Introducing The Big Girl Room

Since Cora is not the baby anymore I guess I can't call her room the nursery. She calls herself a big girl so I guess I will too! We have been living in our new house for over 4 months now and I still haven't showed you Cora's room.

Your lucky day = Today!

Photos Of The Room Before Moving In:
Cora came on the final walk through with us and thought her closet was just about the coolest place in the world, especially for gymnastics moves and push-ups.

  

Here are some views of her actual room:

I worked hard on Cora's room early on to make it a nice livable space and then I slowed my roll like crazy. There is still plenty left to do. I cannot wait to get some paint up in this house!

Here is the to do list for her room:

• Reassemble all furniture
• Hang art above day bed
• Hang floating shelves above dresser
• Hang blinds
• Hang curtains
• Hang more art in her room
• Paint
• Maybe paint the back of her tall Ikea Billy bookcase a fun color
• Touch up all furniture (the move was hard on it)
• Organize the bookshelves

It should be noted that even though I am calling this "The Big Girl Room" Cora is still sleeping in her crib. We tried the Big Girl Bed but gave up after a few nights. We will try again when things have settled down with the new baby.

Here is Cora seeing her room all furnished for the first time:
She was so super excited! It was better than Christmas morning. There was squealing and a ridiculous amount of "Oh Man"s coming out of her mouth.

Withing the next few weeks, we got the room a bit more organized.

Next, we added a tall Billy Bookcase from Ikea.

That bookshelf was a mess for a long time. Even Cora was recognizing it with some subtle "Mom, that is a big mess" comments here and there.

Would you like to know what motivated me to get it a little more organized?

I put all of my kids/ young adult books in there including a box of Baby Sitter's Club books that brought me up to about book #55. The box also included some sweet Baby Sitter's Club Super Specials (pictured below in the blurry back row).

But that was not the only thing I found in the box. Does anyone remember that there used to be such a thing as New Kids On The Block Trading Cards? Well, it turns out that there was. It also turns out that I must have had all of them. And one more fact for you: They are unbelievably awesome! Just check out Jordan Knight below.

In case you didn't guess these cards were what motivated me to organize the bookcase. I couldn't wait to find out what other gems might be hiding among the books.

Here is the slightly more organized Billy bookcase:

And, some more views of the whole room: 

And the room's owner makes a few guest appearances for you. 

There you have it!

There have actually been a few more items checked off the to-do list at the time that I am writing this. But 27 photos is way too many photos. So, just you wait another month or so and I will get you some updates!

Happy Holidays!!!! It's Family Time!

Happy happy holidays! The last month has been crazy town around here. I am very glad that I got a bunch of posts ready to go up each week before I had the baby because there is no way it was happening otherwise. Things are starting to settle down just a little bit. So I thought I would drop in with a little holiday cheer for you.

The Grinch! Not so cheery but at least it is festive. 

"Christmas in Davidson" is a big celebration where we live. They have a couple of weekends full of activities, a parade, a dog costume show, tap dancing older ladies... they do it up big here! We took Cora and August out for one of the evenings and had a wonderful time. Cora got to meet the Grinch. She wasn't so sure about him but it was the highlight of the night. She talked about him nonstop after that.

She got to see Santa in the parade.

Proof:

She also got to meet Santa at a Cookies with Santa event.

August took part in all of these events but he pretty much spent it all snoozing in my arms or Moby wrap.

There was a trolley offering free rides right outside our house so we took them up on it. And there is August in the Moby wrap.

And here is that little dude sleeping in my arms during the parade. 

Oh... and on that note- August is my son! He was born 11 days late and used every second of those 11 days to grow into one massive 9pound 15ounce monsterous baby. We think he's pretty awesome.

Cora likes him too!

I hope you have the happiest holidays ever!!!

Dining Room Update: Organized Play Area, Rug, Art, Etc

Months ago I showed you my initial plans for dining room. Then we added some pendant lighting. I gave you your first real look at the dining room. And, I kept you in the loop with a dining room lighting updateLINK

There have been a few changes in the last couple of months so let's check them out!
Since your last look at the dining room we have:

• Added a rug

• Updated the lighting

• Done some major toy organizing and added a few more 1970s and 1980s Fisher Price Little People toys. Cora's Grandmama held onto ALL of our old toys. All of my life I thought she was a bit crazy for doing so but I have to say they are, by far, Cora's favorite toys. Tightwad Scott and I even tried to buy some more off of Ebay for her for Christmas but our tightwad limit maxed out when the bidding got over $50. In this process I also ditched the random boxes and books that were in the Expedit shelving bench.

• Added a throw blanket that I am hoping will tie the whole 2nd level together

• Added a little pillow/ dog house area

• Put a couple of pictures on the wall

At night, Scott likes to have fun rearranging Cora's toys. His favorite thing to do is put all of her figurines on together so it looks like they have bizarre heads. Cora immediately fixes them in the morning saying things like "ohhhh Daaaaad this isn't how they go" over and over. 

Here is what is coming soon to the dining room:

• curtains!
• roller blinds (woo hoo)
• DIY cornices to cover the roller blinds.
• And, in the not so near future: paint!

Who's Looking For Another Living Room Update? Time For Curtains, Art & Organization!

The living room wasn't supposed to get as much attention as it did before new baby came but new baby decided to be late. As I write this, he is 6 days overdue and not giving us much of a sign that he is coming. My sister came down the weekend before he was due to visit, help out, and hopefully get to meet him. He didn't show so I got lots of time to relax and get things done while Cora was very happy to be entertained by her aunt. A few days after she left my mom came down in hopes of helping out with the new baby. Instead, she also got lots and lots of time with a sweet little girl but no new baby. Cora has been as happy as can be with all of the visitors and our house is really making some progress.

Here are links to past living room progress:
#1: Introducing The Living Room
#2: Media Center & Rug
#3: Unusual Shelving

And, did I hear you ask for a to-do list? You've got it!

• paint
• curtains
• hang artwork
• hang something above and around the TV
• get a rug
• new entertainment center
• change out the black side table
• move desk (temporary entertainment center) to the left of the couch and paint it turquoise
• get rid of the random chair
• change a couple of accessories
• try to figure out a way to hide Scott'e subwoofer
• maybe put some sort of book ledge above the couch and below the 3 high windows
• add wood around the entertainment center
• possibly change out the remote/coaster holder for something that matches better

My mother-in-law is a curtain-making extraordinaire and she offered to make some curtains for our new house. Wooo Hooo!!! I took her up on it in a heartbeat! Our ceilings are really tall and our windows are very wide which makes the pre-made curtain choices very limited. On top of that, I am a huge fan of picking my own fabric instead of being limited to the fabric that pre-made curtains have chosen for me.

I looked all over the place for the right curtain fabric for the living room and reached my final decision in... I bet you can guess it... Ikea! I went with Ikea's yellow Stockholm fabric.

Here they are!

I also decided to stop leaning art against the wall and go ahead and hang it up. 

I tried this painting first:

but I ended up liking these 2 better:

I put the other 2 blue paintings that I had like the ones above on top of Cora's cubby hole. 

My mom and I spent some time trying different ways to accessorize the big metal bookshelf and came up with this:

I am sorry to say that a lot of the books that are displayed are displayed because I liked the way they look not because I am wild about the books. Sad sad, I know. All of the books that I need to access frequently are in my bookcase downstairs, in my bedside table or in Cora's bookcase. The rest are hidden in boxes under our couch.

Some books that I obviously need constant access to are my "I Love Lucy" book and a bound copy of my Granddad's dissertation about Quantum Physics.

Check out this awesome painting that our friend and Realtor gave us of our old house. We love it! In fact, we love it so much that it got to be surrounded by old dinosaur pinatas!

We also addressed a much-help-needed speaker situation. Scott bought a big subwoofer a few years ago. As you may imagine, it did not make me all that happy. I'm into pretty decoration, not big ugly black boxes. I have been trying to come up with a way to hide it and still be able to use it. This is the best I have so far. It is a thousand times better but still not great.

Speaker Situation BEFORE:

Do you see that big mess of cords and blackness? That's the speaker situation.

Speaker Situation AFTER: 

It is hiding between the wall and the media center.

Has anyone ever wondered about the random black pillow? I feel like giving it a little mention today. This was a Scott purchase. I think it was before I hit the scene but it wasn't long before. The pillow cracks me up. There are pictures of random things. The names of the objects are written at the bottom of the picture and then translated into Spanish. I think "The Musician. El Musico" is my favorite!

Here are some more photos of the finished product:

Yay! I am really happy about how it is all coming together!