Category / House

Even before we finished swapping the nursery and the big kid room, this oh-so-big kid was begging to sleep in here. He had exactly zero issues making the transition to new bed and new room, and we haven’t looked back…although I have a hunch as to why this room is where he wants to be. 🙂

I’ve always shied away from anything too “themed” when it comes to decorating — cohesive pieces, yes — color palette, yep — so as I rolled around the idea of working in some garbage trucks here and there (along with other favorite things) — I had to apply a little creative brainpower to make it COOL and not too cutesy or cheesy.

I tried not to invest too heavily in anything specific to garbage trucks, thinking ahead to when he’s onto the “next thing” …although I can’t imagine that day now. I have videos over a year old on my phone from him captivated by the garbage truck. It’s been a nearly lifelong love affair for this nearly two-and-a-half-year-old.

It was fun to share the final room with Crew, who saw the progress as it happened — furniture being moved in, crib being taken down, etc. But I waited to hang and place all the little details until one mad-dash evening before bedtime, so he could walk in and see the whole effect. He had no idea it was going to be a “garbage truck room” and it made me so happy to watch him gasp and grin and count them as he found them around the room.

(Cut to me trying to shoot this wall, and Crew pretending he’s important and walking in front of my camera chattering away on a toy cell phone *eye roll*)

The “trash in my lamp!” was a big hit, as was the 3-foot-wide engineer’s print of him with “his” neighborhood truck. (A fun and different way to print your photographs — send to Staples and for around 3 bucks, you get a gritty/grainy effect black/white large scale print.)

The thing I didn’t quite foresee was what a hit the little vintage book would be — I like to incorporate something vintage in each room of our house, and I thought this would serve as charming little decor detail if nothing else. Turns out we’ve read it (multiple) times daily since it appeared on his shelf. I love that Crew refers to it as his “new old garbage truck book” after I explained he had to be careful with the pages!

Garbage trucks aside, we brought in a couple favorite animals — a lion (his favorite to see at the zoo) and a crocodile on one of the throw pillows. The stars and the moon are also both a big hit in his world. I liked Page’s idea to put the moon up high near the window, as opposed to my compulsive need to make everything part of an organized grouping in the room, and I love how it (and the wooden star) look against the night sky paint color. Some glow stars on the ceiling were the final touch.

I was able to reuse quite a bit from his old room without it seeming babyish, as well as several things we already had on hand around the house. The corrugated metal letters were in his first room and seemed like a natural fit (he thinks they are made “out of trash cans”) and the concrete and wood stool is less a side table now and more a perch for a certain someone to look out his window (for what else…the garbage truck, whose route he can now see from this room!) The duvet we had on hand from when this room was still a guest room. I added a stripe of green paint to a cork lampshade from his nursery, spray painted his previously aqua “Things” bin to navy, and used white fabric paint to add a recycling icon to an Ikea pillow cover. A swap of hardware on his dresser (previously changing table) gave it a little facelift as well.

I’d still like to find a headboard, but haven’t come across quite what I’m looking for yet. I’m waiting until we’re less in need of the bedrails before adding a nightstand (too many sheet-changing obstacles!), but I like the idea of this one that would match his shelves. I considered these a couple times, but ultimately we don’t store much besides books and clothing in his room (toys and more books are both in our loft playspace outside his room and, soon, in the basement playspace).

No room tour would be complete without me patting myself on the back for cleaning out both rooms’ closets. Actually swapping the rooms around forced me to go through everything and move out the baby stuff. Hello, big boy closet space:

Thanks for checking out this little garbage enthusiast’s new digs!

Wishing you many happy memories in here, buddy, and lots of sweet dreams.

engineer print frame (Ikea, only available in store) | C pillow | crocodile pillow | striped duvet | polka dot sheets | plaid shams (Pottery Barn Kids, no longer available) | wood monogram | bedrails | green metal shelf | vintage childrens books | garbage truck watercolor print | “you make me happy” print | tiny trash can | wire basket | Trashy Town book | trash can wastebasket (Pottery Barn Kids, no longer available) | garbage truck patent print | lion head | wooden star | Moon in My Room | “Things” bin | black storage box | baby monitor | curtain panels | recycling truck costume (Pottery Barn Kids, no longer available) | nightlight

I’m so grateful we got a headstart on the decorations this year, got our baking done a couple weeks ago, and thanks to good old Amazon Prime, our gifts arrived in plenty of time to wrap, leaving the last couple nights to soak up the anticipation of the holiday.

The gifts moved to their rightful place under the tree, and the advent calendar hung empty.

Our wreath was filled with family and friends’ faces.

Crew was enjoying playing with a couple new (early) gifts from friends.

I loved just walking around the house the last couple days, taking note of all the little Crew infusions that make up Christmas for us this year.

Per our tradition, a freshly-bathed Crew came down to admire the tree one final time in his jammies, and I grabbed a couple (more mobile this year!) shots.

Off to bed he went, so Santa could come…

I won’t rub it in, but one of our best gifts is the ongoing gift of a child who (somewhat) sleeps in. Around 8am, our buddy came down to start Christmas!

Shortly after this, I put my camera down the rest of the day, to just enjoy and partake. With no real present-unwrapping since his birthday (almost) a year ago, it took a few gifts to understand the concept of opening, but as he gained momentum, the squeals and “oh my gosh!” chants became more intense and the paper-ripping skills improved 😉

Today we’re enjoying a still-in-our-jammies day at home, running loads through the dishwasher, unboxing and building a couple of our gifts, and packing some of the decorations away. It’s calm and content, and kind of amazing to have such an entertained little guy while we play with our own new stuff!

Merry Christmas to you and yours. Wishing you safe travels home if you’re headed that way, peaceful and content last days in 2016, and an oh-so-happy new year. 

Today I wanted to document the rest of our decor for the holiday season. I have some traditions and photos and little details of things I want to share and remember as well, but I’ll save that for another post. (I purposely didn’t call these “3 of 4” or anything, because I never know how overly ambitious — or lazy — I may end up getting, but I’m hoping to put together at least one more post this month!)

One of the additions I made this year were these two potted pre-lits for the front patio. The pots they came in were a womp-womp flat antiquey gold, so I shined them up with some copper spray paint to coordinate with our exterior light fixtures and accent roof. I feel like it made a huge difference, and I’m always for more shine than less. I love the extra glow they bring to the front of the house at night.

(Note to self — consider less noticeable white cords for next year!) But I digress. Please, come in! 🙂

I’ve had several of what I call the “slinky” silver sequined trees from Target, for a few years now. I love how easy they are to store flat and pop open onto stands. I didn’t get them out last year, but love having most of them on the credenza in our entryway, along with a white IKEA star lamp I’m thinking needs to just stay out all year. It worked perfectly with the big gold star (last year, Target) hanging from fishing line in the ceiling.

The flex room’s permanent plan is still a work in progress (goal for 2017 — focus on this room!), but for this season, it’s a play space and window light-filled spot to curl up with our Christmas reads.

We sold the HUGE tree that took over this room last year, and scaled down a couple feet (both in height and diameter!) for something we could incorporate into our main living room.

I was feeling more neutrals this year, so instead of picking a color scheme, it stayed to copper, silver, and white. I had to double-count when I realized we incorporated our tenth (!) Crate&Barrel frame ornament this year.

This is only our second Christmas in this home, and I feel like I’m still getting a grip on not just how to decorate it for the holidays. Not everything from our previous house works here, and style and taste evolves, and of course new merchandise hits the market. I am really liking combining some more rustic/lodgey type of Christmas pieces with just as many shiny elements this year. I don’t like to lean too bling or too log cabin — the balance this year feels just right, and none of it is too precious that it can’t survive a toddler. (Case in point…those adorable melamine dishes just waiting for Santa’s cookies and milk!)

I do love to set the table, and in years past, it’s been so fun to create a full-out holiday tablescape. But this year, who am I kidding, it gets in the way of our everyday meals, and frankly, takes up prime lego-building real estate.

So I kept it simple (and edible, should you need a snack) with some faux pinecone garland, interspersed with some clementines for a little kitchen-flavored pop of color.

In the kitchen, I stashed some pre-lit boxwood garland on timers above the cabinets. My favorite partridge in a pear tree plate and some simple berries in a vase sit on the counter. Of course, the lights on the garland hadn’t clicked on yet mid-day and I was too lazy to climb up there yet again, so one will just have to imagine. 🙂

For the first year, we hired someone to hang our outdoor lights and we were thrilled with the result. Neither of us was about to climb up and reach those highest peaks, ourselves.

It’s pretty crazy that it’s mid-December and there still isn’t a decent covering of snow — I’ll have to capture this again when it looks more like the typical Iowa wintery scene.

From our home to yours, Merry Christmas (and happy decorating!).

I started holiday decorating this year in our loft playspace. I replaced the “kid tree” from last year (the old one was cheap, not pre-lit, and we hobbled it along in a corner last year since it was missing one leg of its stand). I opted for the flocked look on this one, and as messy as it is to set up initially, I LOVE the snowy look.

This tree is all ornaments that can’t be shattered or otherwise broken, so it’s stress-free. (The majority of the ornaments you see are this year and last year’s Target collection or Land of Nod.) Crew does like to take off the same couple ornaments and re-hang them from time to time…and the OCD in me just waits until he’s in bed to place them all back in their “right” spots. #yesimthatmom #funkiller

I love this play space decorated for the holidays. It’s so colorful and whimsical and quirky — I mean come on, an octopus and a mouse king from the Nutcracker, and a donut, all living in tree harmony? LOVE IT.

A little spruce tree on his coloring table and a stash of gifts complete the decor. Because gifts can’t be trusted under the tree yet (someone is getting the concept of “open!”) I’ve been displaying them on top of the bookcase as they get wrapped, along with a snowglobe that was mine, a little countdown tree, and a nutcracker of Page’s.

After years of decorating in “adult Christmas” mode, it’s so fun to play with the childhood side of things and I can’t help but feel the child-like magic of Christmas when I climb to the top of the stairs each day.

With an almost two-year-old in the house, the magic of Christmas started early in our house this year. It’s been so fun to see Crew react to the twinkling lights, exclaim “Kiss-mus tee!”, and point out Santa wherever he spots him. He calls all references to snow “snow man”, so he has some differentiating to figure out….it’s Iowa, so he’ll get plenty of chances this year ha! At any rate, with an enthusiastic audience, it’s been fun to start the decking a little earlier, so we can enjoy the holiday season for as long as possible.

I’m hoping to photograph and post our home this coming weekend — but the season always kicks off for me officially with Christmas cards.

Cards are, hands-down, my favorite tradition of the season. Facebook posts just aren’t any substitute for seeing what people are up to, and I love old fashioned mail that no one sends anymore. I love displaying the cards we receive around our house, and always pack them up at the end of the holidays with the decorations, to flip through them one more time when we unpack it all the following year. As in past years, I designed my own (I’ll post it once it hits mailboxes!) but saved myself a ton of time (and not so great handwriting) by ordering customized pre-addressed envelopes from Tiny Prints’ holiday card collection. I keep an excel file anyway of everyone’s addresses…it was a HUGE time saver to just upload my list and have envelopes WAY cuter than anything I could address, arrive at my doorstep, ready to stuff!

What is your favorite holiday tradition?? Now that I’ve checked mine off my list, it’s on to more decking of the halls! 🙂

I promised myself I would “finish up” a couple spaces in our house, photograph them, and get them posted to the blog in the coming weeks. But first, it seemed fitting to do an update on the exterior, since it was still being finished last outdoor post a year ago.

We spend a lot of time outdoors right now, so specifically, we’ve been working on pulling the back patio together a bit more, starting with a stone wall that Page arranged on the south side.

Originally the plan was to just contain our grill in place from the winds that whip through our and our neighbor’s house, but we’ve discovered there’s an added benefit of keeping Crew’s attention away from the sloping lawn on the other side (that also houses our window wells we have yet to cover.)

It’s been nice to pull out our outdoor furniture, cushions, and — though it pains me that they aren’t as chic to look at — Crew’s outdoor toys, and have a “bonus” living room for the warmer months. We can sit and have a drink on our chairs, and Crew will entertain himself at the water table for a blissful half hour or more!

I do have three planters that do not yet have residents…it’s on my to-do list. And next year, we would like to add a fire pit and four adirondacks around it on the uncovered portion. But for now, our pennies are being saved for some upcoming basement progress…more on that soon, I’m sure!

Since we last posted about the exterior, a tree had to be replaced, as did a couple smaller shrubs, and our final cedar accent pieces were stained.

We put in our own sweat equity by creating stone borders around each of our five trees, pulling the cedar color into the mulch, and edging in the rock in the back yard (spoiler alert — if you look closely, you can see this is still being completed!) 😉

With every completed project, it starts to feel a little less like our house, and more like our home. Anxious to share more (inside!) spaces soon…

When I last posted about this loft landing between our three upstairs bedrooms and bath, it looked like this (see above). I was just starting to store some toys up here for a baby who was quickly becoming more active and interested in them, yet was immobile enough that I could do a little work here and there at my desk as he played.

It’s several months later, and safe to say Crew has fully moved in. My desk (and all its cords, electronics, etc.) has been relocated to the guest room, a space I’m hoping to share very soon. This has left this loft area completely to Crew.

To recap, this space is at the top of our staircase coming up from the main floor. It’s hard to get a level shot the way our stairs sit, but here is a collage of “home” elements that hangs on the wall as you come up. This wall makes me so happy – so many of these pieces have special meaning to us and the homes we’ve created since we were first married. The drawing is of our first home we built/bought, the print of the dog was my first anniversary present, and the floral shadowbox holds a copy of a key to every apartment and home we’ve lived in…And yes, to set the tone as we move upstairs, that’s one of our baby gates (seriously, the best!) that you see to the very left of this shot.

To balance things out after the desk left, I moved the bookcase of toys to the room opposite the photo wall. An IKEA curtain rod and clips showcases some of my favorite art projects that come home from daycare (and some he makes here at home). Once they’ve had their time to shine, I’m keeping my favorites to later scan into keepsake books.

As for projects yet to be created, these cubbies (which will eventually house media components when this space evolves to an older kid/TV hangout spot) for now hold all the art supplies that a certain someone can’t be trusted to keep out of.

I love that this space also has a small nook of shelves way back in the corner, above the (baby-locked!) door to our clothes chute. It’s here that I stash Crew’s baby books so as I work on them, and the odds and ends that go into them — photos, documents, etc.

The latest edition to this space has been an IKEA Latt table. It’s a total steal, and Pinterest is full of inspiration if you want to hack one of your own. I opted for some gray stain that we had on hand, as well as leftover chalkboard paint our builder left us after painting our chalkboard wall in the mudroom downstairs (another spot I need to get around to blogging!). The only new paint I added to the mix was a hit of “Peppery” by Sherwin Williams — I love the burnt coral color against the stained finish, as opposed to something more primary.

Thanks for stopping by our loft playspace. 🙂 I’m committed to (finally!) sharing more of our home, yes, a year later, very soon!

Yes, it has taken me until Christmas Eve to blog our home decked for the holidays. But it’s not for lack of trying. A handful of times, I’ve been ready to whip out my tripod, tornado-quick-clean the house, and max out someone’s naptime, shooting all of the little details of our merried-up digs for Christmas. But every time, it has been UBER gloomy, rainy (yes, RAINY in Iowa in December) and the photog-snob in me was not about to turn on all the can lights to get the shots and I wasn’t wild about using my flash. #naturallightlover

But as the December days ticked by, I became more willing to compromise. So over the past week, I’ve grabbed some handheld snaps here and there, with no tripod or overly well thought-out shots, in less than perfect light, as time permitted. The result is pretty scattered, but documented, nonetheless.

I’m so glad I have these perfectly imperfect images of our home at Christmastime, our first with the little man. Art imitates life, and this year’s decorations — somewhat haphazard, some strategically placed out of reach of a certain someone, reflect the happy crazy that is life with a nearly one-year-old this year. It’s documenting what’s real and now.

Is this my most decked-out year ever? Definitely not. It’s a transition year if anything, learning how old decorations fit (or don’t fit) in our new home, filling in some gaps with some new pieces, and I feel like my style is evolving along with the style of this new home. I’m less glitz and more cozy. And as mentioned, I’m also working with a certain third pair of curious hands in mind…

(whose gift to us, with a little help from his teachers, was the first one under the tree this year.)

So if you want to follow along on a random ride of photos, I can promise you no rhyme or reason to what follows, but lots of festivity. 🙂 Merry Christmas!

(yep, blurry, but at the risk of not waking the boys by throwing my flash on or clammering with the tripod, I was still determined to get a shot of my boxwood garland) 🙂

This year, the guest room was Santa’s workshop. Not only was it a place I could shut the door and keep Crew out of the wrapping supplies, but I also set up the “kid tree” in here so he could come peek at it from time to time, but I could keep him away from it when needed. I love this little tree with it’s color and whimsy…and all teething-proof ornaments!

Sometimes just a simple little detail brings the cheer in. And the mixer likes having the company of the partridge.

The hallway off our mudroom seemed a great spot to display the holiday mail. I’ve filled this wire wreath in past years with ornaments and tulle. This year, I added clothespins and clipped our cards around it.

Further down the hall is my Pottery Barn Kids knockoff DIY project. I didn’t add any treats or trinkets this year, but focused on experiences. Spoiler alert — we didn’t get them all checked off, but I’m certain there were things NOT on the list we did instead. 🙂

A few more little details here and there. Still figuring out themes and color schemes for different spaces, but it has been fun to play around!

Which brings us to this shot, just this evening, of our tree, ready for Christmas morning. We didn’t put gifts under it until just today (at the risk of an early opening!). It feels real now that Santa has arrived. 🙂

Merry Christmas, ya filthy animal. From our home to yours, peace this Christmas.