Personalizing our home: the bedroom.

Well hey whaduyaknow, it's been like a month since I last blogged! Haha woops. Something about going to Idaho for almost two weeks or something. Maybe that was it. Maybe. Any who... time to move along with the next chapter of our "Personalizing our home" saga.

My poor husband... I have neglected personalizing our bedroom in a bad way and have done a poor to almost good job with the rest of the rooms. To save the bedroom for last was either torture or a relief... or he didn't even mind haha. Anyway, I wish I would have taken some before pictures but I didn't, probably because this room has been a work in progress for the entire two years that we've lived here. Had I known we'd be leaving so soon I might have picked up the pace. Oh well, I'm liking the way things are looking now so we'll just move this look around the country for the next few years before we finally settle down in who knows where.

We'll start with the most cluttered part... the desk. How in the world do you make a desk not look cluttered?? Everything on there is stuff we I use for all sorts of things. Crafts, primary, gifts, finances, journaling, etc. It's just so everywhere. Organized... but everywhere. Notice that AWESOME pot on the top right?? Yeah, that's the white elephant gift that I was raving about earlier. And you can see why, right? ;) Now all it needs is an aloe plant! Huh, Maren?? (:

Here's the view you get while standing at the door... a freshly painted dresser and shelf, a made bed (if you're lucky), and a cute kid with a sippy cup.

The top of the dresser also used to be quite cluttered. Not as bad as the desk, but cluttered. I still want to move the jewelry into the closet eventually but for now this set up is working nicely. Mostly because it's right next to the mirror so it makes getting ready in the morning faster by like 3 seconds. Time is precious, people. The black wooden thing and tan tile on the left were gifts from my aunt. 

"Prayer changes things." and "When life gets too hard to stand... kneel." 

I'm also using my 1st Place (aka champions!) 6th grade softball trophy to hold my bracelets that I never wear. I haven't decided if I'm just being creative or vain by having the trophy out haha hey, we were really good!

Our "engagement pictures" shelf used to be in my parents basement. And it used to be like 90's forest green. Todd has a vision for it that includes a jig-saw... we'll see if that ever happens. We may just resort to getting a new one and using this one for firewood before it meets up with the jig-saw. As a side note... Peter loves to jump on the bed and point at all of the daddy's on the shelf since it's pretty full of photos of Todd and I being all in love and stuff. I think you can see 7 daddy's from a certain angle.

Our bed is dressed in the lovely quilt that Lisa (my mother-in-law) made for our wedding. Can you see why I had a hard time choosing which colors to go with throughout the room? So many pretty options! One of the throw pillows is also extra special. My grandma Barfuss made 13 beautiful hand stitched pillow covers but never finished them (I'm assuming). My mom found them when they were going through her things before a move and sure enough there are 13 granddaughters! So my mom finished them up and we each got one. Mine matches so nicely with the rest of the bed and the other pillow which my obviously talented mother made. Thanks grandma (and mom)!

The framed family thing above our bed also came from my aunt, isn't she so kind and creative? It says, "Family, a journey to forever."

On my side of the bed I hung a list of my goals for the year as well as this quote from Pres. Boyd K. Packer. Huh... I'm just now noticing how much stuff I have about prayer. All good reminders, right? (:

Todd's side features his missionary plaque (my idea, he hasn't admitted to me yet if he thinks it's tacky haha) and an old mission shirt of his with his español name tag.

The accent colors that I pulled from the quilt were pale turquoise and gold/cream. You have to look close to find the gold throughout the room but it's there...

And there's the bedroom! It has been a fun project to finish up and I don't even want to think about having pack it all up to move in a few months because I'm just not ready to leave yet. Too many Wisconsin warm weather things to do first. (:

As for the bathroom... I don't know if I'll ever be satisfied with how it looks. It has a few good features so who knows... that post may be delayed for a few months... years even. Stay tuned I guess. (:

Personalizing our home: Peter's room.

The second installment of our "personalizing the home" series features Peter's room. And when I say Peter's room I really mean the room where he sleeps, gets his diaper changed, reads stories before bedtime, aaaand a whole lot of non-toddler proofed storage. Poor kid, doesn't even get to play in his own room. Don't worry Mr. Peter, someday we'll live in a huge place with three whole rooms and you'll get to roam free... like Simba. Minus the shadowy places which currently are mommy and daddy's room and the bathroom. And the laundry room. Wow, how does this kid stay entertained? Oh wait, right... he thinks I'm an indestructible jungle gym.

Anyhow... as I mentioned in the "great room" post I actually started working on this room almost two years ago when I found out I was pregnant with a little lion cub boy. Very quickly dark blue and seaweedy green became the color scheme and I just ran with it to make everything more-or-less match. During the last trimester of my pregnancy we had just moved to Wisconsin so I had all sorts of time (not all sorts of energy unfortunately) to make a couple mobiles and the crib skirt. Gradually I have added a few things here and there and the furniture throughout the apartment has gotten moved around to make Peter's room what it is today.

Wasn't Todd the cutest little guy??

My mom made these fun banners for my baby shower in Utah right before we moved. Peter went through a "must rip the corners off of the pennants" phase but now that he's over that he just likes to point at the pictures and say "daddy." Yes, there are pictures of Todd (and I) as babies but don't be impressed, he doesn't actually know that some of them are daddy. He does that to every picture... even the pictures of strange men on magazines in line at the grocery store. I always have to give the loud fake laugh and say something like, "Ah haha... you silly boy, that's not daddy! Daddy is at work!" Then he points at the cashier... "Daddy!" And again... "So silly, daddy is at a different work! Let's be quiet now okay buddy? Ya here, put these crackers in your mouth..." 

Ya, it's awkward. 

Anyway...

Once Peter really started moving around the apartment we had to graduate this shelf to the back room. I don't mind that Peter is a "shelf emptier" but some things... like ripping mommy and daddy's books or getting into the board games just isn't something I'm willing to embrace yet. I know I'll have to just let it happen some day but to that I quote a well known line from the third installment of The Lord of the Rings trilogy:

"Today is not that day!" 

(queue epic LOTR running-through-the-wilderness soundtrack)

Since this shelf graduated to Peter's room, the desk got bumped to our room so mommy could use it for primary stuff without waking the baby. Pretty much on this shelf we have anything that Peter has abused, ripped, or isn't old enough for. That and some cute ABC blocks from one of Mount Horeb's antique shops (that I'm absolutely convinced were painted with led paint), more "Daddy!" pictures, and a sweet globe that I scored at the thrift store. For reals who would throw that out?? Maybe because it's not accurate anymore... but that's what makes it so cool! Once Todd figured out when it was made by looking at what some of the countries names were... 1960-something? Maybe?

Aaaaand you wouldn't even know it but right next to that shelf is the food storage! It has since gotten a lot taller and we badly need some legit food storage shelving but for now the old entertainment center is working great. It also graduated to the back room due to Peter's need to rip everything off of it. Luckily, like you saw in the great room post, Amber gave us her old entertainment center to fulfill our keep-everything-behind-a-latched-door-needs and our (my) furniture re-doing desires.

To stick with the running whale theme I snatched these paper whales from the baby shower as well and taped them to the wall... so pathetic, I know. They fall down all of the time and I only put them back up to take pictures like these or if I'm in a tidy-every-thing-in-the-entire-apartment mood. I also made the little whale mobile during my pre-baby down time. It's not uber sturdy but it was fun to make and kept me busy while Todd was away.

Here's the other part of the storage messiness. It's a good thing Peter's clothes aren't very long or else we really wouldn't be able to fit all of that junk in there. Before taking this picture I thought something along the lines of, "I should probably tidy that up... but then that would make a liar out of me, because its like never tidied up... but do I really want them to see what it looks like in all of it's messiness?? Those poor people... their eyes... they would probably bleed. Okay fine... I'll tidy it up, but only a little bit." Yeah... so, in all of it's glory... here's Peter's closet. Inside you can find everything from Christmas decorations to high school journals, wrapping paper to newborn clothes, and a few boxes that I'm actually not sure what they currently contain. I feel like I should make an I-Spy game out of this. 

I-Spy... a bathtub, seminary scriptures, a pull-up bar box, and a hiking baby backpack. BONUS: a box of Christmas lights, three Easter baskets, and 27 pairs of socks. Good luck.

Wow... I should really shut the doors to this beast. But we never do, it just stays open. It could close, which is something, right? At least it's not facing the door way and blaring it's messy cluttered-ness through the hall and down the throats of unsuspecting guests.

On that note... now that these rooms are coming together you can come visit us! We'll make sure the beast-of-a-closet is in it's kennel and I'll feed you yummy treats! and we can play Ticket to Ride! No seriously though, who's in? 

Dresser re-do!

Re-doing our dresser is a small part of a never-ending project that I have going for our home. I'm sure Todd will have a heart attack reading that... "neverending??!" Haha hang in there Todd. For a little less than the past year I have been gradually working on "personalizing" our home. The first room to be finished is Peter's room (aka where he sleeps plus lotsa storage). The front room is also pretty personalized however the bathroom is still lacking those special personal details... as well as some not-so-important mismatching details... like the color of the towels haha. The room that I have barely given any attention to until recently is our bedroom. We just had so many different colors of wood going on and deciding which colors to run with from our quilt on the bed and do we even bother and on and on. We knew we wanted to re-do some of the furniture eventually but did we want to just wait until we got our own set of bedroom furniture and re-do it for a future kid room? How big of a re-do were we thinking anyway? As you can tell we had lots of ideas and lots of options... and fortunately there was lots of potential floating around somewhere in there as well.

Last month when Todd said he wanted to use his birthday money on getting the "re-do the dresser" project started I was a little surprised but still excited to pin down our vision for the dresser and get things going. I also hadn't done a big project since we re-did our table last August so I was itching to get my hands on a paint brush. After actually spending Todd's birthday money on introducing him to the Chocolate House in Mount Horeb (you MUST go if you haven't already... and if you have already, you must go again and again!) we spent the evening tossing some ideas around... thank heavens for Pinterest and google image search. Part of me wanted to turn the dresser into a bright statement piece... but like I mentioned, the quilt on our bed has so many colors and I just wouldn't know which one to go with. So instead we decided to go the classy route... something that we could both enjoy now and pass on to a kids room in the future.

But... before we could enjoy this classy dresser (ya know, get in bed with a mug of hot cocoa and just stare at it in all of it's classiness waiting for it to say something with a British accent) we had to do all of the dirty work. The scraping, the sanding, the priming (oh... my heart, ouch), and so forth.

And because I don't think I've ever taken a single "before" picture in my life... because I always always forget... I can't totally show you how much better it looks. Hopefully the stripping/sanding pictures will do it justice.

These are the "oh crum we forgot to take a before picture" pictures... I know close to nothing about different woods and stains and stuff so yeah, that's what it looked like. You can see the frilly outline of the handles, they were the drop down clangy ones that serve two purposes in their lives. Only two. 1) to assist in opening the drawer that they are attached to and 2) to wake up my sleeping child EVERY SINGLE TIME we use them because of their unforgiving clanky-ness. Oh my heck... it was infuriating... every time... seriously. I just... I just hate them.

I'm not sure how long said devil-handles had been on there but those drawers had seen a lot of wear and tear. We're talking twenty years of me and my siblings banging, slamming. cramming, etc. Poor drawers, they had to deal with us and those horrid handles. Anyway...

Fortunately all of the wear and tear meant that the varnish was pretty thin... which made the stripping/scraping part so much more bearable. 

Sanding, sanding, and more sanding... until the stuff was like white-ish. Maybe it's oak?

Once we were done getting everything down to it's natural self and smoothed up we brought it all upstairs to be painted in our room. Mostly because the garage was freezing... like sub-zero freezing. Like... arctic-blasts-coming-in-through-the-half-inch-crack-of-our-propped-open-garage-door type of freezing. Yeesh. Cold. 

Oh the primer... so nasty. The nastiest. Ever. Next time I'm so buying spray paint primer or water-base. 

As you can see... we painted the drawers and base of the dresser a "clean linen white" and the very top piece got stained a red mahogany to match our head-board. 

And because the tacky-heart-shelf hangs right next to the dresser I decided that it had to match. It just had to. So, while Todd was away I re-did the whole process on the shelf. Sanding. Sanding. Sanding. Staining. Staining. Polyurethane-ing. Priming. Painting. Painting. Painting. The end.

And here it is... the final result! I'm still messing around with what goes where... I don't like the clutter on top of the dresser but I also don't have many other places to put things. 

Stay tuned for my "personalizing the bed room" post for more pictures! It'll be thrilling. Wahwah.

Here are the resources that we found helpful for this project... enjoy!

http://diyonthecheap.com/how-to-paint-furniture-a-beginners-guide/

http://www.twicelovely.com/2012/03/heavily-distressed-teal-dresser.html

http://www.addicted2decorating.com/diy-project-accent-furniture-how-to-paint-distress-and-antique-a-piece-of-furniture

http://www.wikihow.com/Refinish-a-Dresser

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/132363676522160237/

Personalizing our home: the great room.

After being inspired by this post and this post last April I set a goal to "personalize" our home. Pretty much I decided that people probably felt a little like they were walking into a compressed wedding reception when they entered our small apartment (since I got to keep quite a bit of the reception decor and used them liberally in our home). Don't get me wrong, our wedding reception was beautiful! It was just all the same two colors, as most wedding receptions are. And a lot of those two colors in one small place can be a bit overwhelming. So as much as I could I parted ways with the purple and orange and set out in search of new and "personal" color pallets. (Yes I realize that orange and purple sound a bit odd together but trust me, it was pretty!)

My journey in personalizing our home didn't actually start last April... it really started when I found out I was pregnant with an energetic little boy almost two years ago. Of course at that time I didn't know he would be this energetic haha but hey, what boys aren't, right? Anyway, as soon as I found out I had to tell everyone because I was having a shower a week later and my mom just had to get started on a quilt that she wanted to make for the baby. So right then and there I picked out some blues and greens that would be the running color throughout Peter's nursery. I also found baby whales to be extremely cute at the time so everything turned out to be sort of "under the sea" themed. Kinda. Anyway, this post isn't about Peter's room haha this post is about the "great room." Sounds fancy huh? Like Downton Abbey fancy. (:

So... the great room (also known as the living room/dining area for those of you--like myself--that don't have a large vernacular like Todd does) actually got to keep some purple and orange. Just a little here and there to tie everything together in a little tiny matchy matchy way. Since I didn't want to completely re-do everything in this room I played around with different arrangements on the many (2) surfaces that Peter can't reach yet.

Currently the on-top-of-the-entertainment-center-space is sporting a runner from our reception, my wedding bouquet, an awesome bird cage also from the reception, all of Todd's classic books, and two little birdies that I find quite humorous because the real looking one is all like "What the heck is this purple statue bird thing??" So silly... cause like, they're both statues! Bahaha. I crack myself up. No really I do, every time I walk past those birds I laugh.

On our lovely Target book shelf we have another birdie, more not-so-classic books, and candlesticks from the reception. I was hesitant to put those up there because Peter sometimes likes to shake the entire bookshelf and those things already bounce around and make all sorts of insecure noises when I'm getting my sweaty p90x self on. So far so good though... not that it would take a falling candle to cut his head open, he was able to do that last night one a door hinge. My child is the next Mahem. Anyway, on the shelves, besides books, we have a few souvenir like things and two little mice that deserve an entire post of their own... so I guess stayed tuned for that. (:

Above the entertainment center I have a little collage-like set up of pictures and such. On this little shelf that I got from my awesome aunt Marci we have Todd's boutonniere from our wedding as well as another bird, of course. It's almost like they got out of the cage and trapped the books inside instead... so many hidden themes, such imagination, I know haha.

Most of the purple and orange in this room however comes from this too-pretty-to-use quilt that my mom gave us as a wedding gift. It has done a great job of keep the couch's back warm for about 2.5 years now and until I find a different way to display it it gets to stay there. (:

As for the wall that has been to our back this whole time... it has my keyboard, Todd's trombone...

... and our little mail spot. 

Notice that the record is indeed a Beatles record, major points for this anniversary present last year. (:

So there you have it! The living part of the great room! Todd and I take pride in the fact that the bookshelf was the only thing that we bought new. Craigslist gave us our couches, garage sales gave us the tables and lamps, some Hilton hotel in Linden, UT gave us the TV, and the entertainment center was free-ish re-do project. Everything else probably came from the reception or wedding gift money.

The other side of the great room is the dining area. I didn't want this area to clash too horribly with the living room but I also wanted it to draw some stuff in from the kitchen through the breakfast bar. So of course I went with mustard yellow and red. Haha don't ask how that works but it does.

I seriously scored big time with all of the mustard yellow stuff... this vase came from the thrift store... oh how I love thee St. Vinny's. I am going to miss the non-picked over thrift stores in Wisconsin.

This set up is actually a few months old, I don't actually have two huge fake bird cages haha. But right now it looks about the same. The tricycle came from a garage sale. Another moment where I was like... just act cool, act like $1 is a bit much (FOR SUCH AN AWESOME ROD IRON MINI TRICYCLE!!). 

check out this post to learn about our table re-do

Our kitchen is pretty small so to keep things looking clean I didn't do to much with decorating it. Luckily, we already have red pots'n'pans, a red microwave, and lots of other red cooking things that bring in the color.

And there's this little number that Todd kind of hates haha. But I told him that all I wanted for our anniversary last year was free reign to decorate how I wanted with zero mumbling. So after he got his emotions out about the grandma pears he kept his mouth shut haha. I'll agree, they're kinda sorta tacky just a little little bit. But like, in a cool spirit of Elijah way. Haha ya know... like connecting with my grandparents via wall decorations! Anyway...

So far I have really enjoyed this whole "personalizing" our home thing. I feel like everything is really starting to come together, especially as Todd and I work on different projects side by side. He's just so great, guys. 

Come back again soon to see Peter's room (aka the storage room), the bathroom, and my favorite... our bedroom. See ya laterzz.

UPDATE: Peter's room is all done! See it here!

as I have loved you...

Ever since I found this forever-giving pin on pinterest I have been making banners like no one's business. Okay not really... but I've had fun experimenting with different fonts, paper, colors, etc. Through this process I've made a few banners all dedicated to the wonderful holiday of Valentine's day. The first came before said holiday... which was this Christmas banner that I cannot wait to put up again. The second was indeed Valentine's day-ish and was made for a white elephant gift exchange that we did as part of the Relief Society progressive dinner that I mentioned here. The exchange in general was pretty low key and no one did a whole lot of stealing... which let's be real, that's the best part of a white elephant gift exchange! That is unless you're stealing the blue and green pot from me that I needed SO badly. ;) I'll have you know that I left that party with the pot in my possession. And I'm so pumped about it. Anyway... I know a cutsie little banner isn't funny or anything but I just felt like making one! That and a week prior I had dropped off a big load at St. Vinny's so I seriously had no "cool junk" that I was willing to part with. So a boring ol' banner is what I went with. 

I wanted this banner to say something outside of your normal Valentine's Day realm. Ya know... outside of "XOXO," "LOVE," "Be Mine," and all that mushy stuff that I love and am a huge fan of. I also wanted it to be something from a song since the plan was the print the letters onto old sheet music (that I scored at the thrift store for a QUARTER! *insert victory dance at cash register*) 

The phrase of choice? 

"love one another" 

... from the beautiful LDS primary song that talks all about how we should love others just like God loves us. Because He does... more than we can even comprehend. It's a beautiful thing, that someone can love us so much, so I thought hanging that message where everyone could see would be nice as well. (:

This cheeky pennant was probably my favorite, although I should have used it for the "r" in "another." Ya know, "r" is for "romance."

Whilst at the Relief Society par-tay I got a few sarcarstic-but-maybe-serious requests for similar banners. One of them came from one of my bestest buddies, Hannah (hey Hannah!). Lucky for her, and because I think she's awesome, she just bought her first home and her walls needed some Valentine's decor. So, of course, I busted out another banner (really it doesn't take much to get me to make one) and it is now hanging above her piano. (: Which really is super fitting because she plays the piano for me in primary... that is when I'm not playing for her.

If you're curious... these banners are so easy! Like print off the letters onto the music, trace and cut out the triangles, staple them together (or just punch the holes and ditch the adhesive), and put some cute washi tape over the staples if you used any. bam. done. A few yards of twine and fourteen clothes pins later and you have yourself a pretty good sized banner to hang in your home to remind you to love one another.

And because I seriously am in awe as to how much God loves us here are some clips to help portray that love. I hope you not only feel God's love, but that you also follow Christ's example and love everyone this Valentine's Day and every day.

Want to learn more about God's love?? You'll definitely find some answers here.