Hello! I’m finally back with a house related post! First off, thank you all for your incredibly supportive comments, emails and tweets for my post about returning to work. I’m trying to kick my ass back into gear and get back to regular posting and project-ing. Hopefully I stick with it because it’s therapeutic 🙂

I posted once before about trying to find a non-synthetic area rug for Easton’s room and many of you gave me great suggestions. It wasn’t extremely urgent since he didn’t move much, but now the kid rolls in his sleep, rolls on the changing table and pets the wall (?) and tries to catapult himself off of our laps. In conclusion, time for rug(s)*.

I found some online that were possibilities, but I wasn’t entirely comfortable making this purchase online. Minus the shipping costs, this rug had to be pretty and functional so that Easton had a nice cushion under him. The rug had to pass the fluff test.

Mike was in Montreal this weekend so I got to soak up a few days with Easton all to myself. Minus the lack of showers, it was some much needed momma and Easton time. On Saturday, we headed to the mall to get out a bit and I browsed Pottery Barn Kids since I still have some giftcards. There I saw a sale section with a light blue 5’x8′ rug. It was the Somerville rug and it was nice, fluffy, soft and worthy of petting. It was a solid blue with a subtle diamond pattern. It was made of wool, so it met my healthy nursery requirement. SOLD!

(via Pottery Barn Kids)

It was marked down to $280ish from $399 (cheaper than listed online!) plus I had 2 giftcards so we ended up paying about $150 for it. Once we got it in the room, Easton was impressed.

By those decorating rules that most interior designers say are meant to be broken, we probably should have gone with a bigger rug. The rug mostly floats in the center of the room, though it goes underneath the front of the crib. The problem with bigger would be that it would cover almost all of the hardwoods in the room, which we just installed and we don’t want to hide completely! Oh yeah, and an 8’x10′ rug is mucho dinero. 5’x8′ it is!

I actually like the size and that it gives the crib a red carpet effect… with a blue carpet.

I also like that there is a relaxing blue on both the ceiling and the floor. When I first started on this room, I thought it would be mostly light blue and green with some navy. Then I was afraid that ‘some’ navy wasn’t going to be powerful enough so I kept adding navy. Now the room is mostly light blue and navy and I love it. The last minute chevron crib skirt I made days before Easton was born was a total game changer for me in this room.

The size of the rug also makes for a nice little walkway on either side, especially in front of the changing table.

I take my shoes off whenever I go near the carpet to make sure it stays nice and clean for the monster. Sidenote: I almost never take my shoes off as soon as I get in the house. I like having all of my shoes in our closet and if they’re on my feet? One less thing to carry up at the end of the day.

Here’s a close up of the pattern of the rug. I love that it adds another geometric print to the room. It really makes it a room he can grow into with a few tweaks.

The crib is currently sporting a breathable bumper on 3 out of 4 sides and a spaceship sheet that came with the bedding set. I prefer a light blue sheet with the chevron crib skirt, but laundry had other plans. Or rather, Easton’s bodily fluids did. The regular spaceship bumper was removed once Easton was old enough to move around at night.

Oh wait, what are those tissue paper things on the wall? Well, they’re… tissue paper. I planned out a gallergy wall weeks ago and haven’t gotten a chance to hang it. I spray painted frames, ordered photos and made a few art pieces. Both art pieces had to be redone after I didn’t like them in the frames, some frames needed an extra spray paint and my shadowbox needs to be handpainted.  So as of now the gallery wall looks like this….

Once that is all done, the nursery is almost all done. We decided to hang some hooks that we already had by the door. That should take Mike all of 10 minutes and then maybe I can squeeze in the big reveal!

One last rug shot?

Mmm so cozy now.

* playroom rug shopping is underway as well!

ps- Just literally fell asleep 3 times while sitting up and writing this…Hysterical? Yes. Pathetic? Yes that too…

Now that we’ve used the nursery for a bit, I feel like I’m finally ready to wrap things up in there. For the longest time, I didn’t know if I wanted a rug and a mobile. I also had no clue what kind of arrangement to do for the gallery wall. I think I (mostly) figured it out!

First, the mobile. Back in January I posted about how I had no clue what kind of mobile to add or if I even wanted one. Well, once we finished the crib area with the paneled accent wall, the bedding and the chevron crib skirt I made, I decided that I didn’t want a mobile and liked the less is more look we had going on.

Well, fast forward a few months and Mr. Easton had other plans. He’s becoming so much more aware of his surroundings and I’m happy to report that he loves his room. He stares at his curtains, ABC art and giraffe sconces… like honestly, he does. He even sometimes enjoys his room so much that he giggles at inanimate objects. There’s something around his closet area that captivates him and always gets a giggle. I like to think it’s those polka dots I slaved over while 9 months pregnant. He’s a future designer…

As we begin to think about putting him in his crib in the upcoming months (sniffle sniffle, tear), we know he would absolutely LOVE a mobile. Wanting to stick with something minimal, I decided to go with one of the ones I found originally, from Little Dreamers Inc on Etsy.

I wanted to make a mobile on my own, but I saw that the Little Dreamers Etsy shop sold DIY mobile kits for $25. I figured that would save me some time cutting out all of those stars and I would pay probably $10-$15 in materials, so I set out to order it. When I told my mom, she told me that Easton would like his mobile before he’s 12. She offered to pay for it fully assembled so that I didn’t have to put it together. Since I’m still feeding Easton every 2 hours and the mobile has around 165 stars, I agreed to accept the offer. It will be here in 2-4 weeks 🙂

Up next is the gallery wall I’ve planned to do over the bookcase.

During one of Easton’s naps this weekend, I was actually able to make some progress! I settled on a nice little arrangement…

I also had a chance to spray paint the darker frames white, when the can of spray paint I was using decided to clog beyond repair. I’m also working on selecting photos and art to fill these things (though that little onesie is staying, after it gets ironed), so the details will be coming. Hopefully this week…as long as the spray paint gods are nice to me for round 2.

Finally, the rug. I knew eventually we’d want an area rug for the room, but I knew it wasn’t an urgent item so I held off. Now that Easton plays more, I really want to be able to put him down in there. I was originally eyeing up the Capel rug from Pottery Barn Kids in either light blue with navy or navy with white…

We have a gift card and I thought the 4’x6′ size would work. But when I measured it out in the room, it is way too small. We need a 5’x8′ rug, which means way more money. I’m back to the drawing board on this one, anyone have any suggestions? I’m actually not all that picky about looks on this one and I’d take any solid blue or green rug in various shades. Heck, I’d take a cool patterned rug as well! The important thing to me is that it’s soft for little knees and that it’s safe and not full of chemicals. All of the 5’x8′ cotton/wool rugs I’ve found seem to be $500. Recommendations welcome 🙂

ps- If I owe any of you an email, I apologize for the wait. Never mind the feeding a baby every 2 hours thing, but my laptop charger kicked the bucket so my computer time is limited. How does one’s charger die? One word… Macky. He chews wires. Twice in one month apparently. He needs to get a job.

Last week when I started my casa tour (which I will probably resume next week), something about the family room was seriously irking me. It’s not something new, in fact, I’ve been wanting to replace these damn couches since long before we moved in.

Actually it’s not couches, it’s couch and chair-couch (as we lovingly refer to it). In fact, we love our couch and chair-couch and they have served us well. But we bought them about 6 years ago for our condo and the layout of this room just doesn’t work with the couch/chair-couch combo.

Along with couch and chair couch, we also still have 2 square, glass topped tables from Ikea that are about 5 years old. They are too short and too tight in this space, but we need somewhere to put drinks and laptops. We knew when we first saw this family room that we wanted a big comfy sectional with some round tables on either end. We figured our current furniture will find a nice home in our formal living room or sitting room and would not go to waste. And so we’ve been searching for a sectional…FOR TWO YEARS.

I would like the same profile and size of the furniture we have, just without the table in between the couch and the chair-couch. We searched for a bit before we moved in but then decided just to put our existing furniture in the family room for the time being. We realized that the configuration we wanted would probably be a special order and we didn’t feel like spending a large chunk of change on it. But lately our couch is looking worn and the layout is bothering us, so we decided to look again this weekend. Much to my surprise, we walked into Raymour and Flanigan and saw the configuration we wanted in front of us.

Sorry for the crappy pic, I snapped it quick before we got bombarded with sales people. It’s hard to tell in this picture, but it has some contrast piping on it that i’m not crazy about. Plus the arms are tapered funny and I’m not a fan of the back pillows. Here’s a picture from the Raymour and Flanigan website…

It’s much cheaper than ordering a custom sectional, but since I wasn’t crazy about it, we decided to check out the custom selection. There was nothing with that caddy cornered “cuddler” piece that I want to match the current angle of our chair-couch. I felt like I’ve hit a road block… do I go with a less expensive sectional that meets my size and shape requirements but that I’m not crazy about design wise?

Part of my concern is that we are not easy on our couches. We spill ice cream, we once had a cat cut a paw and smear blood all over our couch and so far, microfiber has been good to us. We normally pay extra for the stain guard so that spills wipe up with warm water. Macky also has a habit of scratching ottomans, so I’m worried about paying a lot for something that is essentially going to be beat up. Decisions decisions.

I’ve heard that Pottery Barn slipcovered furniture can be machine washed and does so well, so I checked out their website. Of course, no corner cuddle piece, but I like the idea of a machine washable slipcover and their more modern lines. Plus this configuration would technically work for us…

We’re going to check out a few more stores and hope we get lucky, but here’s where I need your advice! Have you seen any sectionals in the layout we’re looking for anywhere? Do you own a washable slipcovered sofa? What would you rather give up, shape, design or ease of cleaning?

I’m not sure if we should settle for the light sectional with dark piping. It was awfully comfortable when I lounged on it…. 🙂

You know how I said yesterday that I might jump around with the house tour? Well I’m about to, hang on kids 🙂

Our master bedroom hasn’t really been touched since we moved in, which is why you haven’t seen much of it yet. We did add hardwood floors (we had gold, builder-grade carpeting before) and we separated the sitting room from the main room with a wall and some french doors. Otherwise the room was ginormously awkward. Like those 7 foot tall basketball players who are only good because they’re eye level with the hoop.

Here’s the master on our floor plan…

I forgot to draw some french doors in the opening to the sitting room, but you get the idea. We did toy with some paint ideas for this room, but we ended up using one of our choices for the office stripes. So somehow, 16 months after moving in, we have white walls and paper blinds. This is embarassing.

The room does have some great features, like 6 windows between the main room and the sitting room, as well as cathedral ceilings.

And of course, the french doors we added that we still haven’t even primed.

Please ignore the cat beds and toys in the next picture. They sleep here too 🙂

I didn’t take any recent pictures facing the other way because the sitting room is currently Darwin’s hangout since we had to put an extra litter box in there for him. I figured no one wanted a view of that, even though it’s tucked behind the door, so here are some older pictures. The wall looks exactly the same so an updated picture wouldn’t do much for you, though daylight would probably be prettier 🙂

And just for fun, here’s what the room used to look like when we moved in.

One reason that this room has stayed so blah for so long is that I couldn’t find any sort of inspiration I was in love with. I am beyond sick of being blinded by the white on white and I hate our bed-in-a-bag temporary bedding that has been around for far too long. The room is just so large that something simple wouldn’t do. I thought about painting stripes on the walls, then it was going to be stenciled, then we were going to do molding all the way around the room and it just constantly changed. But lately one idea will not leave my head. It involves this Pottery Barn Farmhouse Canopy bed….

I have wanted a bed like this for my entire life. Mike has never been a fan, but he agrees with me on this one because it looks “classy” (Mike, 2011). I think that with our high ceilings, we actually need a bed this grand. One of the problems with any of the wall treatments that I planned to do was that I couldn’t think of what kind of headboard to do with them that made enough of a statement.

Because of the hefty price tag on this bed, we’re considering 3 options:

1. Save our pennies and buy the bed (which isn’t realistic in the near future because of Darwin’s weekly chemo treatments)

2. Try to luck out and find one on Craiglist (I’ve found some in other states but none close by yet)

3. Build one using Ana White’s plans (while I would love the feeling of accomplishment in this one, we have major time constraints with jobs/school)

On top of this (almost literally) we want to do a fancy ceiling treatment, but I’ll save those plans for another night. I’m off to go talk Darwin into taking his pills, since he’s refusing the cookie treatment tonight. In the meantime, if anyone spots a farmhouse bed deal, send it my way!

Our umbrella has arrived! Okay we’ve had it since last week, but we needed a base for it. We checked Target during one of our many visits there and they had nothing. In fact, most of their outdoor area is already on clearance and it’s not even July 4th yet! On Saturday we made a spontaneous trip to the Crate & Barrel outlet and were lucky enough to find an umbrella base there, among other things. That place was magical on Saturday. Anywho, back to that umbrella!

It’s definitely larger and prettier than I imagined. The patio just feels so classy now 🙂

The blue breaks up all of the brown we have going on with the stained stairs.

The umbrella base we found worked out perfectly. I really wasn’t going to be picky about a base, since no one is going to see it and it will mostly be kicked, but I love the one we found. Most of the others I saw in my brief search were black and had a wrought iron type of design.

In complete Pottery Barn fashion, the umbrella opens by a rope and pulley system rather than a crank thing. I still have yet to figure out what to do with the rope when the umbrella is fully extended, so for now I’ve just been wrapping it around one of the metal parts. I’ll have to check the PB images to see what they do.

All of the inner parts of the umbrella are wood, which is probably my favorite part. I’m looking forward to hanging some laterns all up in there 🙂

Thank you reward points for a free umbrella! Okay I guess we technically paid for it, the least Pottery Barn could do was throw in an umbrella with our patio furniture purchase. Nothing is really free, right?

The backyard is slowly coming along. Last weekend Mike seeded the freshly cleared part of our backyard, but nothing has grown yet 🙁

That green stuff you see around the sprinkler? Weeds. Why is it that they always grow and grass doesn’t?

I picked up some $4 planters at the Crate & Barrel outlet, but other than that, we don’t have much else planned for the patio at the moment. Summer is quickly running away from us and we have so many weekend commitments that I’m not sure how many patio projects we can fit in. It looks like our built-in grill plans will actually be pushed back to next year. My bank account is very thankful 🙂