Everything's Coming Up Daisies!

The painting has begun!  I knew we had picked the right color when I opened the can of paint and G said, "Awesome!"  And she was even more excited once we got some color up on the walls.  Part of what sold her on this color was the fact that it's called 'Daisy' (she loves daisies).  I'm the same way with paint colors - I know the name of the color doesn't really matter, but I have a hard time selecting a paint that, even though I may love the color, I don't like the name of.  Silly, I know, but hey, it's who I am.  And apparently who she is, too.

So, here's some before shots of her room:

Yikes.  A pretty sad looking bedroom, eh?  In my defense, this room was used only as clothing storage and a changing room for the girls for the past year, so I didn't really bother doing anything with it.  And I wasn't too concerned with all of the boxes of outgrown clothes that were starting to stack up.  So even just getting this room cleaned up and putting a fresh coat of paint on the walls will be a vast improvement.  Here's a sneak peek at the painting progress:

We're loving this color!  It's so bright and sunny, and has instantly made the room more cheerful.  And made me realize that the trim definitely needs a fresh coat of paint as well.

More soon!

Sleep, Room Rearranging/Redecorating, and the Rainbow Quilt

 First, a mini celebration because...

I finally finished piecing the rainbow quilt top!  Woohoo!!!!

This is a pretty big deal for me, as I started this quilt about a year and a half ago.  I started off with a bang, made some progress, then it sat there, half-finished and lonely, waiting for me to pick it back up again.  So this summer I set a goal to at least finish the top, and with only a couple weeks of summer left, I'm happy to say that I have met my goal!  Yay, me!!

Now for the sleep issues and room rearranging.  When we moved into our new house a year and a half ago, I was excited that the girls would finally be able to have their own rooms.  In an effort to get her excited about the move, I promised G that we would paint and decorate her room first.  But then reality hit.  No one could have prepared me for the struggle we would have trying to get the girls to sleep in the new house.  (Six months before she slept through the night again - yikes!  And as for B - let's just not go there.)  After a few months of both girls being up multiple times a night, we were frustrated, exhausted, and at our wits end.  In a moment of sheer desperation, we decided to have them try sharing a room.  Maybe being in the same room together would help them sleep better?  At first it didn't seem to make much of a difference, but a few weeks later, things started to improve.  And then, it happened:  we got one child to sleep through the night.  Woohoo!  Two would be ideal, but we were thrilled that at least one was sleeping good again.  So for the next year, the girls had their "bedroom" and a "dressing room".  Not having any idea how long this would last, all plans for bedroom redecorating were put on hold.

Fast forward to a couple weeks ago, and big sis finally got fed up with little sis getting all of her things, and decided to try having her own room.  Realizing that this may or may not work out, I made a deal with her:  I would move only her bed into the dressing room, and she had to sleep there every night for one week.  At the end of the week, she could make her final decision as to whether she wanted to stay or move back in with her sister.  The transition went relatively smoothly (for her, at least - for B...not so much), and at the end of the week, she decided to stay in her own room.  So we moved the rest of the furniture, and that night:  disaster.  Both girls up half the night.  Ugh!  Fortunately it seemed to just be that one night, and now G is back to her usual good sleep.

So...time to redecorate!  We've been looking at paint samples together, trying to come to an agreement about colors for her room.  Of all the colors we looked at, Rainforest Mist was her favorite:

Which I had to veto for the walls.  Don't get me wrong, it's her room and I want her to have say in how it's decorated, but given the very bold floral wall paper in the hallway, I couldn't live with this color on the walls.  It would just fight with the nearby wallpaper too much, and would drive me batty every time I walked by her room.  So, I made some other suggestions, and we've decided on Daisy for the walls:

And she really liked some pinks too:

 

So we've decided to go with Daisy as the main color, with accents of Prairie Rose, and some version of this blueish-greenish aqua color that she loves so much:

I think we've come to a good compromise with this, and I can't wait to get started!  I picked up the yellow paint today, so maybe I'll even be able to get started on the walls this weekend!

Playroom Update!

We're finally making some progress in the playroom.  I've been slowly chipping away at the task of painting all of the trim white, and I've come to two realizations:

1. Painting windows is very tedious
and
2. I probably should have used primer.

But, live and learn, eh?  I actually thought for half a second before I started that priming might be a good idea, but then I discovered the nearly full gallon of white semi-gloss in the basement, and thought:

go out and buy primer (and therefore delay the start of the project)
or
jump right in and just start with the paint (not spending any money and getting immediate gratification?  It's a win-win!)

Obviously I opted for the latter.  So, two coats in on most of the trim, and it looks like a third will need to be applied (dag nabbit!).  That being said, I'm loving the white trim.  Makes the whole room feel lighter and brighter.

Then I got this great idea to make valances for the windows that look like puffy white clouds (why is it that every project I start becomes more and more involved along the way?).  So I've been playing around with a piece of white fabric I had laying around (me?  have spare fabric??  never!!), and I think I've got it pretty well figured out.  But, I will need more fabric to make three valances, so off to the fabric store I go.  In the  meantime, here's a little sneak-peek at the grassy hills, which I did finally manage to finish up this weekend:

Playroom Plans

I love having a playroom.  I pretty much knew from the get-go that we would be able to have a playroom for the girls in this house, and where it would be.  At some point in this house's history, an addition was put on the back.  So straight behind the kitchen is a little laundry area, off to the right is a bathroom, and off to the left is this extra room.  Perfect place for a playroom!

So here's a few pics of the playroom in its current state:

While the color of this room is not intolerable, as you can see, it is a bit drab for a kids playroom. I feel a playroom should be cheerful and vibrant and happy, not dull and muted. So we will definitely be painting it soon. I was talking with little g about painting and suggested we get creative and paint grassy hills and blue skies. She loved the idea, and thought we should add a rainbow on one wall.

So here's a couple of rough sketches of what I'm thinking:

As for the rainbow, we're still debating whether to paint the entire rainbow, or only include a section of it. I think we're leaning towards a section of it. What do you think?

I'm thinking we will probably paint all the trim white as well, but I haven't decided for sure yet.  And I'd love to put in a new ceiling fan/light fixture and new flooring, but I have to keep reminding myself: one thing at a time...one thing at a time.  So for now, the next thing on the agenda will be deciding on the shades of blue and green.  Off to the paint store!

Inspiration and Visualization

I'm always scouring the internet for ideas and inspiration.  When I came across something I loved and wanted to remember, I would always bookmark it for later.  But even if I kept my bookmarks well organized (which I've been slacking on lately), it was hard for me to remember which bookmarks were for what, and why I bookmarked them, without clicking on every single one.  Then I found Pinterest.  What a fantastic site for visually oriented people like me!  If you're not familiar with Pinterest, it's basically a way for you to create online bulletin boards to "pin" all of your bookmarks to.  So I can see at a glance what I have "pinned", and therefore remember why I saved it, without having to actually open the link (brilliant!).

After getting my Pinterest account set up and familiarizing myself with how everything worked, I thought what better way to start collection inspiration for some of our home improvement and redecorating projects!  The biggest project we have coming up will be to paint the exterior of our house.  This is going to be a huge job, so I want to give a lot of thought to the color we choose.  To get some ideas, I started out (as I usually do) with a google image search.  I found some houses similar to ours that I liked, and made a pin board to collect them all in one spot, which makes it super easy to compare the different looks:

When I was doing the google image search, I also happened upon this post, from another blogger who needs to paint her old house too.  She had a found this great tool from Sherwin-Williams where you can try out different colors on your house without getting out a paintbrush.  It's called the color visualizer, and you can find it here.  I'll definitely be spending some time trying out colors on our house!  In the meantime, I'll also be searching and pinning away, like ideas for redecorating little g's bedroom, and inspiration for our someday kitchen remodel (it's never too early to start getting ideas, is it?).