New House Update: Modern Kids Room + Nursery

Oh my goodness, I really owe you a catch up. For the last year and a half, Rich and I had been looking to buy a house in a great neighborhood of Pittsburgh. The real estate in the area was super competitive and after months of looking at places above our price range and below our expectations, we started to feel discouraged. We knew we couldn't afford something completely "move-in ready," but we loved all the DIY's and renovations we did at our old house, so we confidently bought a big old fixer-upper. Let's call it the Yellow Brick House.

We thought the renos we wanted to do would take a couple months, so we planned on staying at my parents' house in the interim. I found out I was pregnant with our second daughter on the day we moved out of our old house. I had packed away all of my maternity clothing in a storage unit, thinking we'd be in our new house by the time I started showing...and you know where I'm going with this, right?

We had NO IDEA what we were getting ourselves into. Once we dove into demo, we realized we had/should do some pretty major overhauls. ALL of the ceilings were drop ceilings, wall-to-wall carpeting covered original hardwood floors (that were in rough shape), the plaster walls were covered in wallpaper and needed cracks repaired and glue removed. And the icing on the cake is that we needed to do almost all of the work ourselves in an effort to stay in budget.

I'll go into more details later, but the short story is that nine months later and one WEEK before our second baby was due, we finally moved into the Yellow Brick House. We've been here a little over a month now and it's starting to feel like home. We still have so many finishing details and projects to tackle over the next few months/years, but we feel spoiled to be in such an awesome area and place.

This very first (yay!) Before and After is the girls' bedroom. It was (and is) the only room in our house that feels somewhat finished. We prioritized it so that Emerson, our toddler, would feel right at home when we moved in. And even though we have enough bedrooms for both kids to have separate rooms, we love the idea of the girls sharing a space. Marlowe won't be in the same room as her sis for awhile, but she has a crib ready and waiting for her. Here's what we've done in this space so far.

DIY White Woodland Christmas

Last Christmas, our living room walls were dark paneled wood. I tried my best to decorate for the holiday and lighten up the mood in the room, but I just couldn't get over how dark and cavernous the dark wood panels made everything feel. It was right after the holiday that we decided to paint the paneling white. And this year, I couldn't wait to decorate our space. Everything came together quite nicely and I went with a white woodland theme. Some of my favorite details include our tiny gingerbread woodland animals on the mantel, cinnamon scented pinecones in the tablescape, and the amazing DIY customizable wall plate from adorne by Legrand on our wall.

To create our tablescape, I used live garland from Trader Joes (cut down to about 5-6 feet), cinnamon scented pinecones from our local grocery store, clementines for color, and a mixture of candlesticks and ivory candles.

 

To create the mantel display, I used more of the live garland as a swag and made a gingerbread woodland forest with IKEA DRÖMMAR and Vinter cookie cutters. 

This is the custom wall plate from adorne by Legrand that I decorated using metallic cardstock, boxwood twine, a tiny plastic deer head, and thin red ribbon. It's the perfect addition to our decorations and provides a lot of visual interest to an otherwise empty wall. The coolest thing about it was how easy it was to decorate. Almost all the DIYs I tackle end up taking more time than I anticipate, but designing this wall plate took about a half hour start to finish. Decorating the plate (not the electrical set-up, clearly) would be a great project to do with kids. 

Click through to see the full DIY and more details! 

DIY Modern Vanity

I had this antique mahogany vanity in our bedroom for quite some time. And even though it was gorgeous, it was too large for our space and wasn't comfortable as an everyday makeup table. So we found it a new loving home and went to work creating a more minimal modern vanity more suited for our space.

I wanted something sleek and able to organize my makeup. One, among many, surprises of pregnancy has been my insatiable desire for order and organization. Maybe it's part of the whole nesting thing, but I suddenly want, no NEED, systems in place for everything. Closets, cabinets, drawers, you name it, I want to organize it.

I saw the EKBY ALEX shelf awhile back and thought it may look cool paired with tapered wood legs. Rich spray painted shelf brackets white and stained tapered legs with a cherry oil stain. And ta-da! A pretty rad looking set up for minimal cost and efforts. Here's how we did it...

DIY Breakfast Nook Reveal - Before + After

When we first moved into our house, dark wood paneling was EVERYWHERE. It completely overwhelmed our small rooms and created a cavernous vibe. We knew the breakfast nook, a room right off our kitchen, was a space we would spend a lot of time and both craved light-filled minimalism.

We spent a few weeks debating the concept of painting real wood paneling. Were we ruining perfectly good wood? Should we just live with it? Can we take down the wood and use it somewhere else in the house? We came to the conclusion that the most important thing was us loving our space. And we love white walls. So we painted them white. And afterwards, we realized how much we love not only white walls, but white paneled walls. The texture is so cool and adds a dynamic visual. We loved them so much that we recreated a faux paneled look in our upstairs hallway.

Here are the before shots of the breakfast nook. If you can believe it, these photos are actually much more light-filled and exposed than the room was in reality. If I were to put up a true representation, it would look like I shot this space at night.


Check out the full breakfast nook reveal after the jump!

THE KITCHEN

The day is finally here! I am so excited to share our kitchen. It has been a LONG time coming and this project felt, at times, as if we tackled more than we could handle. All of the work of this remodel was done by Rich, myself and gracious friends and family willing to lend expertise and muscle. Despite its challenges, we finished. And all of the blood, sweat and tears (yes, literally) were worth it because we ADORE this space.

Here's the before shot of our kitchen. The photo quality isn't great, but they are the most forgiving and appealing photos I could track down. I don't need to explain the cons of our previous kitchen, but our main issues were the fluorescent lighting, dark wood cabinetry, beat up/burnt laminate countertops, butter yellow brick accent wall, and fake brick as backsplash. I also had a hard time with all the upper cabinetry. Since it's a galley kitchen layout, I didn't have anywhere to do all of my food prep, so some of the upper cabinets had to go to give it a more open feel with additional work space.

And in case you missed that...
 

See our full kitchen reveal after the jump!

before + after: our bathroom reveal

One of the first projects we tackled upon moving into our house was the upstairs bathroom. When we moved in, it boasted a nautical theme with baby blue beadboard wainscot paneling and heavy drapes. It was the farthest thing from our style. Plus, this is one of the most light-filled rooms in our house, so we wanted to take advantage of the flexibility to do something creative with paint colors. We are so happy with the results. Check out the full before and after bathroom reveal after the jump!

Makeup Vanity

DIY Horizontal Plank Wall

The first floor of our house is filled with wood planked walls. We've painted some plank walls white and others remain untouched, but I'm growing more and more fond of the white plank wall look and wanted to bring some of that texture to the second floor of our house. Switching it up with a horizontal paneled look seemed perfect for an accent wall. See the how-to below.

Materials (for a 8x5 ft. wall)

Two unfinished 4x8 ft. hardboard wall panels, cut into 5" horizontal pieces
Nail Gun
Finishing nails
Zinsser B-I-N Shellac-Base Primer
Benjamin Moore paint in Simply White

Instructions

Measure your walls to get an idea of how many panels you will need. If any sections of your wall are longer than 8 ft., you'll have seams. Go to your local hardware store and snag a few unfinished 4x8 ft. hardboard wall panels. They are usually under $10 a piece. Utilize the in-store wood cutting service and kindly ask them to rip the boards length-wise into 5-inch strips.

Using a circular saw, cut your panels according to the width of the wall, and begin placing the boards horizontally starting the top of the wall, working your way down. Using a nail gun, put a 3/4 inch finishing nail at either end of the board and one in the center. After you've nailed all of the boards to the wall, start priming using a shellac-based primer. It dries very quickly, and you will only need two coats for full coverage. Make sure to use an old, or cheap, brush with the primer. Once the primer is dry, put on a coat of the white paint.

DIY Reclaimed Wood Dining Table

I really dig the reclaimed wood table look. I browsed a bit at Crate & Barrel and Restoration Hardware, but couldn't stomach the idea of dishing out upwards of $1,500 for a table. So Rich and I decided we would make our own this past weekend. With the right tools, this is easily a one day project. And for those of you that are drowning in long term home renovations, it's a breath of fresh air to start and finish a project in one day. The best part? It cost under $60 to make.