Room by Room- Kitchen

The kitchen was NOT originally on our to-do list for before baby.  Butttt, it's something we've wanted to do since we moved in, and while we were in crazy-adrenaline-remodeling-nesting mode, we decided to add that on. We (and by we, I mean Ryan) repainted the cabinets, got new hardware, new countertops, new sink/faucet/disposal, and retiled the backsplash. We definitely stuck to our budget better than we did to our timeline :)

We have a LOT of pictures from the kitchen. It's easiest to just show side-by-side comparisons. 

Before: 

After:

During Photos: 

Cheap (or free) Accessorizing:

We used to have to scurry from the sink to the oven on the other side of the kitchen to dry our dripping hands. This resulted in water spots on the whole front of the oven door. Very unattractive. We got this over-the-cabinet towel bar to solve the problem, and it also gives us a chance to add color. 

My mother-in-law gave me this cake stand base. I found a cover for it at Goodwill for $3!! Now we can leave our baked goods out in this attractive display versus a tupperware container. 

We moved our fruit from the eat-in kitchen space to add edible color to this area of the kitchen. Ryan's special decorating touches are his beloved cow creamer and certificate of licensure haha :)

We bought this table runner from Home Goods for $10! It adds a nice pop of color to our otherwise plain kitchen table. To further (freely) accessorize, I took a stainless steel strainer we had and added fresh veggies from my sister's garden. Storage solution turned centerpiece. 

Recording the Moment

My sister shot maternity photos for us today. Here are some of my favorites: 

Room by Room- Playroom

The brightest room in our house, surrounded on three walls with windows, used to be this.  We converted it into our playroom/toy room, and have it ready to go for baby! 

We got rid of everything in the room except this chair. It served as our design base. 

We couldn't believe when we found a Graco pack'n'play at Buy Buy Baby with the matching damask print. We also took the rug that had been in our living room and moved it to the sunroom. It was the perfect size, color and texture.

The beautiful crocheted blankets in this room were both shower gifts. The aqua one was made by my grandma and the white/gray chevron one was made by my friend Jenny. They're perfect for the room! 

Since it is a child's playroom, we didn't want it to be all black and cream. I was at Marshall's one day and saw this mirror. I loved it. Brought it home and put it in the room. Loved it even more. This is how we picked the rest of the color scheme for the room. 

We had gone three years without the ability to turn a light switch on in this room! Because of where the outlet is that is connected to the switch, a floor lamp or a swag lamp were our best options. We went with this fun, patterned lamp from lampsplus.com. 

 Then we had to figure out the wall decor. We had purchased nine picture frames from ReHouse, for $3 each, a couple of years ago and never used them for the originally-intended project. They were brown, so I spray painted them with a color that we had. We found the images online and printed them. Super affordable!

I found this print at Burlington, already framed for a small wall in the room. 

My mom bought this Mackenzie Child garbage can for baby and the stand was a piece of furniture my parents were getting rid of a few years back. 

We got so many fun books and toys from friends and family at our showers. No one planned this, but we ended up getting at least three different books in both an English and Spanish version! 

  I didn't do too many projects in this room. I did, however, give this old lamp a little facelift to make it more playful. It started as a brass base hand-me-down that I spray painted and I brush painted the lampshade white. Then I added dots with black acrylic paint and, lastly, added tulle. I already had all of the materials besides the sponge brushes, so this project cost $0.50 :)

The final touch was tying the curtains back to let in more light with matching black tulle. 

We have checked this one off of our to-do list. Room complete and ready for baby. 

Reasons to Celebrate- Baby Shower with my Side

Over July 4th weekend, my mom hosted a beautiful shower for me, with lots of help by my sisters and aunts! Thank you SO much to everyone who came. Everything was perfect and we couldn't feel more spoiled. Baby Z is lucky for sure!

Almost there!