Decorating Zoey's Room {part 1}

   I've been rolling decor ideas for Zoey's room around in my head for a while now. In my last post I mentioned painting it grey, and I've been planning to accent in yellow or lime. Colors that can be somewhat gender neutral if there's a boy baby sharing the room later on. (No, that's not an announcement.☺)
   I don't consider decor to be a strong point of mine...I can't just decorate on demand, I have to be inspired, and have the right stuff to work with. Once I'm inspired, then I can actually have fun with it!
    By yesterday, I had collected enough pieces of the puzzle, and inspiration hit! I was so absorbed in painting and crafting that I completely lost track of time for a while! I may have dropped the ball a bit on mothering, since Zoey didn't eat lunch until 3:30, but I sure was having a good time!☺ (I was going to post this without a disclaimer, but then I thought you should know that she'd had a big breakfast and was sleeping most of the afternoon, and yada yada, so she's fine. ☺)
 
There are more projects I'd like to do to add to other parts of the room, but this is a big part of what I was hoping for!

   I started off with a conglomeration of frames I'd collected. I've had some of them for years, and picked a couple of the others up at garage sales this summer. The best part is, I spent very little on this whole project...like under $10! I give much credit to Pinterest, as many of my ideas were sparked by pins I've come across in the past!

                             
                             

  I'm missing photos for most of the in-between steps, but here's what it looked like this morning:

I got this frame for 75 cents at a garage sale last weekend. Granted, it was an ugly color, and broken when I bought it, but I knew I needed it for this wall! I took a picture of Zoey from the side, which is really hard to do, by the way, with a busy child who will look AT the camera, but doesn't understand looking straight ahead away from the camera! I printed it, cut it out, traced it onto white cardstock, cut it out again, and put it on gray patterned cardstock.   

I loved the uniqueness of this round frame the moment I spotted it at a garage sale for 25 cents. Add a little yellow paint and voila! I punched the hearts out of the paint sample strips I had picked up when choosing colors for the walls, and zigzaged them together with my sewing machine!

I have a stash of free digital papers on my computer, so I used those to design this wall hanging. So inexpensive to do! 

The rest of the small frames were plastic Family Dollar frames that I'd had for a long, long time! I painted those as well, and put some of Zoey's baby pictures in them! Convenient that she was wearing yellow for that photo shoot! ☺

This arrangement is actually centered on the wall, although those lovely strips make it look otherwise. Prefab home problems. ☺

Here's a really helpful tip I found for hanging an arrangement like this:

Lay everything out on a big sheet of paper (I used wrapping paper).

Mark out where each piece will be, and poke holes where the nails should go.

Tack the paper up to the wall, and pound the nails in.

When you take paper down, all your nails are in place and you can hang everything up, easy peasy! I only had to move 1 nail! It's really great if you're working alone and don't have anyone to hold items up while you stand back and decide on placement! ☺

I called this post part 1 because it's the beginning...I'm not promising a blog post for each future step, but we shall see.

Good day!☺

Moving and Home Improvements

   Two years ago, I posted that we were moving out to Tom's parents' place. It's hard to believe that it's already two years later, and we've now moved back to our little house on the edge of town!

(this photo is not a representation of the current state of my flowerbeds.)

   As odd as this may sound, we're actually enjoying living back in our humble little double-wide! Don't get me wrong, Dan's house is quite nice, and we really did enjoy our time there! But there's something about taking ownership of a place...even if it's a little tiny house, with fake wood kitchen cabinets and water that requires a Brita pitcher to make it drinkable. It's ours, and we can dream and paint and remodel, and that's worth something at least! 

   Due to some apprehension about how we would squeeze back into the little place, we did a little brainstorming about some changes that we could make. The kitchen, especially, makes me feel cramped, since I don't have a pantry. I also thought it would be very convenient to find a way to add a dishwasher. So, we decided to remove the patio door on the back side of the house. It wasn't hard to give up the patio door, because being on the west side of the house, it let in a lot of sun (and heat) in the afternoon. So, my amazing husband strapped on his tool belt and made this happen:

    The plan is move the fridge to the other side of that little wall. Then, in the spot where the fridge was, we'll install a dishwasher, and a section of upper cabinets. That will be a big improvement, in my opinion! 

   We also painted one of the extra bedrooms, and now Zoey has a room of her own! I wasn't sure how that adjustment would go, but so far she doesn't seem to mind at all...in fact we all seem to be sleeping more peacefully! :)

   I'm hopeful that at some point we will change the carpet to something that matches with the grey walls. I also have a good deal of pinterest-ing and decorating that I hope to do before I call her room finished!

   All of the above happened last week, from Monday to Friday. We spent every evening here at the house, and each time we came, I loaded the trusty minivan with boxes and other debris. So, while Tom worked on his projects, I unpacked. A big thanks to my mom and sisters who spent a day helping me with painting! By the time Saturday arrived, we just had the furniture and one more van-load of odds and ends to move!

   The last improvement that we wanted to make immediately when we moved back, was to change the flooring in the master bath. It was carpeted, and I much prefer linoleum when it comes to keeping a bathroom clean! We found a nice little remnant at Menards, and last evening Tom put it in. (Zoey tried to be very helpful too!)

   While the trim was off anyway, I gave it a fresh coat of paint...that should be going back up before too long!

   So, that's the latest around here. There are still a good number of boxes to go through, and flower beds to make pretty, and walls to decorate, so I probably won't be bored for a while. I'm just glad that the actual move is over, I don't get the biggest charge out of packing and stacking and hauling boxes. :)

   

   A side note: That big house that we just moved out of....it's for sale. So, if you're looking for a lovely home in Northern Wisconsin, there ya go! :)

Zoey Turns One

    It's a quiet Monday morning here. I'm under a blanket by the fireplace and Zoey is napping. Oh, scratch that...I hear her bumping around in the crib now.
   My goals for today are to do the laundry, straighten up the piles around the house that have accumulated over the weekend, and decide what to make for supper. I know, my ideals are sky high. I'll probably get around to doing a few more things that aren't on this list, if nothing else there will be a diaper or two to change in my spare time. ☺
    Last week we has short notice company, which we were pleased about! Tom's parents flew home for a funeral in the extended family, so we got to have them here for a few days. It was pretty fun to have both sets of grandparents here for Zoey's first birthday party! ☺
   Yup, that little miss is a year old already...how did that even happen?
   On Wednesday, the day of her birthday we got home from picking up Dan's at the airport around noon. I wanted to make a cake to practice for her "real party", plus do a little cake smash photo shoot with her, so that I could relax and enjoy the party that we were having for her on Friday evening. So, I spent the rest of my day hurrying to bake a cake, cool it, frost it, set up an area to take the photos, wrap the gifts, etc. As I hurried, I wondered if I was setting myself up for mommy guilt if I don't do this for all of my children. ☺

    

     As it turned out, Zoey (with a lady-likeness that I didn't know she possessed) did not destroy the cake, even though we coaxed her to dig in! So, instead of making another cake for Friday evening, I just filled the hole with frosting, and let her go at it again. This time around, she had coaching from her uncle Eric, and a bunch of boys (cousins and young uncles) . Her adorable cousin Annie also joined the fun, but even the two of them together didn't do very much damage! ☺

     Sometime in the 4 hours since I started this blog post, my writing inspiration has flown. The picturesque scene has changed...the fireplace has gone cold, the blanket is on the floor, and I've been holding a cranky child much of the forenoon. However, the sun is shining, the laundry is getting done--slowly, and the house is still needing attention. So I will leave you with this short post and a promise to be back someday!

    

Better Overdue Than Never

     I'm sitting in the office today. It's quiet, except for the hum of the computer. Zoey is napping in the back room.
    For those of you who don't know, I occasionally fill in at the Kinetico office here in town. I'm just on call for whenever the full-time gal needs a few days off. My only job is to be here from 8:30 to 5 to assist walk-in customers who need to buy a replacement filter or a gallon of peroxide. I'm on day 3 of 4 for this week, and so far there's been one customer per day. Yeah. It's quiet. But, it's pretty handy that I get to bring Zoey with me, and earn a bit of extra grocery money while catching up on whatever projects I want to bring along!
   I'm not complaining, but I will just say that I have no desire to work this many days back to back on a regular basis. With plans every evening this week, I'm finding it interesting to fit my regular house work into the few hours I have at home! I wouldn't make a great career woman, apparently. ☺
    Yesterday, my sister joined me with her sewing machine, and we had a grand time in the back room, sewing and gabbing to our hearts' content!
   

   
      In three days Zoey will be 11 months old. That's fearfully close to a year, and my baby is hardly a baby any more! She took her first steps right at 9 months, so she's getting to be quite an independent little miss now. Sometimes I walk into the kitchen to find three or four cupboard doors standing open, and a nice selection of dishes scattered around on the floor. I have to be careful to keep the pantry door closed tightly, or she will raid the waste can for any tasty morsel. (Tasty is a questionable adjective to use when describing morsels found in the garbage, I realize; but she has a lot to learn on that subject.)
    She has a few words that she can say clearly, and "mom" isn't one of them. There's often a steady flow of chatter coming from wherever she's playing, which is something I love to hear. I can only imagine what it will be like when the baby talk is replaced with real words...Tom and I may not get a word in edgewise!
 
     December was pretty much full of family holiday gatherings. Tom's parents were home for two weeks, which included time spent with all the local Schrocks at a lodge nearby. We celebrated Christmas with my family a few days early. Then over Christmas, my family and some of my extended family (grandma, aunts, uncles, and cousins) came to our house for about 4 days. All of these were wonderful times. I'm so thankful for families that love each other, and that can spend several days together and still love each other! ☺
     By the time New Years Eve rolled around, we were quite content to stay at home with our little family. We even went to bed at 10:30, but Zoey was sweet enough to cry out at 11:58 so that we could all wake up and see the New Year in. ☺

     So far, January has been lived at a slower pace. It's a nice pace for winter time. But still, I have projects that aren't getting done. Must. Learn. To. Prioritize. And. Stop. Procrastinating. Before I know it, all my time is going to be consumed with getting ready for the big move back to the little house!

        So, I'm off. Now that I've taken care of the "I-should-post-on-the-blog" project, maybe I can go get a few Mixbook pages done. ☺