20 Wednesday Nov 2013
Posted in Fixing Up the House
Tags
Say whaaaat?? Yes, indeedy, Apartment Therapy has featured Finn’s room today! Dude, why am I all a-flutter in my belly? Because AT is one of my daily go-tos and I just about died when I was scrolling through this morning…. And there is a room in my house. Yippee!
If you are curious about how Finn’s room all came together; take a gander here.
Big thanks to the folks at Apartment Therapy!
18 Friday Oct 2013
Posted in Fixing Up the House, I'm a Crafty Mo' Fo'
Tags
bedroom, before and after, boys room, decorating, diy, home, house, kids, kids room, loft bed, remodel, renovating
This weekend, we put a few finishing touches on Finn’s room. I was super stoked, but I still was searching for a rug to hide the fugly carpet (which is not on our list of priorities to replace). After heading to Ikea on Tuesday night, I snagged one of my top contenders for $35 from the As-Is section.
And now, with the rug down, the room finally feels done! Here is what it looked like when we moved in…
Before…
And this was the other side of the room…
And now:
There are a few minor pieces of trim that we are still scratching our heads about exactly how to address (like the small gap between the wall and rock wall and the toe-kick at the bottom of the rock wall), but everything else is totally complete.
I put tiny curtains up under his loft to give him a little fort to hang out in. It also has been employed as a stage. And a reading room. And a hideout for doing things Mom doesn’t let you do, but now you have a secret hideout to do it in. Like giving your Lego men a bath in a cup of water. And spilling it.
The Lego table was originally parked under his USA map (see the full rundown on that project – my favorite – here), and the closet was supposed to house his dresser to free up some floor space. Oh, I measured twice to make sure it would fit – and it did with lots of room to spare. Only I forgot to think about making sure the drawers would open once it was inside the closet. Spoiler alert: drawers didn’t open, and it moved back to its original spot. Now that it is there, I think it anchors the map much better than the Lego table did. Finn’s made sure the map doubles as a cork board of sorts…
The frog donning a Batman costume was TOTALLY Finn’s idea. Bah-rill-yant.
We also found a new spot for the rhino head I made him a few years ago. The rhino keeps his Disney pins safe. And I was sooooo happy to hang up the sign with his name on it; my dear friend from Spokane made it as a piece of decor for Finn & I’s baby shower years ago… (Miss you, Great and Powerful Peggy!)
Hands down, the best part of the room is the bed. It is mega sturdy (all four of us have been up there without the slightest creak or wiggle) and Finny has a blast climbing up the wall to get in and out of bed. I think we have successfully planted the rock climbing seed for little Alice… She whips up that baby like a spider monkey. She has a bit of a problem getting down, but we’re working on it.
I did a little digging through Nae and I’s old road trip pics from years ago, and decided to meld one of the shots from Sequioa National Park with a favorite literary reference. A match made in Tolkien-nerd-road-trip heaven. Finn also gets lots of use out of the little shelf underneath it… It is just out of reach of Alice’s destructive little fingers and makes a great spot to keep his latest Lego creations safe.
Now that it is done (99% anyway), I am itching to get going on Alice’s room. My mom is coming to visit in a week… Ikea is begging for a mom-grandma-kids shopping trip.
But for now, I have a few weeks to clean up all the tools stashed upstairs. And to plot my next move for Alice’s space…
Just in case you are curious about our process, check out the room in-progress here, here and here.
03 Tuesday Sep 2013
Posted in Fixing Up the House
I had grand plans for this weekend, but the constant threat of rain rendered painting the garage door a fruitless endeavor.
Must…. Wait… For… Another… Three… Day… Weekend… (The perfect excuse to procrastinate, even if it isn’t a valid one.)
I already have the shutters and front door done, but the garage door is giving me the old stink-eye. I am afraid to tackle it, mostly because we are going from the same light gray that the house is to almost black… It is either going to look awesome, or totally shitty. And there is no going back once it is done – I’ll never be able to match the paint color that the house is now.
The real star of the show is Finn’s bedroom. On Sunday night, Finn sprinted into our room in the middle of the night, terrified from the nightmare he had just woken up from. I’m not going to say that I intentionally took advantage of the situation, but let us agree that I did not let a good opportunity pass me by. Watch and learn…
“Finn, why are you so scared?”
“I had a bad dream. I’m afraid to be in my bed, please, oh please, let me stay here in your bed, not in my bed. There are monsters under my bed.”
“What would make your room not scary?” I am so glad Nathan was awake for this part. “What if monsters couldn’t hide under there anymore?”
He tells me he wouldn’t be scared. I don’t know if this is actually the case, but I. Don’t. Care. As soon as we shuttle him back to bed, Nathan is staring at the ceiling, plotting Finny’s new loft.
Mission Accomplished. I’m working on hashing out the photo op with George W. Bush at the moment. Please stand by.
This will have to do for now. via
Instead of painting garage doors, Monday morning was filled with tape measures and pencil sketches and trips to Home Depot. After an unfortunate setback with the table saw melting its on/off switch (and subsequent visits to Radio Shack and Lowes to find a replacement), we didn’t get far enough to paint last night, but the details have been hashed out, his existing bed has been dismantled for parts, rock climbing holds have been ordered and there is an enormous structure taking shape in Finn’s bedroom.
So photo-realistic it’s SCARY.
The Big Boy Room is officially underway! I can’t wait!
With any luck, our retired climbing rope will get a bath this morning, we will get our final Home Depot run in this evening, and I will be relocating a sleeping pre-schooler while I paint in the middle of the night.
I’m gonna say it again – I CAN’T WAIT!!
17 Wednesday Jul 2013
Posted in Fixing Up the House, I'm a Crafty Mo' Fo'
Tags
bedroom, big boy room, boy's bedroom, decorating, diy, loft bed, mood board, paint
I have an itch that I have to scratch… I have been reading a few too many DIY home blogs, and I feel the need to DO SOMETHING. I was thisclose to painting the kitchen cabinets on a whim yesterday. I don’t even like painting, but I just need to put a little lipstick on this piggy of a house.
I thought about polishing off Alice’s room – I have tons of ideas, and her room is 80% of the way there already.
But I need to start Finn’s room. Ideas have been whizzing around in my brain for his room since we moved in – hell, even when we were living in the old Ohio house. He got shafted in the room-decorating department. When he was born, we knew we would be moving to Chicago when he was eight weeks old. By the time I got around to putting things together for his room in Ohio, the Colorado bomb hit and there wasn’t much of a point in decorating a place you were going to be selling.
So here we are.
Nae and I have been toying with the idea of making his bed into a loft (a low one) with bookshelves and a comfy reading nook underneath. His bookshelf did not survive the move and his books and toys have been piled up in his closet since January. Every one we looked at that was affordable was a piece of junk, and Nathan can build exactly what we want for about the same price.
Unfortunately, Nathan’s idea of building him a loft is this:
As far as I’m concerned – NO WAY IS THIS HAPPENING IN MY HOUSE.
And I’m more into this (which I think will survive Finn’s changing tastes in the long run):
We can work with this, right?
Since Nathan is working crazy long hours for the next few weeks, I’m kind of on my own in the decorating department. I’m setting aside the birthday money I have left to whip out as much as I can while Nathan is preoccupied. It reminds me of the time my mom covertly wallpapered the entire house when my dad was on a business trip… Oh, the 80’s was covered in wallpaper.
I sat down to hash out a few thoughts, and here is what I have come up with. I want something neutral that won’t look childish in the next five or ten years. It seems like lots of people are painting rooms dark these days, I want to so bad; I am terrified to do it. Shaking-in-my-boots terrified. Should I just pull the trigger? It is, after all, just paint.
Obviously, I won’t be able to build the bed by me onesies, but those LEGO man posters are sa-weet, and I have a great idea to make them even better… And I’ve got a customer service credit for FIFTY 11×17 poster prints from Snapfish. (I think it was intended to be fifty 4×6 prints, but I didn’t argue.)
I’m hoping to find awesome fabric for bedding – or maybe even a duvet cover at IKEA, who knows – since the one I love is discontinued and a small fortune for a little person to pee on. Finn has decent wood blinds in his room, but I think I’m gonna whip out a faux roman shade to dress the window up a bit. I love the look of roman shades, but they are a pain in the ass to open and close twice a day.
The project I am DYING to do is a ginormous plywood map of the US. Finny is pretty well-traveled, and I want to make sure we put a nail in every new place we go. It helps in getting him to comprehend the vast distance that separates him from his grandparents and our new house from our old house. And just how far Disney World is – which is why we can’t go next weekend. Nathan will have to help with this, of course, since woodworking is his department.
But I can paint by myself, yes? As long as I can work up the courage to buy a can of daaaarrk grey paint. (I’m gonna wuss out, aren’t I??)
Another Big Bite 