Anna's Not a Little Girl Anymore

Anyone needing proof of that can check out her brand new room. Technically, it's the same room. It's just been updated. Gone are the bubble gum pink walls and the loft bed perfect for a little girl. Now we have bright turquoise walls with hot pink accents, plenty of storage, and space for our growing girl to create. Here's how it happened.

Back in January, Anna and I began talking about redoing her room, taking it from "little girl space" to "teenager zone". She was on board, and ready to make some changes. So we scoured Pinterest for ideas, drew up some plans, and then waited. And waited. And waited. It was June before we could get started on this project, mainly because we had so many other irons in the fire.

First order of business was to choose a paint color and paint. Anna went with this deep turquoise called Rushing Stream from Valspar. We chose the Valspar HD paint, which went on in one coat and is super rich and vibrant. And with that white trim, it just pops!

After paint came construction. We knew we had two major pieces to construct in this room: a bed with tons of built-in storage for books, and a desk so she has a space to be creative. First up was the bed, and after much discussion and brainstorming Jas dreamed up this perfect bed. It utilizes the platform from her loft bed, but underneath are now three full-depth drawers on casters that she can roll out to get to all her books. You wouldn't believe the amount of storage in those drawers! He added a face-frame all the way around so that the whole piece looks custom and built-in, which looks amazing! Anna wanted hot pink accents, so we found sheets in the perfect shade at Walmart. We also picked up a blackout curtain in the same hot pink. 

The desk was next to build, and after once again doing plenty of inspiration research on Pinterest, we went with a desk made from modular shelving attached to the wall. It adds all the space she needs, but in a much smaller footprint. And, with no bulky legs and nothing sitting on the floor, it makes the room feel larger. 

Anna wanted all her clothes in the closet, so the dresser is now being used to house all her art supplies. Three shoebox-size containers fit side-by-side in each drawer, so all her arts and crafts materials are easily accessible from the desk.

The last part was adding finishing touches. I found some hot pink desk accessories at Target and Hobby Lobby. The pink cow was already on hand, as were the various turquoise and pink journals. We reused one of the lamps from our room, and I added turquoise and hot pink glitter jewels to the shade to make it really stand out. Mom found a beautiful and oh-so-unique piece of art to hang above the bed. Little by little it has come together over the course of the month.

The last big piece to finish was the desk chair. I asked people to be on the lookout for a metal folding chair for as cheap as possible. The condition didn't matter, as long as it still folded and no legs were broken. Dad came through almost immediately, finding an old Samsonite chair for free in Chaffee. Jas had to rebuild the seat, because it had water damage. I sanded like crazy, and then we painted it glossy white. We added a new foam cushion (courtesy of the old padded headboard) plus some adorable fabric Anna found at Hobby Lobby. It turned out super cute!

All that's left is to add some small decorative frames for pictures on the dresser, and either a fabric-covered bulletin board or pillow made with the chair fabric. Then we can call this project finished! (And start on Connor's room!) :)

A New Headboard

That title really isn't very exciting, but my brain is tired and I couldn't come up with anything catchy. :) Jas built me a new headboard for our bed, not because there was anything wrong with the old one, but I had just  grown tired of it. When we first moved into this house, the newly built bed had no headboard. We eventually settled on a padded one, drew up some plans, built it, and then covered it with a chocolate brown fabric to match the nightstands. It was simple and functional, but not very pretty.

Fast forward a couple of years, and my mind has been percolating with possible headboards for months. Thanks to Pinterest, I found plenty of inspiration, but nothing that was perfect. So as usual, I shared what I would like with my wonderful husband, he took me to Menard's to research outside-the-box options to create my vision, we settled on a plan, and then he built it. It's our proven method for creating things for our home, and I love the way it plays out.

For this particular project, I knew I wanted a more "rustic" look, but not too over-the-top. I liked the look of several wooden headboards I'd seen via the interwebs. Like this one, for example . . .

But I also liked the idea of lights attached to the headboard itself, instead of lamps on nightstands. Sort of like this one . . . 

Jas was on board with my vision, so we made a trip to Menard's to do some research. We looked at several possible options, including cedar tongue-and-groove siding and decorative wood panels, but in the end we decided on beadboard in an unfinished whitewood. The knots give it so much more depth and character, and that's what makes it beautiful. We chose to stain it a dark walnut to blend with the existing dark wood furniture in the room. Plus, the walnut stain was leftover from our coffee table and end table we built for the basement family room. 

The biggest decision to make was really the choice of light fixtures. After much back-and-forth, I decided on these oil rubbed bronze wall lights from Menards, with a gorgeous alabaster glass shade. We mounted them upside down, and the great thing about them is that they rotate, so if you want to read in bed you can position them accordingly. They really finish it off nicely!

Jas used the existing structure from the first headboard, but removed the padding and fabric cover. We attached the beadboard (which is tongue-and-groove) to the face, then finished it out with some pine moulding trim. After a couple of coats of polyurethane stain, we attached the lights and hauled the whole thing back upstairs. It looks beautiful!

New Laundry Lights

Once upon a time, I saw an adorable clothespin chandelier that Sherry Petersik (from Young House Love) created for her self-imposed Pinterest challenge. And I knew that I wanted to create something similar for our laundry room. Fast forward to today, when we finally got around to completing it. And it was so simple that I wish we'd jumped on it earlier.

In all fairness, I couldn't create a chandelier, because we have two lights in our laundry room (one in the middle of the room and one above the laundry sink). So, Jas and I brainstormed and came up with these slightly-smaller-in-diameter drum shades. And they look amazing!

And the best part was that most of what we used we already had on hand (I love when that happens!). We used the existing light bases, but changed them from two bulbs to one. We also used CFL bulbs to minimize heat. (The bulb sits pretty far from the clothespins, but still . . . ) Making the shades was super simple. We took a roll of hardware cloth (1" openings) and formed it into a cylindrical shape that would fit flush with the interior of our light base. Jason used the open ends of the cut wire to twist around the other side, making a fairly seamless cylinder. He came up with an ingenious method for attaching the cylinder to the light base. He drilled four small holes in the base, and then we used wire leftover from our drop ceiling installation in the basement to attach the hardware cloth to the light base. 

Attaching the clothespins was the easy part. Sherry Petersik had already demonstrated on her blog the different ways to attach them, and I'd already decided I liked this zigzag pattern best. It was easy peasy (Anna even helped  me do the second light!). 

These lights look fantastic in the daytime (I love the added texture to the room!), but they really shine at night. (No pun intended!) The light pattern reflected on the ceiling is really, really pretty.

Total cost for this project? Well, we already had the hardware cloth and wire. We reused the light bases, so the only things we bought were clothespins. There are 416 of them here (208 per light), so we ended up spending $9 for these two fabulous statement pieces. Love them!

We have pendants!

This project qualifies as taking the longest amount of time to come to fruition. But in all fairness, 3/4 of that time has been spent trying to decide exactly what we wanted. Here's the breakdown:

1. When we drew up the plans for this house, there was not supposed to be a light above the kitchen island. We had asked our contractor to simply leave an open box above the island, so that we could add a fixture later. (We'd kind of settled on a modern halogen track system that we'd found at Buchheit's.) The only thing not right on the house when it was delivered was that they had added two lights above the island. (Considering that this is all we didn't like about the house, we didn't complain. This was small potatoes.)

2. The problem with the installed lights is that they were centered in the kitchen, not centered above the island. So just adding new light fixtures wasn't an option, because it would be even more noticeable that they weren't centered over the island. So we started brainstorming.

3. Three years later, we had put that project on the back burner while we tackled everything else you've read about here. But this fall we were discussing it again, and trying to come up with a plan. Jas was against pendants, because he thought they'd interrupt the flow and make it difficult to see from the living room to the kitchen (and vice versa). I really wanted pendants, but didn't want run-of-the-mill pendants. Also, the thought of climbing into the attic and moving the junction boxes, plus drywalling and painting over the existing holes after we added new ones did not seem appealing. So we looked at all our options. 

4. We finally settled on pendants, with two conditions. One, they had to be different (I definitely wanted to DIY them for a custom look.). Second, they couldn't be too low (disrupting the view from one room to another). 

5. Menard's had three pendant light kits on clearance over the winter, so we snagged those and began the long and arduous process of finding the perfect pendants. And when I say long and arduous, I'm not kidding. We spent over six months looking for exactly what we wanted. We were going to do Mason Jar lights, but it seems everybody's doing those (plus, the light they cast wouldn't really focus downward, which we wanted for the island -- we definitely wanted more "task" lighting). It seemed like every store we went to, we searched for odd items we could re-purpose as pendants (so they'd be one-of-a-kind).

6. Eventually, we discovered dark brown and green flower pots at Dollar General. $6 apiece. Hallelujah, the search was over! They were exactly the right size and shape, so we snapped them up and took them home.  

7. Next, Jas drilled holes in the bottom of the flower pots so the pendant light kit could go through. Then we had to paint them, which took several coats and lots and lots of sanding. We went with brushed nickel, so they'd match the rest of our fixtures.

8. The last step was building the box. Remember earlier how I mentioned that the lights were off-center and Jas didn't want to climb into the attic to redo the junction boxes, plus re-drywall the ceiling to cover the old holes? Yeah, he hadn't changed his mind on that. :) And I don't blame him. So we compromised with a shallow box that the pendants attach to, that is attached to the ceiling. The box had to be large enough to cover the old holes, and once we painted it white it fit right in. (The kids even got to help install it!)

I'm super happy with the way they turned out. And the light is just perfect! Jas painted the insides of the pendants white, so more light is reflected. And they're short enough that they don't block your view from one room to the other, yet they're substantial enough to fit with that massive island. Love, love, love them!