Kids Come First {Girl's Bedroom Makeover}

So the very first thing we did after moving in was order pizza. But moments later, we began decorating the kids rooms. Not the living room or family room or dining room or master bedrooom. The KIDS ROOMS. Its fitting that we would start there, because of course, as everyone knows, once you have kids, they come first. Many, many, MANY of the things that were so important before kids (i.e. manicures, shopping for clothes for myself, long hot baths, working out!) suddenly fall by the wayside and you live and breathe for your kids. In fact, come to think of it, I don't think I have painted my own nails, let alone gotten a manicure in the three years since Cooper was born and I seriously wouldn't have been caught dead without perfectly manicured nails BC (Before Cooper).

Anyway...We started Coop and LucyLu together in Lucia's room, which suited them just fine, because they were sharing the tiniest of tiny bedrooms at the duplex just a day earlier. Ironically after the crazy months of adjusting to finally get the two babies in the tiny room together without waking eachother up at night, they eventually ended up loving being together so much that Cooper often crawled out of his crib and crawled in with Lucy and we would find them all curled up together in the morning like two little puppies. Just melted my heart. Thus, I was thinking that the transition to a new house and separate bedrooms might be a bit much for them and sharing for a couple weeks while we worked on the rooms would be just fine. SO....let me give you a before shot of Lucia's room with the two cribs in there.

Pretty bad, I know. And those stripes were a pain in the you know what to sand down. UGH! Red dust everywhere.

So after A LOT of sanding, two coats of _________ paint (gotta look back at my swatch for the name) and some DIYed curtains later, it looked like this:

Here's a look at the curtains up close. Okay, okay. I didn't sew these myself. I could. If I wanted to. And if I had a sewing machine. That's truly what's holding me back. (Mom, if you are reading this, feel free to donate your machine when you upgrade to that one that you really want.) But I did DIY by doctoring up the store bought ones from Land of Nod. You see I wanted really long curtains, that I could hang high and wide to make the window look much bigger, but no one sells cute girly, yet sophisicated ones that don't cost an arm and a leg. So I bought these pink ones from the Land of Nod and then bought one extra panel in the same pattern in green and cut it up to add an extra 10 inches to the bottom by using iron on tape and this cute pink polka dot ribbon to cover up the seam. See? What do you think? OH! I almost forgot. I used the extra green material to recover the cushion on the bench at the end of her bed. Perfect fit.

Here's Lucia's little "art gallery collage" that I created on the wall above the dresser-made-changing-table. I created four of the seven pieces of art by using paint, tissue paper, and decoupage. I saw an artist online once that made similar children's art and I coldn't afford the price tag, so I thought I would try it myself. SO I can't take credit for the method nor the designs. But I think they turned out alright. I also painted the mirror pink and the beautiful watercolor framed art on the other wall, hanging over the crib (which you can also see in the mirror) by an artist named Judie Bomberger was already framed in that cool wood frame, so I just painted it pick to coordinate with the pink from the curtains and the mirror.

So that's that. My little girly girl room for my little girly girl who also happens to be a monster. A LuciaMonster. More about that later.

This Full House

As of January 2011, this is my new house.

My last house was full. Very full. We bought this duplex in 2005 shortly after getting married and lived in the lower two bedroom one bathroom.

First it was just us; Mark and Me. Then came Marley, our Golden Retriever, who we renamed after one of our favorite musicians when we adopted him. If only we knew how fitting the name would become....I'm sure you've seen the mischievious Marley in Marley and Me? Our prayers were answered when Cooper was born in May of 2008 and shortly thereafter, on our 4th anniversary, October 29th, we found out that we were expecting Lucia. 14 months to the day after Cooper, Lucia arrived on the 14th of July, 2009. They are both our little miracles.

Thus, our little home had become a very full house. Full of "stuff," but more importantly, full of love for my husband and the children I have always longed for and full of gratitude for the life that I have been blessed with. I once heard the saying, "The thing I love the most about my home is who I share it with," and that is SO true. I like to think that Mark and I live by that slogan. We love to entertain and bring our friends (whom we see as our extended family) into our home.

Now that we are beginning a journey to make this new house our home, our house continues to be full. Not so full of "stuff" anymore--perhaps because there is actually more room for it, perhaps because I've made it a mission of mine to donate or sell all of our non-essential "stuff" on cragislist....but it continues to be full of love, family and friends....and I am so grateful that it is mine. This is the story of our journey, as we make this house our home. Its my dream house. My Full House.