room makeovers Archives - Page 2 of 5

Built in Bunkbeds

September 24, 2017 By Taylor 9 Comments

It’s room reveal day! I have been waiting for this post for almost a year so please excuse the one million photos :) I’m just so excited for the boy’s new built in bunkbeds!!

When we moved into our house the boys decided they wanted to share a room but I wasn’t sure how long that would last. So, I found some (temporary) red wicker headboards on craigslist and we just attached them to a metal bed frame and that worked for a few years. Last year around this time I realized that the boys still love sharing a room and that they were getting a little too “strong” for flimsy headboards attached to a cheap metal bad frame via zip tie haha! I started researching bunkbeds but my husband is the type who doesn’t think anything is sturdy enough so he said he should build them… umm ok! Here is the before:

We repainted their room to match the rest of the house because I just can’t get sick of this color. It’s Colonnade Grey by Sherwin Williams and it is in every other room but two in the entire house! It is considered a greige but its definitely on the grey side with just a little warm hint.

I found several inspiration bunk beds on Pinterest and pinned those HERE. I showed Bryan a few of the photos and we took things we liked about several of them and added some things that were our own too. Bryan started with the frame and had to finish that part quickly because the boys needed to actually sleep in there haha! We did it over the summer so they crashed on the couch for about a week or so!

I know I have bragged on my husband in the past for his amazing woodworking skills but these are unreal! The house could blow over but these would still be standing ha! They are attached the whole way to the wall and built from floor to ceiling. My favorite things… the built in shelves in the bottom bunk and the mini staircase! There is also a pull out trundle.

I will link all sources at the end of the post but I found the flag from Amazon and this metal grey bookshelf is from IKEA. I was trying to go boyish… but more of a grown up boy. My kids are 6 and 8 right now which is kind of a weird in between stage. Some things are way too “baby” for them and that just wouldn’t be cool now would it :) I also don’t want to rush them into an adult room so I hope this is a happy middle ground.

With the room remodel we got them Beddy’s Bedding. If you have bunk beds you pretty much need this bedding! It’s kind of like a sleeping bag, a comforter and a fitted sheet had a baby! The entire thing zips up and fits around the mattress so in the morning when it’s time to make the bed all they have to do is zip up the sides. We went with the “simply white” for a few reasons. Firstly, I love everything white because it looks clean and I can bleach it. Secondly, Beddy’s only option at the time for all cotton was the white. Most of the interiors are minky, which sounds super cozy but just too warm for us down here in Houston. I think they now make a grey option for the cotton interior too. I was a little nervous about so much white but I’m actually so happy about it. Anyway, I HIGHLY recommend them for bunk beds or even just for kids learning to make the bed. The quality is amazing, the are so soft and have a great weight to them (and I’m picky about that :). They boys love them and so do I…. win/win.

When Bryan finished these and I went to the top bunk the first time I was actually a little scared of how high this thing is. My oldest is on top and the railing is very high so it would be impossible to fall out, which makes my nervous moms side feel better. We still need to move the fan, it comes about a foot away from the edge of the bed which is just a little close for comfort but it is so cozy up there!

On the opposite side of the bed they have their dresser also from IKEA. This is also where the pet hermit crabs live :) ! We went to Florida this summer and what trip to Florida is complete without a hermit crab souvenir?!

I love these posters I found from GroopDealz (about a year ago)! They were so affordable and the colors are perfect, I found the frames from where else??… amazon.

The boys use the corner basket for extra blankets (and tent building :) The plant hangers are from amazon and we had to do faux plants in there because let’s be honest… between two little humans and four hermit crabs my “living thing” quote is maxed out in the room! I found this fun splatter fabric from IKEA and just used hot glue to attach some green pom pom trim.

If you know me you know I don’t really do neutrals but for some reason I just kept buying black and white for this room… what is happening to me?! Love these buffalo check pillows I found on Amazon. The graphic word pillows are from Target.

I found the handles for the trundle on Amazon. I just love the trundle, can’t wait for boy sleepover fun to happen in there :)

To say they boys are obsessed is an understatement. Bryan truly built an amazing piece of furniture and I’m sure the boys will make amazing memories in here! I am going to link as many things as I can remember at the end of this post but let me know if you have any questions!

Sources:

Bedding- Beddy’s (in Simply White)

Rug- Amazon

Grey Metal Shelf and Dresser- IKEA

Flag- Amazon

Curtains- IKEA Fabric with Green Pom Pom Trim

Sting Lights- Target

Plant Hangers: Amazon

Pillows: Amazon and Target

White Frames: Amazon

Big Girl Bedroom

May 7, 2017 By Taylor 4 Comments

I can’t believe I’m writing a post about a big girl bedroom! Feels like just yesterday I was posting about a Nursery and now here we are :) A lot of things are the same… gallery wall, most of the same furniture, rug… but yay for a new big girl bed!

This bed has a story too! I will save the story for the next post… the one where I write about how we restored the bed :) But trust me it’s a good story and the bed is now considered a family heirloom.

I had a little trouble with the layout of the new room once the bed was in here. I decided to keep the toy storage and the dresser on this wall so it made sense to keep the gallery wall the same. Not too sure about this rug in here now, it made much more sense in her nursery but I will keep it until I find something perfect.

I used the rolling cart (IKEA) to create a little book nook with her chair. Three years later and The Dot Wall is holing up perfectly! The wall art is from Hobby Lobby and Minted HERE.

This bedding. It’s basically my favorite thing… ever. It is from Biscuit in Houston and just love it so much haha! The big pillow is also Biscuit, and my friend monogrammed it :) Middle pillow is Wren and Rumor and the small pillow is Anna Joy French.

The Bee’s Farmers Market sign was painted by my sister @HandwrittenJane for Bee’s 2nd Birthday party and I couldn’t dream of throwing it away haha!

I played musical curtains in the house… moved the nursery curtains to the living room, living room went to the Playroom, these are new and I love them! They are from Overstock. I added a flower crown to one of her new animal friends on both sides of the windows. The unicorn is from Target and the Flamingo is from Hobby Lobby.

Overall I love how it turned out! It’s a little whimsical and eclectic but also a little classic, I’m actually a little jealous of it :) Thankfully I know where she lives!

Playroom Reveal

March 27, 2017 By Taylor 3 Comments

It’s finally here! Well… I finished this room back in December but the BLOG POST for the Playroom Reveal is finally here haha, Hooray!

We’ve played some musical chairs in our house recently. Last fall the boys finally wore us down about bunk beds and Bryan started on those. Then just a few weeks ago Bee climbed out of her crib and got a “big girl room”. You know how parenting is… right when you get comfortable in the stage you are in – it changes. The “playroom” in our house is just an extra bedroom (because I use the formal living as my craft room) and they boys share a bedroom. So, it was the home to all of the boy’s toys. But the boys are in a new phase where they are either in the backyard, with friends, at sports or playing on the iPad. I looked around and realized they are kind of over the matchbox and train days. They still love legos but those are in a trunk in their bedroom.

But… guess who is entering the toy phase?! Little sister :) Her room was bursting the seams with dolls and books and pretend food. It was time for a switch (which always makes me happy haha). In other words, I got to girl the room up a little!

Bee has a ton of dolls already, so they live in this little bassinet that was actually my dad’s when he was a baby. I don’t know about putting a real baby in here but I love it for her dolls haha! My grandfather made it and we found it in my dads garage… amazing right?! She got the dollhouse from Santa this year and its a big hit around here! The curtains are World Market (that I stole from my living room) and the floating book shelves are IKEA of course.

The pink baskets are there for odds and ends I find around the house at the end of the day… I try to have an area where I can throw the toys that have made their way into the living room haha!

The little “kitchen area” is my favorite… its so fun! The play kitchen (tutorial found HERE) is something that Bryan and I made soon long ago! Ancient Taylor Made right there haha! I updated the colors to make it a little more farmhouse and less 2010 ha! I also found that market shelf but it was black so I painted it gold for a pop.

How adorable is that little wooden baby bed. I got that in Pennsylvania when we visited the Amish Country last year, it’s handmade and gorgeous!

We painted the wall with chalkboard paint around the holidays, it has been super fun… in hindsight I would have made sure to sand the texture off the wall first but live and learn. I made the TeePee a few years ago( TUTORIAL HERE). I just love the brother wall art in the corner over there :) The dolls are Anthro and Candy Kirby!

The shelf is from Ikea and I used my Silhouette to label them. I also used some hot glue to embellish the boxes with scrap fabric. My kids love the VHS Disney Movies that my sister and I had as kids so I keep the TV/VCR in there which is hilarious and not really pretty but hey it works and they love it so why change it haha.

My kids actually keep this room pretty organized! They closet is really neat too. They know that they can only take one box out at a time- for the most part this works but I do have to do a heavy clean about 2x a year which isn’t bad!

The cute yellow nightstand was in here when this room had a bed and I am not sure where it should live yet. And here is the other wall with the closet and the Book Bunting TUTORIAL HERE that I made from my moms vintage books from the 50s and 60s!

The kids love this room and love that there is a big open space in the middle to spread all the toys out haha! Usually Bee is forcing her brothers to play house, they are good sports! Let me know if you have any questions about sources or how I made something!

Kitchen Remodel (with sources!)

April 26, 2016 By Taylor 11 Comments

Guess what I have for you today…our kitchen reveal… FINALLY!! We had our kitchen remodeled last year (BEFORE PICTURES HERE) and I am just now getting around to posting all the details! To be honest living through a nine-week remodel with two active boys, a nursing baby and two dogs was about all I could take! So, now that we have lived in it for almost a year and broken it in, I’m sharing some photos and sources, yay! We pretty much knew what we wanted a few years ago but struggled a bit with our countertops so I wrote a whole post about those HERE. Kind of boring to read a whole post about countertops but trust me when you are in the market, it will really help!

On to the (very.photo.heavy) kitchen AFTER! Here she is :) We love her!

Here is a lovely before and after picture, my favorite kind! We kept the same layout because the shape made perfect sense for our house. One of my favorite things that we did was lowering the back bar and extending it out by about 14″ so it hangs over the barstools now. We also took the cabinets all the way to the ceiling which I think made the biggest impact. We were originally going to have the exsisting cabinets painted and an additional box built on top but surprisingly the cost was pretty close to the cost of building all new custom cabinets so we went with that. We went with shaker style doors instead of beveled and I love them! The carpenters did an amazing (and quick) job with that part.

My friend Ailee came over a few months ago and helped me take a few pictures and she also gave me some pointers on taking more photos in my kitchen. Our kitchen is in the very center of our home which I love but there are no windows, cozy but a photography nightmare haha. Thankfully Ailee is talented and helped me out, if you live in the Houston area look her up!

photo by Ailee Petrovic

One of my favorite things are the floating shelves that we have on the side wall. I move things around up there very often, typical me. Another one of our favorites are the floors.. which are faux wood tiles. We wanted the wood look but it’s not practical for the amount of spilling we do haha! I highly recommend these for a kitchen!

We are so happy with the countertops. Like I said, I have a whole dedicated post for them because it was the only hard decision for me, hopefully it helps someone else in the same boat, you can read about them HERE. So far we have spilled everything possible on them and they still look great.

One of my favorite things is our chrome bridge faucet :) I am so in love with it… when it was first installed I was thinking “this is too fancy for us” haha! It still makes me happy every time I look at it. It’s also perfect for our farmhouse sink… those two were made for each other.

I still love the sink and I’m super happy that we went with it but it does get little grey marks on it really easily. It happens when we put anything stainless steel or metal in there… mixing bowls, spoons, cookie sheets. At first I thought it was scratched but the markings actually come off with some elbow grease… thank goodness. I have been using “SoftScrub with Bleach” but I hear bar keepers friend and baking soda work really well too. Let me know if y’all have any other cleaning tips!

Because we decided not to go with the marble countertops, I thought a marble backsplash would be perfect! While I do love some classic white subway tiles, I was afraid it would be just too much white. I’m really happy with the marble hexies. My husband was the most skeptical about this decision but as soon as it was installed we knew it was perfect. We put it behind the vent hood and the floating shelves because I loved it so much! They almost sparkle in the light.

Photo by Ailee Petrovic

Speaking of needing to add color, I wanted even more contrast so we went pretty dark on our island. I loved the richness of Bermuda Turquoise by Benjamin Moore and I picked it out sight unseen haha! We were out of town the week our contractor painted and he called us five states away to make sure we chose the right color haha! I had only seen it online and I said “lets go for it”. It turned out to be the perfect mix of green and blue for me.

I also wanted another little splash somewhere else and I found these jadeite milk glass knobs. Fun fact, the shape also mimics the backsplash :) I got the same milk glass knobs in white for the island. I went with chrome cup pulls for the drawers.

Photo by Ailee Petrovic

There is a little section to the side of the kitchen that used to have a low built in desk which no one ever used but we got used to using that as our family mail and office workstation. So, we had our contractor built four huge drawers for office supplies and files. We keep all of our mail and school info there too. I love the little label pulls, I haven’t labeled them yet but that is on the list :)

With all of the open space came the problem of things being left out on the counter so my husband built these custom hook bars just a few weeks ago. We have already gotten so many compliments on them! He stained them to match the dining room table in the next room.

Lastly, our favorite spot… the bar! The kids sit here more than anywhere else in the house. We eat breakfast here, sometimes lunch, after school snacks, arts and crafts, homework… you name it! I love the overhang they added, it makes the countertops look really deep right when you walk in which I love. We also added two pendant lights and I love them so :)

Photo by Ailee Petrovic

Overall, we couldn’t be more happy with our amazing new kitchen!! We are so lucky and thankful that this is the center of our home… we cook in it multiple times a day and it’s the hub of our family! Remodeling is expensive and can be stressful at times but it was so worth it for us. We will enjoy our happy space for years to come! I’m going to leave all the sources after all the photos so me know if I left anything out anyone has any other questions and I will add them to the post :)