Cooks 6, IKEA 0

We waited to start Naomi's room until we knew it was for Naomi. Some people adopting before or after infertility are able to start preparation for a little one before they reach that milestone. We are not one of those couples. We were only able to start creating her space once we knew we could walk by her room and envision her playing on the rug or sleeping peacefully in her bed (they always do that, right?). Also we wanted it to suit her personality. That may sound odd given we have never met her face to face. From the moment we saw her photos however we started to get a sense of who she was. While very few can understand a connection with your daughter you have never held or heard make a noise, it happens and you start to think about who they are. Naomi....we have a feeling she's a strong willed little girl who marches to her own beat. We hope in the end her spaces end up creative, fun, and unique.

When people asked us what we were painting her room and we said, gray!, it sounded pretty boring. But stick with us! We added a 

Our last major renovation..........probably

It took us about 6 weeks but we finished! We are really proud of it and I love cooking in it. Of course it snowballed as any renovation does but we stayed pretty much on budget. We did all of the work ourselves with the exception of having the cabinets installed. Reused our office chairs as dining chairs which I love. Check out before pictures in the "Our House" tab. We finished a couple days before our referral for Naomi so it was great timing because now we can focus on her room. Hoping to have a celebratory party for being in our home 5 years soon!

3 weeks later

It was 3 weeks ago today that our dossier was sent to China and that we started demolishing our kitchen. Where are we today..........no kitchen, no log-in date! Our kitchen has went from this.....

to this....

1960's wallpaper anyone?

Basically all we have are the cabinets in. It is progress but still nothing we can actually cook on or wash dishes in. Have you ever spread peanut butter on a sandwich with a plastic fork.......I have, not easy. Next week we get our new stove, countertops, etc. in. Only thing left will be the backsplash after that. I never thought I would miss cooking so much. We've been pretty much eating out every meal for the past 3 week as well. We have covered the dining scene here for the most part so any type of cuisine we can tell you where to go probably! I think at one point

I started crafting....ahhhhh!

I always think wreaths for doors sold in the stores are so expensive for fake flowers. It is also hard to find anything more modern and different. I had seen a post on another blog about making yarn wreaths. So I decided on my week off I would attempt to make one. It must be all of those years spent watching my mom craft wearing off on me! I must say it turned out pretty darn good!

I bought a foam wreath form, although I would recommend a straw wreath but keeping the plastic wrap on it before wrapping. The foam occasionally made a small mess. Simply wrapped yarn around the form, which did take awhile. I used some sticks from outside

Everybody makes mistakes

Hello, my name is Kristen and I am addicted to painting. I hadn't had my fix in awhile so last weekend I decided on Friday I need to repaint the living room and dining room, oh yeah and bathroom. I have officially painted every wall in the house at least once since moving in, some rooms 3 times. I like to pride myself on doing a fairly good job choosing colors but occasionally mistakes happen. There was the "disco dining room" incident a few years ago where I thought the paint treatment where you mix glitter in with the paint to give a shimmery, elegant look to the room was a good idea. Let me tell you, it never is. It ends up looking like a 5 year old did an art project on your walls.

Well this time I made another color mistake. Since we are getting a new kitchen in late April that will change the feel of the current kitchen, I thought the dining and living rooms all needed to have the same feel since they flow in to each other. Being that I am obsessed with gray I chose out a shade and proceeded to paint the entire living room. When I finally paused to look at it, it was a mysterious shade or purple. Maybe it had something to do with the yellow underneath it?

Waited for the morning and still saw purple! Ended up repainting everything to a lovely cream shade. Looks a lot better than

Baby where'd you get those curtains from

I have been redecorating our bedroom since I found this great fabric online. I ordered about 11 yards of it and shipped it off to my expert seamstress (my mom!) who created beautiful curtains for our room. I love graphic patterns and am obsessed with gray right now which fit perfectly into the scheme of our room. I have been searching for a chair to use in our room to sit to put your shoes on, etc. Something simple, small, and inexpensive and I found it!

We found it at a local antique store, not sure what it the name of it is. We call it the 50th and Leavenworth antique store. It was only $40 and was in good shape. Didn't require any recovering and it has really cool nail trim details which I'm not sure you can see in these photos but I love nail trim on furniture. Ester really loves it.

I have next week off for a "staycation" and am pretty excited about all of the home projects, spring cleaning, and cooking I have on my list. I did mean that sincerely, I actually am. We got a head start and cleaned out our closets once and for all. 

Six large trash bags and a trip to Goodwill later our closets are much more open. Sounds like I need to do some shopping....

Home Projects in the Fall

We are addicted to home projects!  We did a few smaller projects this fall.  All done by us and for less than $500 with the exception of the entryway which was paid for by State Farm after damage from a windstorm. Next up kitchen countertops and backsplash!

First Floor Fireplace- New facade and tile heart

                             Before                                                                            After          

Front Porch/ Door- Hard to tell in these photos but new stone on porch/ stairs, new railing, new screen door and entry door (painted green by me!)

                           Before                                                                                 After

Laundry Room- No before photo but new floor, countertops, curtains (made by me!)etc. I like doing laundry a lot more now!