Nursery Room - Monogram

This is the last nursery project I plan on doing before Kalia gets here.  I actually didn't really plan on having to get it done before she arrived, but since she's showing up fashionably late, the last and final project is complete.  Sort of.  I'm still working on sewing her quilt, but right now my sewing machine and I aren't on speaking terms, so that one most definitely will wait until after she gets here.  Hopefully before her first birthday!  (Kidding...sort of).

For above Kalia's crib, I wanted some of our maternity pictures displayed.  I initially planned on just doing some sort of canvas or frames, but after doing the gallery wall above the dresser, I decided I needed something a little bit different for above the crib.  I walked in and out of there about 1000 times, and finally came up with something that I thought I'd like...decoupaging our maternity pictures to a big huge K.

We have at of scrap wood left over from various build projects, so this project was pretty close to free.  Actually, it cost $5 for the spray paint and pictures.

First up, I drew out my K on a leftover sheet of 3/4'' plywood.  I couldn't decide if I wanted 5 x 7's or 4 x 6's, but after laying out both sizes, the 5 x 7  K was just too big.  I do kind of wish I would've made this so the arms of the K were the same size as the body, but I still like the final outcome.

Chris came into the garage at some point during this, and agreed to make my cuts for me with the jig saw.  I don't fit behind tools anymore, so I either have to bend over waaaay low to get things below my belly, or just pass the task of to Chris.

After Chris made the cuts while I held the board in place, we were left with a huge giant K.

I spray painted that black (while wearing my awesome mask), and then got up in the middle of the night to decoupage our maternity pictures to it.  Sleep is getting harder and harder these days, so I moreso just nap a lot.  My weekends consist of : nap, project, errands, eat, repeat.  Anywho, I don't have pictures of the giant K just spray painted, but just imagine the image above black.

After the decoupage, here's what my K looked like :

I decided the ends needed a little bit ... more ... to it, so I cut out circles of fabric and added fabric type flowers.  It added a feminine touch without being too girlie.  These two fabrics are leftovers from her quilt too, so once I start speaking to my sewing machine again, this will tie in perfectly.

The centers are just pins that I snapped off and then bent into place.  I glued them down using quick grip, and then attached the flower with quick grip to my K, but only where the pins were.   That way I could still ruffle the 'petals' of my flower to have more of a 3D look.

Chris came in and thought the middle of the K needed flowers too, so I made a few smaller blue ones while I was at it.

We put the hangers in the back of it, and hung it above her crib.  Here's the final product :

What do you think?  Too big, too small, or just right?  I debated about painting the K another color besides black, because I do love color in a nursery...but ultimately decided the pictures would look better against a black background.  I also decided the black background went with her crib skirt and crib a little bit better, but I'm still on the fence about whether or not I'm going to add color back in.

Here's how it ties in with her crib :

When she gets big enough to pull things off the wall, we'll either have to put a screw through this, remove it, or pull the crib away from the wall so she doesn't pull it down on herself.  For now, I'm just ready for her to be here already!  Oh, and ignore the wrinkly sheet and bedskirt.  The last thing I feel like doing is ironing these days!

And my favorite part...here's where we started with this wall :

And after a ton of work, here's what it looks like now :

Installed bamboo floors, painted walls and closet, new crib, custom built in closet system, custom built dresser

(To see my documented projects and paint colors I've used on this section, click on any of the links below the picture.)

So that's it...my last and final nursery project.  Maybe Kalia was waiting for me to finish that up before deciding to show up.  I'm done, she can come now!!  I'll do a full nursery tour and recap everything sometime soon.  Unless Kalia shows up...then I'll go MIA for a little while before sharing her with you guys, and then do a full nursery room tour!  :-)

Believe it or not, we had a busy busy Friday and Saturday.  I've got another room that we gave a mini face-lift to show you guys later on in the week, so stay tuned!

Hope everyone's enjoying their Memorial Day today!  Happy Monday!

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Mini Living Room Project

I know, you guys can't believe I'm so close to my due date and still doing projects.  Me neither.  I think breathing these days is a project in and of itself.  But things that would normally get put on a 'list' drive me nuts right now, so if I can muster the energy to get something done, I do it.  Even if it's small.

After we moved the cable, I noticed the shoe kick around the fireplace just looked...off.  It's too light, doesn't blend in with the floors, and certainly doesn't go with the fireplace.

It didn't bother me as much when the obnoxious cable was running across the harth, but now that the cable is gone, the shoe kick bothered me.

When we redid the front door, we stained the shoe kick to match the floors, and I was completely amazed at how well our 'already had on hand from another project 5 years ago' stain blended in with the floors.  I have plans to do do something else to that fireplace, so I decided that I wanted to stain the shoe kick to blend in with the floors instead of painting it to match the fireplace.

So, one night this week, when my big 'ol body couldn't get comfy, and my hubs loud snoring wouldn't allow me to fall back asleep, I got up and stained the shoe kick.

I think this needs one more coat (we did two on the front door shoe kick) to officially be done, but I might have to enlist the helpful hubs to do the second coat.  Scooching around on my rear in the middle of the night to do this did not feel so awesome.  To be completely honest though, as of me typing this post, he has no idea that I even got up to do this, or that it's done.  I'd be in so much trouble if I got caught doing this in the middle of the night!  I'm pretty hard to slow down, even when I'm exhausted.

It looks much better than it did before though.  I'm happy it's not screaming out "hey, look at me, I don't match".  Because that, my friends, was getting annoying.

Hope everyone enjoys their 3-day weekend.  My tired body and tired brain are excited to have an extra day off of work.  Why in the world I thought it'd be a good idea to work up until Kalia gets here is beyond me.  For future reference for any of you guys, working up until your due date (and even possibly past...please Kalia come this weekend!), isn't recommended.

Keeping my fingers crossed hoping that Kalia comes by her due date, which is Monday.  I know, I know...enjoy the carefree life with just Chris and I...it's just hard to enjoy when you can't breathe, sleep, or get up from low places on your own, let alone are a constant sweat ball from this amazing Florida heat.  Come on Kalia!!!  Yes, I think I said that I was ready for her to get here 3 or 4 times in this post. That's how ready I am though....

Happy Friday everyone!

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Chris the Cable Guy

I really wanted to title this post "My Dad is a Big Butthead", but I decided it worked better as a subtitle.

Let me explain.

When we moved in 2 years ago, we went around and around on different configurations for our living room.  Within a few months, we found a couch off of craigslist, bought some bucket chairs, and eventually had a layout that we were both happy with.

The one problem with our layout is that there is no cable behind the TV.  That, in and of itself, is not normally that big of a deal to fix, however the wall that the TV is mounted on goes directly to the outside pool deck, and is solid concrete.  We've had "move the cable" on every.single to-do list for the past year and a half or so, and it always gets neglected.

So how does any of that fit in with my Dad being a big butthead?  Well, if you know him, you know he just is one regardless (my sisters will agree!), but that's besides the point.  Back in December, I wrote a post to the weather about our frigid Florida winters, and included this picture of how we sleep during the winters (this was prior to us getting our new a/c and heat system installed a little while ago) :

Chris told me not to post this photo, and not because the lighting was horrible with it, but because the cable cord was showing.  I told him all of my readers were too nice to comment on that.  I was right...a few of you guys even commented on how much you loved our coffee table.

My Dad...not so much!

I forgot to take into account that he reads my blog too.  He left the comment below :

Biggest.Butthead.Ever.  The funny part about this too is that my Dad knew that I had pre-posted that and was out in Hawaii by the time that post was published.

Sigh...

Well, enough is enough!!  My parents are staying here with Kodi when we have Kalia, so, once again, we put "move the cable" on our to-do list.  This past weekend, we finally crossed it off.  Chris said he didn't want my Dad coming over yet again with that stupid cable still running across the room.

Ugly Cable

As expected, this wasn't an easy project.  Chris got up in the attic and pulled the cable up from the previous exterior wall and attempted to drop it down into this wall.  Since the wall is solid concrete, that wasn't working.

We drilled a hole in the top of the ceiling to see if could find a hole to send the cable down that way, but all we did was create a hole for us to patch.  Beyond the drywall is more concrete.

We decided our only option was to bring the cable in from the exterior wall again.  Not exactly a seamless pretty project, but much better than the cable running across our fireplace.

Chris drilled behind where the TV is mounted :

The drill bit sticking out through the other side made us both laugh.

After that, Chris drilled from the outside to the inside to try to widen up the hole a bit ...

That's the cable sticking down from the pool deck area ceiling.

Yeah, things are starting to look worse at this point instead of better, huh?

This was the hole from the inside :

And this is the most ridiculous drill bit I've ever seen :

But hey, it got the job done!

After much finagling, we got the cable from the outside of this wall to the inside, and pushed back up as much of the cable as we could back into the attic.  For the outside, I can't decide if we're going to get some sort of tubing, paint the cable to match the house, or mount something to this wall to cover it up.  This is one of those 'domino projects'...check one project off the list, add a few more.

You can see in this next picture what you see of the cable from the majority of the pool deck.

For the inside, we still have to run the power line up to behind where the TV is mounted.  Because there's already power on this wall, that, hopefully, shouldn't be as bad.  Famous last words, right?

Woo Hoo!!!  No more cable!!!

We were both entirely too tired on Sunday night to do anything more with this, so it's another "good enough for now" project that we're checking off the list.

Oh, and as a side note, I actually finished off the front door this past weekend too.  I painted the trim, the wall around the trim, and Chris helped me grout the missing tile piece back into place.  So that project went from a "good enough for now" one to a completely crossed off the list.  Whew!

It's true that my Dad is a big butthead, but I'm really glad we've finally gotten this project crossed off the list.  Chris too...it's been one of those things that's just been an eye-sore for entirely too long now.

Love you Dad!!!

Happy Wednesday everyone!

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