DIY Dresser Makeover

I got a bedroom set from a friend when I first moved into our apartment that looked like this:

My friend must have had this set for a long time because I opened up one of the drawers and a baby picture of her fell out! 

Since we have moved I decided I really wanted to get Joe and I a new(ish) set and give this set a makeover for the nursery. There are so many decorating projects and things we have to get done in the new place that I find myself trying to do two things at once, or getting distracted while working on a project and starting on another. I actually painted this dresser green and then put it in Ellie's nursery a couple days ago. I was bringing the drawers for the second dresser out onto the patio and got half of them painted when I decided to bring the first dresser out and do a design on them with painters tape.

Are you getting tired of chevrons too? Yeah! Chevrons are probably taking over the internet! I LOVE my area rug though. It brings the attention away from the boring taupe walls. 

Even though chevrons have gotten a little overused I really think it still looks cute in a babies room. I used painters tape and eyeballed the spacing. I suppose you could measure each stripe if you want it to be exact, but I had no problem making it look even. 

I used an ivory color to go with the green. I felt afterward that the green I picked out was a little too "primary" and I wish I had picked a softer shade. I'm still happy with it though! It will transition well from a nursery to a kids room. I peeled the painters tape off while it was still a little wet and it worked out just fine.

After they were dry I screwed on the new silver handles I picked to replace the gold ones. You have no idea how much I wanted to purchase these adorable handles that were shaped like branches, but $15 a handle is just a little too much for a babies room!

DIY Kitty Tower - Kitty's 13th Birthday!

Mrs. Peacock turned 13 a few days ago! What an old lady! Since we got a much bigger place to live I thought it would be nice to give her a little spot to hang out and look down on the lowly humans. It would also be a great place for her to feel safe away from a dog, whenever we get one. 

We purchased a couple of floating shelves from Lowes because they looked nice and were wide enough for Kitty to be comfortable. Make sure you look at how much weight the shelves you buy can hold, since you wouldn't want your kitty to fall down. Mrs. Peacock is only 6 pounds and these shelves can hold 12 pounds, so I think they will work out just fine. 

Make sure you put the shelves where there is at least one wall stud to support it. We used drywall brackets for the side that couldn't be drilled into a stud.  

Do a staggered set up so kitty can jump easily to each level! We put two above her kitty tower so she can get pretty high up and one behind the couch because she loves to sit with us.

It's really important that you put something they can dig their claws into so they don't slide off. I used a double thickness of black felt for the tops. My kitty loves fleece but I didn't have any to make pillows out of for her. A good idea is also to use scraps of carpet for scratching or an old bath mat.

Happy Birthday Mrs. Peacock!

Baby Bump - 28 Weeks!

Name: Ellie. Still no decision on a middle name.

Belly Button? Innie. My mom says her belly button never popped out, so I'm hoping it stays in!

Feeling: Tired. Lots of tossing and turning at night and my shoulders are killing me! We had to sleep on the floor for a few nights and it messed me up.

Food I'm Missing: Prosciutto. I've been watching the Food Network and I wish I could have some on a panini or bagel. 

Movement: Still kicking like crazy. She is even stretching out and hitting my belly in two spots at once, which is weird feeling.

Looking Forward to: More time off from work! I'm so spoiled, I know, but I would love to get our house in order. We finally got into our house last week and got all our stuff delivered. We actually set up internet and cable! We've never had cable before so it's pretty fun to have a fancy cable box that records things. I can actually watch all the daytime cooking shows I love but never get to see. As you can see from the picture we got some tools for Joe so he could set up some shelving in the bathroom. We set up curtain rods too, but it's now up to me to sew the curtains! 

It was pretty lame that I had to jump right back into work as soon as we got all our stuff delivered. There are so many things to get done, like making new appointments and getting on the waiting list for daycare. By the time I get home I'm too tired to do any unpacking. Joe found the box that his Playstation was in so pretty much all the unpacking won't be happening until I-don't-know-when. But it's okay! I'm supposed to get some more time off to get everything organized anyway.

DIY Inspiration Links

I've been so anxious to start getting our home together but there is nothing I can do until we get our house and furniture. This means I've been spending a LOT of time on Pinterest and Google maps, seeing how far away Babies R Us and Ikea are from us. Turns out it will be a good three hour trip to Texas if we want to shop in-store! I think it still beats paying for shipping, but it looks like shopping will take up quite a bit of time.

Here are some pretty sweet links I found:

I've got some jeggings that have a broken button and I think I might use them to make these DIY Maternity Jeans.

This Painted Dresser Inspiration is some of the best painting jobs I've seen on dressers!

27 DIY Ways to Hide the Litter Box led me to a website I feel like a FAILURE for not knowing about before, Ikea Hackers. This FAKTUM Kitty Loo looks easy to customize!

Speaking of home improvements for Mrs. Peacock, I've been thinking of installing kitty shelves so she can have a place up high to hang out. Since we are going to get a dog soon I think she would be pretty happy having a safe place to hang out where the dog won't be able to reach her.

Not only am I thinking about giving her a sweet kitty play space and a hidden litter box, but her bad breath is just about driving me crazy! I really want to improve her diet. Poor kitty had really bad teeth when we got her and the vet wanted over a thousand dollars to clean them. There is just no way we could ever afford that, so I checked out feeding cats a raw diet with a supplement from Felines Pride. The thought of getting a meat grinder is a little ridiculous since we eat a pescatarian diet ourselves, but I think I can use my food processor just as easily. I hope it can improve her teeth, poor baby!

The End of the Road

So our road trip is actually over! I can't believe how it flew by. I also can't believe the changes we went through along the way. Not only did my belly grow bigger but we went from the frozen tundra of the arctic to living on a boat, into the fog and rain, ancient forests, the coastlines sunny beaches, the dry desert, country farmland and now I suppose we are now near swamplands. We haven't really gotten the chance to check out the bayous or any other "Louisiana stuff" yet, but I'm looking forward to it. I feel like we have had enough driving for now and taking a trip to New Orleans would be a little too much. I'm happy to hang out in the hotel until we get a house. We have been sleeping a whole lot, that's for sure! Road trips are exhausting.

Speaking of a house, my mind is absolutely going crazy with DIY home decor and furniture redos! I have so many plans and I have no idea how long it will take me to get them done. We took a little trip into town to see what it had to offer in the way of home improvements. Thank goodness there is a Lowes! I have a feeling it will be my best friend.

I promise no more "vacation photos" after this. But I chose one favorite shot from each day of our trip to show how far we went (excluding boring days where we didn't take any.) We drove over 4,000 miles in total. I felt SO happy that the car made it the whole way with no trouble! We had a really close call in an Diego when a truck in front of us didn't secure some metal pieces it was hauling and one fell off onto the road. We didn't have time to stop and ran right over it! It got stuck under the car and was dragging along the road. We had to pull over and a stranger came to help us get it out. Lucky for us nothing got damaged and we made it just fine. We also made it almost the whole way without getting pulled over. Unfortunately, a mere 22 miles from our final destination, we got pulled over for speeding. No biggie though!

I'm really happy we got to make this trip. Since I was in college it has always been a dream of mine to drive across the country in an old Volkswagen bus. I imagined stopping along the road to sleep by the beach and play my little ukulele on the roof at sunset... how bucolic! Maybe I didn't get my little Volkswagen and I certainly never got the hang of playing ukulele, but I had the best possible experience! Going from Alaska all the way to the deep south never crossed my mind years ago when I dreamt of this cross country trip, but now that I've done it I wouldn't have it any other way.

Weekend Nails #15

I feel like my nails look like a Tiffany's box! Mint Candy Apple is my favorite nail color and the silver went really well with it. It was harder than I originally thought to paint my nails on our road trip. I managed to find time while Joe was skating, but I really couldn't do any designs. Most of the time we were in the car and it was too bumpy. I'm hoping I can make a nice little organizer for my polishes in our new place... I have so many DIY ideas swimming around in my head I can hardly sleep!

Essie - Mint Candy Apple

Essie - Nothing Else Metals

Roswell, New Mexico

Joe loves science fiction. In fact, one of the first things we did together when our long distance relationship started was to watch The X-Files on Netflix together. We watched every episode up until season 9 (it's not really the X-Files without Scully and Mulder!) Of course we also watched plenty of Ancient Aliens and Steven Hawkings Universe. We even dressed up as Agent Scully and Mulder this past Halloween, so it was natural for us to make a stop at Roswell on our road trip.

It was a lot less touristy than we originally thought it would be. There were a few little alien guys in front of some hotels and fast food places, but it wasn't anything too "vegas style." I think in my imagination there was going to be big vegas style aliens lights on top of buildings and stuff... I don't know why I thought that! There were only a couple of little alien themed shops that we didn't get to go into, since most everything in town closed at 5pm. It really is just a quiet little town surrounded by farms, where allegedly some aliens just so happened to crash land in 1947. Still it was a fun place to stop and see! 

The International UFO Museum and Research Center was our only stop, but it made it totally worth it. It had a lot of information and news clippings from the actual events, plus some fun little exhibits to take pictures with. The government claims it was only a weather balloon, but it was all very suspicious if you ask me! 

Listening to a recording of the Roswell reports on the radio.

Ancient Aliens!

Different types of UFO shapes witnessed.

Props from a TV movie based on the Roswell crash reports.