Easton loves books. I know, he’s only 8 months old, but he will sit with a book and ever so carefully turn the pages and analyze the pictures.

Over the weekend I was hanging out in the playroom with Easton (where I now live), and I realized that the Expedit we have in there isn’t great for his books.

He has to reach in too deep…

In order to chuck all of his books on the floor…

So I got to thinking that maybe we should have a dedicated book area. I knew I had seen so many children’s books displayed adorably on Pinterest, so why not investigate a little, huh?

Here are some options I came across:

(via Domestic Simplicity)

Inexpensive Ikea spice racks. Could be painted fun colors, plus they’re only $4 each!

(via Apartment Therapy)

Fabric book slings, so many fun possibilities.

(via Sunshine on the Inside)

Rain gutters for bookshelves? So creative.

(via Brooklyn Limestone)

Ikea Ribba picture ledges.

And perhaps my favorite, the DIYed numbered ones.

(via The Sweet Survival)

I was thinking of maybe building our own and adding a little ombre effect? Maybe 3 shelves in varying shades of yellow… or green… or orange! Maybe numbered? Hmmm…

After we had hardwood floors installed in our spare bedrooms, we were pretty sure that the baby’s room was going to be this one bedroom (bedroom 1)….

Previously, we had teetered between the room we chose and the last remaining room (bedroom 2). In the beginning, bedroom 2 seemed like a nicer choice, with an extra window and a bigger closet. But the more we thought about it, we realized that there was a lot less wall space for furniture configuring. Then after we cleared the room out to have the floors installed, I naturally started putting the baby’s stuff in the room that didn’t have the guest bed in it, which was now bedroom 1. It was beginning to feel natural that the baby’s room would be the one with the one window. The only thing that kept us on the fence for so long was the closet, which isn’t small, but is just your traditional sliding door closet.

Then I spotted this picture on Pinterest a few weeks ago…

(from Roomzaar via Pinterest)

I’ve been scheming to take the closet doors off, since with sliding doors you are limited to what you can reach on either side. Mike wasn’t convinced and thought I was weird and crazy. Okay, he thought I was weird and crazier than he thought before. But Mike is a very visual person… 90% of the time when I bring up an idea, he thinks it sounds awful. Over the years he’s gotten to the point where he just tells me to do things and knows he’ll probably like it. Or I sketch it out… or I go on Pinterest for a visual. This was one of those instances.

We love the closet system in our walk-in closet and it’s a solid wood Allen + Roth organizer from Lowe’s. It was another one of those things that I pushed hard for when we first moved in because I like to have all of my clothes in front of me. Like, I get fully dressed in the closet in the morning, so having drawers for socks and a shelf for accessories was key. Mike wasn’t sold on it until we actually installed it and then he was like you know what? This thing is awesome. I wanted that same sense of organization and mixed storage options for the baby’s room.

We’re planning on only getting a single dresser to use as a changing table, so we wanted the closet to provide a lot of different storage options. While we were in Lowe’s last weekend looking at cabinets for the new office built-ins, I stumbled upon some new Allen + Roth storage systems.

(via Lowe’s, sorry for the small pic)

These systems were quite similar to what we have in our walk-in… but they were customizable! Ours came in one packaged system and luckily fit our closet and needs perfectly. These new ones give options based around a single tower…

We’d probably do a white system, but the tower picture on the website was dark. In the tower you can add a bunch of inserts, such as drawers…

And metal storage baskets that slide in and out and would be great for toys….

The best part of this system, like the one we already have, is that it’s solid wood and can be cut down to fit your closet. We’ll probably do a configuration similar to our walk-in and the stock picture, with two hanging areas on either side of the tower. We’ll probably do 2 levels on both sides like the inspiration picture, since kids’ clothes are so tiny and even pants won’t need the entire height of the closet. Heck I only have a couple of dresses in my closet that require the “long” side!

Whether we’ll can the doors completely, do a curtain, do french doors or do solid double doors remains a mystery. But! I am planning on painting the closet a fun, bright color before we install the system and stenciling behind it. Plus the baby is acquiring quite a wardrobe thanks to momma shopping some after Christmas sales (next year’s Christmas onesies for $2? Don’t mind if I do!), so the storage is needed ASAP!

Once we finish framing out the office built-ins (which we started this weekend), the baby’s closet is next. We have so many huge projects on our plates it’s insane. Fun, but insane 🙂

No, I’m not talking about the Office with Andy Bernard in charge (which just isn’t the same, btw), I’m talking about the office we plan to move upstairs that I mentioned here. I’ve blogged about how I’d like to build a window seat and Mike posted about how he’d like to do some dramatically large lyrics on the wall, but other than that we haven’t told you much. We have received an estimate to continue the hardwood flooring we added to our hallway and master last year into the remaining 3 bedrooms. That would mean that our entire upstairs would be seamlessly full of this…

This was our plan all along, we just tried to break up the expense over 2 installs. Since we’re getting serious about moving the office, we figured the carpet should go before we do so. Macky looooves shredding that particular type of carpet and whenever he weasels his way into one of the spare bedrooms, he immediately goes to town. This would probably drive us crazy after about…. an hour of sitting in the new office.

Then we bought a couch and a tv so the addition of the floors got put on the back burner. We like to only tackle a major expense at a time, so we’ve decided to wait until November/December to add the floors (depending on our contractor’s availability). In the meantime, Mike and I have been scouring Pinterest for some inspiration. Yes, Mike sneaks on Pinterest and sends me links to things he likes quite often.

First, the chalkboard walls. We want chalkboard paint walls behind our desks. We’re both desperately missing a space to jot down notes, code and to-do lists in our current office and chalkboard paint is the natural choice.

(from Craftaholics Anonymous via Pinterest)

I love the clothesline for inspiration pictures in this one, though I’m not sure it’s chalkboard paint, it could be!

(from The Marion House Book via Pinterest)

(from Decor Pad via Pinterest)

And the classic chalkboard calendar from good, ol’ Martha.

(from Martha Stewart via Pinterest)

Other than giant chalkboard walls and a built-in bench, we’re not entirely sure what we want to do with the rest of the room. The room is so large that it’s hard to visualize and I’m afraid we’ll end up with 2 smallish desks floating in the center of two 15 foot walls. Then today, Mike found a few ideas that I think can work for us.

First, some wall cabinetry flanking either side of the desk to break up the large chalkboard wall…

(from Blueprint Bliss via Pinterest)

Second, maybe some high, open shelving to keep the “backsplash” area open for chalkboard writing.

(from Design*Sponge via Pinterest)

Furthering the open shelving look, I like the idea of doing just one continous shelf around the top of the room. Sort of like the top shelf in this picture…

(from Marcus Design via Pinterest)

Whatever we decide, the change will likely be gradual. I know Mike wants to get settled into the office quickly, but we’ll still tackle one project at a time and see where the room takes us. We just know we want it to be streamlined, clean, full of storage and uncluttered. We’re currently having a serious paper issue in our office. Meaning that, Mowie chews paper… in our office. She ate my softcover, rented textbook last night. Needless to say, we’re reaching our limit with storage-less desks and we’re looking forward to some new solutions 🙂

Thank you all for your kind words and support for Darwin. I’ve never met a cat person that I didn’t like, they just seem to be the most caring and genuine people around. You guys are no exception 🙂

Darwin wasn’t quite acting like himself on Monday night, so we were a little concerned. He’s been inhaling his special food like a champ and drinking tons of water. Thankfully, yesterday it was all back to fun and games and I took the opportunity to relax with him.

We watched some HGTV together…

Then I took out some new toys for him from the secret stash…

Which reminds me, part of my about me section mentions making this place comfy for us and the cats. You know, like form and function or something designerly. Well, the cats have a “toy box” where all of their little belongings are kept. It’s actually the smaller of our 2 Target baskets that live in our entertainment center.

(we will hide that tv cord one of these days…and this happens to be an old picture, I have taken the tag off of that Ikea vase)

They love this little supply and can easily access it. It is really adorable to see them dig in there and always grab their personal favorite. It’s equally adorable when we wake up in the morning and toys are suddenly scattered all over the floor. If only I could train them to put them back as well….

The big basket actually has cat toys in it too. I usually keep new toys in there and only give them a few at a time because chances are, they’ll end up under the couch in a few hours. Plus it helps to make Santa’s toy supply last all year. Last night I took some toys out of a brown themed Christmas stocking, which is why Darwin’s supply is so very well coordinated 🙂 Someday we’ll probably reserve this side for human kids’ toys, since I know trying to conceal that clutter will take years of scheming. And perhaps some engineers, inventors and scientists…

Also falling into the “family room storage basket from Target” category is another little adaptation we’ve made recently regarding the basket we used to store our wood in the winter.

It is now a flip flop basket for the summer, that was moved to the entrance of the room. Mike and I realized we were dumping our shoes by the laundry room door, so to minimize that clutter I moved this currently unused basket over closer to chuck shoes in. It’s weird that I never take my shoes off in the house, but I always have to kick them off before walking on the carpet.

Apparently, Macky thinks this should be a toy box too.

We love having loads of storage in our family room since it’s our most frequently used space. Most of the time all 5 of us are in there. Once we get a new sectional and some end tables that are actually end tables, we may be able to fit even more storage. Can you ever have enough in a room?

That’s our kitten design trick for the day. We’re going to have to come up with a lot more of those since we have to add a litter box to our second floor for Darwin. I’ve been dreading having to do that, but his health comes first. Our first step to keep my sanity is possibly switching litter brands. We currently use Feline Pine and it tracks a lot, which is fine for the laundry room but not for upstairs. Does anyone use any other all natural cat litter? We’re considering Yesterday’s News, does anyone have any experience with it?

I’ve already declared my love of bookcases, but I’ve been scheming some more. Mike and I wanted to add some bookcases to the sitting room portion of our master someday, but lately I’ve been thinking about the giant wall in our formal living room. Yes, the room we never mention because it is completely empty.

I didn’t consider adding bookcases here because of those 2 skinny windows on either side of the room. We actually paid extra for those windows, as everything with new homes is an option. We added every optional window they had. Those two skinny windows are the only windows in the entire house that face that direction. Mowie is very appreciative of the morning light 🙂

I also thought we’d have to save that longest wall for a couch. Here’s the view from the dining room.

Here is a better view of the windows overlooking our porch.

At the moment, I am thinking of using my master bedroom idea for this room. We need some serious cookbook storage. Yes, we have a million vegetarian cookbooks we’d like to easily access, those count as books, right? 🙂

Mike and I were thinking of buying some Ikea bookcases. More specifically, maybe some sort of Hemnes combination.

There are a bunch of different sizes and styles we could chose from to make it look more custom. To round off our sitting room, I wanted to add two leather chairs, also from Ikea.

Okay, I’m panicking, they’re not on the Ikea website anymore! I hope they’re not gone! I first spotted them in Katie Bower’s formal living room.

Hopefully Ikea still has them since they were just $199 each. Otherwise this post is foiled. Whamp whamp! But I was thinking of putting them in front of the big double windows, with some bookcases on the large wall. We’re going for the effect that Sandra has in her living room.

But with two skinny windows we’ll manage to work with. Adding some bookcases would give me the opportunity to paint the back of them a fun color like I’ve been dyiiing to do! Here are some of my current favorites from the blogosphere…

John & Sherry of Young House love painted theirs a teal color

Jessie from Cape 27 went with a bright yellow (which is a Target bookcase btw!)

Megan from Honey We’re Home painted her built-ins a soothing blue

Depending on how accessories and what not go, I also like the idea wallpapering or lining the bookcases with fabric to add some more pattern to the room. Here’s an example of a fabric lined bookcase, also from Megan at Honey We’re home.

My fears of not being able to add a couch to this room if we had bookcases were alleviated this week when I spotted this image on Pinterest which is originally from Houzz.

Hey look, you can layer furniture! So even if I have a bookcase against the wall, I can then put a couch in front of that. I didn’t think of that 🙂

But after looking around, I think I want just a few chairs in this room. We still want to be able to extend our dining room table comfortably and we more than likely won’t be spending a lot of time in this room. The cats love this room though, so we want to keep the upholstered furniture minimal and animal friendly.

We shall see how this works out. Afterall, we should probably finish our entryway project first 🙂