Pinterest Challenge (Summer Edition) - Gift Wrap Organizer

Currently, I keep all of my wrapping supplies in a large plastic box under our guest-room bed. This needed to change for a few reasons: 1) it was always messy, and 2) at some point, I hope to turn our guest room into another nursery. Everything I keep in that room will eventually have to find another home.

Brooklyn Limestone was the first place I had seen a Gift Wrap Organizer. I loved how she used affordable products from IKEA, and kept the whole project clean & simple.

Source: brooklynlimestone.com via Jillian on Pinterest

Better Homes and Gardens was my second find. I loved how many size options they had in the their version, so that there was space for everything (including ribbon).

Source: bhg.com via Tya on Pinterest

The only door I could use for this project was our linen closet, which lives in our upstairs hallway. Our linen closet door is opened multiple times a day, so I had to find a solution that kept all the supplies stationary, and did not need to hang over the top of the door.

Here were my requirements for my gift wrap organizer:
• less than $50
• less than 16" wide and 5' tall, and less than 5" deep
• had to attach to linen closet door
• space for all wrapping paper, tissue paper, gift bags and cards
• wrapping paper needs to be stationary (cannot swing when opening door)
• needs to look cute!

I spent most of Saturday looking for something that would work. My first stop was Target. I found two file boxes that were grey metal. They didn't meet the 'cute' requirement, but I figured I could spray paint them if they fit properly. I brought them home to make sure they fit, but they were too deep. Back to the drawing board!

After checking Marshalls, HomeGoods and Lowes, I finally stopped at TJ Maxx. My mom graciously stayed in the car with my sleeping baby so that I could check one last place. And there, I found two of these. $7.99 each. PERFECT!

Once I was home, I held them up inside the door, and they fit perfectly in the center panel. Here was my plan:
(please excuse the poor picture quality - this hallway is hard to photograph!)

It wasn't until Sunday during nap time, when I asked my husband to help me hang them, that we released there was a small problem. We couldn't drill holes in the center panel - it was not deep enough to accommodate a screw. Grrrrrr.

We quickly came up with a new plan, although it meant sacrificing my card storage at the top of the door. We would mount each basket in-between the center panels (thickest parts of the door).

Once they were in, I quickly loaded them up with all of my supplies and made some cute labels.
Ta-da!

I'm so excited I can cross this project off my list. I do have to come up with a better storage solution for my cards, but for now, I'm very happy with how this project turned out!

I'm linking up with the following blogs for the Pinterest Challenge - Summer Edition. Make sure to check out the amazing projects they took on!

TenJune
Centsational Girl
Bower Power
Young House Love

{Bathroom Renovation} Inspiration

I despise our bathroom.

This is the only picture I have of it. It's not a room you want to take pictures of. I'll be sure to take more before we start the renovation, but for now, this is it.

This picture certainly doesn't show you just how awful our bathroom is. The walls were never patched or taped properly before it was painted, so there are rough spots and nails popping out everywhere. The baseboard heater in the back? Completely rusted out on each end. All the fixtures are gold, the tub and shower are a bath-fitter insert with the worst caulking job you've ever seen. The tub also has a giant rust-type ring in front of the drain. I've spent hours trying to get rid of it, to no avail. I've tried every cleaning product known to man. The medicine cabinet doors fall off all the time, and have worn out in the most used spots. Oh, and that white tile... Have I mentioned we have a chocolate Lab? Between my dark hair and his, the floors are always a mess. And they also have black permanent marker all over them (from where the previous owners meant to cut the tile, but didn't, and installed it anyways).

For the most part, I find it therapeutic to clean. When I have the time, I enjoy it. Most days, I have to talk myself into cleaning this bathroom. It is that bad. As much as I clean it, it never feels clean - that's the worst feeling!

Here are 2 new bathroom inspiration boards. Most of the inspiration came from Pinterest (you can see my Bathroom Renovation board here). Paint colors are still very undecided; I'm very torn between a neutral palette with color in artwork & accessories, or a dramatic color on the walls, with very neutral accents.

One of my favorite bathroom renovations comes from Lindsay from Life of Splendor (found here). Their bathroom was the first one I had seen, where I wanted to take the whole room and move it into my house. Their bathroom is also set up identically to ours, so it was easy to picture how the changes they made would look in our home.

The bathroom has huge vaulted ceilings - probably 12 feet at it's tallest point. However, the footprint of the bathroom is small: 8ft x 5ft.  In order to make the room feel larger, we thought board and batten would draw the eye up the wall, and make the room appear larger. With our current 12"x12" floor tiles, it is very easy to count 8 deep and calculate the size of the room. Not that I think people do that when they walk into a bathroom (ok, maybe I do), but subway tiles on the floor will help the feeling that the room is deeper than it is.

Our goal is to do this renovation in the fall. We will most likely have to move out of the house for a few days, since this is our only full bathroom. In the meantime, we're shopping for:
Mirror
Antique Dresser
Tile
Tub
Shower, Tub & Sink fixtures
Shower Curtain & Linens

We have already purchased these lights, from Joss & Main. They are outdoor lights, but when I saw them, I thought they would work perfectly in the bathroom:

Source: jossandmain.com via Jillian on Pinterest

I'm currently searching for the perfect dresser to turn into a vanity. Last year, I saw 'the one' at an antique store not far from my house, but the bathroom wasn't on the top of my list that day. A whole year later, and I'm still thinking about that dresser! It will turn up, one of these days.

I'll be sure to keep updating as we make progress on the bathroom shopping list!

Happy Weekend! 

I'm linking up with Kelly's Korner (SUYL - Bathrooms)

Happy Birthday, America!

Today, I'm spending the day being thankful for our freedom, for family and for friends. I hope you are spending the day with the ones you love!

Happy Birthday, America!

Source: countryliving.com via Country Living on Pinterest

Balance

One of my favorite bloggers, Joanna Goddard from A Cup of Jo, is featuring a series this week on finding balance. She is interviewing moms who work outside the home, asking them how they find balance in their everyday lives. As a working mom, these interviews have touched me; they made me feel normal. These woman have different work-life situations, but ultimately, the message was the same: we make it work by doing the best we can, one day at a time. (Her interviews from last year, featuring moms who work from home, can be found here).

I’ve mentioned it before, but balance is something I truly struggle with. I tend to try and do it all, and do it perfectly. I have extremely high expectations of myself,  have trouble asking for help, and find entirely too much joy in crossing items off my to-do list. I’m not proud of any of those things; if I was able to ‘let go’ a little bit more, I might be able to find more time in my day. I really really wish that I could ignore the to-do list at night, and just sit down and relax with my husband, but I can’t. I physically cannot enjoy myself until the toys and laundry are put away, the kitchen floor is free of crumbs and I’ve gone through the mail. Only after all of that is done, can I breathe a sigh of relief, pour a glass of wine, and relax. Unfortunately, most days, that doesn’t happen until 10:00.

I’m away from the house for roughly 12 hours a day. We are all up around 5:30 or 6:00 (yes, including my son), so I get an hour with him in the mornings. I leave by 7:00, and am usually home by 6:30 or 7 at night. We all eat dinner together at 7:30, and he usually goes to bed around 9:00. I know, it’s late for a 15 month old. But, it works for us. This schedule means that I get 3 hours a day with him. Thankfully, he’s not a good sleeper. If he was, he would be sleeping from 7am – 7pm, and I wouldn’t see him. This also means that I have to squeeze in daily house chores and time with my husband from 9:30 – 11:00. Just in time to crash, and do it all again the next day. It’s crazy, but it’s our life. I’m learning to embrace it, rather than fight it.

Needless to say, my weekends are really important to me. I get uninterrupted family time from Friday night through Monday morning. I hate spending that time doing “house stuff”, so I try to make an effort to do a little bit each night after my son is in bed. One of my New Year’s Resolutions was to organize my life. I know, that sounds ridiculous. Just hear me out: I feel like I spend a lot of time doing things in my home because they were never organized to begin with, or because I left them for too long. What I wanted was to organize my time: create schedules I can stick to, make realistic goals, and have my house running the way I want it to. Take cleaning – if I spend 30 minutes a night cleaning, then I don’t have to spend 2 hours on the weekend doing it. When you look at it like that, it’s not crazy to organize my life! 

We have a pretty good system in our house. My husband cooks, I clean. He takes care of outside stuff, I take care of inside. I find the bugs, he kills them. We rotate who does the grocery shopping, but more often than not, it’s him. He also runs my quick errands during the week – dry cleaners, Babies R’ Us, the bank – because he drives to work and can do those things at lunch. I also order 99% of everything online. Mainly because it is one less errand I have to do on the weekend. Diapers, gifts, toys… all online. It works for us, and means that I don’t have to drag my son from store-to-store on the weekends. Online shopping = more time to play!

I don’t have a lot of time to myself, but I’m ok with that. I find little things that make me happy: a good book on the train, indulging in reality TV after my husband goes to bed, or sneaking out for a pedicure on the rare weekend we are home. I wish I had more time to shop or to exercise but I wouldn’t trade time with my son for those things. Not by a longshot.

My favorite quote from Joanna’s interviews was from Jen Green (entire interview found here): “All in all, I’ve resigned myself to the fact that motherhood is manic. And messy. But also really, really fun. And funny! Never in my life have I laughed so hard as I do now. So maybe that’s my advice: when in doubt, choose laughter."

This Friday marks my one-year anniversary since coming back from maternity leave. It has taken me a whole year to find a good system for my family. I know there are things I can do to make our lives run a bit smoother, but for the most part, we’re doing pretty good. We have a happy, healthy baby. We are happy in our marriage, and feel respected by each other. We spend quality time together. We have a clean house (most days) and clean clothes, and food on the table. We find time to do the things we love...and, we are choosing laughter.

The Nursery - Before & After

When we moved into our home, we were 6 months out from our wedding. My philosophy was to put everything where I thought I could find it, and I would deal with it later! The nursery was previously our guest room, so it housed a bed, a dresser, and all the random stuff from my old apartments that hadn't found a permanent home. It goes without saying that cleaning out this room was my first priority in planning the nursery.

We decided early on that we wanted to replace all of our hardwoods in the house before the baby was born (along with many other cosmetic changes, but this was the biggest). In October, my husband replaced the hardwoods in every single room over the course of 2 weekends, and it changed the whole look of our house. The nursery also needed new trim and a new closet interior (one long rod wouldn't cut it for baby clothes!). Those changes all happened over the winter, and it wasn't until January that I could really start decorating!

Designing a gender-neutral nursery was harder than I thought. The intention was that we would do all the basics upfront, and then layer in some gender-specific items after the baby arrived: a rug, pillows and wall art seemed to be the quickest updates, but they could also have a big effect on the room.

Interestingly enough, the very first purchase we made for the nursery was the dresser. I knew I wanted white, and that I didn't want to buy a set of nursery furniture. I wanted an eclectic, acquired-over-time look to the nursery; and in being honest with myself, I knew I would probably tire of the furniture sooner rather than later. I didn't want to spend a lot of money on something that I would want to change out in 2 years. So, I scoured Craigslist for a few weeks before finding an old Pottery Barn dresser looking for a new home. We went to check it out, and it was in great shape with a few paint chips and scuffs, and only $150... exactly what we were looking for!


After the dresser was purchased, I moved onto fabric, and I quickly fell in love with a swatch of the Slate Seersucker from Serena & Lily. Using that as my starting point, I tried to find corresponding fabrics that would complement the seersucker, but still be strong enough to stand on their own. Erika's nursery was my inspiration for the bedding; I thought it was a great combination of color and pattern, and that I could make it work for a boy or a girl. As I was shopping for bedding, I was also trying out paint swatches on the wall - trying to find that perfect grey/blue. At the last minute, I decided to get a sample of Calming Grey from Sherwin Williams. As soon as that went up on the wall, I knew it was the one!

The nursery slowly fell into place over the next 4 months. I collected things I loved, and the room came together just how I had envisioned. During those last few weeks before the baby was born, I would sit in here and just dream about this little person we were about to meet. The nursery quickly became my favorite room in the house! Of course, it wasn't complete until we met our little baby boy.

Here are some picture of the room in-progress:

Here is the nursery before we left for the hospital!

I will share some new pictures of the nursery soon. When we brought our little boy home from the hospital, we made some quick updates to make the room a little more masculine. And now, 15 months later, we've made even more changes to accommodate our on-the-move toddler!

Nursery Sources
Paint: Comfort Grey by Sherwin Williams (color matched to Olympic's no-VOC paint)
Trim Color: Woodlawn Whitwash by Behr (color matched to Olympic's no-VOC paint)
Dresser: Pottery Barn (via Craigslist)
Dresser Knobs: Hobby Lobby
Crib: Kendall Fixed Gate Crib from Pottery Barn, gifted from my parents
Bedding: Tiptoe Studio via Etsy
Changing Pad: Graham Changing Pad from Serena & Lily
Curtains: Tiptoe Studio via Etsy
Blinds: JCPenney
Antique Herb Crates: Farmhouse Wares
Lamps: HomeGoods
Elephant Planter: family antique
Chair: IKEA
Throw: HomeGoods
Floating Shelves: Pottery Barn (via Craigslist)
Frames on Shelves: HomeGoods and Hobby Lobby
Elephant on Shelves: family antique
Table: IKEA (spray painted white)
Frame on table: Kate Spade
Elephant Artwork & Frame: Sunday Afternoon by Shari Beaubien (via AllPosters.com)
Chocolate Lab Print (on shelves):  Otis Sewn Print by TastesOrangey via Etsy
'Whole Heart' Artwork: DIY

I'm linking up with Kelly's Korner for Show Us Your Life (SUYL - Nurseries)!

The Nursery - Inspiration Boards

The moment I saw that my pregnancy test was positive, I was overcome with emotion. Shock, mostly. Then fear. Then joy. That very moment, I knew I was a mom, with a little miracle growing inside me.

There are so many things I was looking forward to: our first doctors appointment, hearing the baby's heartbeat and talking about names with my husband. I was also so SO excited to design a nursery, and went to work on inspiration boards not long after we were in the 'safe' zone. I had saved my favorites over the last year, hoping sometime in the near future I would need to reference them again. I poured through picture after picture, trying to find what I loved, but also what fit in our budget.

Much to our family & friends dismay, we decided to keep the baby's gender a surprise until delivery. For us, this was an easy decision. I thought it would be fun to wait and hear "it's a boy!" or "it's a girl" in the delivery room, but it did make the nursery decisions a little harder than I anticipated. I knew that I wanted our nursery furniture to last throughout all of our children, and that I would want to reuse anything that we invested in (bedding, window treatments, etc).

I'm not a girlie girl - I was raised a tomboy, playing ice hockey with the boys from the time I was 7. I was never really into pink or anything frilly, and almost always wore my hair in a ponytail. Blue is my favorite color, and I knew regardless of gender, I wanted a blue nursery. I decided to go with a blue/grey base, knowing I could add navy & green if our baby was a boy, and add coral or yellow for a girl.

Here are the 2 inspiration boards that I designed as a starting point for the nursery. Looking back at these, I can't help but smile. I remember the anticipation when I made them - knowing that I was making decisions for this little baby of mine. I also knew that this was a space my husband and I would be spending a lot of time in, too, and wanted it to be a peaceful, relaxing space we could all enjoy.

Baby Boy Nursery

Baby Girl Nursery

I'll be back next week sharing how we turned these inspiration boards into a reality!

Happy Weekend!

Introduction & A Confession

It may only be my second post, but I have a confession: I'm scared! This whole blog thing is fun - addicting really - when you are reading about someone else's life. It's so easy to read, and comment here and there. You don't have to expose yourself. But then, you decide to write. And you are vulnerable. It's a lot like being the new kid in school...What will everyone think?

We have a private family blog, and for now, I am keeping it private. There are family pictures, my son's birth story, his baby pictures... I'm not ready to share all of those yet. I'm fiercely protective of my family, and sharing every detail of our life is hard for me. I want to write a blog; I want to share our story. But at the same time, I don't want to share too much. I want to keep some things private.

Pictures of weddings, pictures of someone's home, pictures of someone's child ... those are the things that drew me into this world. But, I'm still working up the courage to share all those personal details of my own life. So please be patient while I figure that out ;)

Now that I've said all of that... I'd like to introduce myself! 

You already know I'm a wife and a mom, but I'm also a daughter, a sister, and a friend. I work full-time in New York City in the fashion industry. I love what I do, but working in NYC also means I have a lengthy commute each day on the train. While those 2 hours give me a chance to catch up on my blogs, those are 2 hours that I could be spending with my family. My job versus my commute is one of my biggest personal struggles, and probably something that I will end up talking about here.

I love my morning cup of coffee, goat cheese and a good book. I love antiquing, the thrill of a great deal, and the pursuit of a 'green' home. I am a slight control freak about my house being clean, and spend way too much time on Pinterest. I love a good glass of wine, and curling up to watch my shows on DVR. Oh, and I looooove being a mom. I don't hesitate to say it is the greatest joy of my life.

Three and a half years ago, my husband and I bought our house. At that time, we were engaged, and had been on the house hunt for almost 6 months. We took advantage of the buyer's market, and found a home in a short-sale that needed a little love. We saw the potential, put in an offer, and waited over 3 months before hearing anything from the bank. Once our offer was accepted, the bank wanted to close in 2 weeks or the deal was off the table. And we quickly became owners of a 1970's split level home.

Since then, we've spent a disproportionate amount of time (and money!), making our house a home. While I don't believe we'll ever be done, we have made tremendous progress. I'm looking forward to sharing all of the changes we've made - and what we'd still like to do - with you. Here's a sneak peak!

Our former guest room

The Nursery - same perspective, 2 years later