Bedroom Inspiration

So my January Cure main project was to beautify our bedroom.  I was able to make major strides by getting a headboard and side tables but the buck (literally the buck) has stopped there.  Kids stuff is expensive.  Shocker.  Other projects focused around baby take priority.  Double shocker.  Spending $700 on the John Robshaw pillows and bedding that I want is not in the cards.  Triple shocker.

I’ve perused ETSY for decorative pillows but I haven’t found a love yet so the bedroom project is on hold now.  In the meantime, let’s look at some bedroom pillow arrangements that I love…

Muse Interiors

Thomas O’Brien

The Lettered Cottage

The scheme that appeals the most to me is the bottom one…subdued in tone with little pops of color.  I do love to use color but I thought I’d try a more subtle tone on tone bedroom scheme this time around.

Closet to Changing Nook: Before and After

Today is a very fun before and after for myself since I’ll be spending a ton of time here.  The nursery is such a small room that it used to be Graham’s changing room.  He kept all of his work clothes in the closet and would change in there since he gets up at 5:00 AM for work and that way I can continue sleeping.  Well, his closet and dressing room have been completely and officially transformed into a nursery.  The final piece was changing this…

Into this…

I really love the way that it turned out and I feel as though the wallpaper makes all the difference in the world

On one level I’ve got her changing pad and a box with diapers, wipes and cream so that I can easily access them when she gets squirmy.  The top level baskets hold extra diapers/wipes, bibs and burp cloths, swaddles and onesies.  I figure those are the things that I’ll want to access the quickest at the changing station.  And if I find I’m wrong, I’ll just switch out the system.  Below her changing table, we’ve got her hanging clothes and her growing shoe collection…

I can also fit her diaper genie inside the closet or just right outside of it but y’all didn’t need to see a diaper genie.

I had quite a few doubters when I wanted to swap the closet into a changing station.  But, I’m glad that I stuck to my guns.  Now, those doubters get it and have even said, “where would we have fit a changing table or dresser?”  Ummm…yeah, in this case, mamma knows best.   🙂

Apartment Therapy: January Cure

So we’re finally reaching the end of this January Cure.  And if I weren’t blogging about it, I’ve got to be honest that I would have probably quit.  Bending over to pick things up is tough and my energy is waning.  So, on the days that I just couldn’t muster the energy, I let myself off the hook.

Day 14: Get Papers and Files in Order – this would have been a great one to do but I didn’t do much of it.  I did, however, have Allie do this for me for my business.  Don’t think that’s what Apartment Therapy was really talking about but we’ll pretend that counts.

Day 15: Exercise a Little Chord Control – this was about checking out all of those tangled up plugs around the house.  I actually think my plug situation is just fine for now so I gave myself the day off.

Day 16: Give your bathroom and medicine cabinets a clean out – this was necessary and one chore that I did tackle.  How often do you go through your medicine cabinets?  It’s amazing how much useless stuff can accumulate.  We have a bookshelf in our small bathroom for extra storage with four large wicker baskets.  I was able to throw out enough junk that one basket was empty, which I promptly filled with baby bath items.

Design Sponge

Day 17: Look at living room lighting – Apartment Therapy stresses the importance of different types of lighting which I whole heartedly agree with.  Since I live by this rule and suggest this in clients homes as well, I had this day off.  My living room has overhead lighting, two sconces above our sofa and a side table lamp so there’s plenty of different spots for light.

My Living Room – Restoration Hardware sconce

Day 18: Weekend Chores – Flowers, Clean your Living Room and Empty your Outbox – I’ve been emptying my outbox all along and our living room is fairly clean, besides all of the boxes of baby items that we have yet to assemble.  At this point there isn’t much I can do with all of that.  I could have done more with my weekend chore but gave myself a “good enough” pass.  I’m thinking I may buy flowers today since I still have yet to do that.

Weekend Recap

Thanks for the advice on what to do with one of our final weekends pre-baby.  We took advantage of the days off to get a bit out of town (but not too far away from the hospital).

We started Saturday morning off at Baker and Banker.

I have been careful to not fall into the trap of “eating for two” and have been attempting to watch what I eat this pregnancy.  That is until Saturday.  Baker and Banker is one of the best bakeries in the city, I think.  Graham and I indulged in cream cheese blueberry muffins and they were divine.

Then we headed to Sonoma for the Kate Collins Interiors belated company party.  We started out wine tasting for everyone else and cracker (palette cleanser) tasting for myself.  We then headed to The Girl and The Fig on Sonoma square for a late lunch and more indulgent eating.

Once done with lunch, Graham and I drove around Sonoma and dreamt of owning a home there one day.  Something along the lines of Ken Fulk’s home…

Saturday night, we played some rounds of mastermind.  Wild and crazy Saturday night.

Sunday we woke up to a beautiful clear crisp day and we went for a walk in the Presidio.  Then Graham headed down to his sister’s for baby hand me downs (thank you, Lindsay and J!) and I stayed at home with the handyman who came to wallpaper our little one’s closet turned into changing station.  I went with this pattern from Tempaper.   I absolutely love the way that it turned out and I’ll be sharing photos once I’m done washing her clothes and the paint on the shelves has dried.

That evening a friend popped over and we ate bar-b-qued pizza.  We all had fun discussing the super bowl…umm…can you tell we’re excited…

It was a great weekend and pretty spontaneous and jam packed for expecting a baby in about ten days time.

Happy Friday

Happy Friday everyone!  I hope you have fun weekend plans ahead.  This is one of our final weekends pre-baby so it’s all getting very surreal.  What should we do with the final weekends besides sleep in very, very late?

I have to say a big thank you to Apartment Therapy for using a shot from my previous apartment in an article they ran: Mix It Up: 5 Unexpected Ways to Use Furniture.

I’ve always been a huge, huge fan of apartment therapy.  In fact, when I was unemployed, I read the blog as though it were my job…literally.  I’ve always been to chicken to actually submit any of my own work so the fact that they picked it up off of my site was a major milestone for me.  I did a little happy dance and definitely had butterflies when I saw it.

Also, thank you for all of the sweet comments on the monkey lamp.  They made my day!

A Little Monkey for My Monkey

Remember this candlestick holder that I picked up at Goodwill?

Well, I finally got it converted to a lamp…

It’s a fun little addition to the room –

And it has a great dimmer on it for those late night feeds.

My New Niece

Today, is one of my very favorite posts to write, I get to share with you my new precious little niece that was born on January 14: Margaret Olive; she goes by Olive.  My sister-in-law, Bridget and my brother, Joe, chose Margaret after Bridget’s late mother and they both really loved the name Olive (which is so cute!).  Amazingly, they just found out a few days ago (well after they picked the name) that my mom actually had a great Aunt whose name was Margaret Olive and she went by Olive. Seriously, what are the odds of that?!

Olive is beautiful, precious and the most cuddly, lovable, little joy.

Mom and Dad are doing really well and they are so happy and in love with their little one.

I had the rare opportunity of being able to spend some time with them during the first few days of having a newborn.  My brother and his wife are in the middle of renovating their house and so they moved down to my mom’s after little Olive came into the world.  I was also staying down there while Graham was away and it was such a special gift to spend time with Olive, Bridget and Joe.

Bridget is an awesome trooper.  She started labor on Friday, Jan. 11 at 7:00 PM and Olive was delivered on Monday, Jan. 14th at 4:30 AM.  How amazing is Bridget?!  Serious rock star.  And if you ask Bridget, it was worth every second as she now gets to lovingly hold her precious little girl.

I couldn’t be more excited for them and for our little girl who is very lucky to have another girl cousin only about a month older.  Seeing Olive makes me all the more excited for our little one to join the family.

January Cure Update

Boy oh boy, sorry for the radio silence.  Graham was away in New York for business and I was commuting between my apartment and my mom’s home to sleep just in case I went into early labor.  No worries though, no early labor for me.  She is still cooking.

Anyway, I thought I’d update all of you with the Apartment Therapy January Cure.  Not sure if these posts are incredibly boring but they help to keep me motivated and on track.

Day 8: Weekend chores – Flowers, Kitchen Cleaning and Make Yourself a Meal

So I failed at getting flowers or making myself a meal but I did organize my pantry with some wonderful help by my awesome cousin, Allie.  Thank you for taking pity on me, Allie!!  9 months pregnant, I’ll take all the help I can get.

Here is what the pantry looked like before…yikes!  Can’t believe I’m putting this out there –

And Currently…

Aren’t baskets the best organizational tool ever?  Each basket contains a different theme or items…i.e. baking supplies, etc.

Day 9: Create a landing strip

I actually have been working on this landing strip since beginning of January.  Here is how our little nook once you walk up the stairs used to look like pre-nursery…

And here is where we are currently at…

I know…nothing exciting but practical.  I moved the dresser into the nursery and changed the area to a bench with storage boxes below (we each get a basket).  I also have a bench seat cushion with beautiful John Robshaw fabric being made.  I went out and purchased five of these Anthropologie antler melody hooks to put above the bench.  I also understand the dog is crowding in on the bench but I love our little dog and I’m running out of space.

Handyman Graham attempted to put the hooks up for us only to find that our walls weren’t really meant for hooks (they are pre-1906 walls).  What are we to do now?  I was counting on those hooks for organization.

Day 10: Work on your goal project

This day was perfect timing for me since we had the bed above being delivered from Cost Plus World Market so one more piece of my goal project…beautify master bedroom is complete.  I love the bed and I can’t wait to improve my bedding now.

Day 11: Try a media fast

This was also great timing on my end because I’ve been living down at my moms and so busy that I didn’t turn on the TV once the entire week.  I have to say that I didn’t miss it one bit.  I also don’t go on the computer at night when I’m trying to wind down.  It’s awesome to get away from technology sometimes.

Day 12: Declutter Books and Media

Graham and I had already done this in the beginning of January so it was a free day for me.  I used to have the hardest time giving away books but our house was too filled with books.  We now give away any book that wasn’t that special or enjoyable to us.  And you know what?  I don’t miss them.  What about you?  Do you ever donate your books?

This past weekend – Deep clean bedroom and buy flowers.

This was a part of my bigger project goal so it was nice to spend time cleaning.  My bedroom finally feels like it has some order to it and it’s one step closer to being finished.  One thing I cleaned up was my bedside table.  That gets cluttered so fast for me…

 

I’m very pleased with my new bedside table which I got at Home Goods.  As you can see, I don’t have a lot of room for a side table but this one gets the job done with plenty of space for books and a nice flat surface for water and for bottles one day soon.  Oh and once again I failed at getting flowers.  Seriously, I need to treat myself to some flowers!  Happy Tuesday, everyone.  I hope you enjoyed the long weekend!  Go Niners!!

 

Map Dress

Remember the map dress off of ETSY that I fell in love with?

Well, I purchased it and I got it custom framed…

Last week, it was ready to be picked up and I’m absolutely smitten.

I’m hoping to get some better photos of the whole room because my phone really doesn’t do the map dress true justice.  I’m also hoping BGB will treasure it even as she grows older.  Fingers crossed.

Bookshelves for Small Spaces

Things are coming together in the nursery.  Here are some updated shots but I HAVE NOT worked on accessorizing the shelves properly yet.  So this isn’t the finished project.  One day, I will take the time to really space out the books and art.

What do you do when your nursery is so small that a bookcase would take up way too much valuable real estate?  Also, what if, as the mom, you have a ton of children’s books and a love of children’s books and really an addiction to them and you really just want more and more children’s books?  Well, then you forgo the bookcase and put up Ikea Ribba picture ledges instead.  It doesn’t take up any space and then all of your books can be on display.

Graham did an awesome job installing six ledges and I still have the top shelf to fill up.  Some of the books will probably go into storage as they are geared to a much higher age group but I do love being back around them again.  Lord only knows how I ended up with The Little Mermaid (although I LOVE that movie) but all the others I started collecting when I was getting my masters in education and they have been sitting in storage for years.  I’m so happy to have them back out!

Thanks Handyman Graham for the awesome work!!  Thanks Mom for storing the books for our little one!!