The last time you saw the nursery, the furniture was arranged with the glider in the corner.

Oh and there’s a Mamaroo temporarily in the other corner. We just put it together and wanted to make sure it worked. The point is, there’s a giant empty wall next to the glider.

I was waiting to have the glider to decide what type of furniture to put next to it. I wasn’t sure if we’d want a small table, toy storage, bookcase, etc., but I knew we’d want something to use as a surface to put down bottles and other things. Then we realized how small this room was getting with everything in it…

I had the glider positioned on the right side of the window…

So I just slid it out to the other side of the window.

The good thing about this is now we can get a small bookcase that will be closer to centered on the wall, but still next to the chair. Then we can fill the wall space above the bookcase with a nice gallery wall or something similar.

We measured about how large of a bookcase we’d want after moving the chair. The ottoman does stick out into the room a little bit more now, but there’s still plenty of space to navigate to the crib. As the baby grows, maybe the configuration will change.

I searched the Ikea website and saw that the only short bookcase they had was the Expedit, which I wasn’t crazy about in this room (though we have a black/brown one in the office). I turned to Target and quickly found the Carson 2-shelf bookcase.

(via Target)

The image on the Target website isn’t great, but you get the idea. The dimensions worked, plus I was able to get free shipping and 5% off for using my Target debit card. Since the image wasn’t great, I wasn’t yet sold and turned to Google, where I discovered that this was just the shorter version of this bookcase that Jessie from Cape 27 has that I blogged about last year!

(via Cape 27)

Which of course got my wheels turning further…. not only should I buy the bookcase, but I should paint the back of it green like the nursery closet!

It would look a little something like this…

So I ordered it. It will be here early next week and will make a nice home for some books, a humidifier and a gallery wall 🙂

It’s been great being able to work on SongMeanings during the day and have time at night to work on projects around the house.  Just a few weeks ago, it was working all day at Corporate America, coming home exhausted and working on SongMeanings as much as I could until my eyes got too tired and strained.

It was nearly impossible for Rebecca and I to really get anything accomplished house-wise during the week.  My schedule has been roughly 8:30-5:30 dedicated to SongMeanings and the business; mostly coding away on new features and taking a few conference calls.  At night, it’s been a mix of things — still working on SM, calls with the business partner, spending quality time with Rebecca when she’s not blogging (err on Pinterest), annnddd building the office window seat.

This weekend, Rebecca and I picked up some lumber from Lowe’s; three 12-foot 2×6 boards.  The car ride home was quite funny with a good foot of wood sticking out of the trunk.  Rebecca was paranoid as can be thinking a) we’d kill ourselves or b) we’d kill someone else.  I kept telling her I’ve seen my father do much worse and be successful, but for some reason that didn’t exactly comfort her.

I cut two of the boards to be able to span the entire width of the wall, or just under 12ft.  With the remaining piece of 2×6, I cut out eight 12-inch pieces.  These would connect the long boards to essentially make up the frame.

I used wood screws to screw the boards together.  There was conflicting information online on whether to use nails or screws when building a frame.  Some said nails allow for flexing while others said screws would be more reliable.   Using the screws were fairly easy; the hardest part (or tedious rather) was continually drilling pilot holes.

And for fun, I decided to write our lil domain on one of the planks.  I figured if someone ever dismantled this thing and the blog was still operating, he or she could then contact me to ask me what the heck I was doing building this thing.  I’m still asking myself that same question.  I also wrote when we started the project.  But the world is going to end in a few short months, so I’m not quite sure why any of this mattered.

(via Plans Now)

We wanted to install puck lighting on our built-ins much like the inspiration above.  We had an existing outlet centered on the wall which I could tap into.  The only problem was actually running the electrical wire through the studs and up the wall.  I discussed the plan, and route, with several friends.  When one of them told me to stop being wuss and do it already, I took the leap.  After a couple of hours that spanned two nights, a dozen or so curse words, getting shocked once and causing some open wounds, I finally succeeded in running the wire — all within code, too.  Phew.  The idea was to get an outlet at the very top of the bookcase and then use the variance to hide the additional wiring for the puck-lighting.

That wire you see on the cabinet (isn’t live) and is just extra cord.  I’ll be trimming that down to fit into the outlet — or as seen below.

One issue I ran into, and it was one we were expecting, was the molding on the window sill.  The cabinets come up too high, so we’ll be removing them shortly.

I was expecting when I finished the frame and rested the cabinets on it, it would not be level.  But best thing ever?  I put the level on it and sure enough, it was damn near perfect on both sides.  I was assuming I’d have to use shims to get this puppy level.  I’m not sure how I accomplished it being level, but hopefully it makes the rest of the project much easier.

So next steps?

• Attach the frame to the studs in the walls for a secure fit (right now the frame is just resting in there).
• Remove the molding from the window sill.
• Start building the open boxes which will sit on side each of the cabinets against the wall.

Remember waaay back when (last week) I was envious of Dana’s kitchen island?

(via House*Tweaking)

Well I think it may be partially possible, we can probably add the shelves but not the stools. This excites me beyond belief because I have wanted to add a different countertop to our island since, well, before we moved in! I thought we could add stools to our island and we planned to extend our countertop with butcher block long before this blog was born. But once we moved in, we realized that the salesperson was wrong when she told us we could fit stools at our island 🙁 it would be too close of a squeeze near the refrigerator and the lower cabinets next to it.

Despite the sad news, I never gave up hope of making our kitchen more customized. For a while, Mike and I thought we may want to add a sunroom type of thing to the back of our house so that we could extend our island.

(via another model home in our development that has since sold)

But obviously, we have since added our patio and we will not be putting any additions on the back of our house. It was a fun dream while it lasted!

Mike and I have been thinking about adding a bookcase area to our island since I discovered Dana’s. When we talked it out, we realized it was completely realistic if we made one simple change.

The cats can’t eat anymore. I’m kidding I’m kidding. Yesterday, I moved their bowls out of our eat-in area so that it now looks like this…

Now that I look at this picture, it looks like Darwin is standing there like “Maa! Where’s my food!?” He was just photo bombing, as my cats always seem to do. Actually, since Darwin was diagnosed with kidney disease and started his special food last week, we’ve been feeding him separately so his bowl got to stay in the kitchen until he gains some weight. It’s back there by the sliding glass door for now.

Macky and Mowie are now dining, in the dining room. They feel all classy and stuff.

(Yes my cats are messy eaters. Sometimes the placemat and dog tray can’t even contain their messes)

We figure that we only use the dining room for special occassions and during those times, we usually leave just one bowl out for the cats or put their food in our bedroom. This keeps them protected from the chaos and foot traffic, and makes a little more room for people to walk around. Since our kitchen/eat-in area is an area we use daily, we figure we can spread ourselves out a little and let the cats eat in their own room. Don’t worry, we really don’t eat at the same time anyway. They’re on a 8:30am/8:30pm schedule. We usually eat our dinner around 6:30 🙂

With the bowls out of the way, we have a lot more room to plan our island area. We’d probably move our garbage can to where the recycling basket currently is.

Then probably move the recycling basket to the opposite corner so that we can extend our island about a foot or so. I thought it might be weird that we have a half wall across from the island and I wasn’t sure if the island was lined up with it, but apparently the island isn’t lined up with anything! It sort of falls in between the half wall and the cabinets behind it.

We have a lot more space now to push our small table over so that there’s still a nice amount of open space in the area.

I think that if we add a rectangular table down the line, we will have even more space. But I’m not ready to part with my $199 table and chair set just yet.

These pictures were taken while heating up some leftovers for dinner. The toaster oven magically appeared on the countertop halfway through my pictures.

Just incase you were wondering where we keep our gargantuan toaster oven 🙂 Yes we have the fanciest toaster oven around (it’s a Calphalon one we received as a bridal shower gift) and we use it probably once a day. I am not exaggerating, that thing is my favorite appliance in the world.

While I had a bagel, Mike had some Chinese food. So please ignore the weird combination of food on the island during these full kitchen shots 🙂

Wouldn’t an island bookcase like this one look wonderful where our garbage can is?

(via Megan at Honey We’re Home)

I can’t wait to give it a try. We’ll probably mark out the area and make sure it’s not too intrusive before making any decisions. It’s on the short list right after finishing our chair rail/wainscoting project 🙂

When we bought our house, included were these columns in between our dining and formal living rooms.

I stole that picture from Mike’s speaker files, since he still hasn’t posted about it and they’re nice daylight pictures. So please ignore the sloppy curtains and the speaker template taped to the column. I once asked him to take some daytime pictures of our bedroom and he took a picture that included his dirty clothes on the floor, so let’s consider this an improvement 😉

Anyway, here are a few more shots of the columns, which were technically part of the upgraded trim package we were given as a result of a crappy real estate market.

I know some of you will cringe at this statement, but we’re not crazy about them. They’re nice, but they’re just not our style. We were considering asking for a credit rather than having them put in, but we did want the extra wall piece between the rooms, so we decided to keep them around. Before we even closed on the house, we were scheming up things to do with the space. Here’s a vintage lil house pic from shortly after the columns were installed, nearly a year ago…

What a crazy difference from the first picture in this post, huh??

My first idea was to do some sort of a stone column, maybe a brick type or dry stack to compensate for the fact that new homes have no exposed brick. So long before we moved in, Mike photoshopped some stone columns into this picture.

He even stuck some wainscoting in there, which we had installed the day after closing 🙂 Nice to see one idea come to life! We thought we could maybe even stick some sconces on those stone columns and make them feel all warm and fuzzy.

Then just Sunday, I sat on our JetBlue flight home from Disney watching HGTV. Isn’t JetBlue lovely?? You can just sit there and watch tv! Anyway, I did fall asleep due to exhaustion and woke up to a reveal of a room on Designed to Sell. I tapped Mike and pointed to my screen (he had headphones on too) and he nodded back in approval. Lucky for you guys, I found an image of what I saw on HGTV.com…

It’s small and hard to see, but they built bookcases in the space between the rooms. Genius!! I am currently loving built-in bookcases after seeing Sara’s bookcases over at Russet Street Reno and Young House Love’s bold painted bookcases. Though I’m still thinking of places in our house where I can replicate Sara’s project, I’m thinking some bookcases in between our living and dining rooms could be an inexpensive, happy compromise to both issues… my bookcase envy and my column hatred.