Ears, chairs and wall

So this picture is here for multiple reasons:

1.  Brandon looks cute in bunny ears.  I love his fuzzy hair.

2.  Those are the wingback chairs I'm working on.  This picture was taken in June.  I'm shooting for having them done within a year of me buying them.  :)

3.  The wall in the background, behind the mirror, is just one of the things I've done in this room to un-man-cave it.  It was painted with a stencil, lots of patience and a little girl begging to help.  But again, I'll eventually have a post showing all the beautiful changes I made to this room.  One day.

Kitchen reno - J&K style

Our kitchen is finally renovated!

I had to look all the way back to March of 2008, but this is what our kitchen used to look like...
It had a small flower pattern wallpaper with darker flower border surrounding the door openings.

I think it took next to forever to get the wallpaper off, because we lived with parts of the kitchen stripped of wallpaper for longer than we care to admit.
In January 2010, we had my mom come over to watch the kids so me, Jim and his dad could paint the kitchen. When she showed up and saw the ET-like Haz-Mat action going on, her jaw dropped and she said, "I thought you said you were doing some minor renovations to the kitchen?" We were, it was just painting, but some drywall had to be repaired first, which meant sanding, which meant tenting off the whole kitchen and kitchenware so as not to spread the dust. Oh yeah, and since we were at it, Papa had some clear varnish left over so why not add a clear coat onto all the door facings to spruce them up. Simple stuff, you know?
The painting turned out well. I like the color and the walls are repaired from the wallpaper stripping action. The countertops, with the flower wallpaper, looked fine, but after we painted the lighter yellow on the walls, they started to have a pink/peach hue. Not good.
It only took a week or so for me to be convinced the countertops had to go, but sometimes life happens and you must wait for the right time. The middle of November 2010 was the right time. We had child care for a whole day, we had the countertops paid for and we had all the tools needed. Let's go.

The countertops had to be removed and extra wallpaper had to be replaced. (Please remind me of how much I hate wallpaper if I ever decide to put it up.)

The grandparents stopped by that evening for supper and brought the kids home. Did you know how tiring it is at Bamah's house? She can wear a person out!
The sink side still needed to be attached, so they stayed a little longer to help with kids and construction work. Nathan offered his services also.
Jim and I managed to get that side attached, with no pipes leaking, cleaned up in preparation for little people wandering around the next morning and eventually got to bed by 11pm. Wow! What a day!

We chose a granite-looking countertop, which went well with the hardware we already had.
Added a hint of glass tile above the back splash,
a new valance I sewed out of a tablecloth from Target,
some new lighting,
and a couple of cute kids as props.
And voila! Our kitchen is renovated and updated to represent this century! I am very pleased with it and love the changes.

Our finished bedroom

Ta Dah! The new and improved master bedroom!

Make sure you look at these old pictures because the difference is shocking!

The old bedroom

The new and improved bedroom decorating project, designed on a dime...
Biggest change = blue-ribbon blue paint was replaced by a silver-y blue. Can I say Love It enough? No, I cannot. The bed quilt has been around since when we got married, almost 10 years ago. Even before then I had this same quilt back in the college days. Only back then, it was a queen size.
I stopped by the same used furniture place that I bought the short cross-beamed bed frame, and bought two Cape Cod inspired night stands. They didn't match exactly, but after a nice, fresh, hi-gloss coat of white paint, they look almost identical. I had the baskets left over from the bathroom reno BK (before kids).
For some reason, I've had a strong desire to create a window-inspired structural piece above our headboard. These windows came from a house that was literally falling apart, located in the "back 40" of Jim's parent's land. We made a trip with the grandparents in Papa's red truck, trudged through the 12-year-old pine trees and undergrowth, overgrown bamboo and carefully entered the house with the collapsing roof. Jim and Papa carefully removed 6 windows: 3 with muntins, 3 without. Then it was my job to clean up these two and paint them. Love them! I even added a light behind it.
For the window treatments, I used the same sheers that we already had, just cut them in half (because they were being used as a swag pattern) and raised the curtain rod to create the appearance of higher windows/ceiling.

We ended up removing the two dark-wood dressers Jim brought to the marriage from his childhood and "the boys" inherited them. So we're down to 2 dressers, from 4. Yes, that was difficult, but there's more room now. :) Especially for the bassinet.
Ultimately, the only "purchases" were the paint and night stands. Some sewing, painting and rearranging later, it looks like we have a brand new bedroom. But most importantly, I love it. It is a relaxing place for me to rest and one I am extremely proud of.

Kind of like these two "posers". They insisted on being in the pictures also, and why not.

Bye-bye blue-ribbon blue

Listening to my mom's stories about painting about half of the interior of her house inspired me. No surprise there.

I've been wanting to repaint the blue in our bedroom. This blue was the color I was in love with after we returned from our two week trip to South Dakota and Wyoming. The skies out there are a different color blue, maybe the different longitude/altitude? They weren't this dark, but they were the inspiration.

BK (before kids), home improvements projects were happening right and left. It seems like there was hardly any time for us to actually enjoy each other's company before we started another major project. But we had the time and money to do it, so I'm thankful we did. Jim decided to let me decorate one room on my own. Anything I wanted, I could do. So I did, and we got blue-ribbon blue out of it.

I got it out of my system and I'm moving on. Stay tuned: two of the walls are already repainted. But since we do have two little rugrats running around, it might take another two months to finish up about 5-6 hours worth of work. :)

The finished product

Tah dah!

Katherine's big-girl room makeover is finally complete, put together and ready to take pictures of. I love it. It's very bright and girly.

I purposely chose a quilt that would go with the colors that were already in her room. Er, uh, I mean Katherine chose a quilt that she liked that also meant mommy and daddy didn't have to repaint her room. :)

Some Design on a Dime things I did:

• re-painted her name letters and replaced the ribbons hanging them with some I already had
• painted the center flower pictures myself (saw some at Target and I attempted to copy them)
  
• bought cheap white picture mats and painted them myself
• found really nice gold frames with glass on the 60% off aisle and whitewashed them
  

• bought a yard of fabric that matched her quilt
  
• re-purposed curtains given to us by making and sewing ruffles on the top
  
• re-used the existing lamp shades and hot-glued on ruffles to match
  

I'm finding that this pinching pennies thing can be fun. Before it used to be all about buying it all and getting the room done in one afternoon. Well, this one took about a month but definitely has some personal touches.

Jim swears Katherine will be driving before he repaints the bottom of her room. That was all taped by an 8-month pregnant mom-to-be and painted in 3 installments by the reluctant father-to-be. She might be stuck with green gingham for a while.

Overall, I love it and think it fits her personality. She's pretty proud of it also.