Furniture Moving in Trey's Room

So, I mentioned in my Office to Playroom posts that we moved a lot of furniture around and Trey's room was hit as well.

We started with moving out the recliner and the toy box which went to the playroom. We were left with his dresser and the changing table. I like using the dresser for Trey's clothes, it just works better for me. I found that I wouldn't hang his clothes up and they'd just stack and then get wrinkled. So, all his clothes are now in the dresser. And so far it's working great.

Obviously we aren't using the changing table right now except to store some baby stuff. But I love it and it will be used more in the future. I do think I want to repaint it in a brighter fun color but probably not for a while. That thing weighs a ton, so I'd have to do it in place and it's not a priority right now.

Anyway, so those 2 pieces stayed. My parents have recently done some furniture moving around as well and they gave us a twin bed for Trey. We haven't been in any hurry to get him his own bed but I didn't want to turn it down since we would eventually need it.

 Right now and since he was born he's slept right between David and I.  We never intended to have him sleep with us but in the hospital I couldn't bear to have him sleep in that clear box, so he slept with me in my bed. Then when we got home it just seemed natural to keep doing it. We all love our arrangement, although I do see it coming to a close in the near future. But this is what has worked for us.

Ok, back to the room. The changing table is the only thing that didn't move because as I said it weighs a ton! And I liked it where it was. The dresser moved to where the recliner was and with the toy box and dresser moved we had a nice big spot for the bed. I also moved an old stool that was David's dad's next to the bed to act as a nightstand.

Here's some before moving furniture pics. This is moving around the room.

Ok, now for the messy in progress pics.

Like I said these are messy and not even good quality pics, sorry about that. As well as moving all the furniture I took almost everything off the walls.

The black shelves needed to go. I am so past black and the shape didn't fit with what I want this room to look like. I want a bit more of a modern look, granted the dresser and shape of the bed don't reflect that but I use what I have on big stuff. Basically all dark decor is going or getting changed. And I'm moving the stuff around on the walls. But that's for my next post.

I also need more bedding in here but I'm working on that slowly, especially since we aren't in a hurry. I'll be making a bed skirt and duvet cover, but need to find the duvet/comforter! I also added an old chair to his room and it needs a makeover as well.

I also really cleaned out his closet. We are very lucky that our home has large closets, small bedrooms but large closets. Up to this point I've stored all Trey's old clothes in tubs in his closet and it's worked and we've had room to do so. But I was going to need to move some with his 4T clothes needing to be store. So when we got the bed I was able to move almost all of the tubs under the bed.

I also went back through all those tubs to make sure I was only keeping stuff I liked, cause some lids weren't closing. Anyway, after the tubs were moved there was a ton of extra space in the closet.
Here's some before and afters.

Love a newly organized space! I'm now able to use some of this space to store my decor stuff. I also have a bin to put Trey's next size/season clothes in.

So really this post is just to say, I've made changes and I have more to come! Hopefully next week I'll show the walls, some bedding, the chair and some small things that I'm working on right now.


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Mountain Painting

So, about a week before Christmas we were the happy new owners of a beautiful new mountain painting. If you remember I had our beach painting painted by my sweet friend Chelsea. We loved it so much that I asked her if she'd do another one for us, this time of a mountain scape.

I love beach scenes and David loves mountain ones. I was in need of something on one of the walls in our kitchen. It's awkward, because there is a lot of wall space but you couldn't put too much there without it feeling super crowded. I've tried a few things there over the years but nothing was working. So I asked Chelsea if she'd work her magic for us again and do a mountain scene for David.

She finished it right before Christmas and it looks awesome! David LOVES it and it works perfectly in its new spot. It's right across from the chalkboard.

In the pics it looks small on that wall, but in person it doesn't look small. So what do you think? Did Chelsea do an awesome job?!

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Office to Playroom Part 3

Well, for the first time ever I can say I'm done with a room! I have no more lingering things to do to the playroom, done, finished! WOO-HOO! Can you tell I'm excited?!

I just have a 3 little things to show you.

First is the cord cover for the t.v. I know that you've seen how we cover cords around here, but in this room it was more than just to look better. Since this is where children will hang out and Trey's table is next to the cord that comes down from the t.v. it needed to be inaccessible. I'm not worried about the plug but the cord being yanked on. And of course it just looks so much better and cleaner with the cord covered and not moving all over the place. I spent some time wrapping all the cords together behind the t.v. so they don't hang and so I can't see them (cords drive me crazy!).

All that said, I painted it and David screwed it in. OK, I lied, I do still need to paint the screws so they blend in but after that, I'm done! What do you think? Much better, huh?!


Second was making a quick pillow cover for the pillow I had on the chair. I just used some left over fabric from the toy box makeover, which I LOVE. It took me all of 30min to whip this baby up and I love the color it adds to the plain chair.

Third I wanted to make some new curtains for the room. I saw a tutorial on another blog about using 2 twin flat sheets to make striped curtains. She used Walmart sheets ($6ea for me) and cut them up into strips then sewed them into stripes. I loved them and the idea and the price. You can't beat $12 for some curtains.

So I went to Walmart and picked up a white and a blue. I did my measuring, then my cutting then my sewing (duh, right?). Then hung them up and they were OK. I was short about a whole stripe, they turned out a bit crooked and the colors together felt a bit like Dr. Seuss.

But for me, when I get to the end of a project and I don't love it, I usually say "screw it" and accept it. So, guess what I did? Yep, I'm accepting it. The short thing isn't a huge deal because in this room the end of the curtains isn't seen very much, only one is even seen and it's in the corner. And I'm considering using some clips to hang them from which would drop them down a few more inches. The crooked thing I was able to adjust most of it when I sewed the tube for the curtain rod. And the colors, while it wasn't what I had envisioned, the colors fit in with the room and they make the room feel a bit lighter compared to the old curtains.

So, while they aren't bad, they are better than what I had and they work. So until I find something or want to make something better, they are it baby! Hey, you can't get it right every time. And for these I'm OK with that. So, I'm done and ready to move on to other projects.

Here's Part 1
Here's Part 2

Next up I'll show what I've been working on in Trey's room. I'm excited and it's been a big change!


Has anyone ever tried to make striped curtains? If so how'd you do it? Did yours turn out crooked too?

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Office to Playroom Part 2

Ok, so I already shared about how and why we are making this change. Now it's time for details and pics!

I'll start with my desk and make my way around the room. As soon as you walk through the door you see my desk set up and my wall shelf. The wall shelf that David built me a few years ago for when I was scrap booking. I wanted it to hold my ribbon collection and the clips were to hold finished scrapbook pages. I designed it and David built it. I no longer use the clips for pages, so I just hang pretty paper from the clips as extra art. I do still love the shelf and kept it the same. I did add my button jar and a hurricane vase filled with twine, wire and an old thread spool.

My desk was shoved down to the corner, and I had to rearrange some things on my desk to fit everything I needed: my wood drawer unit, my sewing machine, my lazy susan, my laptop and my new serger. I put my OTT-Lite on top of my wood drawer unit so it's up high to give me light in that corner and free up valuable desk top space. I painted that white frame, it used to be black. Above my desk I had made a magnetic board a few years ago. Ok, my dad made it. I just bought some stock molding, a piece of plywood and a piece of sheet metal. It had been painted black but I was doing away with black. I found a sample size of paint in my stash and just used that. It had to be rehung since moving the desk and the red Simple sign above it was moved too. David found it at a craft fair a couple years ago and gave it to me for Christmas.

Next to my desk on the left and beside the door, is my white cabinet. It now holds my printer and a new lamp from Lowe's. I walked by this lamp and fell in love. When I needed a new lamp for this spot I knew exactly which lamp I wanted! I was using an extra lamp that was too big for this spot. After doing some lamp rearranging in the living room I was able to get rid of a base and shade that I didn't love and free up space in here for one I did.

The cabinet holds sewing patterns in the drawer. Some computer components and 2 white boxes in the cubby and in the base I have our office supplies. I still need to get some drawer pulls that fit in better but these work for now.

My favorite part is the shelves above the cabinet. I needed a good place to put my new Silhouette Cameo, so I had David cut some left over plywood from our headboard and I painted them white. If you look close you can see the rough surface, but I already had the wood and didn't want to buy more. We just bought the brackets which cost about $8 for both shelves. I don't keep the Cameo plugged in, so when I need to use it I take it down and put it on my desk and plug it in. I couldn't keep it on the desk so this is the next best thing. It works great for me.

The second shelf is just for cute/pretty/fun stuff. I just used a bunch of stuff I already had and made it work. And I really like how it looks. The box is one I've had since high school a free gift for graduating from a local furniture store. The Believe sign was unfinished originally from Hobby Lobby at Christmas time a few years ago. I'd painted it for Christmas but it wasn't working anymore, so I sprayed it pink with some paint I already had. The crystal light house came from my grandmother after she passed away. I love glass/sparkly stuff, so I got it!

The frame on the left I picked up at Goodwill and took out the glass which had some decorative stuff on it. I found this free printable on Pinterest which was so cute and I used some more in Trey's room which I'll show another time. The frame next to it was one I had in T's room and liked it as is, along with the pic of him and his best girl holding hands 2 summers ago. The other white frame was one that I had on T's wall gallery. It was a Goodwill find and I'd painted it black. I just repainted it white and used my new Cameo to cut a star out of teal card stock matted on some white paper.

Behind my desk chair that is actually an extra dinning room chair, is the recliner from T's room. With all the furniture moving around we we're going to have room for it in T's room and I knew if we wanted to make this room somewhere all of us could hang out in we needed a comfy chair. And yes, it's big and the room is small, but we used what we had and it's working. I'm going to recover the pillow and I'm making some new curtains too. These curtains were originally for the living room and when I found better ones in there, these came to live in here. We have weird 70's arched windows in here and the blinds don't cover that part. So if we were in here at night with the lights on, the neighborhood knew about it. I'll post about the curtains and pillow cover when I get them done.

Now for the workhorse of the room. The shelves. We installed the top shelf last spring to hold David's books. Since rearranging stuff it has taken on many more books. Those are all of David's that he wants accessible (the rest are in boxes in storage, the man loves books!). Since that was working so well I thought it would be great to add more shelves. So, we bought some boards cut to fit the wall, I painted them white and David installed them with some brackets I sprayed silver (they were a dull grey).

I couldn't wait to get these babies installed in the room. I knew I wanted them to hold baskets and games. I bought the fabric baskets at Target in fun colors. I made labels using my Cameo and writing the contents in coordinating ink to the basket. I like that they look cohesive. On the middle shelf: beads & jewelry stuff, craft kits, white boxes hold paint chips and paperback novels of mine, craft supplies, Christmas stuff and my Epic 6. Bottom shelf: craft paints, blank canvases, all my paper/stickers, lettering & stencils, Trey's new games, our Apple TV (totally awesome BTW), Wii, and video games/components.

A lot of the stuff in the baskets is left over from my scrap booking days but are good for other crafty projects, so I kept them. I can purge a lot of stuff, but getting rid of craft stuff is harder for me. I absolutely LOVE these shelves! I like that they will be flexible for whatever stage we're in or decide to do in this room. I can easily make a new label and switch out the contents of the baskets.

Bellow the shelves are T's toy box, his toy vacuum, his cooking stuff and his blocks.

On the last wall is the t.v., with T's table and chairs below. Then I rehung David's comic books and the dry erase board over the white cubes. The drawers on the left hold all T's colored pencils, deco scissors, stickers, colors, coloring books and paper. I made some picture labels in MS Word from their clip art, to help him and other kiddos know where things are and where they need to go back. And he has a drawer on the right that holds his balloons that daddy blows up for him. Ignore the cords from the t.v., I'll be covering them soon.

The books are all mine to the right of his drawers, and I have a drawer for my vinyl, the other drawer is empty. On top of the cubes is a photo box that holds some beginner books for T and a drawer unit with vowels and words. Trey LOVES letters!

The baskets hold all of T's puzzles. He had some puzzles before Christmas but ended up with many more after. The boxes that they came in took up too much room and they were getting torn and falling apart. So, I ditched all the boxes and each puzzle went into a zippy bag. I made a copy of the pic of the puzzle and put that in the baggy. This is working beautifully! They take up a fraction of the space they used to, nothing is torn, the bags are easy for T to open and close by himself and they all fit into these baskets. He even had a couple of puzzles that came with a wooden board that wasn't necessary, so the board went as well. I separated them by picture puzzles on the bottom and letter, number, shape puzzles, matching games on top.

This is what we started with.

Our goal for the room was to make it a place that all of us could enjoy at the same time. I could play at my desk, Trey could play with his toys, puzzles, games or coloring stuff and David would watch a movie or play with his iPad. We have accomplished this and we are in love with this room! It's a fun, creative place to be.

Here's a last look around the room.

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Office to a Playroom Part 1

So, the week before Christmas David and I are heading out of town to visit with his grandmother. It takes about an hour and a half to get there, which we don't mind because it gives us a long stretch of mostly uninterupted time to talk.

So, I started the conversation expressing my desire to have a space that I can have my desk and Trey's toys together. While working on all those Christmas presents, I spent a lot of time at my desk sewing away. And Trey wanted to be with me, so he hung out in the office with me but didn't have much to play with and there wasn't much room. So he mostly just layed around and half-heartedly colored.

I didn't know what we could do about it but I brought up the subject with David to see what he thought. And to my surprise he suggested getting rid of his desk in the office to make room for Trey's stuff. So a plan was hatched. We spent the rest of the trip there and back hashing out details and coming up with ideas. And we wanted to acomplish it the week after Christmas, while David was still home on holiday vacation.

So, the day after Christmas we got started. I started pulling down Christmas decorations and packing them up, while David started cleaning out the garage. You see we had to do a room by room shuffle. We had to take Christmas boxes out of the garage, and Trey's new bed (more on that in another post) to make room for the desk. And we had to move the desk out of the office to make room for the toys, and had to move out the toys from Trey's room to make room for the bed. Clear as mud?

By the end of the day, all major pieces had been moved into place. And then it took me the rest of the week to get all the little things organized and put away. Poor David was ready to go back to work just to rest! I'm totally LOVING the end result of the playroom formerly known as the office.

First some before pics.

Due to Christmas I'd received some new toys to create with and Trey had new stuff as well. So I had to get super creative with my storage and not spend very much. I think when all is said and done we'll have spent a little over $100. And it was worth every penny!

After removing David's desk (to the garage for now), we moved his filing cabinet and other misc stuff to the closet for now (to be cleaned and organized at another time). That freed up half the room. Then I moved some white cubes, that were beside my desk, to the other side and stacked them 2 up, 2 side. This let me move my desk all the way to the corner. The white cabinet moved to the left side of my desk by the door.

We brought in Trey's toy box, boxes of blocks, cooking stuff, and all his puzzles and games. He had a small table with 2 chairs that was perfect in there. And the recliner that was in Trey's room was moved to the playroom as well. Here's an in process pic.

I will be making some new curtains to help lighten the room and fit in color wise with the rest of the stuff in the room. I'm also working on a pillow cover for the pillow on the recliner.

So that's all the big stuff moved. I'll share in Part 2 the organization, and finished details.
Here's a small teaser.

It's a finished area, except I'll be trading out the red basket for another navy one soon.

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Christmas Gifts I Made 2011

So I shared back in October that I was making a lot of Christmas presents this year. And I didn't get to share much else because I didn't want to ruin the surprise for those getting the gift. So, now that Christmas is over and the gifts have been given I wanted to show pics of them.

Here's the run down of what I made:
3 quilts
3 purses
skirt
baby leggings
6 heat packs


Quilts
I made one for my bff "Mrs. K". I picked out fabrics in colors I knew she liked and opted for a simple design to keep it modern and more her style. It was probably the easiest quilt I've made so far and I love how it turned out. But most importantly she loves it too! I've named it Grey Poupon.

Trey's quilt, the Dr. Suess Quilt was by far the hardest and most time consuming quilt I've ever done and I won't be repeating this design any time soon. I posted about the process here.

David's quilt I decided on in November. I'd been thinking about it but didn't want to commit till I knew I could complete it. I finished the other 2 first, then started on his. He wanted a quilt but when we looked at fabric locally we couldn't find any masculine fabric. So I found a fabric bundle that was perfect for him online. I kept his a simple design as well, I really like the more modern quilt designs so that's what I made and will continue to do. His is extra long so he can cover his toes and pull it up to his neck, which is something he likes in blankets. I'm very happy with it and he LOVES it! We are calling it the Guitar Quilt, for obvious reasons.

I already shared about the baby leggings so I won't go into that again.

I didn't take a pic of the skirt, which I made for a little girl. It was pretty straight forward though and didn't take too long.

After seeing some heat packs at a craft fair, we decided to make some for ourselves. They were so easy to make so I made a bunch as gifts. Just a rectangle of fabric and some feed wheat or feed corn. I used the corn for my FIL and my dad's bags. Then used the wheat for my MIL, mom, "Mrs. K", and David's. I liked the wheat better because it was softer, but I don't know how durable it is long term.

And I've made 2 for myself as well. One as a foot warmer for my bed, made with quilting cotton. The other as a regular heat pack (for my back or neck or such) made with flannel. And OH MY GOSH, (sorry not trying to yell, just empasize) if you ever make one use flannel! SO soft and warm.

All the heat packs I made using scraps of fabric I already had so these were very inexpensive gifts as I just had to buy the insides. But everyone seems to be loving them, and we use ours daily.

I forgot to take pics of 2 of the purses which went to my mother-in-law. I made one for my mom which is the one in the pic. The purses take a few hours each to make. My mom's was pretty simple, since that's more her style. Both moms expressed a desire to have a purse after I showed them the one I made a few months ago.

All in all I had a blast making so many handmade items for Christmas. I'm really glad I started working on them in October because I made my last item days before Christmas. And I had to take a sewing break for a few weeks to recover. But I loved it and I'm pretty sure most enjoyed their gifts.

Did you make anything to give as gifts? What did you make? I'd love to hear about it!

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