Penelope's Nursery

Deer print is from here, bunny was thrifted.

I'm happy to say that so far Penelope has proved to be a pretty patient little baby, and didn't seem to mind that her nursery was still in shambles when she arrived.
 
Thankfully, she's also been a great sleeper, so I've been able to finish it up before she outgrew it! 


We recycled most of the furniture and main baby items from Phoebe's nursery, but went with a completely different color palette. 

Want to see a before picture (as in, before we bought the house)? Click here. But be warned, it's a little scary.
 

Once again, Polly finds herself right at home in the crib.



I want to secure and paint that darn cord the same color as the wall, but with a newborn and a 2 1/2 year old, I've got better things to do with my (almost nonexistent) free time.
 

I found that sweet little Hansel and Gretal lamp for $3 at my local thrift store and added a clearance lampshade from Target.  The house lights up too!

More info on the ABC crewelwork sampler here.
 

I totally copied these doily clouds from here.


I picked up the bird screen print from local artist Marcy Davy of All Things Grow, the book was thrifted, and the cat was my great-grandmothers.


I made the crib sheet from one of my favorite vintage sheets using Dana's tutorial - which is ridiculously simple and fantastic.  I ended up getting Phoebe to sleep in her big girl bed by letting her pick out her own fabric for her sheets.  Now she has kitty sheets, snowman sheets, and butterfly sheets.  It's crazy how much joy a fitted sheet brings her.

The stuffed lamb has been around for awhile, but has seemed to take up residence in the crib because she matches so darn well.
 

Stay tuned for a post on how I made this super-sweet crib skirt!
*The post is up!  Click here for a how-to*






The doily lamp will be getting it's own post too. 
 

The nursery at night.  Such a cozy place for a sweet baby!

Why don't we retire to the bedroom?

Remember this little sneak peak from way back when?

Well I have finally, oh finally finished painting all of that damn trim and cleaned up enough to the point to show you my progress!

You can see before pictures from when we bought the house back here, and even though it's taken us almost a year, it feels sooooo good to get that old person vibe outta here!

As I mentioned before, our "master" bedroom is really just two rooms with a section knocked out between them by the previous owners.  We actually find the whole setup incredibly annoying since there's two entrances to our room (basically right next to each other), there's still enough of a wall that there's no good way to set up our furniture, and we struggled on what exactly to use that extra space for.

We were previously using it as kind of an office, but there was still a ton of wasted space, and we hated having our bedroom in full view when guests wanted to use the computer (mostly because it's always a mess).

Please excuse the messy closet and piles of laundry - it's definitely my lest favorite chore.  Also, the closet doors will probably be going back up after they are repainted or covered in fabric.

 So it actually worked out rather well when we found out we were expecting baby #2 and decided to turn that awkward space into a nursery.

We closed off that extra door (well, we put a large piece of furniture in front of it) so it will be nice and quiet, and of course it's super close to our bed for all of those late night feedings. 

Now that the painting is done, I'm excited to start decorating!  It's definitely a departure from Phoebe's soft, girlie, nursery that was full of pinks and yellows.  I'm looking forward to a new design challenge!

My current dilemma - too many ideas!  I've been browsing way too many amazing nurseries on Pinterest and I want to incorporate ideas from them all!  Editing has always been my biggest design challenge.

If you're wondering about paint colors and curtain info, I talked about it in my earlier bedroom post that you can find here.

Curtains - one of the easiest, yet most boring sewing projects

 

Thankfully Phoebe's room only has one window, so sewing two curtain panels didn't get too mind numbing; but hemming four yards of fabric isn't what I consider thrilling sewing.  Nevertheless, a new set of curtains really does make a huge statement for the little amount of work that goes into it.

The fabric is from Anna Maria Horner's new line, Loulouthi, and the print is Summer Totem in Grapefruit - purchased from here.  I really can't begin to tell you how darn much I love this print.  I also have a yard in both the strudel blue and tart colorways just waiting for the perfect project.

I was lucky enough to have a whole two days to myself this weekend while Phoebe and daddy took the train to go visit grandparents, so in addition to the curtains, I finally got around to painting the trim in Phoebe's room.  Most of the trim in our house is a 1970's dark oak color that really darkens up the place.  Even my husband was amazed at how much brighter Phoebe's room is with the simple change to white trim - and that's saying a lot :)

When we moved, we kept her room pretty much the same as her original nursery, and I'm not planning any major changes until we move her future sibling in there with her - which will be quite awhile down the road, since he or she will be staying in our bedroom with us for the first couple of months.

Phoebe playing hide and seek in her new curtains.

Next project on the list (besides painting all of the trim in the rest of the house) is some curtains to cover her exposed closet.  We removed the two doors because they were extremely cumbersome, and opened up into each other, silly enough.  Now I'm just debating whether to hang a long rod across the entire thing with some full curtains, or to just put in two single panels mounted by a tension rod in each doorway.   What do you think?

 

Productivly MIA

Sorry for skipping out this past week.  I promise that I haven't just been lounging around watching trash TV (at least, not the entire time).  Besides digging ourselves out of all this snow, here's what I've been up to...

Making cakes

I've cut all the pieces needed for a pieced duvet cover for our bed.  Mostly prints from Nicey Jane, with some Modern Meadow, Deer Valley, and a couple other random Amy Butler and others thrown in.

Lots of valentine crafting, like making barrettes...

garlands for the windows...

and these fabulous paper heart strings that I (and everyone else in blogland) had to make after seeing Tif's tutorial

But most of my time has been spent working on turning this into..

this.

There's still a lot to be done with the ceiling, making some slipcovers, getting some art on the walls, and I really want to set up Phoebe's toys into some more specialized areas (reading, dress-up, music, etc.), but it's a good start.

I'll try to keep you guys more in the loop this week :)

Clean slate/fresh start/blank canvas and a peek at my fabric stash

So a mere two days ago my studio looked like this.  It's amazing what a little carpet and paint can do, eh?

So I ended up going with a color quite similar to my old studio because, well, it's my favorite!  This shade is Sea Lily by Valspar.

I really really really wanted to put in a wood laminate floor and I even had plans to make one of those giant crocheted rugs from Crafting a Meaningful Home that would look just perfect against the darker floor, but I went with function over form this time.  Michigan winters are just too darn cold to have hard flooring in the basement.  Actually, it's amazing how much warmer it feels in this room just by throwing down some carpet.

We ended up going with attached pad carpeting mainly for price.  We found lots of regular carpeting in our price range that we loved, but by the time you add in the pad and installation costs, you can pretty much double or triple that number.  With this, the pad already comes bonded to the carpeting, and you can install it yourself.  You pretty much just cut it to fit the room and secure it with some carpet tape around the edges. 

Just the essentials have been moved in so far (is the dollhouse considered an essential?).  And there's still lots of work to be done.  I've still got to replace or do something with those ceiling tiles and I've got to add some trim around the base of the wall, paint the doors and trim, and replace their hardware.  And I still have plans to cover that back wall in fabric at some point.  The room is so large, that I'm also hoping to get a couch to set along the right wall to make this place nice and cozy.  I was thinking about something like this.

Have I mentioned that I like to scrapbook?  Well, I do - but I'm pretty far behind at the moment because it always takes a backseat to sewing.  I'm hoping that turning that far corner into a space solely meant for scrapbooking will help.  Before, I would always have to clear all of my sewing stuff off of my workspace and drag out all of my scrapbooking supplies and then switch everything back afterward, and it just became a giant hassle.  I'm planning on putting up a ton of shelves so my materials will always be within reach. 

The first thing I unpacked was my fabric.  I used to organize my fabric primarily by color, but I switched it up this time and sorted it by type of print.

Clockwise from top left:  All of my Heather Ross prints; stacks of fabric divided by collection (Nicey Jane, Flea Market Fancy, Midwest Modern, etc); novelty prints; on the left is polka dots, stripes, and plaids, and on the right is my japanese fabric; these are all floral prints, with small scale florals in the back and two stacks of large scale floral in the front; solids and gingham.

Clockwise from top left:  Flannel; more flannel; some wools; the pink bin is full of batting; fleece, chenille, and minky; knits.

Clockwise from top left:  these are my leftover miscellaneous prints divided by color; holiday fabrics on left, and bird prints on right; multicolored prints on left and kitchen prints on right; home dec fabrics; notions; browns and neutrals.

These bottom four cubes contain some more home dec stuff, wools and apparel fabrics, and works in progress.

I also reorganized my collection of fat quarters into similar categories.

And while I've been doing all this, Phoebe has been making herself at home too.

The seventies called - they want their wood paneling back.

I've come up from the depths of our basement for a quick snack break of chocolate chips (super classy), and for a quick post to let you know that I'm still alive. 

Finishing our basement is the next priority on our to-do list.  It is already partially finished - but finished a la wood paneling and 1970's linoleum.  And there is no way I'm going to put up with that for any longer than I have too.  My husband thinks I'm totally snobby when it comes to design, and I guess he would be correct - but that's only because I have recently discovered that he has the worst taste ever. I guess it never really came up before since we have lived in apartments since getting married 5 1/2 years ago, but oh my goodness, some of his renovation ideas - or more accurately lack there of have me reeling. 

"You actually want to keep the dark blue vanity in the bathroom?"  "You like the ginormous outdated ceiling fan that's just inches from our head in the bedroom?"  "You want to paint the dining room beige?"

Oh I could go on and on.  But I digress....

The basement.  One day we're going to tear everything out and do drywall, but we don't have the money for that at the moment.  I need to get it done asap for two reasons; first off, somebody got a little spoiled for Christmas, and her toys are taking over the entire house.  I swear, Phoebe has more pieces for her toy kitchen than I have in my real kitchen.  So hopefully we'll be able to corral most of her things down to what will be her playroom.  But more importantly is that one of the rooms is going to be my studio and I am going crazy without a space to create.

Wanna see it?

She's a beauty, isn't she?  The cons - wood paneling, ugly old heaters, cement floor, drop ceiling, fluorescent lights, and it's in a basement.  Pros - it's a huge space - 12'x20', it has a door that locks, I don't feel bad putting a million holes in the walls, and it's my room to decorate however I want!  Also, since it's right next to the playroom, I'll be able to sew while still keeping an eye on Phoebe.

 

So, on my list is to get this baby painted - I just finished putting on my second coat of primer and I'm heading out tomorrow to choose a paint color.  I'm seriously thinking of going with the color of my old studio because I really really liked it, but then again I feel like I should try something new.  I'm going to try my hand at this tutorial on the back wall, which should be either fun or a complete mess.  And hopefully we'll get some flooring in this weekend.  I'm debating between carpeting because it would make the room a lot cozier and it can get pretty cold down there, but I like the look of a wood laminate a lot more.  And any suggestions for that horrid drop ceiling?