Mother's Day Gift Idea

So I think I know what I want for Mother's Day. Nothing like deciding three days before, right?

We have a really cool nook off of our living room that I use as an office. It has an open door way to the left of my desk that leads into our foyer and directly behind me is a large arch way that separates the two spaces.

It needs a serious make over.

For Mother's Day I want to jump start the make over. I found a few images that I think will guide me. It's so important to have a beautiful working space and right now my spaces looks like I work out of a warehouse.

I'm still thinking about the color scheme, my walls are a very light grey so I'll be working with that. I also want to be as frugal as I can, which means the second hand stores will be my friends.

I'm excited about this idea, it beats a really fatty meal which is something we have done in the past years.

If you have links to your office space pictures or other inspiration you think may help me out, please leave it in the comments!

Bean’s Room | A work in progress

We finally did it. We sent Bean to her Nana’s for the weekend so that we could work on her room.

This is the before. Isn’t it horrible? We decided to rent this second floor apartment because we love the neighborhood, the landlords, the space (2,000 square feet!), and the charm. What we hate about the apartment are the dark room colors. Isn’t it horrible?

I chose her color as soon as we moved in. I didn’t want a pink or purple room for her. It doesn’t fit our style as a family and I don’t think an all pink or purple room with butterflies or something fits Bean’s personality. I really wanted to play off of her name which means “Bird” in German. So I chose soft colors with touches of wood.

This easel was given to Bean for Christmas from her Grandpa (my dad) and she loves it.

This radiator has so much detail and they are original with the house. It’s painted the same color as her walls with a white shelf sitting on top. My mom bought this vintage toy for Bean at our Salvation Army for $5. A total steal. I did take the price tag off after I took the picture, ha!  “Of Thee I Sing” is one of Bean’s favorite books gifted to her by her Tante Sendy.

I bought Bean’s red bed from our local Goodwill for $7 dollars. The blanket on the bead is actually a throw and I bought that and the yellow stripped sheets from Target. They all sit on this amazing black and white rug I found via Pinterest on Overstock.com.

I love this little apple pillow from Target. On the other side of it is a green apple. Above Bean’s bed are two shelves purchased at a discount store and more items I bought from Target. That big ‘A’ is purchased at JoAnns and I painted it. I really love the way it came out.

In one corner of Bean’s room is a chair we sit in to read books. I bought it several summers ago at a yard sale for $20, I’m still looking for the perfect cushions for it.

Here is a better look at what’s on her shelves. I plan on printing off pictures for the white frame. After I took this photo I found her foot prints from the day she was born and cut one of them out and put it in the pink round frame. It looks so cute.

Bean’s name in German means ‘Bird’ so I thought it was only fitting that she have her own bird house.

I purchased that yellow flower wreath at JoAnns too and it’s probably one of favorite things in the room.

I’m loving her room so far. We have a lot of other things to add before we feel like it’s complete. But when she walked in to her new room she said, “Ooooh!” and took a running leap on her bed. So I think it’s safe to say we’re heading in the right direction.

Scenes of Our Apartment | Living Room

Thirfty Shopper | A New Chair

I'm supposed to be moving and packing up all the stuff in our apartment. But I went to the Salvation Army to donate items and decided to look around. No harm in that, right?

Wrong.

I snapped this picture with my cell phone and sent it to my husband asking, "What do you think?" but he was taking too long so I sent it to my mom and she replied instantly. Moms are great.

She thought the chair was "Cute" and for $25.00, I couldn't pass that up.

I asked a clerk if the chair had been sprayed and inspected for bugs (bedbugs, fleas, you know the kind) and she said it had and the chair passed the test.

Sold!

I bought the chair and hours later my husband responded, "I like it." Great because I had already bought it. We took it home the next day and it sits on our landing, ready for move in day.

This chair is a great find because it has the color pallet I want for our new living/dinning room. All I have to do is clean it again (to make myself feel more comfortable) and paint the chair legs.

Do you shop at thrift stores? If so what do you buy? What are some things you'd NEVER buy at a thrift store?

gender neutral nursery

One of the many (superficial) reasons I wanted another girl was to make decorating their room easier. But seeing that our newest addition will be a sweet little boy, the plans have to change a little bit.

I am not a fan of cutesy baby clothes or gear. I don't like animated characters, too many flowers or trucks, and I don't like the traditional decorating themes for nurseries or kids rooms. You know the ones I'm talking about: the jungle/sports/truck theme for boys and the flower/animated character/princess theme for girls. If I can be frank (and I think I can because it's my blog) those themes make me sick to my stomach. But I don't damn parents who choose them for their own kids. After all, I guess someone could say that the themes I use for clothing and decorating for my kids is a little too old (also known as extremely chic and classic, ha!). So to each their own, I say.

Our family is still in an apartment that wont let us paint the walls so what I have to work with is minimal but I'm not letting that stop me. We will be in our apartment at least until the New Year (maybe longer) and I'm trying desperately to get out of the mind frame "well, it's just an apartment so I don't have to decorate it." Which just equals, our apartment looking like a mess.

So before I go off and buy random things for a room, I am taking my time (I know this bothers my mom) to really think about what I want the nursery to look like. So I've been looking around the internet (where all great ideas are) and found a few inspiration pictures:

This picture comes from younghouselove.com and it's for their daughter. I love this picture because I like how they mixed light and dark furniture. I also love the color palette and think that greens, yellows, and whites would make a great nursery for both a boy and girl. I also love the texture in the room from the whicker baskets and shag throw.

I really like this canvas bookshelf that is in the room of Smile and Wave's boy and girl room. Right now Bean has a good book collection but I suspect as reading becomes more enjoyable I can see something like this being great to use for book rotation.

I found this picture on Decor Pad and I love love love how they have the wall hanging behind the crib! I think this would spruce up the walls because we can't paint.

I also found this on Decor Pad and I chose it because I really like the window covering. I was thinking about doing just a curtain but that's so boring. I also like this because the window in that room is extremely tiny and it wouldn't take too much fabric to make my own roman shade. I found this DIY tutorial to create my own for a very low cost.

I think it's pretty funny that I didn't have a color palette in mind but now that I look at all my inspiration pictures, they all have a similar color scheme. Greens, yellows, and blues. But I will have to add in pink somewhere. I hate to admit it, but if I want this room to be a true representation of boy and girl, pink is going to have to be a part of the picture because 99.99% of things for girls are pink.

What do you all think? Have any other links I should look at for inspiration?

-M