Old and new

We have been given some wonderful antiques for baby from our family.  My sweet aunt Shar, who sadly passed away this month, gave us this beautiful baby carriage from the turn of the century:

She was an antiques collector her whole life, so to get one of her treasures was a dream come true for me. 

I can't wait to get a new pad inside and get it ready for lots of weekly photos of our baby boy.  She also gave us this Moses basket, I envision this being a spot to stash blankets, toys, and possibly the little dude all swaddled up.

Shaun's mom and dad brought over his old rocking chair, I just love how wee it is.  Shaun tried to sit in it and we heard a snapping noise, so we hope it's still ok!  Ooops. 

My mom also fixed up my old bassinet, but it's still at her house so I don't have a photo yet.  It is white, wicker, and beautiful!  Our families are so excited about the baby, we can't thank them enough for all the great items full of memories.  As for the new (to me), I finished repainting the dresser:

I used Pittsburgh Paints 'Grass Daisy' in a semi-glass finish, and THAT PAINT IS HORRIBLE.  I bought both the closet paint and this quart at the same time, and they will both be brought back to Menards with my request of a store credit for my time and frustration.  From going on like glue to having tons of lumps of paint in the can, I can't tell you enough how much this prego lady wanted to KILL someone while painting (4 coats!) on this thing. 

And I still have to put the missing brass corners back on.  Ugh.  Thank goodness the color is fabulous and I love it!  Baby Hilton is doing good at 31 weeks, here I am yesterday:

I've gained 28 pounds, have horrible heartburn every night no matter what, and can't sleep to save my life.  I didn't let it stand in the way of having some St. Patty's day fun, though. 

We stayed out until 11pm that Saturday!  Watch out, party animals in the house. 

Kitchen curtains

Just a quick curtain-y update on the kitchen.  I was struggling with finding fabric that would look great with the red dining room and the blue-green kitchen, and then I saw this one:

Silsila (Curry) by Braemore.  What it came in the mail, I was just thrilled with the colors!  They are almost perfect matches with the wall colors. 

So we started hanging the curtain rod. 

We mistakenly started drilling into the corner bead on this ceiling part, whoops!  It had to be moved over about an inch. 

I would just stand back and observe, then run over there and position things, stand back again to see how it was looking from farther back.  Eventually I was able to get some fabric up. 

Because the rods on the sides are 'cheated' a bit, the side panels are a little farther away from the walls.  I still think it looks great.  Now I just have to actually make the curtains instead of having the fabric just pinned on there.

Oh, and we have to bring our table in here, pick out and buy stools, tile the entire backplash, make shelves, and hang the range hood.  I think we need some help. 

Huffington Post Stylelist Feature!

I was contacted by Diana at Huffington Post 'Stylelist Home' to do an article about refinishing floors.  To say I was flattered is an understatement, I was thrilled!  While the article how-to is not as detailed as my blog post, it covers the basics...check it out here.

ps - the article states that I would use water-based stain if I could do it again, but she actually meant to type 'water-based poly' due to the faster dry time and non-yellowing properties.  Unfortunately, we started with oil and now we have to keep using it to match the rest of the floors. 

Kitchen happenings

Ok, here's the kitchen update, so sorry to keep everyone waiting, but baby H has already been monopolizing all my time with 'his' room.....we're still not done with this kitchen!   

TILE
We knew we wanted to use white subway tile for the backsplash because I couldn't find any colored tile that I liked, so I spent a few weeks trying out different samples from various websites with our cabinets and granite. 

On the left is Anchor Bay Tile, which worked out to $10 a sq ft for their bright white 3 x 6in subway tile.  The middle is The Tile Shop Imperial Bianco Gloss 3 x 6in subway at $6 a sq ft.  The right is also Tile Shop, their Imperial Brite White Matte 3 x 6in subway comes to $7 a sq ft.  We also checked out the cheapie subway tile at Lowes, HD, and Menards but they were ALL very ivory next to our cabinets, so we had to pay more to get a true white.  

I knew right away we didn't want to do the matte tile, and the Tile Shop gloss subway tile on the right looked the best with the cabinets, so we went with that one.  Luckily, it was the cheapest....and thanks to Young House Love's 10% off code, I saved almost $50! 

Now we just need to install it.  My cousin is a tiler and offered to help us put it up, which is awesome because we have to float out our walls in a couple spots. 

WINDOWS

We have ordered 2" Designer Basswood blinds from Select Blinds, with their (permanent) 30% off and 'Buy 3 Get 1 Free' deal, I was able to get three kitchen blinds and two for the living room for $250.  Not bad! 

I also had to come up with a creative solution for the weird angles of our window bump out...we had 5 'walls' instead of 3, so mounting brackets to the wall would be impossible with the funky placement of the side windows. 

I chose the Umbra Bayview rod with flexible rod joints...

...and Umbra ceiling mount brackets in bronze.

Oh yeah, and we settled on the Behr Lotus Leaf paint color.  We love it!

More to come....

Fabrics in the house, plus a Tonic Living discount!

Well, I got my fabrics from Tonicliving.com, and they did not disappoint!  

I am in love with the chevron against the new wall color.  

I plan to make simple curtains with blackout lining, if I can get my mom's help...I don't own a sewing machine and don't want to use the iron-on tape on such nice fabric.  I also prefer to not use clip rings, just in case something happens in the future and they shrink, I have that option of adding rings for a little extra length.  Look at me, thinking ahead!  The owls will make up the crib skirt, and I will have some left over for a pillow or two.  

And because I'm awesome, I asked Janine at Tonic Living if she would like to share a coupon code with you all, and she was happy to do so!  
You can use the code RUSSETSTREET at Tonic Living for a 10% discount (with no minimum purchase) through April 1, 2012.  Happy shopping!

Paint paint paint

We got two coats of paint on all the trim in the baby's room last weekend, and also a coat of new paint on the walls.  Oh, and we put together the crib!

The previous color was Behr 'Simple Silhouette' and it was too shiny (I had used eggshell) and a little purpley.  The new color (Behr Pier in flat) is more of a true gray and a bit lighter.  We both love it. 

The flat sheen is so much nicer. 

It took forever, thank goodness I had my man to help me! 

I thought it would be fun to do a citron yellow in the closet to complement the fabrics we will be using in here....but we both said something along the lines of 'oh shit!' when we put it on the wall.  I had to trust my vision...

It is a Pittsburgh Paints color (Golden Yarrow), and I stupidly got the PP paint at Menards instead of color-matching it at Home Depot.  This paint is TERRIBLE.  It is 'Ultra' Bad. 

I scoff at the 'One Coat Coverage' claim!  We've applied 3 coats and it is uneven and horrible looking up close.  I intend to take it back to Menards and tell them I want a refund, in the meantime I got the color matched into Behr Flat Enamel, which I'm confident will work much better. 

We were afraid to ruin the closet system by removing that long divider, so Shaun wedged himself into the closet where my belly wouldn't fit...what a trooper!  Too bad he will have to do it again with the new paint. 

I still have to paint the dresser and hammer out that closet situation. 

This could take awhile.