24 Olive Street

big girls' room - brainstorming

My 2 girls have been sharing a bedroom since my little one turned 1 yr old. Those of you that know me & my family know that there's a huge age gap in my girls - 9 1/2 yrs. So it's a challenge to decorate a room that's cute enough for a toddler but still grown up enough for a pre-teen. Not to mention I want to make sure the room will still fit with their ages in say 3,4,5 yrs from now...cause I don't want to be redecorating the room every 2 years! Especially since once I'm done with this room I need to work on my room & my son's room. Oh, and I want to paint the rest of the house cause this builder's beige/taupe is kinda driving me crazy.

But that another project for another day...

Last year I painted their room light blue thinking we would do something similar to this idea...

Source

Right now Addie is still in her crib and Olivia has a twin bed & the room looks pretty much the same as when it was painted last year.

Ok for now but definitely not a finished look for sure.

And since Addie just turned 2 I know that I realistically have about 6 months tops before she'll be in a big girl bed. Their room is not very big (about 11x11) so I've gone through a few scenarios - bunk bed, bed w/a trundle, keep Olivia's bed & put Addie in a toddler bed for the next year to buy some time.

As much as bunk beds would save space I really don't like the idea. First off, having Addie in a room with a bunk bed by herself at nap time makes me nervous. Second, every single mom I've know whose kids have had bunk beds say they hate changing the sheets on them.

So that brought me to the trundle bed idea. And then I came across this last week...

Source

Similar colors as our first idea...but a little calmer. And without the hot pink. I gotta say, I'm a bit over that color. But I know my older daughter likes it. And since I never got a decorated room as a kid if she wanted it I would've kept it. Ultimately, it's her room (and Addie's of course) and she has to live with it...and love it. But she liked the yellows & oranges with the blue...and so did I. And I can easily make similar quilts for her & Addie.

The paint color looks like it has a bit more gray in it so we'll see if I paint the girls room or keep it as is. And if you click on the link to the photo you'll notice that she also has a vanity similar to the one I just found...

However, I measured the room and I don't think it will fit in the corner like they have it. So we may end up switching the dresser & vanity configuration. I also couldn't find a similar trundle as they had (the link in the post was from JCPenney but I couldn't find any on their site that I liked) but I did find a similar bed on Overstock.com and it had free shipping so I'm keeping that as an option.

I'm trying to keep this budget friendly so I will be doing a lot of this myself (except for the bed) like the quilt, curtains, vanity redo, etc. But since I'm a planner I've started the brainstorming now so that we figure everything out...and budget for it!

washer woes

I have been dealing with my whole washer/dryer issues for the past week.

Well actually, if you count the other 2 times my dryer died I guess it's been longer!

I figured I'd share some of my thoughts to 1) vent a little :) and 2) I know I'm not the only one that finds it frustrating shopping for washers/dryers so I thought I'd throw in my 2 cents on this.

Thursday - my dryer died. Again. With company coming that day, a load of towels in the washer and dryer and about 2 clean towels in the house.

It's the fuse again but there's obviously something else going on with the dryer to cause it to go out. So instead of fixing it for a 3rd time, and try to find what else is wrong with it, we I decided to just buy new ones. Because our old washer & dryer are about 12 yrs old.

Yep, it's time.

It wasn't in the budget & I was really hoping they'd hold out til we saved up for it but sometimes it just happens this way. Sorry Dave Ramsey...gotta go way off budget a bit this month!

I opted for a top loader because I have a very small laundry 'room'...it's not really a room, more like a closet in my upstairs hallway.

This 'room' needs a serious overhaul! I love having the washer & dryer up there...especially given the amount of laundry I do in a week. And please excuse all of the grainy photos...no natural light.

And since front loaders have a hard time drying out I don't really have room to keep the door open all the time.

I decided to buy from a local store that's been around for many years. I really like to support smaller businesses when I can. The salesman was very knowledeable and I ended up going with a top loading GE washer & dryer (and if anyone's interested in why I chose that model I can certainly elaborate).

I had to wait until Monday for my new washer & dryer. The guys that showed up to deliver it were....ahem, not the best. They were at my house for an hour and a half. I've moved 4 times in the last 10 yrs. It does not take that long to take a washer & dryer out & bring a new one in and hook it up. Well, it does if you're taking smoke breaks every time you walk outside.

Seriously??!!

I'll be honest, I was getting #@$%$^$ off. Cause I don't have anything better to do ya know!

And to top it all off...the washer didn't work. Yes, an hour and a half and the washer didn't even get fully hooked up. So back out of my house it went.

So I took this opportunity to paint my laundry room. Lookin' on the bright side :)

Like the paint (I used Ancient Olive) but now I want to replace the light fixture in my laundry room. There is no natural light which is why I picked a very light paint color. But the florescent light is making the paint color look a bit minty. I like mint in my desserts, not on my walls :)

Tuesday - they came to deliver a new washer. Better guys...who knew what the heck they were doing. And discovered that the 1st guys didn't hook up the dryer vent properly. Ummm...I'm a chick and even I know it's not that difficult!

Then I started attacking the mountains and mountains of laundry.

That's not even all of it!

And I discovered...I hate this machine. The washer that is. I gave it a good go. I washed about 10-15 loads of laundry, trying every option. I wanted to like it. I was so excited to try one of these new fangled machines that everyone talked about :) I expected to love it. But I still hated it.

And here's why...because there's no agitator in the middle the clothes don't, well, agitate enough. I sat & watched an entire cleaning cycle. More than once. I also watched the clothes sitting on top that were not getting washed at all. When I called the salesman he tried to tell me that the extra pump pouring water on the top of the clothing helps with cleaning. Um, no it doesn't. That just makes the clothes wet! Agitation is what cleans. Remember seeing how women used to use washboards? It was the action of rubbing the clothing on the washboard that washed the clothes.

I know he was just trying to explain things to me...ya know, from the 'seminars' he's been to on this machine. Not trying to insult him. He was a nice guy, and very knowlegeable. But I get a little testy when a man tries to tell me how something is supposed to work considering I have just a tad more experience when it comes to this subject :) I'm guessing he doesn't do nearly the amount of laundry I do, if any at all. And the clothes that were sitting on top were not cleaning until they make their way to the bottom...which takes quite a while in some instances. The clothes that do get agitated get all twisted up. I'd almost be afraid to put delicates in there...the only cycle I didn't try.

Not to mention, in the spin cycle it rattled like crazy & sounded like a helicopter landing upstairs. I wasn't aware a helipad was included in the price of my home when I bought it!

So...not happy with it. When you spend that much money on something I feel you should love it. Scratch that - I demand I love it.

Thursday - another new washer & dryer...this time a GE front load washer & dryer.

First impression - I really like these. SO much better than the other ones. The bending over to put stuff in & take stuff out is a bit of a pain...something you just have to deal with when you have front loading machines.

And it doesn't sound like there's a helicopter landing upstairs when on the spin cycle :)

The true test will be when I wash Addie's diapers in a couple days.

So now we I have to figure out what to do with this laundry room...

I took down that awful wire shelf when I painted. At this point I have to figure out the best storage options for such a small room. 

I'm thinking of cabinets on the top with maybe a shelf below them. Several ideas I'm mulling around that I've pinned on my Laundry board on Pinterest.

I also need either a table/counter built above it or pedestal below. I refuse to spend $500 on the manufacturer drawer pedestals, not to mention I don't need drawers, I need space for laundry baskets.

I'm really thinking I want to build I want to have hubby build a pedestal for laundry baskets underneath. That is something I desperately need since there's no room in there for laundry baskets right now. Until now I've kept a laundry basket for towels on top of my dryer.

The only problem...this washer weighs a ton. The thought of pulling these out & then lifting them back in on top of a pedestal doesn't sound appealing :) But I also don't like all the bending over for a front loader so that will probably be what we end up doing.

I will be sure to share an update once it's finished.

Until then... :)

memory board

sort of

It's not really a 'board' but I was at a loss as to what to call this!

My oldest daughter has been wanting a cork board for her room for a while now.

"My friend so-and-so has one...blah blah blah"

But here's why I said no to that...1) I do not want to step on a tack at 3am...or any other time of day for that matter, 2) I don't want the dog eating a tack and paying for a $2K vet bill for surgery, and most importantly 3) I have a toddler running around (who also shares the same room) so the thought of even 1 tack falling on the floor and getting in her hands makes me so super nervous I can't even think about it.

So, here is my solution...

I found this frame at a yard sale last summer. It's big...like 3 ft x 4 ft.

Perfect

Even better...got it for 2 bucks. Score!!

Now, you could also use a frame that had a picture in it. I pick those up at yard sales all the time. See that '24 Olive Street' chalkboard that I use at shows?

I actually painted over the picture with chalkboard paint. Oh yeah, you can do that! It won't be as sturdy as a wood back but it works well just the same. But for this project you could just tear out the picture & paint the frame.

Or, you could buy some trim at your local Lowes, Home Depot, etc. If you don't have fancy tools to make a decorative edge you could buy molding that already has it.

For mine, it was plain wood so I spray painted it pink...aka my daughter's favorite color :)

Then I simply attached some chicken wire to the back with a staple gun.

To hang it, we used screws (molly bolts) at the top corners and the frame actually just sits on it to hold the bulk of the weight.

I didn't want to screw into the frame because I used spray paint & wouldn't be able to fix the holes. Then I used some command strips (1 in the middle and 1 at the bottom of each side, 4 total) to help keep it in place so it wouldn't move. You don't want chicken wire sliding around on your walls! I could've used all screws but I was trying to minimize how many holes I was putting in the walls. Love command strips for that!

To hold everything on her board we just used good 'ol clothespins. I plan on decorating them up with some scrapbook paper & Mod Podge but for now they're plain. I think Olivia has reorganized this board several times & loves it. Not to mention it keeps the mementos contained to one part of the room instead of having them taped all over the walls :)

For now we have to keep that bottom part empty from grabby hands (aka Addie!) but otherwise she has left it alone. And when she gets older it's big enough that she can share it with her big sister :)

progress

After finding a fun new dresser at Pickin' on the Prairie last weekend I decided to do a little bedroom shuffling with my kiddos.

For the last year the baby has had her own room and my older son & daughter were sharing a room. That has worked out ok and my original plan was to wait until the baby was 2 and in a toddler bed before putting the girls together. But now my older daughter is getting a little older and wanting to have friends sleep over so it seems to be a better idea to separate the older 2 now rather than wait. Plus, my little one is on a pretty good schedule so I figured why wait?

So this weekend we spent some time moving things around. And actually, having my older daughter with the little one seems to fit much better than I thought it would. I was worried the crib & changing table would take up too much space. But it seems to fit better than the 2 twin beds did.

Why does it always look worse before looking better??!

All of my kids stuff shoved in my room while we were moving things around. Truth be told...half of that is still in my room!

New paint on the walls & fun new rug for the floor. It's a start...

I still need to paint the ceiling. And I have some fun wall art planned for the walls and new pillows to make for the bed. That will take a little bit of time. My daughter was happy to be able to pull her pink comforter back out & make the room more 'girly'. When she was sharing with her brother we kept things a bit more neutral so it wouldn't be too boyish or too girlish.

Not anymore!

Addie's pretty happy with her new room...

And my son is thrilled (to say the least) to have his own room!

I think he spent half the day just sitting in his bed playing his DS :)

I'm a bit bummed that there's no more 'baby's room'. Especially since Addie was my last baby :( I was trying to hold off switching rooms as long as I could but they do grow up despite your wishes to keep them small!

But I'm also excited to get the kids rooms together. I'll share more pics when they're done. And I'll also share pics of Addie's room when it was a baby's room...cause I just think it was too cute :)

summer wreath

I'm a big yard saler and one of the things I will always pick up at yard sales are wreaths. For a good price of course! It doesn't matter if they have flowers or stuff on them, you can usually pull that stuff off and if there's any bits left on the wreath you can just cover them up with your own embellishments!

I have a mirror by my front door that desperately needed something. So I grabbed one of these grapevine wreaths that I picked up a yard sale recently for a quarter.

I grabbed my hot glue gun & most recent Noel Mignon kit which has some fun summer papers along with some of my own stash & got to work!

I simply made some accordian flowers & embellished with brads, added that fun pinwheel, made a cute little butterfly, added some stickles, then took those cute clothespins & made a little pennant banner.

Originally I tried to just hook those clothespins to the wreath but it just wasn't working out. So in the end I hot glued those to the wreath as well. The only thing that's not glued down is the pennant banner & pinwheel.

And that's it! A cute little wreath to greet visitors at my front door!

And like I said, this wreath is actually hanging in front of a mirror. It just didn't photograph well with all the reflections but here it is in my entryway...

The next project on my list is that lamp shade...and to clean that smudge off the mirror!

bathroom towel rack makeover

Please excuse the poor photos - no natural lighting = grainy photos!

I've been wanting to share this project for quite a while. Several months back I had my hubby redo the towel rack in the kids bathroom. This was a project that I actually wanted to do in our last house but hadn't gotten a chance to do it before we moved.

When we moved into this house the builder had already put in towel racks in the bathrooms. And while they were the cheapest ones possible, I was still thankful that that was one extra thing I didn't have to worry about right away. If you've ever bought a new house there are a lot of 'extras' that you don't think about having to buy til you move in. We learned that the last time & were more prepared this time around.

Well, fast forward about a month or 2...my son, in an attempt to pull his towel off the rack, yanked on it & broke the towel bar right off the wall. Like I said, cheap. And typical Ben when he gets frustrated!

The kids bathroom is a typical new house bathroom...small and square. And with 3 kids sharing it I have to maximize space wherever possible. I thought about putting towel racks on the back of the door but then worried the same thing would happen with those...and then I'd have holes in my door!

So I put the hubby to work. I grabbed some trim pieces from Lowes. The ones I used were already primed & rounded on the edges. All I had to do was get my hubby to cut them to size, then I painted them.

The first trim piece was screwed directly into the wall since the screws would be hidden by the next trim piece.

I was going to use actual doorknobs for the towel hooks, but then I found these cute crystal knobs at Joanns. They were on sale for 50% off, $7.50 for all 3. Yey! The knobs were attached after painting the smaller trim piece turquoise, then the turquoise piece was nailed to the white trim piece with a nail gun, the nails were set in a bit, & then the holes filled in & painted over with a little more paint. I thought I had more pics of these steps but I guess I don't, sorry. But it's really simple!

I used 3 knobs because I obviously have 3 children. I found the wooden letters at Joanns. I think they were a buck or 2, already white. They're just nailed on, the 'B' I had to use 2 nails to keep it straight up and down. Sometimes they move, I just adjust them back.

And now there's no question who's towel is whose! My daughter also used a hair wrap towel thingie (technical term here!)  so with the towels hanging by the ribbon hooks there's room for her to hang that here as well. Although I didn't show that cause it would take away from my pretty photo :)

My only 'complaint' with this project (and it's too late now to fix) is that I would have put the outer knobs a bit closer to the edges. We centered all of them, not realizing that it would've looked better to have them spaced a bit more. Oh well, I still love it anyway!

Since my son cannot hang something up to save.his.life, I also added a ribbon 'hook' on the towel to make it easier and avoid picking towels up off the floor! Nothing fancy, just sewn on the towels about an inch from the center.

If you do this, be sure to either sew under the edges or seal the edge with a lighter.

One final thing that I thought I'd add...

I like to change things up a bit in my decorating. I get bored if things stay the same. In a bathroom you can't really change things up much. I would like to pain this bathroom but it will still essentially stay the same.

So what I do is I change the shower curtain every few months. I have a few that I use, about 3-4 that I switch out. I have a Christmas one, then the snowflake one that goes up after Christmas until spring. And then I have 2 'regular' non-seasonal ones.

Check it out...

The one on the right is the one we have up now. I just make sure to stick with similar colors, & maybe switch out some of the towels. I usually stick with greens, turquoise & an accent color. And when you switch out your shower curtains they'll last longer. I've had that snowflake one for years.

And this way the room looks like it has gotten a makeover every few months!

shelves from pallets

Today I thought I'd share my little project in our downstairs bathroom. It's a half bath and it is just inside the door that leads to our garage. Right now it's pretty plain. Eventually I'd like to put some beadboard or something along the long wall opposite the toilet & sink & paint the room a light grey. But for now it's builder's beige/taupe.

I knew I wanted some shelving over the toilet, more for decorative purposes than anything. When we moved here I had my hubby (to his disapproval) save the wood from the pallets we had left over from sodding the yard in our old house. Can I tell you that I do not miss that red clay?? The gardener in me was very happy to say goodbye to it last year :)

I saw some ideas on Pinterest & set out to measure what I wanted so my hubby could cut the wood for me. And this is what we came up with:

It's hard to get a good picture in a room with no natural light but you get the idea. I'm pretty happy with them. If you look closely you can see that the pallet pieces weren't exactly wide enough for the shelf part so we just put 2 pieces together to form the bottom.

I made sure to put that 'fragile' piece in the front. Love that!

The brackets are from Lowes. The tin bucket, fake soap & milk bottle are all from Real Deals. The bird picture I found on clearance at Hobby Lobby for 8 bucks. I'm also thinking of adding a little mini fabric pennant banner on the top shelf to add some more color. I think once the walls are a light grey these shelves will really look nice. Although, I already love them.