Category Archives: Home Design and Decor

2010 Holiday Decor

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I love decorating my house, but I especially love changing around the decor for Christmas.  When we bought our current house two years ago, we had very little in the way of decorations since we never bothered to do much beyond putting up a small tree in the various rentals we occupied previously.  But now I have a dining room and a huge mantle in the living room, plus space for a big tree and in my head I see visions of garlands flowing and Christmas cheer peaking out from every corner.

Too bad Christmas decorations are so expensive…

So this is my plan: every year, add just a bit more and eventually we’ll have a nice array of beautiful things for the holidays.

Now I’m not done with my decorating for Christmas 2010, but I thought I’d give you a sneak peek at what I’ve been up to.

Here is the dining room centerpiece (I just have to get some taper candles to put in my candle stick holders):

As you can see, my knock off Pottery Barn paper music stars mixed in nicely with the Christmas ball ornaments from last year:

After I ran out of steam getting the tree up and completing the dining room centerpiece, last year’s mantle ending up being a bit bare.  This year, I thought we’d spruce things up a bit… literally… those are the bottom branches trimmed from our blue spruce Christmas tree you see behind the nativity:

So with the mantle done and the dining room centerpiece nearly done, I think I’ll tackle just one more new thing this year and that is the console table behind the couch in the living room.  Here’s how far I’ve gotten:

It’s like a design blank slate and all of these ideas are floating around in my head… which way to go?  So hard to choose just one idea.

Confession Time

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I come from a long line of keepers.  I tell myself that it’s not my fault.  It’s how I was raised.

See, the rules of ‘stuff’ in my childhood home were: if it’s useful – you keep it, if it could be useful – you keep it, if it would be useful if you could figure out how to fix it – you keep it, if it isn’t fixable but you might be able to use it for spare parts – you keep it.  Also, if it is valuable – you keep it, if it might be valuable someday – you keep it, if it was a gift (even if you don’t like or use it) – you keep it, if it is a book – you keep it.  And of course, when in doubt – you better keep it.

I say this not to judge, but as a matter of fact, I decided a long time ago that all this keeping wasn’t for me.  I just don’t like being surrounded by stuff.  I find it a bit overwhelming.  However, despite this inward resolution, every now and then I have a hard time escaping my genetic heritage.

Take music for example.  I’m a piano teacher.  I need music books to teach.  People know this and not infrequently I receive bags/boxes/stacks of music that is no longer wanted for various reasons.  For many years I just kept it all in an attempt to build up my teaching library.  However, this past summer when I was organizing my piano studio and realized that I had too much music to fit in my large 4 drawer file cabinet, I decided it was time to do some sorting.  My rules were, to get into the keep pile the music must either be written by a well-known composer, or it must be visually appealing.  (I don’t mind making students play from a battered copy of Chopin’s Nocturnes, but no eight year old is going to want to play some no-name composer’s piece when it’s shrouded in a cover straight out of the 1940s.)

Using this sorting method I was able to get rid of a large box of music and fit the remaining books back into the file cabinet with room to spare:

I was feeling good about everything, everything except that one book that was in the give away pile.  It was a book of character pieces (musical vignettes) by a composer that I’d never heard of, with no visual appeal that any child would perceive:

And even though I hated myself for thinking it, I heard a voice in my head say, “That book is kinda cool and antiquey looking.  If someday you ever wanted to do a craft project using old music, that is exactly what you would need.  What’s the harm in keeping just one little book?”  So, after a brief internal debate, I grabbed the book and (feeling like I’d made a deal with the devil) I shoved it into the back of the bottom drawer and quickly closed it before I could change my mind again.

After that, I forgot about the book… that is until Pottery Barn entered the picture (because every good story involves Pottery Barn, right?)

Take a look at what they came up with for Christmas 2010:

Paper Music Star Vase Filler, $12 (and already sold out online).

Turns out a guiltily kept music book plus handy online instructions (thanks for sending me the link, Mom!) equals Pottery Barn-esque holiday decor, for FREE!  Gotta love it (and the stars turned out great):

Now, I suppose I will hear a big ‘I told you so!’ from all of my dear family and that’s fine, I can admit it, every now and then, it’s good to be a keeper!

Another Before and After

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Recently I finished reading the book How To Take Photos That Move Houses.  Yesterday I decided that since I got so much cleaning done this weekend, I ought to try out a few of the tips I picked up and do a little photo shoot in my now super spotless dining room.

Just for comparison, here is my best ‘before we moved in’ photo of the dining room, which is mostly of the front hall, but you can at least see the yellow paint color:

And here is my favorite of yesterday’s ‘after’ shots:

And here is my second favorite photo, which shows more of the room, but the color isn’t as good:

I was still trying to figure out the light settings on the camera when Alethea woke up from her nap, so clearly I have some more learning to do, but I think reading the book gave me a great jumping off point to start exploring everything our camera can do.  I’d recommend it to any camera novice who wants to take good pictures of their house.

PS. For anyone wondering, Alethea seems to be feeling much better today!

200th Post Celebration

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This is BobbleHeadBaby.com’s 200th post!  Here are three things I’m celebrating today:

Number 1 – We picked up the craigslist bookcase last night, which means that my used furniture hunt for Alethea’s room is officially over!  It also means that I get to do my ‘super cheap’ furniture dance because I’m WAY under my original estimate in the furniture column of my spreadsheet.  (Please don’t ask about my fabric/bedding/window treatments column, I’m celebrating here, folks!)

Number 2 – The doctor’s office called and told me that I passed my glucose tolerance test ‘with flying colors’ and that I won’t have to take the test again this pregnancy!  No more icky orange drink for me!

Number 3 – Last night I got a lovely and unexpected gift in the mail.  A good friend of mine spotted some cute glass knobs at a store, bought them and mailed them to me so I could finish Alethea’s dresser!  The dresser looks awesome, but even more than that, I love knowing that I was being thought of even though she’s far away and we can’t hang out in person anymore.  What a day brightener!

So at long last, here is the COMPLETELY finished dresser:

Wooo-whooo!

Mommy’s Little Chain Smoker

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Sorry I haven’t posted in the past few days.  Alethea came down with an awful cold late Saturday night and as a result, things around here haven’t been running as smoothly as I would like.  Over the course of the last day or so, the cold has moved down into Alethea’s chest, which isn’t really a good thing, but it does have the humorous upside that when she laughs, she sounds like an old chain smoking lady cackling away.  It’s pretty funny.

As I’m sure none of you want a blow-by-blow of how the past few runny nose days have gone, I’ll simply give you the non-boogery highlights:

1) Now that I’m done stenciling the focal wall in Alethea’s big girl room, I’ve turned my attention to the remaining projects in the room.  I was able to get some shopping done over the weekend and picked up some supplies and also a beaded curtain for the window.  When I handed Alethea the curtain still in the box she said, “Oooh!”, but when I took it out of box and held it up she said, “Oooh!  OOOOOOH!”  I’ll take that as an 18 month old’s seal of approval.

Alethea was excited about her curtain, even when it was still in the box!

Alethea was excited about her curtain, even when it was still in the box!

2) I finally found a bookcase on Craigslist that I think will be perfect for her room.  I’m supposed to pick it up tomorrow evening.  Crossing my fingers that it doesn’t get sold out from under me.

I want this bookcase!

3) Tomorrow I have my 32 week pregnancy check-up.  This is also the third time this pregnancy that I am taking the 1 hour glucose tolerance test.  I passed the test when I was pregnant with Alethea, but then she was 10lbs at birth, so they are convinced I had undiagnosed gestational diabetes with my first pregnancy and are determined to make sure I’m diagnosed if I have it this time.  So far this pregnancy, I passed my first test well, the second one at 28 weeks was ‘on the high side of normal’, so they are having me do a third.

Sigh…

In my head I know it’s all for the best, but I don’t really like having blood drawn and I really HATE the stuff they make you drink beforehand.  If you’ve never had the test, just imagine guzzling 10 ounces of undiluted McDonald’s orange drink concentrate.  Yuck!

I think Alethea is going to be up from her nap soon, so I’d better run, but stay tuned and I’ll let you know how everything turns out.

The Big Move

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A.K.A – Bye Bye Nursery

Today we moved Alethea from the nursery to her big girl bedroom.  We started in the morning moving her bookcase, lamp, toys, etc into the big girl room.  (At some point soon we will be getting a different bookcase and lamp to match her room, but for the time being, she’s going to use the ones from the nursery.)

Alethea took it all in stride.  I’d say she seemed… interested.

Me?  I was doing pretty well until I decided it would be best to clear out the nursery as much as possible.  I took everything off the walls… and then I cried.  Silly, I know.  I’m going to be such a basket case when she goes off to college!

Fast forward to the afternoon… we took the mattress off her bed and moved it into the new room as well.  She had a blast yelling ‘three’ (she hasn’t mastered counting up to three yet, so when she does tricks she just says ‘three’) and then taking a running step off the mattress onto the floor.  She also enjoyed arranging pillows, blankets and stuffed animals on her ‘bed’.  She was having so much fun, she declined any interest in an afternoon snack.

I thought, “Wow, she’s taking this really well.”

Then Peter came home and began disassembling the crib (it’s too big to fit through our doorways assembled).  She had fun helping Daddy and was ready at any minute to hand him his hex key:

The crib parts got moved into the big girl room and Peter began the reassembly process.  And that is the precise moment when she lost it.  She cried and screamed and couldn’t be consoled.  She pushed me out of the room and back into the nursery.  Then she cried some more.  She most definitely did not think her crib belonged in the big girl room.

After she had dinner, she did mostly calm down, so perhaps part of it was hunger.

Fast forward again to the present… We just finished our bedtime routine and so far all I’ve heard is talking (no crying!) from the room.  She’s not asleep yet though.  It will be interesting to see how the rest of the night goes.

Shoulda, Woulda, Coulda

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It seems like every time I decorate a room in our house, I later realize that there was some fabulous idea or product that I should have incorporated, or some decorating decision that I would have done differently if I could go back and do it again.

I thought I was being careful with Alethea’s big girl room to make sure that didn’t happen this time.  The first thing I did was plan my layout, so I would know exactly what I needed to do and where everything was going to go:

What I failed to do however, what I SHOULD HAVE done, was to use masking tape to mark the actual dimensions of each piece on the floor of the room.  It’s easy to do, they use this technique on HGTV all the time, why didn’t I do it at the beginning?  I don’t know.

So yesterday I decided to mark out exactly where the bed was going to go.  Turns out it’s a little wider than I realized and having bunk beds that close to the door will feel like walking into a wall, i.e. not very inviting.

So I had to come up with a new room layout, one that moves the bed away from the door:

This layout actually has some additional advantages, like moving the dresser next to the closet (convenient for getting ready in the morning) and not having to buy a bedside table (save some money).

However, if I WOULD HAVE realized sooner that the bed needed to be on the far wall, then I COULD HAVE also realized that there wasn’t much point in spending hours of my time stenciling an elaborate pattern on that same wall, a wall that will be almost completely obscured by a huge set of bunk beds.

Sigh.

I’m only about half-way done with my stenciling at this point and I’m really tempted to just paint over the whole thing.  It sure would be easier.  But I hate to get nothing out of all my time spent on the project thus far, so I will continue, if I bit halfheartedly.

Dresser… Done!

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Last weekend I finished painting Alethea’s big girl room dresser.  Today, I finally took pictures of it.  (I think keeping up with the pictures are the hardest part of blogging for me.)

Here is the dresser before, when it was in the nursery (very cute, but not right for a Moroccan Princess):

First I sanded it.  Then I applied two coats of brown latex wall paint:

After that I applied two more coats of paint, this time in a Sherwin Williams floor and porch enamel, color name ‘Lagoon’:

After the paint dried, my plan was to strategically sand back the Lagoon color to expose the brown underneath, giving the dresser a vintage/distressed look.  Only problem was, after I spent about five minutes with a 200 grit sandpaper working on one of the drawers, all I’d accomplished was scuffing up the finish of the enamel, no brown coming through whatsoever.  The guy at Sherwin Williams sure wasn’t joking when he told me this product would be more durable for a kids dresser than a latex wall paint!

On to plan B…

Instead of sanding back the Lagoon, I just took a bit more of my brown paint and dry brushed over the enamel, thus achieving the look I was going for:

And finally, here’s the finished dresser:

I’m very happy with the results, but I’m thinking crystal knobs would make it look even cooler.  Part of me thinks, ‘the current knobs are okay, why waste money on new ones?’, but the other part says, ‘what little girl wouldn’t love ‘diamond’ drawer pulls?’  Which part will win?  Only time will tell.

Progress Report

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In order to avoid feeling overwhelmed by the massive list of things I still want to do before I’m finished with Alethea’s big girl room, I’ve made a deal with myself that I will accomplish at least one small thing every day and one large thing every weekend.

Over the past few weeks/weekends I’ve made progress in cleaning, painting, prepping and/or buying the chair, dresser, closet, black out shade, walls, clock, mirror and some other accessories.

I also went over to Peter’s parents house to finalize the quilt layout with Denny.  I think it’s going to look fabulous:

I still have far too many things on my to-do list to name them all, but we’ve decided that it’s fine if Alethea moves in before everything is done.  That way she can have as much time as possible to get used to her new room before the baby arrives.  My ‘before Alethea can move in’ list is down to just four things:

1) Stencil focal wall

2) Install black out shade (which is ordered, but hasn’t arrived yet)

3) Move clothes from nursery into big girl dresser & closet

4) Move in crib (we are going to let her adjust to the room before we introduce the big girl bed)

That seems like a doable list, right?

Highlights of the Week

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This morning Alethea and I ran errands.  It took a bit longer than I had anticipated and it was getting close to nap time, but Alethea was a trooper and seemed to have a good time.  On the ride home she actually almost fell asleep… without a nuk… and without whining for one.  I don’t think that’s ever happened before, even in the car.  Maybe we’ll actually be able to take it away from her before she goes off to college.

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One of our errands this morning was to the Home Depot.  Alethea’s big girl room closet only has two shelves, so I took in the wire shelf that we removed from the mud room closet and had it cut to size for its new location.  Glad we threw it into storage instead of getting rid of it.  So nice to make an improvement without spending money!

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Speaking of cheap improvements, we did pick up a $30 chair on Craigslist for Alethea’s room, so now I just need to find a bookshelf and possibly a nightstand to complete my furniture hunt.  I’m feeling good about the deals we’ve gotten, but after putting together a spreadsheet with all my expenses thus far, I was disappointed to discover that I had spent more than I’d realized.  I’m beginning to think that on the TV design shows where they have a tight budget, they must not factor in things like paint brushes and roller covers into their proudly announced “Grand Totals”.  It’s crazy how those little things add up.

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Tomorrow Alethea and I are planning on going to our first Early Childhood Family Education class together.  I’m hoping some time away from the house playing with other kids will help improve her mood, which has been more miss than hit lately.

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As far as hits and misses go, it sure would be nice if the Twins could actually manage to get enough of the former to finally win a post-season game at home against the Yankees.  I guess there’s always tomorrow.