Project Surprise Room - Part 2

Last week, while our kids were away at the cottage with my parents, we did a major overhaul on Audrey's room. If you remember, it looked like this:

before

Poor kid.

  I have a few posts lined up about this project (there were lots of small DIYs in here) but for now, check out my girl's reaction to her new and improved bedroom:

She had no idea we were working on this while she was away. And the good news is that she loved it.

   Slowly, but surely, we are working away at this house.  Things are really starting to look like 'us' in a lot of rooms.  

    The basement is nearing completion - Elliott is now in his new room downstairs and loves having his own space. We even watched our first official family movie in the basement family room last night. I can't tell you how much happier I feel now that things are shaping up.  I'm a homebody and it's really important to me that our house feels like home. We've spent a lot of months with somebody else's decorating choices. And we will spend many more while we budget and work on the things that are important to us.   

Have a wonderful Monday!

xo Meg

Project Surprise Room

In about a week, my kids are heading to the cottage to spend a week with their Nanny, Grandpa and Auntie.  They are so looking forward going and love everything to do with cottage life - swinging in the hammock with a good book, playing on the beach, swimming and boating.  I've written about Cedar Beach before and what it means to me and my family.  It's my true north.

While they're gone, I have some big surprise plans for Audrey.  When we moved into our house, her room was one of the first ones we painted.  It's pale lilac, although I know she wishes it was a much brighter colour.  But that's all we've done.  I wrote about that here, you can check out the little bit of progress we've made.

The list of projects for this room was long. And sadly, we've yet to accomplish anything on the list. Not. A. Thing.  In all fairness, we have been working hard on other reno projects around here.  However, it's my goal to complete a few projects to make her room something special while she's gone.  And then surprise her when she gets back!

This is the fabric for her long pillow.  

 

It's been purchased and is just sitting there waiting to be sewn.

This is the bed:

She wants a brightly coloured room so we're going with turquoise.

We found her chandy in someone else's trash.  My favorite kind of treasure. We're planning to dress it up with a paint job. I have yet to choose a colour.  I will likely choose something pulled from the striped fabric we're using. Pink?  Any colour suggestions would be appreciated.

Additionally, a chalkboard wall is happening on the desk wall, a la:





I have a zillion ideas swirling around in my head.  I'm always good at making inspiration boards for a space - but it's somehow hard for me to commit the ideas to the actual room and actually get it done.  There are a few craft type projects I'd like to create for the space but we'll see what kind of time crunch I run up against.

Some things that also need to be addressed:

• hooks for hanging sweatshirts and pjs
• hooks/jewelry organization/display
• hang string lights?
• make a pompom garland/flower/paper/other creative garland 

Isn't planning a surprise FUN??

xo Meg 

Doggie Helper

Gilmore helping me with filling nail holes, caulking and priming out the trim in our basement.  Love that guy.  He's actually afraid to walk on the new flooring down there.  It makes him nervous!

xo Meg

The Great Laminate Debate!

Last week, I share the progress we have been making in Elliott's new bedroom. I had just completed painting the cement floors in both his room, and the family room. I was digging the rich, charcoal-brown colour that we chose but there was a hitch.

Dude. Concrete is hard. And cold.

So we decided to go ahead and buy the laminate flooring we planned on using down the line in the basement. Simply put, I want to enjoy this space. My family needs this space. We are so cramped in our little ranch. And we knew that if our family room and Elliott's room felt cold and uncomfortable come the middle of winter, there would be no way we would ever enjoy being down there.

Here is what we chose:

And we are so, so happy with the decision. It does mean that we will have to save up a bit longer to finish the laundry room and bath down there, but in my eyes, it was the right decision. I only wish I hadn't spent so stinkin' much time cleaning those hard floors up and painting them!

Additionally, we've narrowed the lighting fixture for Elliott's room down to these two, both from Barn Light Electric.

I'm taking votes!

Xo Meg

Elliott's Room Progress

I hope all my Canadian readers enjoyed their long Canada Day Weekend!  I did what we always do on long weekends - mixed family fun with crazy amounts of hard DIY work.  We made loads of progress though, and I'm so excited to show you the latest shots from Elliott's room.  

I took all the pictures for this post with my iphone.  I'm sorry they're not better quality but I promise to have excellent photos for the reveal post.  First, Jay installed the doors and trim in the room.  Baseboards, casings, window trim and jams are all in.  Here we are:

The window has an apron sill and backband around the trim.

  Then I got to work scrubbing the floors.  I don't think we'll ever learn the lesson to cover floors up if you don't want a ridiculous clean up in the end.  The concrete floors were covered with dust and debris, but also globs of mud from the drywall process.  I scrubbed and scraped, swept and vacuumed, scrubbed again... you get the point.  I'm so sore today, but this was the outcome of all that clean up.

   Originally, we planned to install laminate as the flooring in here.  However, we decided against it for the time being.  This is for two reasons.  First, the laminate flooring at my work has cupped and pulled up badly in the areas where there is moisture and this is the basement level of our home.  I'm worried about that happening here too.  Second, we are out of budget for the flooring we want to put down.  We're eventually going to go with hardwood with a Delta subfloor.  But that will take us some time to save up for and we need to be able to use this space, like, yesterday.  

Enter plan B:

 I painted the floors with concrete paint - which went on suprisingly easily.  I had it tinted to Benjamin Moore's Willow, a grey brown colour.  I also painted the family room floor and will show you that room's progress later in the week.  

BM Willow CC-542

Next Steps for this space include:

1. Choosing a flush mount light fixture that a) is affordable; and b) doesn't look like a boob. 
2. Installing outlet covers.
3. Caulking, filling, and painting the trim and doors.  

We're in the home stretch, baby.

xo Meg