, and organizing to get it all to fit but we did it. (the closet is housing about half of the toys)

We also had quite a bit of painting to do. My son wanted this monster's theme and so we painted to match it and I am quite pleased so far. The funny thing is that most of his old room decor and keepsakes all matched it perfectly. I must have a thing for these colors. Oh, and we got the comforter set at Target.

Here is a before picture of his room when the previous owners lived in this house. It's a little dark for me.

And here is what it looked like 10 minutes ago (and I hope it looks like this in the next 10 minutes).

My husband might not admit it but he wasn't sure about the stripes but I just knew it would be great and it is. It matches the bottom side of the comforter. Never mind all the junk on the dresser (now I made you look at his dresser).

I still need to add a shelf, put up wall lights, buy a bed skirt (thinking navy blue), and add the window treatment. I am making a cornice for his windows and need to figure out what color fabric I should go with. I was originally thinking navy blue or red but I am just not too sure now. If I had left over sheeting from his bed I would use it but I don't. Any suggestions?

For now I am happy to have so much done and ready to move on to the next room.

out from under the boxes

We are officially moved in and loving our new home. I don't have any pictures for you yet because I have been busy painting, unpacking, and decorating my heart out. Unfortunately, there is still so much more to do and unpack. We had movers pack us up and move all our stuff in our last move and it was soooo nice. You don't realize how much crap you have until you have to pack, move, and unpack it. Why did I keep all this junk??

I am going through my boxes and creating a don't want box along with a don't want right now. When it's all unpacked I will look through these boxes and decide what stays. It's really the only way I can get through all these boxes.

I am also have a decorating dilemma. I need window treatment for a huge (over 10ft long) window. It needs a valance of some sort but I haven't been able to find anything that will work yet. I might be taking a trip to the fabric store to see what I can come up with. I have a couple of other windows that also need something custom made or them so I guess I will just have to work my magic. (wish me luck, I'll need it)

Well, I better get back to unpacking.

scratch that

We are down to two weeks until we close on our new home and I am worried about bedding. I know crazy, right? The thing is that there is not a wall in that house without paint on it or wall paper borders and so we have to repaint it all. And how can I repaint the bedrooms if I have no bedding for the wee ones, right? See, I'm not completely crazy. Only a little crazy.

We are still in love with the baby's bedding and plan on painting her walls a light pink and replacing the wood baseboards with white baseboards, we'll add a chandelier, and some other small details and wa-la...all done (for now). She has a large room so we might be painting my son's current twin bed frame and putting it in her room with the matching bedding. He's getting a full size bed.

Here is the current state of the baby's room. (scary)

But it will soon look something like this. Oh, and the bedding is from Target.
Now my son has changed his mind about his room (and will probably change it again 100 more times). He has decided on this cute Monster set. We saw it in Target the other day while shopping and he had to have it (probably cause of the monster beanie that sits up on the bed).

Now I have to figure out what color(s) to paint his room. I was thinking horizontal stripes (like on the underside of the comforter) would be cool but I just don't know if that will be too busy. I think I need to bring the bedding to the paint store and get some samples.

For the living room I have fallen in love with this room from HGTV's Rate my Space website (it's like crack for me). So we will go with this color. It's Behr's Dried Thyme.

I just love the natural colors and the bamboo curtains. LOVE IT!!!

And for our bedroom? Who knows. I have spent so much time working on all the other rooms that I have neglected the bathrooms, my craft room (can be done later), and most importantly...the master suite.

While searching again on Rate My Space, I came across this room and I love the layout and colors. I think the brown walls might be a tad dark for me but I like the layout, the photos on the wall, chandelier, and crown molding above the windows.

Will my room ever look like this? Probably not. Here is the current state of our master suite. Please keep in mind that the before pics are all from the previous owner.

If you think that is bad, you should see the bathrooms. We have our work cut out for us.

my lame attempt

After months and months of searching for a rental home without any luck we went ahead and just bought a home. It's really a nice home and almost exactly what we wanted in a home which is hard to find in these smaller towns. And we're moving in less than a month. Luckily it's only 30 minutes away so it shouldn't be too hard of a move.

Maybe it's nesting or just finally owning a home again after living in this nonfunctional rental but I am ready to paint and decorate. My son will be getting a new bed and furniture, the baby will need bedding and all the fun stuff and so on. I will basically start all over in almost every room but it'll take time.

Here is my lame attempt at a collage of all the fun stuff to go in my son's room. I still need a dresser and some kind of toy storage but will probably handle that one once we are moved in.

He chose race cars since he is a Hotwheels junkie. I decided to paint the room the light blue on the bottom of the picture and paint the race track (made with chalkboard paint, of course) in the middle of the wall. The bedding is from Target and so is the locker nightstand. We already have the transportation rug from Ikea located on the top right corner of the photo. I plan to add some orange seating cubes or something fun like that later as well. Oh, and I have big plans for the curtains. They will be made into fabric cornices. Can you see the hamsters running in my brain?

As for our daughter's room (baby to be)... This is all I got so far and I may still change my mind. I have some time before she arrives so I can work on her room once we are moved in.

Decorating and all the planning is so much fun for me. I wish I had a money tree to fund all my great ideas.