Adorable Kid/Baby Sheets

I stumbled upon these crib/toddler sheets and thought they were all adorable! There is definitely a growing nautical trend these days.
Really loving the Serena & Lily Cut Circle, Restoration Hardware Vintage Planes and Layla Grace Out to Sea prints ...

Restoration Hardware Vintage Plane Blueprint

Restoration Hardware European Whales

Serena & Lily Aqua Trellis

Serena & Lily Cut Circle

Serena & Lily Blue Crab

Layla Grace Out to Sea Blue

Unison Home Regatta Marine

Unison Home Anchors

Land of Nod Yellow Stripe

Land of Nod Whales

DIY Kitchen Table Refresh

Our dining table was an awesome find....in my parents basement.  They have had this oak table since they were first married and I knew it would be the perfect size for our small breakfast nook.  My mom painted the table black a few years back, but I wanted to strip off the paint to expose the wood.  Here is the before, please excuse the terrible iphone picture...I really need to remember to take better "before" photos!

I really was hoping I could achieve a worn wood look like this table from Restoration Hardware.

Enter paint stripper.

I have used this a handful of times before.  Just follow the directions on the back, slather it on and scrape off as much gunk as possible.  It helps to use a wire brush to get into the hard to reach spaces.  Also, make sure you wear thick rubber gloves!!  Some of the paint can be more stubborn and is really difficult to remove, here is a progress shot.  (Notice how orange the original oak color was...would have gone perfectly with my original garage chair find!)

Once the majority of the paint had been removed, I broke out the sander to buff the remaining paint off any hard to reach areas.  

I didn't bother to get every single bit of paint off (you can see it shows in the darker areas, but I figured when the stain was on it would give the table more depth). Even though I liked the rough unfinished look that was unfolding, I wanted the end result to be more of a gray color.  For the stain, I chose this Varathane Weathered Gray.  

I tested it out on a piece of wood we had in the garage, and it was too dark at first.  I messed around with combining some white paint and diluting the solution with water so it was a very thin gray-wash like consistency.  Once I had the desired color I wanted, just brushed it on, wiped the excess off with a rag, and let it dry.  After everything was set, I painted on 3 coats of poly (and didn't even bother to sand between coats).

 

In the end, my concoction of stain & paint worked out pretty well.  I wanted that aged wood look that would still be sealed and strong enough to handle a typical toddler mess! The best part is, since the table was free and I already had most of the materials in our garage the total cost for this table was for one can of stain!  Here is the table with the newly painted & stained chairs.

Now I just need to get some art for that back wall..... Have a great Tuesday :)

DIY Garage Sale Chairs Update

One of the many differences between our house now vs. our bungalow is the amount of rooms we have.  One example is the kitchen, we now have a spot for a kitchen table as well as a formal dining room.  Since we only had the one dining table previously, I needed to find something for our breakfast nook.

Luckily, one day my MIL called me because she came across some {cheap!} garage sale chairs down the street.  I got the 4 chairs and they threw in a matching long rectangular table for $35.  These are not my dream dining chairs by any means, but will work just fine until I can find exactly what I want to use one day.

I don't have a photo of the entire set, but here is the chair in all it's 1990's glory:

I unscrewed the seats and sanded off the finish until it was raw with a circular sander. Then added a coat of dark walnut stain & a couple coats of polyurethane.  

For the frame, I simply painted over it with some semi-gloss Ben Moore color Fieldstone, which is a grayish hue with slight green undertones.  The back of the chair was a beast to paint with a brush, I have a tendency to be an impatient painter (which usually leads to drip marks). Next time I would like to use a spray gun on something like this.  Jenny from Little Green Notebook has a great tutorial here that I want to try.

Here is the finished product...much better!  This was SO easy and I think it really updates the chairs into this decade. :)

And here is the side by side comparison:

Tomorrow I'll post about the kitchen table fix.  Have a good one!

Boy Room Inspiration

I've been thinking of a couple little changes for Wards room now that his little personality is shining through. He seems to be more of a little boy than a baby!  

Here are some boys rooms that I found inspiring:

Love the art!

theberry.com

 The Teepee and Rug are great, also love the animal prints.

Abbey Nova via Cup of Jo

Again, the teepee and art!

varrell.com

Patterns, pillows and deer head

Armadillo & Co

Stripes again and great car prints

pinterest.com

Wallpaper

ralfefarfars paradis

DIY Nursery Bird Mobile

Note:  I had written the majority of this post a VERY long time ago, but never got to hang the mobile until we moved in with our inlaws.  So here is the published version, late but better than never!

Now that Ward is approaching 18 months old, I'm finding myself already thinking about redecorating his nursery into a big-boy room.  

But before I get into that, I never got to posting about one of my diy nursery projects....

I was originally going to buy a nursery mobile off Etsy, but figured I could save some $ if I made it myself.  I knew I wanted to have the mobile be bird-themed.  I just googled "nursery bird mobile" and found a great mobile example and template for sewing fabric birds here.  

I got some fabric scraps and started sewing.  First I tried to use my sewing machine...big mistake.  There were too many corners and I ended up sewing the birds face off...so just did it by hand and stuffed them with some leftover batting I had lying around.  I am no seamstress, these are definitely rough...but once they were stuffed they started to look okay!  

Then I went outside and found some twigs.  Trey cut off the rough edges and sized them down with his miter saw.

I broke out the modge podge to seal the wood so it wouldn't chip over Ward in his crib. 

It goes on white, but dries clear.  One mistake I made was letting it dry on the paper towels.  The paper towel definitely stuck to parts of the twigs and I had to spend some time meticulously picking it off.   

Then I figured out where I wanted the birds to go, and tied them to the branches.  The tricky part is then using fishing line to suspend the twigs from one another, the weight had to be balanced.  Just used trial and error until it was all in balance.

These photos were taken back when we were staying with our inlaws, not much has changed in his room now, except he is 3x bigger!

Well, hello blog.  I haven't seen you in over a year. 

We have had many, many changes since my last post.  I had always wanted to keep up with a blog full time, but finding it is more time consuming than I anticipated!  So....I am back and going to try this thing out (again).

Rather than typing up a long, boring paragraph on what we have been up to, here is a quick summary...

So, lots of moving.  Lots of working.  And not to mention, raising a baby TODDLER!  Maybe I won't have time for this after all?  We will see....