{ room tour }

I had a few friends/readers ask me a LONG, long time ago to post some pictures of rooms in our new house. Well, it's been about 15 months since we moved in and some of it is still a work in progress. Some of the first rooms we completed were Oliver and Stella's. I snapped some pictures of their rooms back in December and just haven't made the time to sit down and post about it. We've been spending a lot of time in the car driving (to Lake Geneva.....more on that soon) and the 10+ hours spent doing that a few weekends ago gave me the perfect opportunity to complete this post (in between switching videos and handing back snacks!).

I did however realize that just as I'm posting the pics, the rooms have changed. They both upgraded from their crib/toddler beds to full size beds a few weeks ago. Oh well, here you go anyways!

Oliver's room is painted Gray Owl by Benjamin Moore and it is a wonderful simple gray. I knew that I wanted the color scheme to be gray, orange, and navy.

Finding fabric in this color scheme wasn't super easy, especially since I wanted a pattern that could grow with him and not look to babyish. I settled on this bike fabric.

I also needed to find fabric to recover cushions on a rocking chair I bought off Craigslist. This chevron fabric was the perfect color and a fun pattern. A coat of white spray paint and new cushions and this chair looked good as new!

I had a ton of leftover fabric so I sewed some simple fabric flags to drape across one wall of the room.

The other main wall got filled with a few DIY projects. I had found this fun "O" letter at a local thrift store but didn't have any idea how I would use it. I decided to paint a canvas to hang below so that it would read "O is for Oliver". The truck canvas is simply trucks cut out of card stock paper and modge podged onto the canvas.

A big thanks to Pinterest for the idea of using IKEA spice racks to hold books.

Another DIY Project was sewing a "poof" for his room that could be used as a chair, footrest, or to gain leverage to climb (not an intended purpose!). It is the Amy Butler gum drop pillow pattern and was super simple to make.

Finding a rug that didn't cost $300+ was impossible to find so I decided to go a more cost effective route and order FLOR tiles. They carry a wide range of colors, textures and patterns. I went with simple navy and orange tiles and arranged them in a random checkerboard pattern.

Too bad it never actually looks this clean!

On to Stella's room.......I had originally planned on painting her room a light aqua/teal color but at the recommendation of a friend who said "you are just going to have to paint it pink in a few years when she is old enough to give you her opinion", I went pink. And I love it. It is called Oleander by Sherwin Williams and it isn't too "bubble gum" pink, too bright, or too muted.

The rest of the room's color inspiration came from the fabric below. I bought all the yardage that the shop had left of it and then found out that it was a discontinued pattern. I scoured the internet for more but had no luck finding any more yardage of it. I still went ahead with using it because I loved it so much. I ended up having just enough to make valances for her room and a little leftover beyond that for a few small projects in the room.

There were several DIY projects in her room, starting with an embroidery hoop art. I selected 12 or so different fabrics that had coordinating colors to the original inspiration fabric. And then 12 mixed size wooden embroidery hoops from the craft store. And then randomly arranged them on the main wall above her crib.

A simple and cheap way to fill space with color and pattern.

I had quite a bit of fabric leftover from the hoop project so I tried coming up with a few ways to use it. I didn't have a lampshade for her room yet so I decided to use strips of the different fabrics to create this shade.

I also had some cute vintage flashcards in the house that I hadn't come up with a use for yet. The lightbulb in my head came on and I decided to pull out words that fit together and reminded me of Stella to hang on her wall.

I combined those with old wood spools, wrapped in coordinating card stock, and small pieces of fabric knotted around twine. The combination turned out like this.

What one has, the other wants. So Stella got a poof sewn as well.

The final DIY project was yet again inspired by a pin on Pinterest. When I saw the quote I knew it had to be in her room somewhere because it was so fitting for her. The project involved stencils, paint, an 8x10 picture, and modge podge.

Other special pieces in her room include an antique wood dresser and crib from Grandpa C's family and the bookcase Grandpa K. made for her. We always say that she got the best room in the house because of all of the natural light that comes in. Hopefully she will enjoy this bright, cheery, PINK room for years to come!

A more recent project was finally semi-decorating our master bedroom. We had been using a down comforter with no duvet, mismatched sheets, and nothing on the walls since moving in. See below.....pretty drab, right?

I knew I wanted to use Benjamin Moore's Palladian Blue on the walls and decided to pair it with gray, coral and a little bit of yellow.

First task was to find bedding that we liked which I found online at Urban Outfitters.

Then began the search for curtains (again, on a limited budget). I lucked out in that Target happened to be carrying a lot of items in the coral color scheme and ended up with these coral/gray/cream patterned curtains.

Throw pillows? Target to the rescue again.

Cream lampshade with the perfect coral punch of inside color and glass blue base? You guessed it, Target.

While I would love to replace the cheap knotty pine IKEA  dressers and nightstands that we've had 9+ years, it just isn't in the budget. So they got a makeover with Annie Sloan chalk paint in gray.

This piece had been sitting in storage and pulled back out as the perfect necklace organizer.

We still need to find a few more things to hang on the walls, perhaps find a chair for the window nook, and replace the useless sconce above bed with a headboard but we're enjoying what is complete!