Huffington Post Feature

Last December in the midst of our move I clicked over here to the blog to try and write a post when I noticed that I had a lot of page views coming in from a Huffington Post link.  I thought it was weird so I clicked on the link and was very surprised to find that our play kitchen make over had been picked up (likely via Pinterest) on one of their features in the Parents section.  (Click here for the feature.)  Apparently the original article ran in June of 2015.  I've never had any of my work featured (on this blog or through Creative Event Studio) without being notified...it felt kind of weird and really gave me a check about how small the internet really is.

The feature is a slideshow compilation of various plastic play toy make overs.  (Why are toys made to be so ugly?)  Of course it's incredibly flattering (and very exciting) that our project was chosen out of all the stuff that's out there (especially considering the indoor, unstaged/styled photos) and if you'd like to take a look at feature click on the image below to see all of the different projects.  Our kitchen is number 13.  To see the original post about our process and before/afters click here.

Has something like this ever happened to you?  If so did you have mixed feelings too, or is that just me?

Howie's Grey & Navy Nursery

After posting all of our house listing photos I realized that there were several rooms I never did a full post about.  Sadly Mr. H's room is one of them!  I'm not sure how it got missed because I even had this post done in draft.  Better late than never, right?

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Poor Baby H has the smallest of our 3 bedrooms.  The room measures in at just 9 x 11.  In the past we always used this room as a guest room and I loved knowing that a full size bed could fit in the space.  (You can view pictures of the guest room here.)  This room is right across from Davis's room so I wanted the spaces to tie in together as much as possible without them 'matching'.  I liked the colors in Davis's room but I knew that they were not right for Howie.  Early on I decided I wanted to use navy, but after deciding that the rooms should coordinate I opted for grey on grey walls with aqua and navy accents.

The stripes on the walls were done using the time-tested flat/semi-gloss method where you use the same color paint in 2 different sheens and paint them in stripes.  The stripes were just enough to give the room some interest and help the room feel a little larger.  

The crib is the same one we used with our older son.  It was handmade by my dad.  The wooden tree mobile was a first Christmas present (because what do you buy a 6 week old for Christmas?) and the deer head was a DIY left over from his first birthday.  The crib blanket can be found here.  

One thing we did that helped tie the two rooms together was buy curtains of the same pattern in different colors.  The curtains are Waverly's Lovely Lattice.  The artwork on the right is a painting we bought at an antique store in Limmerick Ireland (which seemed right considering we found out we were pregnant while overseas).  The painting on the bottom left came from Chris's grandparents and the coins in the top frame are leftover Euros.

One thing that I don't have pictured here (I need to dig it out) is our changing table.  The room is too small to accommodate the chair, dresser, and crib so the closet doors were removed and the dresser sat inside of there.  Chris built a changing table that was anchored into the wall and had a slide out changing tray.  It was very cool!  

Even though I went into designing this room with the idea that the two rooms should coordinate they have really different 'feels'.  This room is calm and relaxing where as Davis's room is energetic and playful.  I used the exact same grey and aqua in both rooms but the accent colors really helped direct the tone of each space.  When I was pregnant I made a comment to Sarah that I thought Howie's room would be a place he would go to as a retreat to rest where as Davis's room would be a place he would go to retreat and create.  I have found both statements to be true!  Do you feel like your environment influences you or that you influence your house?  Or both?

We are moved!

Well I missed blogging over Thanksgiving & Christmas because we moved.  My excuse for everything over the last month and a half has been the move - it's getting lame even for me - but seriously folks, moving is a lot of work.  We've been in the new house just over a month.  We set up our Christmas tree on the first night (so thankful we did that) but the entire month was a BLUR.  We had lots of help with unpacking and getting everything straight (you know who you are, THANK YOU).  So we didn't have to live surrounded by boxes for super long (it felt like forever though).  We just kept reminding ourselves that we had been here 1/2/3/etc weeks.  Now that it's been a month (officially on the 4th) it feels like we really can't say that anymore though!

So as a 'close' on our last house (ha, pun) I thought I'd share the listing photos from when we sold.  I did not take them (the realty team we used have a specialty real estate photographer).  Also as a precursor to viewing, this is the house stripped down.  We cleaned and decluttered and touched up like mad men in preparation for these photos.  Also our outdated kitchen NEVER looked that good in real life, haha.

Exterior Front:

Exterior Back:

Formal Living Room (read more here)

 

Sitting Room (read more here):

Family Room  (read more here):

Sunroom (read more here and here):

 Dining Room:

Kitchen:

Second Bathroom:

Master Bedroom:

Master Bathroom:

Entertainment Room (read more here):

 Second Bedroom (see more here and here):

Third Bedroom (see more here):

Basement (see more here):

It's weird looking at these after not being there for a month.  It still feels like our house.  I cringe at some of the things that I never got to finish (I never felt like I got it right with the family room decor and that kitchen...oh that kitchen) and then other things make me want to dig into our new house and make it more 'us'.  I also realize that there were several spaces that I never blogged about (how did I not do a post about the dining room?  Weird.).  So if I find myself around this space a little more maybe I'll revisit some of them if I have the photos.  

In closing I just want to give a shout out to our realtors, Joy & Donny Engle from The Engle Home Team here in Kansas City.  They are, without a doubt, the absolute best.  I'm not saying that because they give me warm fuzzies or anything, I'm saying that because they are ON IT.  We got great communication and helpful negotiation.  And sometimes we had to hear things we didn't want to hear (like that we should pass on a bad house even though we LOVE LOVE LOVED the area so much we were delusional to think of making it work).  So if you are in KC (MO or KS) do yourself a favor and check them out!

Halloween Table Setting

I popped over to the blog today thinking I'd post something else but found this sitting in draft with no text.  Go figure!

This is a halloween themed table scape from a few years ago that I did on the fly for fun.  To me it reads a bit like 'Dracula'.  :)  I used a red damask table cloth with black candlesticks.  To add some gore I dripped red wax on top of some white candles.  A sharpie turned some tin cans into ominous vases for seasonal mums.  For the place settings I used my great-great grandparents anniversary china that is black and white transfer wear with lots of wear.  The white pebble napkin rings remind me of teeth/bone in this context.  

All in all I think it works pretty well for Halloween!

I prefer to keep Halloween specific decor to a minimum, though my husband would definitely take it up a notch if I was into it (I'm not).  What does your Halloween decorating look like?

Feeling beyond blessed - our house is under contract!

In my last house selling post I said that we bought a house and were getting closer to listing our house.  Last Monday the photographer came and photographed the house and Thursday the house was listed (it went live at midnight).  Going into Monday we were REALLY stressing and workin' our behinds off trying to finish up a huge to-do list of things we wanted to get done in preparation to list.  We've been working for a few months on listing-related stuff but the last 2 weeks were INTENSE.  Chris took a week off of work and he drove us into the ground making sure we got as much done as we possibly could.  Needless to say it was not a relaxing week.  Before the photos on Monday I took the kids to my in-laws house and rushed back home for my cousin, who was visiting, and I to quickly rake, sweep and do any last minute touch up we could think of before the photographs were taken.  The next few days were spent making sure nothing in the house got messed up.  We wanted to make sure that once we listed we were ready for showings as soon as we got the call.  We just hoped and prayed (and prayed some more) that the right buyer would find us quickly so we didn't have to live in a 'showing ready' state for long.

Fast forward to Thursday morning.  Chris is in Tampa (which FYI is A LONG way from where we live) at a work conference.  I roll over and check my Realtor app to see if our listing is live.  It is and I text it to Chris.  The listing looks and reads great.  We exchange a few texts about how nervous we are and about how much we hope all of the work was worth it.  The boys and I puttered around most of the day trying to stay out of the house to keep it clean when shortly after nap I get the text message asking for a showing for 4:30 that evening.  I respond 'YES!' to the text.  I highly doubt that the messaging service appreciates the '!' but I don't care - I'm excited!  Over the next 2 hours we get 2 more showing requests for that evening!  I spend nap time vacuuming, re-straightening, and re-wiping everything I can for the showings that evening.  Then I wake up the boys, get them in the car and we head to my parents house for the evening.

While eating dinner at my parents house our realtor calls.  She says that there is an offer and wants to know if we can conference Chris in on the call so she can go over it with us at the same time (remember, he's in Tampa).  We finally get the connection straightened out and she tells us that the offer is a bit OVER the asking price and that they want to close the same day we are set to take possession of our new house!  YOU GUYS!!!  I can't even begin to describe how relieved we were to get that call.  The buyers were in our house something like 10 minutes when their realtor called and said not to accept any offers until they saw ours - I wonder if they had even looked at the whole house at that point?!  Here we are taking a week and a half and seeing our new house twice before making an offer and this guy walks in and in TEN MINUTES makes an offer for over asking price.  Awesome and hilarious.

Sooooo, right now we have finished the inspection on our new house and all of that has been worked out with the sellers and the inspection on this house happens on Wednesday.  Fingers crossed it goes smooth!  There are so many words about this situation that are fitting - though none of them fully encapsulate the experience.  We were so torn and apprehensive about listing our house and the idea of moving.  We LOVE this house.  This has been a great home for us and we've been happy here.  I think we both worried that the selling would be hard and intense and stressful and frustrating and that there wouldn't be another house that would make us as happy as we'd been here and that when it was all said and done we would regret leaving our home.  Right now, we'll see in 6 weeks when we move, it feels completely the opposite.  The people we are buying our new house from have been WONDERFUL to work with.  I'm not sure exactly why (I've not even met them, though Chris was able to) but I feel so welcomed into our new house already.  And the fact that our house went under contract in 17 hours - still feels crazy to say that - feels like SUCH A BLESSING.  So yeah, we are feeling great about the whole situation.  Which is a pretty far cry from where we were 2 months ago.

I have so many thoughts about this process and the new house but for right now I'm going to wrap up.  This is already probably about 2,000 words or something.  But I can't end without giving all the glory to the One above.  This situation has felt so expertly and wonderfully arranged that neither of us has any doubts that we are being provided for right now.

Giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ

 Ephesians 5:20