Girl's Bedroom Reveal

Homegirl's officially got herself her very own bedroom. I love it. Seth loves it. She loves it.

Well, she loves it till bedtime. But she's fairly easy going, so I know it won't be long before she's sleeping soundly again.

Anyway, before I unleash the pink on you, I thought I'd share a photo of this room many years ago, when we only had one Thing and this was his bedroom.

Boring, dingy, gross carpet, dark wood trim, and no direction.

Through the years, it has sported many different looks. We removed the carpet and painted the very weathered wood floors underneath. The walls went from cream to dark green to gray blue and now to pink. It was a guest room, a boy's room, then a boys' room (subtle difference), then a school room.

It was hard to lose my sacred school room (and all that precious storage), but I think I'm content now with the girly space we've created.

These drawings are my favorite part of the room. When I was still pregnant with Thing One and had no idea if he was a boy or a girl, I asked my mom to draw some pictures for the nursery. I gave her a book of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" which had awesome artwork as inspiration, and she came up with more beautiful pictures than the book had. What I love most though, is that she had no idea how many kids I'd have or what their genders would be, but these drawings fit us perfectly. Not only do the genders match and the amount, but they even look like my kids. 

Thing One

Thing Two

Homegirl

It's both amazing and slightly disturbing. I've promised each child that they can have their assigned picture when they have a baby of their own. These are precious heirlooms and should be passed down.

I also did some spray painting for this room. I've always liked the metal stars and picked one up at Garden Ridge over Christmastime. It needed to be white though.

 I'm thinking of adding some owl/bird decor, so when I saw this in the dollar section at Target, I grabbed it. It was actually $2.50. Such extravagance, I know.

And lastly, I wanted to do something with this little table and chairs we've had for years, but it had definitely seen better days. After a thorough cleaning and some wrapping paper magic, it fits perfectly in here.

Perfect for future tea parties and artwork.

There are still a few things left to do. I need to paint her dresser, clear out the closet, add some curtains and artwork. The baseboards need some quarter round, but I'm putting that off because we're thinking before we sell we'll probably put carpet in here anyway. But the big things in here are done and I'm really happy with it. Honestly, I was one of those people who swore I'd never do pink in my daughter's bedroom. Now look at me.

I'd be ashamed if I wasn't so proud of my ability to adapt. Or something like that.


Source list:
Paint: "Pink Kiss" by Valspar
Trim/floor paint: "Country White" by Colorplace
Crib: Baby Depot (many moons ago)
Crib Bedding: Target
Rug: Target
Toy storage: Target (I'm sensing a theme)
Frames: TJ Maxx
Wrapping Paper: TJ Maxx
Star: Garden Ridge
Owl Lantern: Target
Drawing Inspiration Book: Amazon

Sneak Pink

Just popping by to give you a little taste of what I've been doing in Homegirl's room. Hoping to have a full reveal this weekend!

Before:

Currently:

Yes. It's pink. "Pink Kiss" by Valspar, to be exact. Never painted anything pink before. :)

Shabby Chic with a current emphasis on "shabby"

When it comes to projects in this house, I have decor ADD. Working on three separate rooms simultaneously does not stop me from starting a fourth.

And that's why parts of my house currently look like an episode of "Hoarders".

Homegirl's room is in the works. It's quite a job. Since that room was recently the homeschool room, there is a TON of papers and school supplies to go through and whittle down to bare bones. Then I have to find some way to organize and store it all upstairs. That's taking awhile, and I'm in that horrid middle part of the project where everything's a mess and I want to throw in the towel.

I'm also getting paint up on the walls, which is a step in the right direction. After all that horrid attic painting, you'd think nice flat walls would feel like a breeze, but I'm dragging my feet. Painting sucks, but it's a cheap, fast way to make everything wonderful.

Seth's going to be home a couple days this week, so hopefully, much will get done in there and I'll have before and afters for you soon. I'm going for a soft, feminine, shabby chic look. I'll leave you with some of my "pinspiration" for this room:

Source

Source

Source

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PS: Don't know why my source links got cropped like that, but they still work. Technology is weird. 

Progress Report

So, I've held off on posting a house tour, mostly because nothing in this house is ever "done". House tours are my favorite part of home blogs. It's a little ridiculous how happy it makes me to find them, and even though I wanted to have one here on The Practice House, I knew my tour would not be nearly as thrilling as the popular blogs where rooms are done and beautiful.

Well, enough of that. I'm going to try to get some rooms posted. Instead of calling it a finished tour, we'll just call it progress, and I'll update the tour as we update the house.

Please remember that photos posted in home tour are extremely selective. They won't show you dirt, dust, dog hair, cookie crumbs, half dressed children, or the piles of laundry just outside the frame. I guarantee my house only looks like this when I'm photographing it and literally thirty seconds after I shut off the camera, chaos ensues.

We do live here, after all.

Anyway, the living room is up. Just click over to the "House Tour" tab. Enjoy!

I'm Using You

This post is not interesting.

This post is for my convenience.

We're thinking of updating our aluminum siding with paint. After perusing the web for awhile, I found a very thorough run down of the steps to take, paints to use. So, of course, my next action was to pin it.

But there were no images to pin.

A man designed that webpage. I guarantee it.

So therefore, I am putting the link here, and then I shall pin it from my blog so that it's right where I need it--in my lawn and garden pin board. See? I can be organized.

So...nothing to see here. Go about your lives.

Progress

Well, the painting's done. At least the portion I was working on. We have moved the educational efforts upstairs. I'm still not overwhelmed with love for our new digs, mostly because I'm still feeling cramped. I do have some ideas to spread us out a little bit, and I can't blame feeling frazzled only on the room. Homegirl and Thing Two are doing plenty to frazzle me when it comes to school. I'm sure we'll adjust in time.

So here's what I've got so far. I haven't done much in the way of decorating yet. I've been focused on just getting things organized for now.

I made this from scrapbook paper and yarn.

Forgive the double watermark. I'm learning a new photo editing program. I don't have the patience right now to fix it.

I have an idea for this long hallway space that would help us spread out a bit. Thinking of a built in counter-ish type desk along the wall over those storage doors, big enough to work on but small enough to not overwhelm the narrow space.

I also have some ideas for this plywood wall we built to keep children from falling over the balcony. I'd like to cover it with something, maybe wallpaper, fabric, canvas, chalkboard...haven't narrowed it down yet.

There's still more to paint over the stairs. There's always more to paint. This will probably be the hardest section.

So much orange. And there's always stuff on my stairs. I hope I'm not the only one.

So, that's the progress report. It's getting there, and I am thankful that the landing at the top of the stairs is big enough to work with.

I'll leave you with some shots of the flowers Seth got me for Valentine's Day. Love the coral color, and I thought my oversized jar would make a really cute vase. 

Gotta get working on Homegirl's new room. After all that horrible attic painting, it will feel like a piece of cake!

This is the project that never ends.

I'm going to be painting my attic till I die.

I usually don't mind painting, but this is one project that just seems to be going on forever. It's complicated because it's not just nice flat walls I'm slapping paint on. It's boards and grooves and angles and it's really, really dark wood.

Maybe I see a light at the end of the tunnel, but mostly I have that oh-good-grief-I-am-so-over-this-crap stage.

But it needs to get done, the sooner the better, so we can move our homeschool station up there.

Looking at these photos though, I'm encouraged. It's come a long way and we're in the home stretch.

Not very long ago, it was full of crap. Then lots of purging happened.

The difference is crazy. Everything feels bigger and brighter.

Here you can clearly see the difference. L-R: Paint, primer, and original wall

As far as inspiration for this little space goes, I'm going to have to be creative. We're going from a bedroom sized school room with lots of wall space and storage to a nook sized school room with mostly angled walls. My goal is to make it snug, but not cluttered feeling. Here's some things I've pinned on the subject:

Source: Pinterest

Gonna try and find some narrow tables for the boys to work on since their desks would swallow up too much space.
Source: Woman's Day

I'll need streamlined filing and organization systems like this.
Source: Better Homes & Gardens

I think this is the light that we'll hang over the stairs. It's cheap, but I chose it because it has the longest cord I could find. The plan is to hardwire it where that ugly little round light is and then dangle it over the stairs. This one's from Lowe's. There were also a few on Home Depot I really liked.


I've been working on the laundry room too. Hopefully I'll have an update on that soon!