House Pics: Anniston's Bathroom

When we moved into this house, I was so excited that Anniston would now have her own bathroom.  It's really going to be the "kids" bathroom (eventually) so I knew that I wanted to keep the decor in here gender neutral. The best part about this bathroom?  It's right off the main hall upstairs and is not connected to any bedroom.  LOVE that! And we still have another bathroom off the playroom for guests.  Total win!

The bathroom was already painted a sky blue color and I kind of liked it- so I just went with it and planned the decor around that.  The result?  A very bright, colorful, and fun kids bathroom!

Towels:  Target
Chalkboard jars:  Michaels
Wall art:  Prints-Etsy, Frames-Hobby Lobby
Shower curtain:  Kate Spade

I love, love how this turned out!  It's so fun and colorful.  I still want to get Anniston a little red step stool so she can reach the sink to brush her teeth!  Other than that, this room is DONE!

Weekend Stuff

We had such a fun and relaxing weekend!  Brandon had to work a trade show for part of the day on Saturday so Aunt Allie came over for a few hours of girl time.  I had promised Anniston we would go to Target this weekend to get her a stuffed Elmo.  She has the dancing and singing one, but not a soft, stuffed one that she can carry around with her.  And she loves toting around her stuffed animals under her arm.  Unfortunately, they did not have a soft Elmo:(  But don't worry, Annie found plenty replacements!

In case you are wondering, that's Minnie and Lambie (from Doc McStuffins.)  I held them out to her and told her to pick one.  She opens both arms and grabs them both at the same time.  Ok, then.  Guess we are getting both.  I hated to spoil her but I did promise her Elmo and felt so bad when they didn't have one!

After our Target trip we decided to experiment with a little finger painting.  I had a grand Mother's Day gift in mind to make, but that didn't go exactly as planned.  This was her first time finger painting and she wasn't so into getting her hands messy.  She does not like to get her hands dirty at all.  She has fallen down outside several times before and has gotten dirt on her hands and she does not like it one bit!

She actually cried for a second the first time I tried to stick her hand in the paint.  Then she proceeded to wipe the paint off on her stomach (we stripped her down to her diaper for this.)  Eventually, she warmed up to it but would still only stick the very, very tips of her fingers in the paint.  I think she had more fun with the actual paint bottles!  She would pick each one up wanting us to tell her what color it was.  Then she would move it to the other side of the table.  We did this about 5 times.  Then she scooped up all 6 paint bottles in her arms and ran off with them!  Even though our Mother's Day craft didn't go as planned, we still had fun and learned some of our colors, too!

We had a fun family night out Saturday.  I went and picked up my fabulous new chairs that I scored for a great deal at Home Goods:

Then we headed out for dinner at Germantown Commissary.  As we were leaving, a train was about to pass by.  We stood to watch it pass and I told Annie it was a choo choo train like we read about in her books.   After that, she kept saying "choo choo" over and over.  Cuteness:)

We spent some time playing and being lazy in our pjjs Sunday morning.  Of course, we have to complete our pjs with a cute headband:

This girl loves her hair accessories.  And I love that she loves them!!

My mom and dad brought both of my grandparents to Memphis Sunday afternoon to see Anniston and the new house.  We had cake and ice cream and enjoyed sitting around letting Anniston entertain us all.

We got so much stuff done around the house this weekend so I'm ready to start the week!  And I finally made some decisions about some upcoming big furniture purchases.  I have tape all around my house measuring things off so it would help me decide what would look good where.  It's all coming together- slowly but surely.  And I'm having so much fun decorating our new house.  More pics soon!

New House Pics- Kitchen!

I'm weird about posting pics of things until I get it exactly the way I want.  That being said, it might have been awhile before any house pics made it on here.  But then I realized that decorating my new house is going to be a journey and I want to document that journey on here.  So keep in mind that there is still a lot of things I want to do to the house to make it the way I want it to look.  But it all has to start somewhere!

I thought I'd start with the kitchen.  Brandon and I fell in love with this kitchen the first time we saw it.  While it is beautiful, in my opinion, one of the reasons we loved it so much was because it was at lease twice the size of the kitchen in our old house.  If you had more than 3 people in our old kitchen it started to feel crowded.  Not the case here!

View from the door of the dining room

Note:  I had to order the other two bar stools from Pier 1.  I have all four now but was just too lazy to re-take the picture!  Ha!  I moved Anniston's table and chairs underneath the bay window.  She loves looking out the window while she sits down to eat her snacks!

The stools on either side of this red cabinet are the same ones that I have under the kitchen bar, except these are the taller "bar stools" and the others are "counter stools."  All of these are from Pier 1.

I love, love how big this kitchen is.  Stainless steel appliances (complete with an ice maker, trash compacter, and double oven) make me happy!  I hated that we had mismatched appliances at our old house!  I even really like the tile in here- it's neutral and super easy to clean!  Once I get all the stools, chairs, etc I want for this room (read below), I will be able to sit 11 people in here without even having to rearrange for parties!  That's one of the reasons I bought the 2 bar stools to go on either side of the red cabinet- it looks cute but it also offers up 2 additional seats for gatherings.

So what all do I want to do in this room?  The kitchen actually probably has the least amount of changes planned but I do still have couple of things on my list:

1.  Receive last 2 bar stools for kitchen counter
2.  Buy a chair for the desk
3.  Change the horrible, outdated, bay window treatments.  I really want to do some custom roman shades.  I have something very fabulous in mind.  I just need to save up the $$$!
4.  Possibly paint the walls.  This isn't high on my "Rooms to paint" list but it's something I'm considering.  I like that the kitchen feels so open and airy but there is hardly any contrast.  If I do decide to paint, I'm thinking a light mushroom-y color.  You know what I'm talking about, right?  Sorry, I'm not very good at describing colors.  It wouldn't be a dark color, I'd like to stick with a lighter shade, but I do think it would be nice to warm it up just a bit.  Maybe pull a color from the granite?  Who knows...

DIY Pallet Board

I thought I'd share a little house project that we just finished up.  When we started packing and moving I searched Pinterest like a crazy person (still do) looking for ideas and inspirations for the new house.  Our mudroom is quite big, but it wasn't laid out properly for a bench.  I had to get creative if I wanted to make good use of the space.

While browsing Pinterest I found this pic:

Source: pin2fun91.blogspot.com via Kelly on Pinterest

Adorable AND unique.  I knew right away I wanted this.  Slight problem though. Who was going to build it?  Myself and Brandon?  Ha ha, yeah right.  The hubster is good at many things but DIY-ing is not one of them!  Thank goodness for my DAD!  He is handy and oh so good at stuff like this!

Here is our version:

We didn't actually use a pallet.  Instead my dad just bought the wood, built it to look like an actual pallet, and then painted it.  It's smoother than an actual pallet would be and it also doesn't stick out as far from the wall.  Genius, dad!  I bought an assortment of knobs and over-the-counter hooks from Lowe's and Target and sporadically placed them around.  

He also installed a little shoe rack- which is also expandable, by the way.  I placed a cute rug I found from Target, and some canvas baskets (to hold some of Anniston's shoes) and bam!  Perfect!

Love the way this turned out!  Thanks a million, Dad:)!!