Are you a project girl too? If so, I’d love to have you showcase your projects, ideas, and inspiration on TheProjectGirl.com! I’m hosting an open call for blog contributors now through September 18th. I’d love to hear from you. Here is more information:
Before we moved into the house, I spotted these lovelies in the Pottery Barn catalog. I thought they would look so cute in the laundry room, but they were only available in 1-4, and I want like 10+ hooks in the laundry room. Aren’t they so cute!
So during the renovation, Mr. Project had installed the board & batten wainscoting in the guest bathroom, and I was going to purchase the hardware for this bathroom and went to assess the situation and was thinking that I didn’t want some bulky expected towel bar covering the pretty wall and though that hooks would be a much better choice (and way more practical for kids and guests). So I was looking again at all their hooks and came across the numbered hooks again. This time I knew it was meant to be because I had exactly FOUR batten strips, perfect for FOUR hooks! Love it!
Here are my happy hooks hanging in the bathroom, and I love them, but I need to figure out the towel situation (oh and my existing blue towels actually match the wall color much better IRL than in photos).
So lovely blog readers, what do you think, should I get 4 towels that match the wall (aqua) or white towels that match the board & batten, or copper towels that match the flowers on the shower curtain? I NEED your feedback so PLEASE leave a comment!
Here is a photo of the shower curtain & other side of the bathroom so that you can make the best decision.
Things have been busy this past week. Mr. Project has spent nearly the whole week in his shop working away on the cabinets. Today he brought them upstairs and they are just waiting to be installed and then painted! Here is the progress:
He is pretty amazing, and I am completely in love with him… AND the cabinets! And if you don’t know much about cabinets, these are called “inset” cabinets where the doors are flush with the face frame. It requires absolute precision and is like a 10 on the difficult scale of cabinet making. Apparently I like to make things as difficult as possible. Here is a photo of the style all painted white (like ours will be soon!):
(Ashlee Raubach Photography)
We had some bin pull drama this week too. I ordered a massive amount of these new cabinet pulls from pottery barn:
But we got them and they were just OK. So then we looked into the Gillmore pulls from Restoration Hardware:
but after looking at those we just kind of wanted something a little bit different. Bin pulls are all the rage right now, but they’ll probably go out of style sooner rather than later, and we just wanted something unique. Since the inspiration for the kitchen is farmhouse based, we thought a utilitarian pull would be super fun. So we found this on at RH as well:
I ran over to my local RH and picked up all the 6″ pulls that they have and I love them! They are super functional (unlike the bin pulls that have to be pulled from the bottom and can’t fit giant fingers/hands). I had to order a massive amount, but they should be here by the time the cabinets have been painted. I also need to go buy paint still, but I swear I have stage fright when picking paint.
In other kitchen news, I was so so so happy to finally find the fabric for the kitchen windows! Randomly I stopped by Calico Corners while I was out and about (It must be the new commercial blitz they have been doing), and was super impressed by their home decor fabric selection. And the prices were really reasonable too. Anyway I found a 4″ cabana stripe that will make the most amazing roman shades… or faux roman shades.
Ahh it makes me feel relaxed just looking at it. Now the last thing to choose for the kitchen is the backsplash tile. I’m hoping to find something that is super pale aqua but with variation like a recycled glass tile. Wish me serious luck because I don’t have much hope that it will happen.
okay that’s enough kitchen talk… now onto the everyday.
Our sweet Oliver is growing up, I like to say “I’m a real boy” just like Pinocchio in Shrek when people say he’s getting so big, and really he is like a real boy, hardly a baby at all.
I am packing up all his 0-3 month clothes and he has officially grown out of half of his jammies that he was wearing, so I bought a bunch of new cute jammies today. I guess that’s one way to get over the emotional stress of them growing up – retail therapy with cute new baby clothes. I do have to admit it was really hard to see all the tiny newborn clothes next to the bigger baby clothes. sigh.
He is still super happy and mellow although I can see the energy building up in him. In the morning he just wants to go go go even though he can’t really go yet. I have to enjoy all these “containable” moments, because he is going to take off in no time and never ever stop. He is starting to really babble and we even get a mama out of him every once in awhile which I love. He is eating pureed food and loving every bite. He even whines in between bites because I am not fast enough. He is a very clean eater right now and just gobbles up his food. He has had apple sauce, mashed bananas, peas, sweet potatoes, carrots, and mangos. He liked them all even the peas which he liked a little less until I mixed them with a little bit of apple sauce. But overall he’s a pretty awesome eater. He doesn’t seem to like rice cereal that much, but he will drink some with his night-time bottle without argument. He still loves his bouncy seat and his play mat, so between those things I can still get a little bit of work (and some crafts) done when he’s awake. He’s also been taking a longer mid-day nap which is really really nice!
I love this boy so so so much and I really do think that everything he does is way too cute. I know I say it all the time, but I love being his mom.
In other family news, my folks are going to come and visit in 2 weeks. I can’t hardly wait, but I need to get the guest room in order, which is going to be quite the task since we are storing all of our storage bins in the guest room while Mr. Project is using the garage for the cabinets. Soooo I’ll have to move all those bins into my craft room while they are here. Sounds messy and crowded, but totally worth it.
Well thats it in news this week. We’re mostly just busy working on the house, working on work, and working on raising a little one!
I wanted to do something cute with my Sharpie project, and I thought of these boring clear platic buckets that I have hanging around. What better way than to spice them up with some sharpie action. So I had the fun idea of making a geometric pattern on one and a free-form floral on the other.
So since I was drawing on clear plastic I printed out a geometric pattern, cut it to size and taped it to the inside of my container. Then I just went to town with my sharpie! This is how they turned out:
Its a bit hard to see on camera, so I put a white sheet of paper inside each of them so you can see how cute they are:
And here they are holding all my new fabulous sharpies!
From start to finish this took about an hour, and I love how modern and chic they turned out. You could do this on any pen holder or even an empty can of formula, or tin can that is painted or covered in paper first. If you have a chance run over to sharpie.com to see their Youtube Take Over this weekend, and if you have fun sharpie projects be sure to post them on the sharpie website.
Mr. Project is hard at work on the new kitchen cabinets (sink side). He says that they’ll be installed by Wednesday, though they’ll still have to be painted. But we’re getting so close I can almost taste it! So as a review, here is what we started with:
And the “during” when the two walls were removed:
And then when the new windows were installed:
And what it looks like now:
I love my wall of windows! This is the side that will be installed next week, right now we use it for prep and storage.
The other side houses the microwave, the new stove, the really really old stove and the new fridge. This is the most unfinished part of the house, and I can’t wait until its ripped out and finished!
So thats what we’re living with right now. Mr Project estimates that it will all be finished by the end of October, but there will be some great progress points along the way that give us a workable kitchen and show the light at the end of the tunnel. I’ll update in about a week!
