Our nursery walls

The wall decals that match our nursery bedding finally came in, and Chris and I had so much fun last night decorating the walls. Each graphic came separately, allowing you to customize everything.

Here's what we put together: 

Chris spent a lot of time on the main one:

 

 

This one is above where the changing table is going: 

Can you see the baby owl in an egg in the hole of that tree! 

It was amazing how different the room felt once we were done

We still have to get a few more pieces, but the room is coming together for sure. 

Room at the inn

I got the best present when I returned home from the market Saturday, an empty room!!

Chris worked all morning to clean out our man cave so it can become Baby Everett's room. Yay!!

But where did all that stuff go? Well, in here. What used to be our guest bedroom.

It's not as bad as it looks, people. Most of this stuff just needs to be organized and moved around....in theory. 

But wait, do you see something? 

Yes, there's a cat in that chair!

Saturday night, we closed the door to the now-filled-room to keep Porter from getting in and getting hurt. If you have ever had a cat, you know that cats hate closed doors. More than they hate anything else in the entire world. 

Today, Porter finally managed to get the door open, and when we realized it, we found him here. 

No one with a cat is really surprised. 

Meanwhile, Grace is pretty sure this newly cleaned room is for her. 

But we told her it's for Everett! Sweet Everett already has a few things in his closet (which was also full of stuff).
My friend Laura has outfitted him with a few outfits already.

And,  my BFF Kathy got him his first book and toy.

And even some little shoes!

We've now made a little more room in our inn. 

Porter seems just fine with it...as long as we leave that chair on top of the dresser.

Redesigned chandelier shades

With the little upgrades to our living room, I didn't want the dining room to feel left out. 

Here's a before photo of our chandelier in the living room. 

The shades are black, and they look like this when lit. 

When they aren't lit, they look...well...pretty black. 

Recently, I received the latest Ballard Designs catalog, and I saw these seagrass chandelier shades: 

Cute, right? But a little pricey. I had recently purchased some rope for another upcoming project, and I had an idea. 

I'd just remake our shades!

So not exactly like the Ballard Designs ones, but I assure you they were much more affordable, and they definitely lighten the room, which was my goal.

And, if you peer into my living room again, you'll see a lamp from my in-laws with a seagrass shade.

So both rooms tie together a bit. 

Yay for an easy house project!

Chris caught it; She sketched it

You may have read here about how I had a homeowner victory about finding an affordable slipcover for our sofa. Well that's not the only upgrade our living room has received recently. 

Last August, Chris and Jack went fishing on the Missouri River in Montana. During that trip, Chris caught a very large fish. For Christmas, Mom and Jack had that fish commissioned in watercolor to scale by the artist Sketch and Release. She takes measurements from photos of fish and recreates them to scale in a piece of art. 

Chris received his sketch a little time after Christmas, and I wanted it to be framed soon so we wouldn't mess it up. 

Here it is while I was choosing the matte and frame. 

Here it is hanging over our newly slipcovered couch!

On the piece of art, the artist captures the details such as: 23 inch rainbow trout caught by Christopher Cook at the Missouri River in Montana on August 14, 2011. 

I think it looks great!

But what happened to the artwork that was hanging above our couch? They were exiled to the downstairs guest bathroom. 

Here's one more of the fish!

Homeowner Victories

Before you buy a house, it seems like everyone tells you all the reasons you should own a home. "Don't throw your money away paying rent!" "The economy is bad, you'll get a great deal!""First-time homeowners get lots of perks."

While some of these are true, there are certain times that I would very much like to call the landlord and have him fix something. 

One of those times came recently when our water dispenser in the refrigerator stopped working. The refrigerator was still making ice and dispensing it, but no water. Chris pulled out the refrigerator, inspected the back side with tools in hand, tried pressing the water dispensing "cradle" a few times, and then he declared that if I wanted to pay $200, I could call a repairman. He suggested getting a new insert for our Britta pitcher. 

I let it go for a few days, and then I began my Internet research. A year ago, or maybe a little more, a repairman had been out to fix our refrigerator, and he han replaced the circuit board, thankfully at that time still under warranty. So as I was Googling and reading lots of forums and blogs, I steered away from the ones that suggested the circuit board. After much research, I decide that the water tube in the refrigerator door was frozen. I decided to turn our freezer temperature down two notches and take my trusty hair dryer to the door and along the water tube line. I found said "water tube line" thanks to the Internet. Please note that I used my hair dryer on a low settings, as not to mess with the expandable foam in the refrigerator door. I found said "expandable foam" thanks to the Internet. 

After a few hours of the reduced temperature and a few treatments with the dryer: 

I fixed it!!!!

All on my own, I fixed an appliance! When that water poured out for the first time again, I yelled and whooped and hollered like it was pouring money. Awesome, awesome homeowner victory. 

Another victory I had recently was in regards to our sofa. We have a very nice Pottery Barn three-cushion sofa--the PB Basic design. The slipcover on it had been through the wash two too many times, and Porter had claimed one of the arms as his scratching post. The slipcover was a cotton material, and once one or two threads go, the entire stitching is going to follow. Finally, Porter's scratching area was so bad that Chris and I became worried he would soon be scratching the actual sofa. 

So to the Internet I turned. Slipcovers for Pottery Barn sofas, and probably all their furniture pieces, are about half, if not more, of what the entire sofa costs. I called the outlet store here in town, but they said they "rarely if ever got slipcovers in stock." 

I reached further into the blogosphere, until I found this post. Apparently, this blogger had a worn out Pottery Barn sofa and slipcover just like ours, and she didn't want to pay the exorbitant price of a genuine Pottery Barn slipcover either. She mentions that IKEA has the same sofa...and slipcovers. 

I checked it out, and look! Same sofa and slipcover for less hundreds less!

I ordered the light brown and ta-da!

Another homeowner victory!!!!

Dining Room: Take 2

For our anniversary this year, we redid our dining room. New table, new chairs, and then I redid the wall art. 

Well, the slip-covered chairs didn't fit our lifestyle very well. And by lifestyle, I mean this guy: 

Porter loved the fabric on the chairs so much that he couldn't keep his claws off of it! I continue to use the claw covers (see here), but as soon as one of the covers would fall off, he'd head straight for the chairs. The slipcovers just got picked to death!

The chairs underneath are perfectly fine, and they are now for sale! Check out my Craigslist page. 

But, we had to make a decision: Continue to purchase new slipcovers every few months, or just buy four new chairs to replace the fabric ones. I headed back to the same antique store where we bought our table and wooden chairs, and in the back of the store, he had four wooden chairs for an absurdly low price. I took their photo, sent it to Chris and left the store. I promptly returned and purchased them. 

They are a similar ladder-back design to the other two wooden chairs we already have. 

I like that they don't match our Head of the Table chairs exactly, but I think they complement each other nicely. 

New dining table: no fabric!

While I was finishing the dining table and chairs combo, I also decided that it was time to finish up that last empty frame on the wall. 

I used paint chips from Low's and the flower paper cutter from my tray project. I cut three flowers from the same color, and I positioned the three flower shapes on top of each other to make a full looking flower. 

It took a while to make, but I really like it!

A finished dining room. For real this time!

 

**Don't forget about Chris marathon page. Please help us raise money directly for St. Jude. Thanks!**

Tray rehab

Chris and I have had this brown tray for years. I thought it belonged to his family or something because I couldn't remember where the tray had originally come from. 

It was a fine tray, but there was a part of me that really wanted to modernize it. I would see trays in catalogs and think, "That's such a cute tray!" But, see I already had a tray, and so I didn't buy a new one. Again it was fine. Just brown. Finally one day I asked Chris about it. "It was a hand-me-down from your folks," he said. 

Perfect! I then knew I was free to mess it up in the hopes of making it better. First was a coat of red spray paint. 

I painted over the gold metal edges too. 

Yeah for pretty and red!

 

But I knew it needed something more. So I started searching for inspiration, and I found Martha Stewart's tray here. I immediately went to Hobby Lobby looking for cork shelf paper and a punch. But there was no cork shelf paper. I figured I could improvise with a roll of cork and double-sided adhesive paper. I could punch the shape in the cork and the adhesive paper and then put them together on the tray. Perfect. 

However, when I got home, I realized my punch (which was not a Martha Stewart brand, but I liked the shape better.) wasn't tall enough to accommodate the roll of cork. So I went to Michael's thinking (1. it was closer) and 2. they would have different punches. 

Michael's didn't have cork shelf paper, but I did buy two different brands of punches. One of them was a Martha Stewart Punch All Over The Page punch. Neither was strong enough to punch through the cork. 

At this point, I got on Amazon.com to find the cork shelf liner. I found it and ordered it. When it arrived, I immediately tried my two punches on it. Neither would cut through it!!

Back to Michael's to return the two punches. I took a square of the cork shelf liner with me, and I decided I would find the exact Martha Stewart punch shown, and test it before buying it. I usually don't promote using products before you buy them, but this "easy" project was getting out of control. 

Thankfully, the punch I chose worked!! And it was on clearance!!

Here's the cute shape I chose:

I first thought I would do lines of the flowers, but it just didn't look right. I played around with it for a bit and decided on this: 

 Here's the finished tray with Grace's nose in the pic. 

The theory is that the cork will absorb any sweating and condensation from drinks we put on the tray.

And, the cork makes it a non-slip surface. 

After all of that time and effort, I do think it turned out pretty cute. The lesson from this is to purchase exactly the products your inspiration project used. Thanks, Martha.