Pre-Teen Boy Bedroom

My oldest son, Caleb, wanted a new bedroom for his 8th birthday.  Considering we hadn't done anything to his room since he turned 2 and got a 'big boy' room, I figured it was time.  I must admit I wasn't thrilled with his theme choice, but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.  I used pinterest a lot while I was coming up with ideas and ordering stuff.

The Halo - Army Bedroom

Grandma gave him these cool signs and after I finished with the room he added them as his touch.

The Letters I made with vinyl on my cricket.  I would have preferred a blockier font but you use what you have, plus I don't think he noticed.

We already had most of the furniture (exception was the desk/shelf more about that later), but I did want to try and move things around a bit.  I moved this cube shelf to the end of his bed and I really like how it fits there.  He got the "safe" (AKA Ikea TRYGGHET medicine cabinet) for his birthday from grandma too, we might paint it camo colors later.

His one request was to have a camo netting over his bed.  I had already bought the camo netting when he asked this and so I just had to figure out how to hang it.  To hang it we used clear Command removable hooks by 3M.

I found this vinyl tank on Amazon, and the Halo Prints from Etsy, I loved how they turned out.

And for the desk/shelf combo.  I did a little Ikea Hack to make that (with lots of help from the hubby).  We took a Billy shelf and assembled it normally.  Then we cut down a Linnmom Table Top to 32 inches.  We put it on an existing shelf at the height to work with the cheap $4 Adils legs and used L brackets to reinforce the shelf, then we drilled the table top to the shelf.  Its perfect for our use and not very expensive either.

Oh and PS I got the Halo Mask from Oriental Trading company for like $8 (plus shipping).  It looks great as décor and Caleb already put it on to play with as well.

And finally we needed Gun Storage of course, I just took a regular over the door shoe holder and placed all the guns in there, cutting some of the bottoms out so they could thread through to make a taller holder.

Front Closet MakeOver!

On the very last day of our Christmas break I was over come by the need to organize our front closet.  So Saturday after my little brothers (and future sister's) bridal shower, I began unloading the front coat closet.  By that night, I had taken everything out of it and taken off all the moldings and the one lonely shelf in there.  I also convinced Tony to help me by filling in the holes.  So Sunday after church we did a quick run to the Lowes to buy some stuff for my master plan.  I hadn't really thought it out much, just a general "vision" but with help from Tony (ok a LOT of help) my vision came out pretty well.

Here are some before / in progress:

The biggest problem with our closet is the wasted space.  Because it is over our basement stairway we have this really weird incline that covers most of the floor space.  A few years ago I convinced Tony to put some shoe molding along the bottom in 3 rows to kind of hold shoes.  Although it was an okay solution, I just got fed up with the shoes constantly falling.  Also our games were totally impossible to get to, so I knew when I put everything back in I'd be standing those up on end.

And look how dirty it was!!  A fresh coat of paint made a HUGE difference right away.

Very first progress picture, fresh paint and the beginning of the frame Tony built to start off my vision.

 

 

And here it is, *just* about done.  You can't tell from the strategically taken pictures but I still have some moldings to paint (and the side) and we have some cracks to fill in to finish it off. I wanted to be able to store most if not all our shoes (can't store the boots so those will be on our shoe rack until after winter), the skylanders / infinity characters, winter gear (in the drawers). and of course our coats and adult games.  Its amazing how much more we can fit in the closet!  Standing up the games was huge, now we could actually get the games/puzzles down if we wanted, but truth be told we could probably get rid of most of them... maybe one day.

 



Bathroom Artwork

Inspired by our SuperHero themed photoshoot, I DIYed some artwork.  These were made in Photoshop and then printed onto 10x10 Aluminum from one of my professional printing labs.  I love how they turned out!!  Printing on Aluminum was a tad cheaper than canvas and more durable than just mounting prints to the wall without frames.



Ikea Hackers

A fun blog to peruse is www.IkeaHackers.net, and an even better reason for heading over there is because Cullen's room is featured!  I still plan to finish off the shelves and finish the bench but who knows when I'll get around to that.  Go check it out!

http://www.ikeahackers.net/2012/09/malm-billy-wall-unit.html#comment-form

Cullen's Big Boy Room Part 1

We started changing Cullen's room around a little bit.  I'm not quite ready yet to move him out of the crib, and since he's not climbing out, why change that.  BUT we did start working on the new built in look.  After a lot of searching on pinterest for some inspiration, and finding pieces on Ikea.com that looked like it would work, we went out shopping.

But first, the before shot:

Ended up buying 2 - Ikea Malm dressers, 2 - Ikea Billy Bookcases, and 3 - Ikea Expedite Cubes.

Then began the 'ikea hack' we drilled into the bottom of the bookcases and the top of the dresser to connect them with large bolts, then we also drilled both pieces into a stud in the wall to make sure they were super secure.  We still want to do some finishing using some moldings around both units.  The Expedit cubes are just sitting on the ground right now, but we're going to make them into a window bench.  We just have to account for the floor vent so we don't cover that up.

Even though its not done yet, I really like how it turned out.  We can't actually use the drawers on the right yet because of the crib, but even without that we still have a ton of space!

A new room...

Caleb has had a captains bed since he moved out of his crib.  While he likes it, he's been wanting to sleep on a 'lower' bed.  So short of going out and buying a new bed, here's our solution.  I wish I had before pictures cause just a little furniture placement can really change the look of a room.

The boys even have a little 'fort' under the tall bed.  they had a blast there this evening!



Gardening

Well we got our garden finished today, added some seedlings, and a few more seeds to our already growing garden. Here's what we hope to grow this year, some are new additions, some are oldies that we love.

Our Strawberry plant, which we started last year.  Last year we only got 2 or 3 strawberries, this year it looks like we'll have a lot more, we'll have to wait and see.

Our grape vine, we actually planted this 2 or 3 years ago.  I think this year we finally see a cluster starting to grow!

Our "salad" garden, we started from seeds with everything except the 2 broccoli plants there.  By the time the broccoli plants get bigger the lettuce will be all gone.

In this garden, from top to bottom:  Row of Carrots, 2 Broccoli Plants, Sweet Salad Mix, Row of Arugala, Row of Green Leaf Lettuce

Fruit/Veggie Garden.  We have a couple seeds starting, but everything you see was bought from seedlings.

From Left to Right:

 - Green Bean Seeds (8 plants)

 - Radish Seeds (8 *to be planted)

 - Back, 4 Watermellon Plants

 - Front, 4 Celery Plants

 - Broccoli Plant (middle)

 - Eggplant (middle)

 - Broccoli Plant (middle)

 - Back, 4 Cucumber Plants

 - Front, 4 Green Pepper Plants

 - Far Right, 2 Tomato Plants (big boy, cherry)

 - Basil Plant

Herb Garden, it it we have Rosemary (we LOVE on chicken and potatoes); Oregano (comes back every year); Peppermint Plant - Cause caleb picked it out cause of how good it smells; We also have 8 stalks of green onions that I got at the supermarket, used up and just plopped in there, we'll see if they grow.  The big thing is a rosebush that we transplanted there way before we ever knew we'd use this spot as an herb garden.

And the one thing I forgot to take pictures of was our Asparagus 'field' lol, we have 2 rows of 23 asparagus crowns/plants growing.  We actually let them go to fern this year, next year we'll start harvesting!  And I can tell we're going to get a lot!

A little curb appeal

If you have been to our house in the past you've seen our horrible front flower beds, maybe its just me, but I absolutely hated it. I also probably just got sick of looking at it. Anyway a few weeks ago we ripped out the center evergreen tree along with 3 overgrown holly bushes. And I've spent the last 2-3 weeks putting 'new' stuff in. Everything you see (aside from the 2 evergreens on the left and the tree on the right) has been moved or planted. Total Cost of this renovation... $15 on 4 bags of aged pine bark that we used to work in the soil, which happens to be mostly clay. I got a lot of new plants from my mom who splits her perennials every year. Thanks MOM!

Kitchen Updating

If your my friend on FB you know we've been doing some updates to our Kitchen. We're not completely done, actually we have a lot more to do, but I thought I'd do mid before & afters since my kitchen was nice and clean and I had fresh flowers :)

BEFORE: *Notice - cabinets were raised, and counter extended into a bar.



AFTER:


BEFORE: *and of course the TILE!!!



AFTER:




This was such an easy update/fix, gives us some space to hide things that were normally sitting around our sink!


Things we still have to do:
Finish Tiling - we had to move an electrical box that was somewhat behind the stove so we only did one wall, I wanted to have the main part tiled before the party.
Clean up the tile and finishing touches with outlets/covers
Decorate Dining room (Ignore what's there now, that's up for Caleb's b-day party)
Pick an "accent" color, I'm gonna get rid of the red stuff, I'm thinking White, or just Stainless stuff.
Replace the vertical blinds with something else!