Lovely Laundry

The title of this post should probably be "How to Spend a Year of Your Life on One Project", but the laundry room is getting to be quite lovely, so we'll stick with that.

Forgive the quality of the pictures, they are all from my iPhone.  After the final {completely unnecessary} project I will post better quality pictures.  Honest.

Our laundry room is strange.  We have a large house, with a good number of bedrooms, but our laundry room is very small.  Very, very small.  There are two doors in the room-one leading into the foyer, and the other leading into the garage.  I guess technically it is a mudroom because you don't enter the house directly from the garage, but you'd be hard pressed to take off any muddy shoes or clothes in the laundry room!

Here is a before picture:

This is {obviously} before we moved in, but for a year the only change we made was adding in the washer and dryer.  Doesn't that light make you want to run from the room screaming???

Here was the laundry room in July:

I painted the stripes over 4th of July weekend and my Dad hung up my Goodwill makeover chandelier for me.  And I loved it!  I didn't make any more changes until just a few weeks ago.  I tried to figure out how I could add some functional storage to the room.  With all the doors, the small space, etc., I actually decided not to put up cabinets or a shelf.  I hadn't stored anything other than laundry supplies in the room in almost two years, so I just needed to find a way to store the supplies I had on hand.

All the laundry supplies, with the exception of the bleach, fit nicely on this cart from Ikea.  It doesn't take up much room and it has wheels.  Perfect!

I also needed a place to hang the clothes we don't put in the dryer.

My Mom had picked up two of these racks at Ikea a little while back.  She wasn't able to use them and lost her receipt.  Luckily, it works perfectly for us!

I also hung up some art in the room.

And just today, my husband raised the chandelier for me.  I have one project left-recovering the ironing board.  It is hanging in the room, but I'll share a picture of that with the next update.

I {almost} enjoy doing laundry now.

'Twas the Week Before Pre-School....and Mommy's a Mess

School starts next week.
Jackson will begin Pre-K on Monday. I'm happy to say he is over the moon excited to go back! He'll be in school 5 days a week, so I'm sure it will be a bit of an adjustment for all of us, but I think we're all looking forward to our school year routine.
And on Tuesday, sweet sweet Super P will begin school as well.
So if you need me anytime during the next week or so, I'll be in the corner trying hard to not let the kids see me crying. No, really. I am a mess.
It has been a long two and a half plus years. We have been through so much to get to this point. I have held my sweet Super P while we've talked to a neonatologist, a cardiologist, a neurologist, an audiologist, a urologist, and a hematologist. He has been intubated and on a ventilator. He has had a spinal tap. I sat terrified holding him as he received immunoglobulin to treat a problem with his platelets.
I pray for him, over him, with him. I have pleaded with God. I have fallen apart and pulled myself back together for him. I waited almost 18 months to see him walk and two years to hear him talk. All this time, I have been his voice.
And now, for two mornings (7 hours a week), we will be apart. And he will find his voice.
And I will, for the first time, need to trust someone outside our circle to love and protect him.
I knew that this wouldn't be easy.
But I didn't expect it to be this hard.
So forgive me if you're expecting to hear from me this week and you don't. I'm holding my 2 year old close to my heart. I'm crying. And I'm learning how to let go.

House Stuff

I have a confession to make.
We have lived in our house for {just about} a year and a half now, and I haven't finished decorating a single room.  Not one.  We still have boxes we haven't unpacked.  We don't even have real bedding in the master bedroom.
I, Nicole, a lover of all things project and craft related, have not even really started decorating.  The house was move in ready, so there weren't any pressing needs to address.  But I am finally ready to dive in and get some things crossed off the to do list.
First up was an easy project.  Every night that we sat down to dinner for the last year at least one of us would complain about the blinding sun coming in through the door to the deck.  And Brian and I would mumble to each other about curtains or blinds.  But we just never got around to it.  I finally picked up some fairly inexpensive window panels from Ikea {and blackout liners, but I haven't put those up yet}.  And just like that, I can cross something off the to do list!

I actually love the way it looks.  Our tall ceilings look even taller!  But now that the curtains are up in the kitchen, I think I'll have to put some up in the family room to balance the wall.  {Ignore the off centered pictures on the wall.  You were right mom ;)  I should have centered them to start with.} What do you think?

I had originally hoped to have Mamie's room complete by the time she was 6 months old.  Well, she'll be 16 months old next week and it's finally close to being complete.  I finally bought her a chair and a bookshelf that doubles as a bench.

I still need some pillows for the chair and bench, and I hope to make a cushion for the bench as well.  And looking at this picture, I think I'll pick up some baskets for the bench.  Notice Mamie swinging her Jedi Mickey by his light saber.  Star Wars.  Sigh.

The wall behind her crib is just a big blank canvas.

I spray painted a large frame from Ikea ages ago.  I am going to hang that up to frame a wooden cutout of her monogram...eventually.  I'll get to it.  Soon.  Probably.  Here is the frame.

I also need to hang up a few shelves, but adding the furniture made her room feel cozier.  The wall color is Sherwin-Williams Iron Ore.  I love it!

The last project {for now} is the laundry room.  Here is a before picture.

Just a super simple {itty bitty} blank slate.  I took this picture from the entry hallway.  The door to the right is the garage.  I guess that means the laundry room is technically a mudroom, but it's a little too small for that.

I chose a color scheme months ago, but for some reason it has taken me a long time to get started.  The first project was a chandelier makeover.  I picked up a chandelier at Goodwill for $6 and painted it with a few coats of Krylon's Coral Isle spray paint.  

Most of that mess in the background is not mine.  Honest!  I picked up a throw rug (I forgot to take a picture of it) and my mom found some aqua and coral decor.

I have some fun art planned for the room (sequins, etsy love, the raven...Oh My!), but before I can hang up any art, I need to paint.  I chose this color from Glidden.

And because the laundry room really is MY room {5 people in the house, 3 of them are male, you do the math} I decided to go for it and have some fun with the room.  Horizontal stripes.  This was a much better {more exciting} idea BEFORE I started taping off the room.  But the taping is done and I hope to paint over the holiday weekend.

Here is the view of the room from the hallway.

And here is the view from the back corner of the room so you can get a sense of the size of the room.  

I pushed the washer and dryer back into place after I finished taping, and I must say that the room looks better already...

I still don't know if I'm going to go with open shelves or cabinets, but I can't wait to see the room with fresh paint on the walls and the chandelier instead of that awful exposed fluorescent light!

That's what I'm working on, how about you?  Hopefully I'll have a freshly painted room to show off next week!