New home dreaming: bedrooms

In case you missed it, we're moving in the spring!

We'll be removing wallpaper and updating flooring, but I'll have to be creative with our budget to get the look I want in all of the rooms.

For today, let's talk master bedroom.

We've had the same Ikea bed for almost 15 (it was mine when I moved out before we got married.)

If you look at the footboard, you could see where the dog chewed - erm, actually the kids - had their way with it.

Our bedroom has never gotten a makeover, in the 10 years we've been living in this home. It's so basic and boring.

Most of all, I just want a grown-up bed.

After browsing some furniture stores and seeing the beds I want with price tags over a thousand, I switched gears and bought a sleigh bed secondhand, for 150$.

The look of a painted sleigh bed is so beautiful:

In white,

source

or putty-colored,

source

or even in grey,

source

What do you think?  

We're leaning towards either of the non-white options, because I have in mind to paint out my existing night-tables white.

We are also planning on moving this rug, from our basement up to our bedroom:

It is the gray scroll tile rug from Pottery Barn. The scroll detail lines are a very creamy ivory, almost beige color. I'm dreaming of a bed in a linen color that ties into the rug, and then all white bedding and white bedside tables.

Can you picture it?

For now, it looks like this:

How embarrassing. For how uncluttered the rest of my house is, my friends are always surprised to see the garage. We hide our messy behind garage doors. haha.

We made room for the new bed frame, around the hubby's weight bench, and are filling in nicks and scratches to ready it for painting.

I can't wait to show you the finished bed!

♥.

House dreaming...

Hi friends!

I have a confession to make. I have been doing less card-making lately.

Here is what I have been doing:

1. Cleaning

source

Our house is up for sale! Keeping the house ready at all times for house tours is a full-time job. Or at least more intense than the regular routine. But on the upside, the kids are getting used to cleaning up their stuff at the end of the day and making their beds to perfection every morning. I can live with that.

Wanna hear my best tip for dusting your house in a hurry? You know how the laundry always eats a few socks, so there are the odd ones with no match? I grab one, put it on my hand like a sock-puppet and race around, wiping down window-sills and moldings every morning. In 20 minutes, I've wiped down all 3 floors worth of everything, and then I just drop the socks back into the machine. You know, in the hopes that their mates will magically show up the next time around. This works great for kids, too! They think it's hilarious and I don't have to worry about cleaning products around Maia.

2. Baking

source

I'm sorry to say that I have fallen into old habits with how I deal with stress. I'm choosing to not be bothered by the fact that my pants are feeling so tight lately. Because chocolate tastes so, so good. So does caramel and maple, FYI. See? I'm already calmer just thinking about the cupcakes I have upstairs in the fridge.

3. Illustrating

source

I have a few sets coming out with Mama Elephant in the next little while, and just playing around with drawing and illustrating other ideas for the future.  There is so much less clean-up involved with drawing as opposed to stamping and card-making. It's suiting me better for now...

Caveat: I didn't draw that balloon-holding-girl, but she is very cute!

4. House-dreaming

source

If I thought I was wasting time on Pinterest before, whoo! I am banking some serious hours lately, dreaming of what I want to do in the new house. I am eager, but I also feel a bit of crazy coming on. Do we keep an open staircase in the dining room or close it up so I have somewhere to place a buffet? Buy new sofas or keep what we have? Try our hand at bedroom molding, or leave the walls plainer? Buy a new bed or build ourselves a headboard? What kind of hardwood flooring: something light, something mid-toned? eeep.

It's exhausting.

But so exciting.

Would you like to see what I'm dreaming of? Since this has always been a card-making and party decor kind of blog, I thought I should ask first. Would it turn you off to see pictures of beds, and bedrooms, and projects that I'd like to tackle, or would that be fun?

♥.

crafty break - keeping it real.

Hey.

I miss you.

I don't have anything to show off, but I thought I'd pop in and say hi.

Our family is recovering from an easter-weekend flu, I'm trying hard to shed the 20 pounds I picked up last year (ugh - I hate how that looks in type), and I'm working on design team assignments (which is kinda hard when you're doped up on Niquil...)

It's almost party season (3 babies born within 10 calendar days, remember?) and I haven't started crafting a thing.  the tragedy.  At least Thomas requested a star wars party for his 6th birthday and I don't have anything in my stamping stash to accommodate him.  A quick trip to etsy was a breath of fresh air for this tired mama.  I will delight in serving up "princess leia's buns" and "han-burgers" - printing and cutting and hamburgers and cinnamon buns sounds pretty good to me right now.

The blog may be a bit (a lot) neglected for about another week, but I'll make up for it with 2 and 3 a day posts.  They're all scheduled and waiting. waiting. waiting.

In the meantime, how're you doing?  Anyone else trying to shed a few pounds?  Jillian Michaels and I are trying to make friends.  It's slow-going.  I keep a pouty-faced picture of a 6-week-old Sofia next to the tv so that I feel like someone gets it - how much I hate exercising. I'm hoping it turns around a bit, when I push through all the leg soreness.

Until next time, friends!

What we've been up to...

We don't have a Christmas tree up yet.  And, this is huge, considering we usually have it up the day after American Thanksgiving.  

As of this afternoon, this is our living/dining room (yes, we do have a tiny home):

When the new moldings were first going up, without any paint on them, Sofia declared that she hated them, and would be "embarrassed to have any friends over ever again!" Oh dear, someone turned into a ball of hormones and chose renovation time to let us know...

But, aren't the new crown moldings so pretty?  In case anyone would like to know, the wall color is Benjamin Moore's "edgecomb gray" - and is a bit less taupe in real life.  We've also "crowned" and painted our kitchen and little powder room, in BM's "boulevard" - a deeper, and more mauvy grey.  Very pretty.

Apart from the Christmas decorations, I'm most excited about having my dryer hooked up again.  A family of 5 does not function without a dryer in the winter... there were not enough surfaces to lay out our wet clothes this afternoon...

One thing that hasn't changed:

The chalkboard wall is here to stay.  And semi-dressed for Christmas.  The kids were thrilled to come home from school and find the advent calendar moved to the kitchen.  Days 1 through 12 were opened upstairs in our bedroom.

It's a beautiful life!

crafty break: 1st day of school.

The first day of school.