Office Turned Baby Room

I decided that my weekend project would be painting the baby room. For as long as we've lived here, the second upstairs bedroom has been used as an office slash dog room slash closet. All at once. Since our boy will be here in just about 13 weeks, we figured it time to relocate the office / dog room / closet to another area in the house and really get crackin' on this kid's room.

Oh, the work we cut out for ourselves! While the husband and I have only been married for a year and a half, we have accumulated quite a lot of crap stuff. Very important stuff (can you sense the sarcasm in my typing?).

See all the crap?

We started the adventure by emptying a filing cabinet that weights nearly 1 million pounds, empty. One of the drawers was perfectly organized, with labeled files and everything. The other? The other had become a junk drawer of sorts. The catch-all for everything that didn't have a home somewhere else. Going through that was a killer, but now it is so nicely organized in our new office nook.

Once we got that complete, we realized we couldn't really empty baby's room until the green couches were gone. All of our office stuff was to be moved into a little nook that had been taken up by a big couch and a cozy chair. Two items that we rarely used. When we moved in, we had no furniture. Within a week, we had a sectional and two couch / chair sets. One couch and chair set had to go. We decided to donate the couch and chair, since they were in perfect condition. With help from our brother-in-law, they were gone from our house and the office nook was put together (stay tuned for a post on that soon).

Finally, we got around to painting the baby room. We went with non-traditional colors for a couple of reasons: blue is rather over done and I love the color orange. The stripes will only be on one wall. I hope to have the crib right there, but we will have to see how everything fits. Apparently babies have a lot of stuff, and this is a small room.

Next on the docket for baby projects? Furniture painting (changing table and book shelf).

Stay tuned!

Thrifty!

I had a few errands to run today, including REI (favorite store!) and the fabric store. I also had a few things that needed to be donated to the local Goodwill. I've found that I have frequented the donation line, but haven't taken the time to peruse the shelves.

As of late, my mom has been talking up this thrift store that opened a few months ago near her work. She was at work today, so I called to see if she wanted to meet me at Bethesda to wander the aisles. Mom has a new thing for dishes and she finds beautiful ones at random thrift stores all the time. I was pumped.

I've seen super DIY projects involving trays that have been spiffed up and I wanted to try it for myself. I just needed a tray (or two). Mom said that I would "for certainly" find one at Bethesda.

We walked into the thrift store and saw the sign that saved me even more money: 60% off housewares. Woo-hoo! Mom brought me right to the aisle with all of the dishes. She pointed out the sets she had her eye on. She also pointed out the things that I had dropped off at her house to donate (super cool to see, by the way!). I saw my old frying pan, a casserole dish and a soup bowl that I had dropped at her house a week ago.

Mom and I did a quick swoop down each aisle, then started over walking more slowly, actually picking through the items.

We soon realized  that we needed a cart. It was that good.

Here's my loot:

This cute green mail sorter was $1.49 (and then 60% off!). It had some black and gold labels that I peeled off before I took a picture. I promise I'll get better at this blog with pictures thing soon! I plan to put it on the wall at the top of our stairs because the hubs and I are terrible with mail. It'll be nice to have a place for it to rest.

This white pot with a lid... My dear friend has a red ceramic pot that sits on her counter for the food scraps to be taken out to the compost bin. I immediately wanted one for myself! Her mom picked hers up at a thrift store, and all I could think of was Nordic Ware Dutch Oven (um, expensive). But! I found this one at Bethesda for 99 cents! AND THEN! 60% off! I am already in love with this store.

And the I found what I went to the thrift store for in the first place. The trays! The price was a bit surprising to me, but, it did come with three trays. And, it was on sale for...you guessed it, 60% off. 6 dollars and some odd cents for three trays? Yes, please! (I still haven't gotten around to taking a picture of them. In fact, they're still in my car.)

I had a few tips from some blogging friends that Lowe's may have a better spray paint selection than my local Home Depot, so I plan on heading that way in the next few days to get to work. I may also stop by the brand new Fleet Farm (one of my favorite stores). My mom used to say: If you can't find it at Fleet Farm, you probably don't need it.

Fish Stand

Hello, friends and happy Monday!

I am in need of your help. You see, I teach kindergarten and each spring, we do a unit on animals. We study goldfish and, at the end of the unit, students that get the "okay" from their parents, are allowed to take a goldfish or two home. One year, none of my students were allowed to take the fish home. I was stuck with 9 teeny tiny goldfish. My husband (he was my fiance at this time) remembered the old aquarium in his parents garage. It was the aquarium that he took to college. The same aquarium that my father-in-law got as a middle schooler. The hubs was willing to take all 9 goldfish.

We searched and searched and searched for the perfect stand for the aquarium. And then we realized that the perfect one was waaaay to expensive. So we used an old TV stand that Husband's parents also had in their garage.

And it is feo (that's Spanish for "ugly"). See? (Sorry if you have this item in your house. A friend of mine does, and it makes me feel bad for calling it ugly. Everyone has their own opinions, right?)

I am going to redo the fish stand, but I need some help choosing colors, etc. I also am thinking about making bigger doors...what do I use to make bigger doors? Plywood? These are the things that I just don't know.

Suggestions please!

My $3 Centerpiece

Yesterday I was given a 100 dollar bill to "play" with. I was overjoyed, in fact, I think I smiled for an hour. What a wonderful gift!

So far, I have spent $3. It was awesome, but it was also a little bit sad to break the Benjamin so easily and so quickly. I spent it at the dollar store, so it wasn't that bad. And, I was able to make a wonderfully patriotic centerpiece for the 4th of July (even though we won't be here!).

I saw this balloon weight right away and thought it looked pretty neat.

My original thought was to put it in a tall vase with some "pebbles" I already had at home. After a few more minutes of wandering the aisle of the dollar store, I found this glass...I don't know, is it considered a bowl? dish? I also saw that they had some of the pebbles I had at home, but in blue. How fantastic!

  

Assembling the center piece was easy-peasy. I found the clear tea light holders in my bin of supplies that I had purchased for figuring out wedding centerpieces. The red ones were part of a housewarming gift from my godmother. They usually spend their time lined up on top of the toilet tank, but I think I like this look better: