Blue and Yellow Curtains: A Recycling Project

When we first moved into our apartment, I made curtains for every room. Our Guest Room/Random Everything Room was painted light yellow (the same color as the Back Bedroom in our current house). My two favorite colors are yellow and blue, and I chose a cute yellow, blue, and white striped material for the curtains. The valance I made out of a solid blue fabric.

When it came time to make the Back Bedroom into B's Bedroom, I decided to save a little money and re-use the striped curtains. I hate to waste things, and those curtains were only used for the 2 years we lived in that apartment. Since then, they'd been sitting in a box (yes, we still have unpacked boxes).

I wanted to change things up for the new curtains, so they weren't exactly the same. Plus, in our apartment, the windows were two very large windows side by side, whereas B's Room has two smaller, separate windows. After a lot of Pinterest-ing and drawing on graph paper, I finally decided on a valance with two straight hanging curtains on the sides. Rather than having a solid blue valance, I decided to make the valance and the curtains both out of the striped material, with stripes of the solid blue. I used up every single last piece of the old curtains!

It took me 3 days to take apart the old curtains, but it was totally worth it! Plus, I didn't have to buy anything new! I even reused curtain rods from another room!

I love love love how the came out! It makes the room feel so much more homely. And B, of course, loves them!

The Baby's Room

At the beginning of March, we added a new occupant to our home... our son B. Luckily for us, the carpet was installed in his room a mere 3 days before he was born, and his crib and other furniture were put together and set up only 2 days before.  Talk about cutting it close!!

The last week before he was born was a whirlwind of renovating. Here I was, 9 months pregnant, and tired exhausted all the time. Add on to that two soon-to-be first time parents who were going crazy trying to make sure everything in the house was perfect and that we had every single thing we needed, and it was a crazy week. I had a list of everything that had to be done before the carpet installers came on Friday. Paint touch up, caulking, cleaning, paint the ceiling, new electrical outlets, etc. As long as I managed to get one thing done during the day, and R got one thing done at night, we would be ok. And what do you know! We made it! Friday came along and everything was perfect and ready for the carpet.

The carpet went in without any problems and looks great! As soon as the installers were out the door, I was starting to move baby stuff in! The planner in me had been freaking out! The baby could come any day now, so I had all of his clothes and blankets washed and folded in the Guest Room. His changing table was put together. The dresser was painted. All I needed to do was move everything in. That Friday night was so fulfilling! I was waiting until after he was born to do some decorating, but my plan was to sew the curtains the following Tuesday (although, then he decided to change things up on us and I ended up in the hospital on Tuesday, and he was born that night!).

2012 in Review

It has been over 6 months since my last post here and you may be wondering why. We found out earlier this year that we were going to be having a baby in 2013! I spent the first couple months exhausted, and between that and work, there just wasn't much time for house renovations. Once I got a tiny shred of my energy back, things got crazy with family and then the holidays, so sadly, 2012 wasn't a very busy year for us house wise (for everything other than the house though, it was insane!).

We did manage to get a couple things done though, which I hope to update on here with individual posts soon. We removed the lead paint in the Living Room (and by us, I mean not pregnant me). We got a lot of new furniture/rugs. We made progress on organizing the house slightly. We updated the radiators in the Living Room. We put up some window trim in the Kitchen. We ended up not getting the fence because the quote came in at twice what we had originally been told. We installed undercabinet lighting in the Kitchen (what a difference this makes!) We tore up the rug in the Twilight Room (soon to be baby's room) and the plywood/wood flooring underneath. We got 3 more chickens. We caulked around all the windows (again, what a difference!!).

We have a couple things planned for January and February that we want to get done before the baby comes in the beginning of March. Hopefully we have enough time to get them done! Our plans for the next two months are to FINALLY put up the crown and base trim in the Kitchen, finish removing the paint in the Living Room (R has to remove the paint from the doors) and then paint the corner cabinet and doors, put up the curtains in the Living Room, refinish the original flooring in the Twilight Room and do some small renovations in there to get it ready for the baby (build a cover for the radiator, install a wall switch, replace the door hardware, buy a rug, make new curtains).

R is also hoping that 2013 will be the year he finally cleans out and organizes the basement. Right now, it's pretty much useless because there is so much stuff down there (some is ours, but most of it was left behind and we never had a chance to go through it all). 90% of his tools and supplies are still in the "Dining Room" because it's easier to find them there, but it's becoming a pain and it isn't very baby-friendly. He's planning on installing some lights, additional outlets, shelving and hopes to install some walls to close off half of the basement as a workshop. We're also buying a new freezer in the next month or so that will be going down here.

As for other 2013 goals, something needs to be done about the garage, which is this close to falling down, we need to build an outdoor play area for the chickens, work on the downstairs bathroom (baby will need a bathtub to take baths in!), and hopefully upgrade the back staircase/hallway. We're trying not to get too optimistic about it because we will most likely be super busy and super tired, but it would be nice to at least get some of these projects started!