Holy Closet, Batman!

We finished Lil' Waller's closet last night!!  Hooray for checking things off the proverbial "nursery to-do" list!  It really wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be and didn't take us quite as long as I thought it would.  We had already installed a closet system just like this in our last home, so I think we were pretty familiar with how this works!  Here are some photos to show the progress:

The closet started like this with one single shelf (keep in mind, this is actually a pretty darn big coset):

Pretty plain, right?

So we ran to Home Depot and bought this puppy:

We also bought some cabinet doors and a couple drawers, but I forgot to take pictures of those.  Whoops.

We had to take the shelf that was in there out.  Since it was put into the wall with drywall anchors, it left huge holes in the wall when we removed it.  So, we had to spackle and paint and wait for all that jazz to dry!

After all that was done, we got to work assembling (and by we, I mean my dearest hubby).

All the lovely pieces.

Gotta anchor it to the wall.  Safety first, people!

Just call me Vanna.

Almost there!!

And the final product..........

(well, until she gets more stuff)

So there you have it folks!  An amazing new closet for our negative 4 month old and it only took a few hours!  Can't beat it with a cane!

Next on the nursery list......the chair!  My wonderful parents have offered to pick up the tab on the rocker/swivel/recliner chair I found!  Sweet!  So now I need to go order that and find a little "nightstand" style side table that doesn't cost an arm and a leg. 

Please share your closet and/or nursery transformations!  I'd love to see!

Catalog Living

Ok, so I have stumbled upon this AMAZING blog that is absolutely hysterical!!  I have been laughing at this darn blog for the past hour!  It is basically a blog that takes home decor photos from catalogs and/or the Internet and the author of the blog puts her own little comical sattire to the picture.  Here are a few of my fav's:

"Gary and I have slept in separate beds for years, but last night he left me a tied-up stack of books on my foot-of-bed-bench. I think he’s in the mood."

"Elaine wasn’t about to let some hot flashes get in the way of balancing the checkbook with the abacus."

"Our entryway set-up is great! Now I never forget my hat, burlap satchel, or life preserver."

"Oh dear, our Q-Tip decanter is almost 1/5th depleted"

"Hi Nancy, it’s Elaine. I’m going to be a little late for lunch. I can’t find my hat or my back-up hat."

OH MYlanta!!  That mess is hilarious! 

That's all I got for today!  I'm off to put my tired, swollen feet up.  It's been a long day of cleaning and organizing.

Laundry Room spruce up!

So one of my main goals this summer (so far) has been to organize.  Since we moved into the house in September, I barely had time to get things "settled" the way I wanted them.  It was the beginning of the school year and the wedding was just about a month away when we moved in, so things were a little hectic around here to say the least.  I am finally able to get things kind of how I want them this summer!

I love my house, don't get me wrong.  But one of the MAJOR flaws with this place is the lack of storage.  I literally do not have a hall closet to use as a linen closet or coat closet.  So, all our coats are taking up the guest room closet.  We are fine with this.  But I had a huge problem with linen/cleaning products/lightbulb, etc storage upstairs.  So, we had these 2 old white cabinets from lord knows where.  When we moved, I had taped the doors on one of the cabinets shut (one has doors, the other has drawers) so they wouldn't fly open in the moving truck.  Well, when we were unpacking and I went to pull the tape off the cabinet, it took the paint or varnish or whatever it was right off with it!  So it left me with a pretty ugly cabinet.  The drawers came out fine once the tape was pulled off.  I had these tucked away in a closet for the longest time, but finally moved them into the laundry room for more storage.  Only one problem.....I COULD NOT STAND TO LOOK AT THEM!!!  The missing paint was just driving me crazy.  But I couldn't get rid of them because they are perfectly useful and I needed them for the storage. 

Ok, ok.....I'll stop blabbing and show you how hideous they were so you can empathize with me!

See the missing paint and how it looks kind of gray on the front??  Oh and not to mention the missing knob!!  Just hideous, I tell ya!

Long story short, one day while browsing in my favorite store, Target, I came across some really cute green and white contact paper.  It had a really cute design and was my favorite color green!  Not to mention, it was a huge roll for only $5!  So, I snagged it and ran home to start covering these ugly cabinets.  I measured out my cabinets and cut the contact paper into pieces big enough to cover the doors and the front of the drawers. 

Here is how they turned out:

1st drawer is done!

Much better!

I even found a cute basket to hold the starch, detergent cup, and iron when not in use.

So there ya have it!  I still need to go pick up a white knob to put on the right side drawer, but these bad boys look so much better.  Inside the drawers I put extension cords, lighbulbs, extra flashlights, etc.  In the cabinet with doors, I put cleaning supplies for the bathrooms upstairs, lint rollers, etc.  Super handy and functional!

Yay me!

On another note, we are headed to South Florida to visit friends and family.  I'm just super excited about getting to go to Ikea.  I've already started my list of things we need to get there.  It's kind of long.  Whoops.  I wish we had an IKEA closer.  The closest one is 4 hours away.  But, at least I get to go each time we visit South Florida!  Hooray!

Have a fabulous 4th of July weekend everyone!

Nursery Progress

Well, I am happy to report that the nursery furniture was delivered last Monday!  I LOVE IT!  It was a floor model, but it looks pretty much brand new.  We got such a good deal on it.  So, it has been sitting in a blank room since Monday.  We went to Lowe's and bought some paint samples to see what color we wanted to paint the room.  I love that they sell those little sample cans.  So handy!  Because of said magnificent sample cans, we found our paint color!!!  It's called Lucky Leprechaun!  Pretty funny since Scott is Irish!  I say all that to say......SCOTT PAINTED THE ROOM YESTERDAY!  And it looks fabulous!!!  I love it.  It's very green, but I love it!  Here are some pictures to show the transformation!

The room before:

Scott painting the room:

And the finished product:

And there ya have it, folks!  Now we just need some lamps, a bookshelf, a rocker/glider thingy-ma-bob, and a baby and I think we'll be good to go! 

Stay tuned for the final product.......

Home Overload

Ok, so I have a confession to make.  Yesterday I wasn't feeling great so I thought it would be a fabulous idea to sit on the computer for the entire day (minus the hour long trip to Marshall's & Target).  I felt like a drug addict yesterday.  I absolutely could not stop looking at a couple of blogs I found.  One would think I was looking at baby blogs and different fabulous baby things online.  Oh no.  That was not the case.....at all! 

I was stuck on this blog: 

and this one:

and this one:

Oh my gosh!!!  I literally spent ALL day on those cool kids' blogs!  It was like a trainwreck.  I just couldn't take my eyes off of them!  So, needless to say.....I got inspired.  I am not nearly as creative or resourceful or motivated as those people are but I got myself off to a nice little start. 

I started last night by wanting to do an "overhaul" of sorts on the office area in the eat-in kitchen.  I haven't been satisfied with it since we've moved in.  I want it to be a useful area, but not cluttered and junky since it is in a common area in the house.  So, I took a little bit of inspiration from my fellow bloggers and this is what I came up with:

Before (actually in mid clean up):

After:

 

I love the new little mail caddy.  I took that inspiration from one of the blogs.  I also decided to move the printer back down because, well.....I need it!  It was upstairs in the bedroom and it just wasn't functional there.  I also added a calendar which we have been needing!  Scott and I are always on the go and we have lots of places to be so keeping it all in check on the calendar will be nice.  I also am really digging the little corner with the lamp.  It has a picture of Baby Waller in the frame and that hydrangea came straight out of my backyard!  Super!

If you have a minute, I highly suggest you take a look at the blogs I mentioned above!  They are pretty fantastic and I'm sure you'll find some great ideas too! 

I'm off to be domestic now.  Lasagna is on the menu tonight!