A Whole Lot of Random

My, oh my! It sure has been busy around here...

Between the total craziness at my day job and getting the kids/house ready to go back to school, I feel like it's been pure chaos around here. There are just not enough hours in the day, or enough days in the week. Can we just make weekends a little bit longer? That would help out a ton!

I didn't get a post out last week due to all the chaos, so today's includes a number of random things we've been up to lately. And a lot of grainy iPhone pictures.

As I mentioned, we have been getting the kids and house ready for back to school. The kids are actually back in school as of today! And in an effort to get ahead of the clutter that's sure to come with the kids back in school, we have been tackling a few projects to prep for the mess. First on that list: Creating a pretty and functional drop zone wall in our entryway!

We finished the wall just in time. Although, this picture shows a work still in progress, I plan to "reveal" the space later this week. While this project was in the works, there was even MORE clutter than usual. Isn't that the way it usually goes? Tear one space apart until you finish your project and can manage to put it back together?

We have added some hooks to the wall in accessible heights for the littles. The plan is that this wall will provide a space in which they can hang up their own back packs and coats. Every little bit that the kiddos can contribute to a cleaner and more organized home is extremely helpful.

We're also in the progress of power washing the side of the house. I'm always amazed at the amount of grime that gets washed away by the power washer. Too bad we can only reach a certain height without a ladder. That might be something that we want to invest in sometime... In the meantime, you can see the point at which we just can't reach any higher!

In the meantime, we're also power-washing the fence. I'm trying to convince the hubs that we should also seal the fence with some sort of decking sealer. Have you ever tried to power-wash and seal your fence? I'm totally open to suggestions.

Also on the fence topic, we put up some galvanized steel wire to keep the dog in the fence. Sadie, the dog, thought that it was 100% acceptable to do her business in the neighbor's yard and then take a leisurely jaunt across the street to visit the other neighbors. No one was amused by this, accept Sadie, of course.

Last, but by no means least, we also celebrated a very special 6th birthday!

Our beautiful Skylar is now 6 and is now officially a first grader. Where does time go? It feels like no time at all has passed since she was a baby. We've really enjoyed watching her grow up to be such an adventurous little girl. If there's ever an activity that one of the kids is hesitant about trying, Skylar is always the first to jump right in. Riding bikes, racing down hills, you name it, she's a total daredevil.

With every spare moment we have had lately, we've tried to soak up every little last bit of summer.

With lots of bike riding.

Playing outside and walks to the park.

And even a trip to Knoebel's Amusement park with friends!

Summer vacation is officially over, but we had a blast! On to another new chapter of our lives :)

Inspiring Shutter Project Round-Up

Recently, Hometalk asked me to curate a board of shutter related projects. I had a blast browsing the site to find some inspirational projects. Having done our own shutter makeovers, I forgot that there are so many creative things that you can do with shutters, including making your own!

If you are not familiar with Hometalk, it is a site where you can browse home and garden projects, share your own, or even post questions to the community. It's a great place to find inspiration on a variety of things; home decor, home improvement, landscaping, you name it. If it's a topic related to your home, you'll find it there. But I warn you, it's a lot like Pinterest in the sense that it will suck you in. Before you know it, you'll find yourself having spent hours browsing.

Click on the graphic below to check out my roundup of adorable shutter related projects on Hometalk!

I just love the idea of using an old pair of wood shutters for a headboard, or using a whole wall of them to add visual interest to a room. So. Many. Ideas.

Take a look and tell me which one is your favorite!

Kitchen Paint Color Selected: Kitchen Painted

I thank you all for your input into our kitchen color selection process. It turns out that Tranquility was the winner by popular vote! However, we picked Pirate Coast in the end.

This room probably gets the most light in the house, so we could have gone with a slightly darker shade, but I wanted this room to be as bright as possible.We might bring in some darker color down the road if/when we decide to either repaint or refinish the cabinets.

Isn't is lovely?

Excuse the fact that the table and chairs are shifted slightly to the right of the rug and look like they are about to fall off the edge. Kids. I'll blame it on the kids. People should hire them to move furniture, because they do a great job! And I totally didn't catch the lopsidedness until now...

I can't wait until we get around the stage in our kitchen re-do when we get to rip our the backsplash. And replace counters. And swap out appliances. And replace that microwave hood that no longer works, causing a "ceiling tan" on the drywall above the stove. Yum.

But look at that beautiful DIY island!

And for comparison sake, this was a picture of the kitchen on move in day. Excuse Oaken's big head and the blurry iPhone pic. Look at those dark green walls!

When we first put the new paint on the walls, we kept thinking...It's white. Like almost completely white. In comparison to the dark green, it felt completely devoid of color. And, for a little while, I regretted our decision. However, after a few coats of the new color, we decided we really really liked it. It's amazing how much bigger the kitchen feels now! It's a much happier color and so much more "us". Yay!

Next on the kitchen list is to do something with that big blank wall behind the table. Plank wall? Big black and white photos? A banquette bench? The wheels are churning!

supercalifragilistic-EXPEDIT-alidocious: Our plans for an Expedit Changing Table

A crazy post name to accompany another "should have been super easy" type project!

Okay, first of all... Whose GREAT idea was it to discontinue the Expedit? I get that Ikea is trying to reduce it's footprint with all of its wood consumption, blah, blah, blah, but c'mon. We all know it's a ploy to produce a cheaper, but similar product with the new Kallax series. (Here's the link to Gizmodo's article explaining the change.) I'm being a little dramatic, but I want the Expedit back! And by the way, Ikea, you might want to actually want to have the Kallax in stock before you completely sell out of the Expedit. Just a thought.

I guess I should provide a little background here. A while ago, I explained that one of the items on my to-do list was to create a changing station for baby Cullen. Because we cloth diaper, I wanted an area with quick access to the potty when he gets a little older. (You know, for diaper spraying and whatnot.) We're trying to make cloth diapering as easy on ourselves as possible.

Cullen at 12 weeks old in his Albert print BumGenius Diaper

Justin (hubs) and I though that we would incorporate a sturdy floating shelf in the corner of the bathroom to hold a changing pad with all of the additional paraphernalia below. We even went to Lowe's and purchased all of the supplies. After getting home to begin our little project, we discovered it was going to be at the perfect height for one of our little people to bump their heads on. We spend enough time at the doctor's office with boo boos, and we'd like to avoid any more opportunities for disaster.

After realizing our initial plan was a complete failure, I remembered this post from Young House Love. (I totally wish we could be John and Sherry by the way!) Justin has to remind me constantly that we're not, and we can't do everything they do. Buuuuuut, in this case, we could totally steal a little page from their changing table book. We absolutely don't have the space for something as big as theirs, but I just happened to have the smaller 4-cube Expedit chillin in my closet. I threw all of the clothes out of it and lugged it downstairs.

It fits! It's perfect actually, except for the color...

Which brings me back to my rant. The Expedit has been discontinued by Ikea, and I just so happened to grab the last white one at our College Park store. I should have known better. Not only was is damaged, but was lacking the hardware as well. I drove the hour back to Ikea, got a discount since it was the last one, and picked up a baggie of hardware. Once home, we realized that this hardware must be the stuff for the new Kallax series because the screws were absolutely not long enough.

At this rate, I will never get my pretty white Expedit changing station. And in the meantime, my closet is a total mess with my clothes missing their nice organized home. Here's hoping we figure something out soon!

Tell me, how many of you are heartbroken by the demise of the Expedit? And what kind of non-changing table, changing stations have you come up with?

Kitchen Color Choices

For some reason, the decision making process to pick a new color of paint in the kitchen has been a tough one. Like, ridiculously tough. Like, no one should ever spend so much stinking time blocking the aisle in front of the paint chips at Lowe's, tough. And with four kids, you KNOW we're blocking the entire aisle as I stand there thinking about paint.

My husband has just about abandoned me at Lowe's for the amount of time that I spend deliberating over paint chips.

Here's how almost every weekend morning begins in our house:

Justin: "So, what do you want to do today?"

Kira: "Oh, I don't know. Do you want to get some stuff done around the house?"

Justin: "Yea, sure. What do you want to get done?"

Kira: "Paint, maybe?"

Justin: "Okay, let's get the kids ready and head to Lowe's. We also need XYZ from there to work on another project"

Kids Groan. They know that they are about to loose 2 hours of their weekend playtime in a Lowe's shopping cart.

When we get to Lowe's, we walk around the store, realize that our other plans to purchase xyz aren't quite in the budget at this time and swing by the paint department. I grab a handful of paint chips, ask Justin what he thinks, we don't agree on a color and we return home only with a handful of paint chips.

This is a picture of the kitchen/dining space prior to move in:

And here's the other side of the kitchen with the island that Justin built:

Though we haven't managed to pick a color yet,we've identified these as possibilities.

Help us out and let us know in the comments section what you think! (Or feel free to add a write-in vote.)


**We received zero compensation to promote Valspar paint. It's just what we always used, and we love it. **