Life Lately: House Updates

Well, hello! Long time no chat! Sorry for the lack of postings, we've been a bit busy over here! As you know if you've been following along here or on my instastories, we had our house painted last week and I'm in LOOOOOOVE with our new color (which is Sherwin Williams 'China Doll')! I have a few before, during and after photos below, but I feel like my iphone photos do not do the color justice! We also had some shadow boxes filled in which you can see in the before photos and how the contractors filled them in and sanded them in the 'during' photos. They did a really great job, but you can tell slightly in the sunlight a few lines of where they dry walled them in, but only if you really are looking for it. All in all, I am very happy with the outcome and it makes me SO excited to start decorating!! Especially since the holiday season is upon us!

Now, I'm on the search for a new big round tufted ottoman, a few new side tables and we are hoping to find a nice large entertainment piece with built in looking shelving on either side. Eventually, I'd love to add brick or stone above the fireplace all the way up the wall.... *sigh* in time...

Here are a few before and after photos:

As you can see here is the lovely mustard yellow paint color with the shadow boxes we wanted to fill in....

This was during the drywalling process...

And here it is after paint!

I mean.... a thousand times better, right? We also got a new ceiling fan installed which I'm obsessed with. How lame is it that I'm obsessed with a ceiling fan?

We are hoping to have our new white faux wood blinds installed next week. We've been living without the window treatments for over a week! I feel like that will really help fill in a lot of the space. And can you just picture a beautiful big Christmas tree in that corner??!! I can't wait!

Well, there you have it! That is what has been consuming my life for the past 2 weeks! I'm glad that process is over and now on to the fun part of finding furniture and decorating!

Hope you all are having a great week!

Decking the Halls + the First Snow!

We had a cozy little weekend at home the past few days. We managed to at least put up our Christmas tree and decorate the mantel. We decorated everything at night on Saturday after the babes were in bed. This was actually our first year putting up an artificial tree. We decided it was for the best with a toddler, newborn and dog in the house! I do miss that fresh pine smell though... I might have to buy some pine scented spray!

Camden was so excited to wake up to the Christmas tree! He kept pointing at different ornaments and shouting what they were (shapes, colors, etc). His favorites are the snowflakes, balls (naturally), his Dory ornament that his Grandmother gifted him for his birthday and a plush penguin ornament I got for him last year. I actually let him take the penguin and Dory on and off the tree, so he isn't tempted to take any others off. I made sure to keep the plastic/soft ornaments towards the bottom just to be safe!

Here are a few of my favorite ornaments:

baby's first Christmas for Bennett from his Grandma Rumple...

Camden's Baby's first Christmas ornament...

An ornament gifted to us after our wedding. I love this one!

Another baby's first Christmas ornament of Camden...

I also enjoyed decorating our mantel for the first time! I absolutely love having a real mantel with a fireplace. Perfect place for our stockings and the little stocking advent calendar I found at Target this year!

And right on queue, it started snowing Sunday morning! We really got into the Christmas spirit with the snow gently falling outside.

It was the perfect weekend to stay in doors, decorate, bake cookies and stay in our PJs. The boys both are getting over a cough/cold (yes AGAIN!) so we are waiting until they feel better to take them to see Santa. Hopefully next weekend!

Have you decorated for Christmas yet?

Shop the post:

Life Lately

(Before and after of our family room and fireplace. Wall color is SW Popular Gray and white wash on the fireplace is 2 parts water, 1 part primer)

So sorry to be MIA from the blog last week. It was a crazy week with the painters here and of course, Camden came down with a double ear infection and an awful cold the day they started. Luckily, my parents were in town (Bill was out of town for work most of the week) to help during the chaos. He is slowly on the mend now, but still has a lingering runny nose and cough. I on the other hand, caught whatever he had over the weekend and have been feeling miserable ever since. I swear, I have been sick more times this pregnancy than I have in my entire life! I guess that's what I get for having a toddler in daycare and having a low immune system while pregnant. I feel like whatever he gets, I get it twice as bad. I finally went to the doctor yesterday and found out I have a sinus infection...ugh! So, I was prescribed a safe antibiotic to help clear the infection. Hopefully, I will be back to normal soon!

On the bright side, the weather has been so nice the past few days! We've even been able to play outside and take walks at night! Hallelujah! We had some visitors over the weekend and it was so nice to be able to enjoy the nice weather with them. (Thanks for the pictures below Aunt Angie! :) 

And this week marks my 29th week of pregnancy! Hello third trimester! I finally ordered some things for baby #2's nursery last week. We just had this dresser delivered and I ordered these adorable animal prints (that are waaay less expensive than these). We've also decided to move Camden's glider to the baby's room and get him a big comfy reading chair in it's place. I still need to order the black out curtains and the crib I have in mind, but we are getting there!

I'm catching up on work and life this week, but have some fun posts scheduled for the blog. I know I owe you guys "A Day in My Life - SAHM style" and hoping to get it posted soon!

Hope you all are having a great week!

Plans for the Playroom

We have lived in our new home here in IL for about a month now and I'm slowly starting to scheme decor and organization ideas for each room. I have prioritized them by order of how much they are used each day (besides the kitchen, that one we will work on next year). The first on my list is the playroom in the basement. When we were house shopping, I knew I wanted a home with a designated playroom for Cam. Whether that be a finished basement, loft or bonus room. I was so happy to find that this house had a nice sized finished basement with a full bathroom attached. So, we set up all his toys in the basement with a small tv and the easy chair we had in our old basement. We blocked off a large area by stretching out our old play pen across the wall. There's still a nice sized area right when you come down the stairs that will be eventually an adult TV area. 

Here's what it looks like now:

It's kind of a long and narrow shape that curves in the back to a little 'nook.' I think the back area would be a perfect little reading or craft area. I'm hoping to get Camden a little toddler table and maybe one of those teepees for reading at some point.

First things first... we desperately need some toy organization! I'm still using some of our plastic bins we used for moving to hold his toys. And now he has figured out how to climb into them! I think these ikea shelving units and different colored bins would be perfect for toy storage and organization. I would move the small tv to sit on the top of the shelving unit and get rid of the small tv stand. 

The lighting in the basement is not ideal (I hate over head lighting) and the fact that there's really no windows doesn't help either. I'd like to add a few more lamps to the room to add to the ambiance and lighting situation. 

We would also like to add a kid friendly couch for better seating along the side wall facing the shelving units/tv. Of course, I'd love to add a fun rug and some wall decor at some point as well. 

Here are a few photos I've pinned for inspiration:

sources: 1 | 2 | 3&4

Here is my current wishlist for the playroom:

ikea shelves | grey and white stripe bins | number bins | bookshelf | map poster | bean bag chair | map rug | play teepee | toddler table

I'm really hoping we can get most of it done before baby #2 arrives!
I will post progress as we go!

*I'm linking up with Natalie and Annie for Thoughts for Thursday.

Our Week in Review

It was a pretty good week that seemed to fly by! 

I am currently 25 weeks pregnant and will be 26 on Monday. I can't believe how fast this pregnancy is going by! Although, I'm starting to feel more like 30+ weeks... I'm hoping the 3rd trimester isn't too rough on me!

My parents were in town this past weekend and it was so nice having them around. My poor mom, however, caught the stomach bug while she was here and was down for the count for a good 24 hours. I felt so bad because I knew it was killing her not to be able to play with Cam! She was feeling much better by Saturday night, so Bill and I were able to sneak out right before Cam's bedtime for a date night! It had been a while since we went out to dinner just the 2 of us. We went to Catch 35 in Naperville and shared the crab legs and fillet meal. It was soon good! I completely forgot to take any photos of my date night outfit, but ended up wearing this tunic with my maternity skinny jeans and booties. 

On Sunday after my parents left, Bill, Cam and I went for a little afternoon home decor shopping at a few stores. We ended up getting some new kitchen table chairs at World Market and I'm loving them. They are definitely more sturdy than our old ones and will hopefully last through having 2 boys!

This week I signed Camden up for swimming lessons starting April 2nd! I'm so excited! I got him a few new pairs of swim trunks to celebrate (from Target of course).

I'm slowly starting to scheme some ideas for his new room too. Below is what it looks like now. We decided to leave the paint color since it's a pretty neutral tone. I'm keeping all his grey and white decor the same, but hoping to add some pops of blue and green in there at some point. Since we had to leave all our window treatments at our old house (part of the contract), I had to find some new curtains for his room. I found these cute grey and white striped curtains at Target that go perfectly!

I also picked up a metal, industrial looking letter "C" from Hobby Lobby (below image) to hang above his crib instead of the wood letters that spell out his name that we had in the old nursery. I'm hoping we can hang some decor in his room this weekend or next. 

On Wednesday, we finally had our blinds installed on the first floor! Hallelujah! We no longer feel like we are living in a fish bowl!

I'm so looking forward to the holiday weekend!

We are leaving for Bill's hometown this afternoon and will stay there through Sunday. I can't wait to get Cam all dressed up in his cute little Easter outfit! Oh, and eat all the Easter candy... :) 

I hope you all had a great week!

Happy Easter weekend!

Settling In...

Hello blogging world! I am still here, I promise! We moved into our new home in Plainfield, IL a little over a week ago and we've been slowly working on settling in ever since. I do not know how we would have accomplished this move without our movers or the help of both of our immediate families this past week. Especially being pregnant and trying to take care of a toddler all the while... It's definitely not an easy task!

We said goodbye to our first home together on February 25th. It was a bitter sweet day watching the movers pack and load all of our items and furniture out of our home and into the truck. We were able to take one more look around the empty rooms before we had to leave. It felt so surreal to know it would be our last moment in our home.

We took one last photo in front of our home before we had to leave.

That Thursday night we stayed at Bill's parents house and Friday the 26th was our closing day for our new home. We stayed in a hotel Friday night in Naperville and movers showed up to our new home 7am Saturday morning. The following weekend was crazy, but we were so lucky to have help from Bills family. They helped us clean, get settled and helped to watch Cam as we unpacked. 

Although it was sad to say goodbye to our first home, I was excited to get into our new house and get settled. I am loving all the space and the layout is great! I will say that I am not used to these 2 story homes and going up and down stairs everyday. I am extra worn out at the end of the day from not only being pregnant, but also from carrying a toddler up and down the stairs multiple times a day! I have started to make Cam crawl up the stairs now because I am so out of breath if I try to carry him.

Of course, we've been a bit thrown off from the one hour time change which I wasn't expecting. Cam was waking up between 4:30-5am the first few days even with pushing his bedtime back to the normal time (7-7:30pm). I think he just knew he was in a new place. The past few mornings he's been waking up closer to 6am, so I think he is slowly adjusting (thank goodness). 

We have a lot of plans to get the house all set up and decorated the way we like. First order of business is buying and installing window treatments throughout the house. We had to leave our window treatments in our old house as part of our contract. This house had almost no window treatments when we moved in and there are a lot of windows on the first floor, including a 2 story wall of windows in the family room. It kind of feels like we are living in a big fish bowl at the moment! Hopefully, we will be able to get blinds/curtains over the next few weeks.

Also on the top of our list is painting pretty much the entire house. I don't really love any of the paint colors, so we both agreed to hire painters to repaint everything. Hoping to start the estimate process this week as well.

There are a lot of little projects I hope to complete over the next year and I can't wait to share the results!

For now, we are enjoying our new space and looking forward to getting back into our normal routine.

Camden actually starts daycare (3 days a week) this week and I'm super anxious about it! Any mommas out there that have advice for integrating your toddler into daycare would be much appreciated!

Thank you all for your kind words and congrats on my IG and Facebook posts regarding our move and new home!

xoxo

PS - Did I mention our new house has a pool?! I can't wait for this summer! :)

House Update

Well, a lot has happened since my last update. Our house went on the market Tuesday morning and within 24 hours we had 5 showings and THREE offers on the table! We were shocked, but so happy! The same day we received the offers, we put in an offer on a house we saw in Plainfield, IL (northern Plainfield, close to Naperville). We were waiting anxiously for the seller to respond and ended up extending the offers we received for our home until we knew what was going on with the house in Plainfield. Sure enough the next day, the seller accepted our offer and we accepted an offer on our home! It worked out so smoothly... it was almost too perfect. We are closing on both homes at the end of February which will come so quickly I'm sure. 

We are currently going through the inspection process on both homes and crossing our fingers that everything checks out on both sides as to not disrupt the closing process. If all goes well, we will be moving in less than 4 weeks! Luckily, Bill's new company has set up a moving company to help us pack and move everything on closing day. So, that will be a big help especially thinking about packing and moving while pregnant and taking care of a toddler (phew...). 

I'm hesitant to share too much about our new home because I don't want to jinx anything and I would hate for something to fall through with our contract last minute. I will tell you that it has all of our non-negotiables which were: 1st floor office for Bill (he works from home when he's not traveling), 4 bedrooms and at least 2 full baths (this house has FOUR full baths!), separate play area for the kids either a bonus room or finished basement (it has a finished basement), and finally a nice guest room with full bath for a comfortable stay for visitors (there is a bedroom and full bathroom in the basement). Other wants included fenced yard for our dog (check), large master closet (check), fireplace (check), at least 2 car garage (it has 3!), and updated kitchen and appliances. The kitchen is not exactly to my taste, but it does have nice dark granite counter tops and stainless steal appliances. Bill and I talked about having the cabinets painted and changing out the back splash. We will also be painting the entire house first thing after we move in. We didn't find a home that fit our exact taste, but we did find a home that fit our needs and came in under budget which leaves room for spending on improvements. 

I'm excited to move in and get settled into our new space! 

We spent some quality time together as a family this past weekend since Bill was traveling most of the week last week. We went out to dinner with friends Saturday night to Martini which is one of my favorite restaurants in Columbus. I'm really hoping to go to some of my favorite Columbus spots before we have to move. I will miss this city so much!

That's all for now! I'm hoping to actually publish a few posts that are non-house related very soon, I promise!

Family Room Makeover

This post is long overdue. We've been working on updating our family room ever since Camden was born. I just remember spending so much time in that dark, dreery room in the winter just loathing the brown on brown ugliness and wishing for a lighter, airy, grey and white room. We bought the marble top coffee table at Crate & Barrel as a floor model that was on sale right before Cam was born. I knew I wanted to decorate the rest of the room around that table.

Brace yourself.... Here's the before....

Ugh... I just cringe looking at that brown on brown room. Bill had purchased the couch and loveseat about 4 years ago (and about 2 years before we got married) when he moved into this home to fill the space. The room before was very masculine with dark wood accents.

He knew it was not my favorite room in the house. We ended up hiring painters for the entire house shortly after we got married. The color on the walls before was a hideous buttery/yellow/tan which made things even worse. I was happy to lighted up the room with the new, lighter cream tone (Sherwin Williams - Buff).

The next big purchase was the sectional. We looked at so many furniture stores I thought I was going to go crazy! Bill and I are very picky about furniture. There was a certain look we were going for and it was very difficult to find. I think our style is a mixture of traditional and contemporary. I'd say this couch is more on the contemporary side and is more minimal without looking too minimalistic (straight lines and edges). We found the sectional at Kittles, a furniture store here in Columbus. The floor model of the couch was a darker fabric, so we had to custom order the couch in the light grey. It took 8 weeks for the sectional to arrive, but it was worth the wait!

I struggled with what to put on the walls above the couch, but found these floating shelves at Pottery Barn and decided they were perfect! I still want to update the frames and photos on the shelves after we get our family photos done.

One aspect I absolutely love about our home is the fireplace... It's rounded into the corner of the family room and adds such great warmth (literally and figuratively). There is a part of me that is dying to white wash the brick, but I think I'm going to leave the original brick the way it is. The house was built in the late 60s and the fireplace is original, so I want to keep that character of the home.

Here's the before shot of the fireplace... It was tough figuring out what to hang over the hearth or put on the mantel. I'm still not 100% happy with what's there, but it works for now. I may end up adding a sunburst mirror there instead of the calligraphy art. (Please note baby Cam in his swing... he was maybe a month or 2 here?)

Here's what we have now...

I found these little accent pieces at Hobby Lobby of course. 

The next purchase was this entertainment/console table we randomly found at Home Goods. It was exactly what I was looking for! I felt like I searched every store online and was so glad I didn't spend triple the amount one this piece at PB or somewhere similar. 

I added some fabric baskets on the bottom shelf to store Cam's toys.

And there you have it folks! 

I feel like it takes me forever to really decorate a room. I'd say there's a few pieces here and there I may switch out, but I'm really happy with the results of this room makeover.

Next up is our bedroom! I'm sure I'll have a before and after post ready for you by early next year at this rate... :)

Sources:

Sectional (custom fabric) - Kittles

Coffee table - Crate & Barrel (similar)

Curtains - Bed, Bath & Beyond

Throw pillows - Bed, Bath & Beyond

Entertainment/console table - Home Goods

Floating crown molding shelves - Pottery Barn

Gold accents and frames - Hobby Lobby

Calligraphy art - Hobby Lobby