Jonah's Nursery

(The official almost done reveal)

Well... I've teased long enough.  I'm ready to show you guys Jonah's nursery.  There is still one more thing I plan to do in there, but who knows when I'll actually get around to it.  So without farther ado, here is the almost done nursury.

This is the view right as you walk into the room.  His walls are a "greyish green."  I painted the trees with some good old frog tape and some white paint.  The rocker is from Babies R Us and is super comfortable.  I spend a lot of time in that chair!

 As you rotate around you can see the cute mobile I made and the picture frame growth chart.  It looks so much cuter with all those sweet baby pictures in it!

The beautiful crib is the Ashby Crib from Pottery Barn.  It's a discontinued crib that I got from Downeast Home and paid a fraction of the PB price!  I LOVE Downeast Home!

And the bedding... I made it myself!!!  I'm not much of a seamstress and this is by far my biggest sewing project to date.  While time consuming, it was actually pretty easy. (Although I pretty much just winged it the whole time so I cant really give you a tutorial.  sorry!)  The whole room is based off this adorable print, Wonderland in Blue by Monaluna.

  

 I paired it with a bright blue minky, a tone on tone chevron, and red trim.  Its so bright and happy and I just LOVE it!  (The little owl throw blanket I found at TJ Maxx.)

As you continue around the room this is the view from behind the door.  I have my Baby Stats frame and a little coat hook. (Hello kitty!)

And finally as you circle around again you see the changing table and the alphabet banner I made.  The little dresser is also from pottery barn.

And that's it!  I hope you like it!  We are loving it.  Its such a fun space to hang out and snuggle my sweet little man.

 (Sorry for the less then stellar photos.  I tried to photograph when the room got the most light, but it just made for weird light and shadows. Bummer.  I really need to work on my photography skills)

As always I'm linking to these great parties and events:

Nursery Decor- sneak peek

So I am almost done with Jonah's nursery.  There are two more things I plan to add before I share the whole reveal, but as a little teaser I thought I'd share a couple things I made recently for the room.

First, my neighborhood group got together for a craft night the other day.  One of my neighbors had picked up a 9 opening shadow box frame for us all to do.  I have to admit it took me awhile to decide what to do with it!  But I decided to take it and make a "stats frame" for Jonah.  It turned out super cute!

It started out blank like this... (except not painted)

I then got super lucky and found these wood tiles from Micheal's that fit into each square perfectly.  I love it when things work out like that!

Then I went and found some cute scrapbook paper and printed some sepia newborn pictures of Jonah.  I modge podged the scrapbook paper and pictures on some of the tiles and used vinyl to make a stencil and painted the "stats" on the others.  (Tip:  if you have your pictures printed using a laser printer then you can modge podge without them bleeding. I had mine printed at office max.)

Then you can arrange your tiles.  I ended up using clear silicon to glue each tile in place.

Hang and enjoy!

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I also made Jonah his letters.  I found the wood letters at a local craft store and modge podged more cute paper to them.  (There has been lots of modge podge lately...)

They look so cute on his shelves!

And speaking of cute things on his shelves... aren't these woodland creatures the cutest?!  We found them at Pier1 Imports awhile back.  Love them!

Anyway, that's it for now.  The whole nursery reveal will be coming soon!

As always I'm linking to these great parties and events:

How I Met My House

Our Suburban Cottage is hosting a link party that I thought would be fun to play along. So this is the story behind "how I met my house."




Well... it was December and we were supposed to move out of this god forsaken, I mean lovely town we live in. But circumstances prevented us from getting out of here. This was our second attempt. We were living in a 1900's farmhouse at the time that was falling down around us. Our little guy (my first child) was about 6 months old and there was NO WAY I was going to let him learn to crawl in that house! So we decided to face facts, we were never getting away from here, so we might as well settle down and buy a house.

Well the house hunt began. It came down to three contenders. House #1 had a great location, great view from the back, and some charming features. However the previous owners were untalented do-it-yourselfers and we would have to re-do A LOT and it was a split level. (not my favorite floor plan) House #2 was the largest of the three and had a three car garage. It was on a HUGE lot, in a cul-de-sac, and was a ranch style home. The down fall was that it was very plain. It had golden oak cabinets (gag me) and was located in a not-as-nice neighborhood. House #3 was located in the nicest neighborhood of the three and had hardwood floors, alder cabinetry, and was the only one with a fireplace! I was in LOVE with this house but it was the smallest of the three, was a two-story so all the bedrooms were on a separate floor than the living areas, and it had the smallest lot of the three.

So which did we choose?

Well, remember that I am married and my husband had an equal vote in the choice. We ended up choosing house #2 because of the ginormous lot and three car garage. It was far from love-at-first-sight but my hubby assured me that everything I liked about the other house we could put in this house.

We have been in this house for 3 1/2 years. So far we have painted every wall, updated the hardware on the cabinets, put in stainless steel appliances, replaced all the lighting, re tiled the floors and counter tops in the bathrooms, put in a fence, painted the front door and garage doors, spruced up the flowerbeds, and completely finished the basement.

Here are some pictures of our home in its current state.



Things I still WANT to do is refinish all the cabinetry, put in hardwood throughout the kitchen and living room, install concrete counter tops in the kitchen, do a backslash, build a patio out back, and plant a bunch of trees. However, I worry about over building for our neighborhood so I'm not sure how much farther I should go with it. I guess we just have to decide how much longer we are going to stay in this house to determine if its really worth it. I am also considering some minor redecorating this fall as we've had the blue for almost four years and, well its still my favorite color, I'd like to try and use it in a different way, but that's another post.

Anyway, overall I am really happy with my house. We love being in a cul-de-sac, I love having a single story and I don't know how we could ever have less then a three car garage.

Thanks to Our Suburban Cottage for the fun post idea and link party!