Well, hello there. I'm just popping in to post updated pictures of what our house looks like now and to share a bit about what's been going on in our lives during the past year and 8 months of my blogging absence (where does the time go?!). So...last summer I finally got around to making some changes to our home that I had been putting off for quite some time. I put them off for so long because I simply didn't have time. The transition to raising two children was bit more difficult that I had anticipated, and all the free time I had when there was just one got sucked up by the other. I've heard someone say that one child is fun, but two children are work. I found this to be absolutely true, and it took me a whole year to get used to it.
Around the same time I finally figured out how to (at least somewhat) juggle two kids, I also decided to begin the process of applying to Occupational Therapy programs. I knew that once my 13 hour semester of prerequisites began in August, there would be no time for making tweaks to my home for quite a while, like, possibly three and a half years , and I got the extreme urge to get my house together! I'm happy to say that all the GRE prep, shadowing, application essay writing, and coursework were worth it as I will be starting at East Carolina University in August! So here I am, almost a year after I finished our house, with a little bit of free time before life gets super crazy again, so I figured I'd share.
Beginning in June of last year I painted, I sewed slipcovers for my couches (never again!), and generally got our home looking fairly finished. No more rooms or hallways full of junk just waiting to be used! And of course I did it all on a really small budget. No new furniture or knocking down walls, just updated paint, fabric, and some things we already owned being moved to new places.
I made the roll-up chalkboard in the first photo last August. It filled the last space of wall in our living room area and I'm really happy with the results. Restoration Hardware sells roll-up chalkboards for $$$$$ and I've seen some on Etsy for $$$, but mine only cost $17 to make. It's 2 feet by 3 feet, so it's a pretty good size. I bought chalkboard vinyl and wooden dowels from Jo-Ann fabric and finished the project in about 30 minutes. Also, I have a new respect for chalkboard artists. Clearly, I am not one. Pretty writing and getting everything centered is way harder than it looks.
In our living room, well, really our whole down stairs, I painted the walls Moonlight White by Benjamin Moore. Everyone that walked into our house after I painted said that it felt so much bigger. Thank goodness because our living area is pretty tiny.
I made slipcovers for our couches out of canvas drop cloth because Pinterest told me I could. Honestly, I was just so tired of all the goldish-yellow going on in our living room that I was willing to try any "easy" and cheap solution to cover it up. They are far from perfect. I made the part of the cover that goes over the back and arms of the couches and a friend of mine who actually knows what she's doing with a sewing machine, made the cushion covers. Drop cloth canvas is not a good long-term fix because the fabric gets pills all over it, but for now, it will do. Our couches have really good bones, so maybe one day we can have them professionally reupholstered.
The curtains were moved from the guest room. They're just a pair of Ikea curtains with stripes sewn on them.
I sold our old dining furniture on Craigslist and used the money to buy our pedestal table (only $30 also on Craigslist) and white chairs. I know I said that we didn't get any new furniture...I lied. I bought the two metal chairs from Restoration Hardware (fancy!). They were the cheapest version of that chair I could find at $89 each.
Moving on to the upstairs....this is my first born's big boy room. That duvet cover was only $17 at Target (ages ago) and I got two of them for when the boys are ready to sleep in the same room. His little table is the $19 Lack coffee from Ikea and the chair is from PB Kids.
The nursery hasn't changed, except that it's in a different room with stripes on the wall. I had originally intended the stripes for the big boy room, but the big storage unit looked terrible against them. I was not about to paint over all of my hard work, so I just switched up the furniture. That's one of the great things about having two boys....I was able to stick to one color scheme for both of their rooms so all of their things can be used interchangeably. When it's time to put them in a room together, there will only be a bit of rearranging to do. I won't have to totally overhaul a space.
Not too much has changed in our bedroom. I got a new slipcover for our Ikea chair that we found on Craislist and I finally put some pictures in the frames on the wall.
Here's my little work area that's also in our bedroom. I practically spent every minute of naptime and the time between when the kids went to bed and I went to bed doing school work here last fall. I'm pretty sure I will be spending just as much, if not more, time here during the next two and a half years of OT school. I'm really excited to get started and see what's ahead for our family. And just because, here's a picture of what my boys look like now:
Thanks for checking in!
