A Makeover for My Birthday Girl

So my baby girl is turning three this weekend. I have been racking my brain as to what to get her. She has a ton of stuff already. Since she is my second she got most of her brothers toys as well as so many amazing hand me downs from an amazing family members daughters.
Since we moved to our house a year ago her room has stuff in it but just hasn't felt "right " to me.

Here is what it looks like right now:

We painted it a purple with a touch of gray to it, given to us by a friend. It is a beautiful colour but I find her room a bit dark. 
So I figure now is as good as times as any to give my girl a special room of her own.

Here's my idea:

Abby :) by sherrymiser on Polyvore

I plan on keeping the wall her bed is on the purple colour. I want to paint the other three walls Autumn Haze by Glidden to brighten things up.
I would love these turquoise curtains because they are super cute and they keep the light out. The girl is a terrible sleeper, I will do what I can to keep her sleeping ;)
I found the cutest comforter set at Target. We just got Target in Canada. So I will check and see if we get that set, if not a trip to the states is in order.
I saw this set of paper lanterns done here and I think it would be a great idea.
We already have two of the pink petal lights from Ikea.
Tonight I plan on making these bookshelves for a reading corner and I need a beanbag chair for that corner as well (her brother has one already and she loves it).
So I have no idea how long it will take to come together but what a great present I think it would be to have a special room. Since she slept in our walk-in closet for the first two years of her life, it only seems fair.
The only problem is that knowing me, I may change my mind a few times along the way. Kind of like this...

Time to Sand the Basement

We have come a long way in our basement over the winter. We have been slowly working on it when we have time and money to do so. Plus Meez got a bit bored of working on it all the time and he did some other projects in between. Now he's ready to get back to work down there.
Weeks ago we finished most of the drywall, sanded, primed and painted one coat. It's easier to put colour on the wall and then you see your imperfections. Then he patched any spots he saw. It sat like that for a bit.
Tonight we will be ready to sand and prime those areas. Maybe I will even be able to get to paint. We do most of our DIY work at night while the kids are sleeping. It saves from them getting in the way or "helping" as they call it.

|Here's what it looks like right now: 

It looks simple enough...but it has been a lot of work!! We still have sooo much to do. Once the painting is done it will feel more normal. We need to figure out the fireplace wall. Meez wants to clad it in stone, so we shall see what happens. We will need go buy carpet and have it installed. Plus we need some toy storage and a TV cabinet.

Here's what it looked like once we had just started the project:

Here's my mood board for the basement. We want it to be light and airy feeling. We want it to be inviting for the kids so they want to play down there. Plus feel inviting for us so we want to hang out down there. Hubby is a movie fanatic and can't wait to have everything set up to blast his movies again.

It looks like a weekend of fun in the basement for us!!

Board and Batten Full Reveal

We are finally done!! For a project that was just supposed to be one wall at the start, it sure took awhile! We couldn't stop ourselves once we saw how awesome it looked :)

Gorgeousness!!!!

Here are some before shots:

When we first moved in a year ago it was very different. I have spent the last year learning what I like and don't like as well as what works with this house. We face North to South in this house. Our other three houses faced East to West. The light we get inside is totally different and it affects my paint and decor choices. I feel like this house is so dark. So I have decided to re-do everything much lighter and brighter. But I love, love, love colour...so it's tricky to learn to tame my wants but still have something gorgeous.

So here is where we are now. I still have more to do, like curtains, a light for the dining room and another dining table (still looking) and some decor but the most of it is done :)

I love, love love, my Nate Berkus turtle/tortoise shell from Target!

I painted the top of the board and batten Wythe Blue by Benjamin Moore (matched in Olympic) and the bottom just plain trim white.
The kitchen was painted Sesame by Benjamin Moore. But I don't love it and I will eventually re-paint that too.

Now that this project is mostly done we are focusing our attention to the basement. We finished it from scratch over the winter. We have sanded, primed and painted one coat. But we needed to go back and patch up any imperfections. Now we are working on that and we need to sand and prime again. I bought some new paint last night. I loved the original colour but it ended up being too dark with all my hubby's dark brown furniture (brown leather couches and coffee table, huge tv etc)
Hopefully hubby (Meez as I call him) will get the sanding done tonight and I will be able to start priming and painting again.
I have big plans down there!! I can't wait to see it come together. Stay tuned!!

Board and Batten Sneak Peak

I asked my hubby to put some shelves up in the dining room...
I still don't have shelves up but this happened instead.

The shelves looked funny on the wall. But I knew they needed to be at a certain height so that "one day" when we did board and batton wainscoting that it would look right. So the next day we ended up at Lowes getting supplies to do the dining room wall. Once hubby got started and saw how awesome it would look, he kept going.
He fought me on the details along the way. But admitted that in the end my ideas were right :)
I ended up repainting the wall BM Wythe Blue. They really make the white pop. We are in love with it!
We are still not fully done. But done enough to take a break for a bit and recharge.
I will post some more details and pictures once I have them together :)

A Little Bit About Us...

It all started with our first house. We were so young. But my hubby's mother (my then boyfriend) told us that we shouldn't be wasting our money on renting. She helped us figure out how to buy our very first house. It was a small two bedroom townhouse. We stayed 4 years there.
In that time we did some minor changes. We painted (a few times...) and we put engineered flooring in our hallway. We had carpet put on our stairs and carpet installed in our basement. We also got married!!
My husband works for a custom kitchen company. So we ended up updating the kitchen too.
Then we started looking for another house. We kept seeing the value of our house rise and knew it would be a good time to cash in on that.

We found a semi-detached house and bought it. We ended up selling our townhouse for almost double what we paid and that helped us finance our new purchase and do some work to it.
We spent three weeks working on the semi before we moved in. We ripped out all the floors and put laminate in. We ripped out the kitchen and had a new one installed. We had to take down A LOT of wallpaper and do A LOT of painting.

Slowly over the next three years we did other updates too. We put tile floors in our bathroom as well as a new vanity, lights and counters.

We gutted the basement bathroom and made it nice too.
We also had a sweet baby boy!

When Aiden was around a year old we decided that it was time to move.
My husband worked in Stoney Creek and we lived in St. Catharines. The drive was getting longer. So we decided to re-locate to Grimsby.
We sold our house and bought our third house!

We spent three years in this house. It was a two bedroom with a loft area. We thought that would be fine. But when Aiden was 2 we decided that probably should have a second child (now or never).
Sweet Abby was born.

Poor Abby never had a bedroom. She slept in our room. She slept in our walk-in closet (it was HUGE). She even slept in Aiden's room. But she was always a terrible sleeper and woke everyone up. She needed her own room and we needed better space for our family.
So when in December 2011 we found a house and bought it. (yes, our fourth house)

We sold our townhouse.
The house we bought needed updating but we decided that it was the best choice for us and we would take it slow with this house.
We had a week to do some minor changes before we moved in.

We have now lived there a year. We are slowly making progress. As we make those changes I will post about them. Join us on our crazy journey to make this house our forever home!