Remodel: Yellow Room Part I

view from doorway. Small, awkward windows but real sunlight!!!

Taping out the walls to do a second coat of yellow paint 

     So as we know, Hubby and I have moved into my Dad's house to help save up for a cross-country move and buying our first house together *squeee* But until that happens (transfer dependent at this point) we have been helping my Dad clean up and re-do some of his house. We have helped him, and a lovely contractor, re-do the kitchen and dining room. We have been living in a downstairs converted basement, which when I lived there in my wild and single-ish days, was huge at 16' by 30' but now with the Hubbs, Baby and the two older kids when they come over it's awkward, small and no privacy (this momma gets stressed when it's my bedtime!). That combined with my inability to maneuver stairs after the C-section, Hubby and I ended up moving a bed up to the spare room and staying upstairs for the past month. It has not been fun since all of our things are downstairs but the baby and I are relegated to the upstairs. With the multiple facets of the problem, my younger Brother (who doesn't want to be mentioned by name here) codename Twigs, and I are going to switch living spaces. He and his girlfriend are moving into the large one room basement area while Hubbs and I will be moving into the two smaller rooms. Bonuses: upstairs, windows, closets, locking doors, separate room for kids. Negatives: much smaller area, less personal privacy.
     So Hubby and I spent an afternoon, painting a second coat of yellow on the walls. The following day I repainted the inside of the closet, the top shelf and the hangar bar. They each took about three coats. I am not sure which primer my Dad had bought but it did not work as well as I had imagined. Hubbs and I bought Behr yellow and it did wonderfully.

see him here

and here, being uber sexy and gungho about this project

Closet painted, floor scrubbed

Hubby was so not happy with these pictures or being informed that indeed they would be put up on the blog. Luckily, he gets over things like that very quickly, and what he doesn't know won't hurt him. *insert evil laugh here*
     The closet is just waiting on me to repaint the shelving unit that fits in the bottom. It was an old entertainment center that my parents had painted completely black for my room when I was an angsty teen, so it obviously would not have matched the room now. I am currently in the process of the first coat of yellow after two coats of primer to cover the black. I plan on making fabric covered bins to fit in the cubbies for the two older kids clothing and shoes. There will also be a place for a hamper and toys. I haven't been able to find curtains that I like for the space, and I really want to test out the current trend of chevron print in grey to go with the yellow. I might end up buying sheets, or painting my own. Since we are condensing space, all of my crafting things need to fit on the top shelf of that closet (gahhh!!!). Considering it currently takes up a five by seven square of the basement, this single shelf will be an insane cut back in space. I will have to invent some creative ways to store fabric, machines and miscellany. Hopefully, by the end of next week the room will be done and I will be able to move on to the next room we have to freshen up. Here I come Pinterest!!!

And here are our not so helpful helpers! Marley, Juniata and Baby Steven all watching us paint. Although Steven does not enjoy just watching and he would much rather be in someone's arms helping

DIY: Dinosaur Crafts

     A few month ago, Home Depot had a Do-it-Herself workshop all about succulents and how to care for them. Their plant supplier gave a bunch of the plants out to the attendees so I now have two adorable succulent gardens that are still alive, thank goodness. I do not have the garden prowess that many people are blessed with so a low maintenance plant like a succulent is perfect, although we will see how well they fair come winter. Anyways, after planting these amazing little potted gardens and giving some away as presents, I still had some plants left over. I ended up giving them away but before that I perused Pinterest looking for neat ideas on how to display them. Luckily, they are very trendy and I found lots of adorable things to do with them, none of which I actually did.
     But I did find this:

I found an entire store on Etsy that makes them *squee*

 Which led to things like these:

found via Pinterest here

found on Etsy here

found here

Found here

Which are all really neat, and cute and I kind of want to decorate Baby's room in dinosaurs. He doesn't even have his own room yet but still. Then I found things like this:
     A lot less useful, but I may or may not have a slight obsession with toy dinosaur crafts and bobbles. It is on my list of things to do this summer to attempt some of these crafts. More than likely, not the dinosaur high heels. But the other ones are pretty adorable and now I have a little boy that will one day need adorable dinosaur paraphernalia.

find it here at Being Alison

 
One other blogger was at the workshop, sponsored by the Home Depot. Being Alison did live Twitter updates during the workshop and posted lots of pictures all about it and I followed her while at the store. It was a ton of fun and I definitely suggest going to one in your area. Make it a date night with some friends, Starbucks before and maybe a couple drinks after. Especially if you found a babysitter already!