No more Princess!

My mom, Vicky, and I recently re-decorated my cousin Makenzie's bedroom for her birthday while they were on a cruise!  She picked out her bedding from JcPenney and knew we were painting the room, but it was a huge surprise at how much changed when she got home!!!

Her white modern headboard was $89 from csn.com with free shipping!

Her room has been a purple princess theme for many years now.  Her mom told her when she turned 10 she could redo her room...well, this year she turned 10!  My uncle actually airbrushed the clouds along the top of the walls with glow-in-the dark stars- which was kinda sad to paint over, but we kept the purple ceiling.  The castle & clouds on the wall were a decal that peeled off.

before

quick sketch

after

The back corner was more of an unused space before.  It just had her butterfly chair and dry-erase board, but was usually dark and wasted space.  Now it houses her built-in desk with chair and magnetic boards for her to draw & do her homework (as it will increase in the coming years!)

before

after

My husband, Matt, helped us build her desk out of mdf plywood, attach it to the wall studs, added a front lip to give it a chunky look, drilled two 2" holes in the back corners for chords to feed through, caulked edges, and painted it glossy white

Makenzie wanted to keep her pink butterfly chair in the room, so we added pink stripes to the wall

to tie in the chair and light she already had

The Hancock Shelf in chartreuse from cb2.com [assembly required]

(pardon my mom's glass of wine in the photo after a long day of hard work!)

The photos on the wall are hanging on magnetic green cables from cb2.com for $6.95 a piece

The Details:

 $5 table found at a garage sale, painted blue, and mosaiced with glass tiles on top; $5 chair found at a garage sale, painted purple, seat re-covered with new foam and fabric; $35 nightstand found at an estate sale, painted white, sprayed with gloss polyurethane; chandelier found at Urban Outfitters, lightkit with switch hand-rigged with materials from Lowe's

The Bathroom:

We painted a stripe of multicolored circles up the wall using stencil paper from Michael's that we cut our own circles in using an exacto knife.  The rugs and towels are from Target.  The frame was found at an antique store for $25 and spray painted white with hooks hung within for cute jewelry display.  Hooks and fabric letter "m" found at Anthropologie.  A hook on each side for Makenzie and her sister Morgan to have their own spot for their towels or robe to hang since they share a bathroom.

Blessed with ART!

We got our house-warming gift from Jeff Hanson this week!!!

This canvas is titled: "Kersten Haus Rooftop", How perfect!

Jeff is also being featured in People Magazine soon- the photo shoot was this week!  I updated his video to show his most recent painting sold at auction for $15,000 at the North Texas Make-A-Wish gala!  He has now raised over $325,000 for charities that have "touched" his life!

Check out his video:

Since we recently added our laundry closet, I had to move the paintings my Nana painted of & for us to a new spot.  Now much more predominantly displayed, they are in the hallway as you walk in the house.

This is the painting she did of tomatoes that she gave us after we got married!

[it proudly hangs in our kitchen]

 See more of my Nana's work (Barbara Frets Simmons) at these sites:

Eva Reynolds Fine Art Gallery

Sculpture in the South

Laundry Closet

When we bought the house our washer was in the kitchen and the dryer was in the garage.  Since the homeowners took their machines, we have been using my parents' laundry room for a year now!  We remodeled the kitchen and bath before we fully moved in and elongated a stretch of counter space over where the washing machine used to be and added recycling underneath.  Click here to see!  

Before we laid the new floors we had to saw-cut the concrete slab and dig a trench to the future laundry area for plumbing.  This was a crazy process and Matt got very dirty & sweaty!  The plumber had to dig atleast 3 ft down to find the plumbing that was going to the sink area!  Then I filled the trench with concrete...

OK, before I show you our new laundry adventure, I have to show you this picture (below) of Matt in his toolbelt with the urge to make chocolate chip cookies during a night of construction!  Too cute.

The next few photos are of us working on the laundry closet from inside the garage 

(the back of the wall in our breakfast area)

Us framing the floor, walls, and trying to look tough!  

 From inside the kitchen:

We did everything except for the electrical and plumbing.  Here, we already installed the drywall and I mudded/sanded the seams

Painted, baseboard in, and seamless linoleum on the floor 

With trim around the opening, threshold stained and down, and our NEW WASHER & DRYER!!!!

(Maytag front-loads from Nebraska Furniture Mart)

[I still plan on adding a cabinet, hanging rod, and countertop in the future]

With our bi-fold doors on and the house cleaned up!

Finished!  ...almost! 

Computer Perspectives

Front Porch & Driveway

This is the way our house looked when we bought it; with hedges on either side of the door, a cracked driveway, and old sidewalk to the door.

Then... we had a water main break under our driveway!  Luckily, it was the city pipes to other neighbors and the bottom half of the drive was paid for.  But we decided to go ahead and re-pave the entire driveway and sidewalk.

That became tearing out the hedges under the window and making a large front porch to our door!

(please excuse the pink house, it will be painted someday soon!)

The front porch with my new 4-piece steal-of-a-set patio furniture from World Market for $199 (there's another chair not shown), a rug from Grandinroad, pillows from Pier 1 Imports

We lined the front of the patio with fountain grass and grey river rock

My new metal cb2 planters with orange Hibiscus, purple/pink Petunias, Blue Flossflower/Ageratum, lime-green Creeping Jenny, and I'm not sure what the spiky/soft purple flower in front is called.

 My tall planter with fiber optic grass, and purple "spikes" (what my mom and I call them)

Kobenhavn

This is a 12 x 24" canvas I did for dear friends resembling Copenhagen, Denmark.  It was my friend, Britt's, gift to his wife, Carly, for their anniversary; they studied abroad there.  It is acrylic paint with heavy gloss.