Floor Plans And Ideas: The First Floor, Part 2

Hello hello! Happy happy Monday! Welcome back to another exciting look at what my plans for the new house entail. A couple of weeks ago, I showed you part of my plans for the first floor. Now, it is time for part two!

Here is another look at the plans for the first floor.

In the last post, I gave you details on the plans for the porch, the entryway, and the garage. 

In this post, I am only going to show you what I picked for the bathroom downstairs. I meant to show finish off the tour of the first floor, but I didn't get it together in time. Sorry! I will try to throw in an extra post this week to make up for it. 

The 1st Floor Bedroom's Bathroom:

In the other two full baths I went with greys and whites, but I thought I would mix it up a little for this bathroom. I'm not really a cream person, but I am excited about trying it out. I'm feeling a little blue or turquoise and coral for accents and the shower curtain. Maybe green. Who knows!

Here are my picks:

Counter: Crema Marfil Marble

Floor Tile: Emser Pietre Del Nord, Alaska, Matte

Shower Wall Tile: 13x13 Emser Cordovia, Avorio

Cabinet: Merillat Spring Valley Square, Kona colored

This shower curtain from Target might look nice with some coral accents!

I did some searching and I found a fabulous blogger who put together a lovely turquoise and coral mood board! Thanks, Janny from Que Linda for doing all the work for me!

Check out this pretty coral rug from Pottery Barn.

A lovely shower curtain from Bed Bath And Beyond:

You get the idea, yes?

Yay! Yay! I am getting excited about decorating!

And A Happy Happy Birthday to one of my BFFs, Brooke!

Words Of Wisdom, Honest Toddler Style. Take 9

Wahhhhooooooooooo! It is Honest Toddler time! And you know that's right.

Honest Toddler tweets hilarious one liners multiples time per day. I read. I giggle. And then I pick out my favorites from the past month for you to enjoy.

Here are my favorite 25 Honest Toddler Tweets from 4-3-13 to 5-3-13:

1. Heard a noise. Was told “it’s just the house.” So is it enchanted or haunted I need to know.
2. Toddler Tip: The only thing cats love more than hiding spots is having someone to share them with. :)
3. If cats don’t want to be relaxed on, why are they made out of blanket material. Mixed messages.
4. And don’t say you’re “paleo” because cavemen would have loved cinnamon rolls. Ridikilus.
5. If it helps, think of bread like a pillow that keeps your insides comfortable.
6. The Food Network would be more realistic if they put a small, crying child at the feet of each chef.
7. Tried to accidentally knock a table off its axis. Cashier looked at me like "I will fight a child."
8. Anthropologie, you may have changed your name but I know a Salvation Army when I see one.
9. Broke a $40 candle with my teeth. Lost walking privileges.
10. In a store called Anthropologie. Looks like a cross between a garage sale and a wedding.
11. Tonight's bedtime story was about three pigs struggling with repeat home invasions. Thanks for the new fear.
12. Weird how people won't buy fruit snacks but give you fruit as a snack. It's just semantics.
13. If you don’t know what falafel is just imagine beans trying very hard to be meatballs.
14. People rarely Instagram toddlers because only romantic things like strawberries and falafel sandwiches are allowed.
15. In the future people will uncover Instagram and wonder why adults needed so many daily reminders as to what they looked like.
16. Adults use Instagram because the best way to enjoy a moment is to make it look like it happened hundreds of years ago.
17. Dora, I'm going to tell you the same thing I told the Man With the Yellow Hat DITCH THE MONKEY.
18. Good series on TV right now about a young runaway trying to find a forever family. Stay strong, Dora.
19. John Legend is on Sesame Street singing about sunshine with a fake owl. I guess everyone is broke these days.
20. There is only one reason you are eating sorbet: to feel unique and wealthy. Get some confidence.
21. Sorbet trying to pass itself off as ice-cream is a slap in the face to each and every one of us.
22. You have these adults visiting people with a $75 present for the new infant and some double-sided tape for the toddler.
23. 99% of children with Sibling Infant Disease will grow up to take Instagram photos of their own faces. So sad.
24. Explain to me why these "toddler beds" are four inches off of the ground. I looked under mine and saw that it was propped up with suitcases.
25. Dog people are always hating on toddlers. Just mad because we know more tricks.

Time For My All-Time Favorite HT Tweets!

• Most toddler don't even want much. Maybe a kiss, 3 hugs, 4-5 sips of water, quick tale of adventure and maybe a pancake.

• Toddler Tip: Did someone you love say "no" to you? They're confused. To help clear their head ask again times infinity.

• Don't call someone a blessing and then try to fit their entire bedtime routine in a single commercial break.

• Toddler Tip: If they haven't put on people clothes by noon, you're not going to the park today.

• Sleeping Dog, Sleeping Tiger, Train That Does Not Move <-- These are not games. Your adult is trying to nap on the clock.

• And Big Bird...it's not a nest if it sits on an alley floor. We call that a driftwood pile. Your life is in shambles.

• Toddler Tip: 3AM is as good a time as any to call a meeting about your sock situation.

• It was cats who taught toddlers to lightly cover pee/poo accidents before fleeing the scene. Thank you.

• Toddler Tip: When a cat runs, it's not because he doesn't want to play. He just wants to show you something.

• Why are they mad when I break something. I'm not the one who took all those prenatal vitamins resulting in my incredible strength."

• I don't need you in here with me." What if I told you I prepared a song?

• Fact: Most babysitters just want access to your gold.

• Ear infection. They gave me medicine in my mouth but so far nothing in my actual ear. Where did these people go to school. Hogwarts?

• Toddler in the next room is singing Wheels On The Bus like we're all on holiday. Quiet, fool. Stay alert.

• Asked for a second bedtime story. You would have thought I requested launch codes. Nevermind.

• Is it too much to ask to be held from 4:30-7PM? I'm like 28 pounds :(

• Showed grandpa my top karate moves. He was too proud to speak. Just shook his head and prayed for my safety.

• Going home. Grandpa said to avoid doing martial arts in public because the world isn't ready. I understand. #BestDay

• Just so you know when you come in to give goodnight kisses smelling like Cheetos it's like a slap in the face.

• Alarm clocks. Adults do you mean to tell me that without a machine you would not wake up in the morning? Your body is in shambles.

• Yes, I am a highly skilled Level 10 (out of 10) karate master but it doesn't mean I can walk from the car to grocery store.

• Love means being happy to see someone no matter what time it is even if that person has peed through all their clothes.

• In trouble for unrolling 10 or 12 toilet paper rolls. I did it for science not me but whatever.

• It's amazing how some people think they're in charge of deciding who has to wear pants and when.

• "Stop crying." Oh ok let me find the button that TURNS OFF MY FEELINGS.

• I need a body double who is available for meal times and the afternoon shift. I can pay in tales of adventure.

• How much you think a robot that looks exactly like you and loves naps and salad would cost?

• I know how you make tea. Just shave a pencil into a little bag. Done. Give me my millions.

• Hey Santa when you get a chance let me know what your favorite kind of cookie is. Always thinking about u. :)

• Naptime. Daddy just tried to put me in my bed and walk away. LOL. Skipped like 28 steps! Start over. From the top.

• If you're wondering, we had money for a $3 magazine about celebrities but not enough for my ice-cream so there's that

• Toddler Tip: If you don't have a spoon, you can also enjoy yogurt with a toothbrush or mobile phone.

• Just tried baking soda. WHY DO WE OWN POISON

• Trick or Treaters skip my house unless you want an O'Henry wrapper.

• I know for a fact that our seasonings were purchased at a Ross Dress For Less and are over 100 years old.

• Toddler Tip: Most parents want your company in the shower. They're just too shy to ask.

• Daddy didn't ask me to join his shower fully clothed but I'm good at anticipating people's needs.

• Don't bother asking if we bought ice cream because the answer will break your heart. 

• Man at the store asked mama if I could have a balloon. She doesn't speak for me. I'll take six.

• Toddler Tip: If you put 8 or 9 batteries in a toilet it will not become a robot. Don't ask how I know just listen.

• Don't try to cancel a game of Under the Blanket just because your toddler gently farts a few times. PLAY THROUGH.

• Was on the phone trying to order pizza for 25 minutes. Turns out I was talking into a scrunchie. :(

• Can you stop looking at the clock? My bedtime will come when it comes. Rude. 

• Skipped my nap today. Exhausted. Will go right to bed. LOL. NOT. FEEL LIKE ADRENALINE & RED BULL ARE PUMPING THROUGH MY BABY VEINS. 

• Woke up from my nap happy and refreshed! Just kidding I hate everything and will need to be held until bedtime. 

• The awkward moment when mommy hugs you way too tight for way too long and whispers something creepy like "Don't grow." Get a grip. 

• Jumped off the kitchen table. Turns out believing you can fly isn't enough. Thanks for the lies R Kelly. 

• Mommy ran into a friend on the street. "I've been meaning to call you!" Stop lying. You've been meaning to buy M&Ms. 

In case you need more Honest Toddler in your life:

• 9-17-12 and before
• 9-18-12 to 10-1-12
• 10-2-12 to 11-2-12
• 11-3-12 to 12-2-12
• 12-2-12 to 1-2-13
• 1-3-13 to 2-3-13
• 2-3-13 to 3-3-13
• 3-3-13 to 4-3-13

The Bonus Room Chronicles: Step 7, Part 3: Finishing Touches. How To Decorate Bookshelves.

This is it! It is really going to happen today! Two days ago, I fooled you into thinking that I was going to complete a whole Never Listless Chronicles series, but it didn't happen. Yesterday, was another chance to call an end to this thing. But, guess what? Today it is!!!

In this post, I am also going to talk a little bit about decorating the bonus room built ins and what I think makes for attractive and practical open shelf decorating! I will also go over some of the recent changes we made.

The built-in bookshelves / window seat. This thing was a monster! It took about a year, if not more to complete. I love how it turned out and it is something I will really miss about this house. It gave me TONS of storage, a comfy seat to look out the window onto an awesome view (that I did not use nearly enough), and a way to display a bunch of my random stuff.

I detailed the whole building process in these three posts (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3).

The seat cushion for the window seat was a big dilemma. I searched high and low for an affordable option for it. The foam that you buy online was super expensive- the cheapest I could find for the 8 feet by 2 feet that we needed was about $150. I found a good deal at a fabric store that is about an hour away. So, I bought that. It was still over $100. Scott mentioned it to his dad. His dad said, "no no no. I know a guy who will do it much cheaper than that." Scott's dad knows lots of "guys who will do it cheaper." The only problem with these guys are that they usually live at least 120 miles away and they take their sweet time. And that is just fine with us! We were in no hurry. It had already taken us a year to get to the window seat. So, we made the call. The guy is an upholstery guy up in the furniture mecca, High Point, NC. Scott dropped off the fabric we had bought for the window seat and for four pillows we wanted him to make. About 3 months later we had an absolutely perfect window seat cushion cover and four lovely pillows. We returned the foam we had bought at the fabric store. The whole deal (foam, cover, 4 pillows and stuffing) ended up costing us about $150. Not too shabby!

Here is a closer look at the cushion.

How I Like To Go About Decorating Bookshelves (if you're using them for more than books):

1. Take a look at what you want to display. I pull out my huge boxes full of things that might be display-worthy one day and go through those. This time I was looking for anything blue, orange or white; or things that I could spray paint those colors. I also pulled out some of Cora's prettiest toys that I wouldn't mind having on display. I also pulled out my most used books and my prettiest books.

2. Group things together by subject, size, theme, color, etc. 

3. Play around with it. Try to make spaces feel even. I used some of my paintings as well as some cardboard that I wrapped in fabric to make the background more interesting and a bit lighter. It also helped to make the height of each shelf box feel more even.

4. Play around with it again.

5. And again.

6. Maybe you will love it so much that you may never stop rearranging your shelves and that is just fine!

I really wanted to have somewhat practical yet still attractive items displayed. The problem with having toys on display was that one of Cora's favorite things to play with is the picnic basket, which is on the top shelf of the bookcase. She is constantly running over to it saying, "bas, bas, bas" meaning "please get the picnic basket down for me. So, the basket ends up spending a lot more time on the floor than it does on the shelf. In the future, I will try to keep the toys displayed up high that I don't want her to play with all the time (like puzzles or anything that has a million pieces to clean up.

Here are some close-ups of the shelves:

Leftie:

Rightie: 

Changes we made to the room before putting it on the market:
We took down lots of photos and paintings, repositioning a couch, we turned a coffee table turned into a media center, we added a busted TV, replaced the peachy color with brown, and we moved Cora's kitchen and chairs up. Cora's dollhouse got a temporary home in the bonus room too. ps I got that dollhouse at a consignment sale for $5. Craziness, right? It is Cora's favorite thing in the whole world to play with.

Here are all of the lovely steps that made the Funky Retro Bonus Room the lovely place it is today:

The Bonus Room Chronicles Introduction Post

Step 1: Move in. Paint the walls. Put up curtains. Put up art. Paint orange design. Paint polka dots.

Step 2: Put up wire display.

Step 3: Put up wall of frames.

Step 4: Move furniture around. Get rid of TV. Add bed.

Step 5: Part 1. Part 2. Part 3: Build window seat and built in bookcases.

Step 6: Change out the bifold doors

Step 7: Part 1.  Part 2. Part 3. Finishing touches

The Bonus Room Chronicles: Step 7, Part 2: Finishing Touches

Oops! I did it again! This post was getting CRAZY long. So, I decided to break it up. There will now be 3 parts to the 7th step. But then we are done, really and truly done with The Bonus Room Chronicles!

Today we get to take a look at some before and afters. There will be at least two before shots (one before we moved in, one when I added the "funky retro" to the bonus room). The after shots are photos that were taken while the house was on the market, after it had been de-funkyed, de-retroed and lots of neutralization had happened.

Tomorrow I will talk a little about how I like to decorate open shelving. And tell you a bit more about some of the changes we made. I am telling you now... fascinating stuff. I dare you to see if you can wait until tomorrow!

Let's get started!

The Big Window: Before we moved in:

The Big Window: A little funky retro, but pre built-ins:

The Big Window: On the market time:

The Closet Wall: Before we moved in:

The Closet Wall: Funky Retro:

The Closet Wall: After furniture reconfiguration:

The Closet Wall: On the market:

The Other Window Wall: Before we moved in:

The Other Window Wall: A little funky retro:

The Other Window Wall: A slightly cleaner look to the funky retro (the two photos below = the whole wall):

The Other Window Wall: On the market:


Up The Stairs: Before we moved in:


Up The Stairs: Funky retro:

Up The Stairs: A bit different in the background:

Up The Stairs: Funky retro (the other side):

Up The Stairs: On the market:

The Speaker Wall: Before we moved in:

The Speaker Wall: Stage 1:

The Speaker Wall: Stage 2:

The Speaker Wall: Stage 3:

The Speaker Wall: House on the market:

The Other Side Of The Closet Wall: Before we moved in:

The Other Side Of The Closet Wall: Funky retro:

The Other Side Of The Closet Wall: On the market:

I hope to see you back here tomorrow to wrap this puppy up!

Here are the steps that got us up to this point:


The Bonus Room Chronicles Introduction Post

Step 1: Move in. Paint the walls. Put up curtains. Put up art. Paint orange design. Paint polka dots.

Step 2: Put up wire display.

Step 3: Put up wall of frames.

Step 4: Move furniture around. Get rid of TV. Add bed.

Step 5: Part 1. Part 2. Part 3: Build window seat and built in bookcases.

Step 6: Change out the bifold doors

Step 7: Part 1.  Part 2. Part 3. Finishing touches

The Bonus Room Chronicles: Step 7: Finishing Touches

Can you believe it... we are wrapping up a Chronicles series! We are about to put a "finito" stamp on The Bonus Room Chronicles.

Let's look at the after photos first!

This is not how I thought I would wrap up The Bonus Room Chronicles. I thought my lovely orange design would still be there. I thought I would have my Bob Barker wire display and my photo wall. But there were some major changes in the bonus room when our house went on the market. We figured out that the photo displays, the orange wall and Bob needed to hit the road. Our Realtor suggested that we ditch the bed and the peach paint and make the room a media room. So, we followed his advice. I think he was right!

He told us that we should put a TV in that room and since we didn't have any spare TVs floating around we did the most logical thing.... drive about 40 miles to pick up a big broken flat screen for free. Scott found an ad on Craigslist advertising a free flat screen. The catch was, well, it was broken, and the other catch was that, along with the broken flat screen, you also had to take a huge monster of a TV that was also broken. The ad made it very clear that you needed to bring someone to help you carry the monster of a TV because no one was going to help you. 

Scott emailed them and set up a time to get it and told the guy that he had moved quite a few enormous TVs in his day and thought he could handle it. When he got there he tried to pick it up by himself for about 30 seconds while an able-bodied dude sat watching. It was clear that this was not a one person job. Finally, the able-bodied dude stepped in and we were now the proud owners of two totally broken TVs. Charlotte has a nice bulky item pick-up service. So, that is where the big mama TV went. ps I tried to think of ways to reuse that broken TV, but it just wasn't happening. Recently, I had to practically beg someone to take a new and not so huge old TV so I knew that giving this one away would be impossible. 

Here's a photo of that lovely, broken TV:

Sorry... it turns out that this post is getting a little long. This is going to have to be a 2 part step. So, we aren't going to wrap up The Bonus Room Chronicles quite yet. I will try to sneak in another post tomorrow to finish off this cool cat, but you may not see me back until Wednesday.

Here are your stepperoonis:

The Bonus Room Chronicles Introduction Post

Step 1: Move in. Paint the walls. Put up curtains. Put up art. Paint orange design. Paint polka dots.

Step 2: Put up wire display.

Step 3: Put up wall of frames.

Step 4: Move furniture around. Get rid of TV. Add bed.

Step 5: Part 1. Part 2. Part 3: Build window seat and built in bookcases.

Step 6: Change out the bifold doors

Step 7: Part 1.  Part 2. Part 3. Finishing touches

Our House Is Chuggin' Along! And A Little White-Ish Granite Talk

Here comes a little house talk for you. Scott stopped by our house-to-be yesterday and took some photos.

This is the view from what will be Cora's room. It looks onto a main street in Davidson with restaurants and shops. The street isn't super busy and we think we are set back enough that we shouldn't hear too much of the hustle and bustle.

Now, onto the granite...
I had picked out Kashmir White granite for the kitchen. But, according to the lady at the granite warehouse, the government shut down the quarry that makes it. And that means Kasmir White is no more, for the time being at least.

Cora and I went on a field trip to the granite warehouse. 

Are you thinking I'm a crazy mom for taking my baby-toddler with me to an enormous building full of huge rocks? Despite the photos I promise I was careful. After her first granite-touching fun and a photo of it (top left) the rule was looking, but no touching. I was carrying her around 90% of the time. She really loved the whole experience. If it was her choice the granite warehouse would be her new playground. FYI- I do not recommend the baby-toddler-granite-warehouse-experience for any other parent. Wrangling a baby-toddler while you try to take photos and notes is not the easiest thing in the world.

We found a lovely substitute! It looks like Bianco Romano / Blanco Romano is the new winner. Here she is:

These were the runner-ups:

Millenium Cream (supposed to be very similar to Kashmir White, but cream):

Golden Fushion:

Dallas White:

Are you with me on my granite decision? Does anyone else have any recommendations for granite that comes in a white-ish tone, especially one that is similar to Kashmir White?

I hope you all have a lovely weekend!