Renovations Continued...

What a boring title of a post!  Seriously.  I could've done better.  But my brain is a little fried from camping this last week with my family.  We took the 3 boys and our baby girl for a 5 day camping trip to Penticton, British Columbia.  It was such a beautiful rest before the craziness of the new renovation begins in a couple weeks.

Ok, this post is dedicated to Macy's nursery.   This is her room the day we bought the house:

And then after we moved in, it became a "catch-all" room.  

Once we found out we were pregnant, we knew it would become a nursery.  And then after finding out  the baby was a SHE (!!!) I went to town on pinterest.  (Who doesn't love pinterest, am I right?!).  So I gathered all of my favorite ideas and created Macy's room. Here it is:

Decorating Macy's room was my Christmas gift from Ryan.  But almost everything in there was DIY.  

The rocker is the same one we used for all of the boys but was re-covered by my mom. The rug, the curtains, the chandelier and the dresser were all Ikea purchases. 

The little bird there was a random find at Fred Meyer (a grocery store) and I spray painted it gold. 

This was totally random. I had leftover pink paint (from painting the chandelier pink) and I had some gold paint. I went in the backyard and did this little thing in literally…maybe 3-4 minutes. If that. It's weird and random and I like it. 

This print is from Jones Design Company.  I love the scripture; it is the first part of Philippians 4:8 …"fill your mind with beauty and truth."  The rest of the verse goes on to say "meditate on whatever is honourable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is good, whatever is virtuous and praiseworthy." Mmm…so much good truth in that portion of Scripture. 

Also…on a practical note,  the colors just went with well with MJ's room. 

My mom made Macy's crib bumper and sheets. Ya know…because she's amazing like that. The ruffled crib skirt is from Pottery Barn kids.

My best friend, Katherine, surprised me with this handmade artwork for Macy's nursery. I just happened to have the perfect spot for it!

This little porcelain baby was given to me by my great Aunt Ruby when I was born. 

This cute little trinket was in my room growing up. I always loved it and had it somewhere near my bed.  

We may have a slight headband obsession...

After having 3 boys, I was itching to add some pink to our house! And as much fun as it was decorating Macy Jo's room…it's way more fun having her in our lives. She's just the best.

So we're moving…again.

I figured it's about darn time I finished our renovation pictures because WE'RE MOVING. Again. We bought another dump about 20 minutes away and will be fixing it up.  I'll write about that one day soon and share the way God totally orchestrated the purchase of our new place and the sale of this house.


But in the  meantime it's been bugging me that I started documenting the renovation process and stopped before I could finish all of the "after" pics. ( I took a break from writing about our renovations because our daughter arrived prematurely in February.  You can read about that here.  Also, I just flat got lazy.)  So let's finish this!  Today I'll tackle the kitchen.

Since it's been a while, let's look back at the kitchen before:

And here is the kitchen now:

We are so happy with the way the kitchen turned out.  My father-in-law owns a high-end kitchen cabinet company and he hooked us up.  Together with my husband, he designed the layout of the kitchen in order to maximize our storage space.  (1800 square feet with 4 kids needs as much storage space as possible!).  We went with melamine cabinets, which is the cheapest option.  Our big "splurge" (of the entire house, actually) was the caesar stone island.  But even that was a remnant at the store and so we got it for cheaper than if we'd bought it new.

I need to pause right now and give my awesome sister-in-law HUGE props for helping with the design of the house.  Miranda is an interior designer and she made this process oh so easy for me. I rarely called my husband with questions; it was usually Miranda.  She met me and helped me envision almost every aspect of this house: lights, tile, paint, countertops, etc.  THANK YOU MIRANDA!!!

The pendant lights over the island were the first thing I bought after we closed on the house. I'd been eyeing these seeded glass globe pendants from West Elm.  They were a steal at $30 each and I love them.  Unfortunately they no longer sell them so I can't use them in the next house. (insert sad face emoji).

I should have mentioned that the island is actually not melamine.  Melamine cabinets only come in white. I wanted the island to be grey so these cabinets are actually wood and they are a shade called "lamplighter grey."  It's very subtle but I liked it.  To be honest though, I won't use it in the next house. But that's only because the island is such a high-traffic area and our kids have chipped and nicked the paint a ton. Next time I'll go with my sister-in-law's idea and either get the island stained or have it done with reclaimed wood. 

I'll tell ya right now the BIGGEST thing we regret in our house is buying these floors. They show EVERYTHING.  I literally vacuum at least 3-4 times a day.  Don't buy cheap floors friends. It'll cost you your sanity. 

Because of our budget, we couldn't afford to do caesar stone in the entire kitchen.  So on the perimeter I did a grey laminate. Laminate has come A LONG way! I love the marble-looking laminate in our master bathroom, for example. But this grey laminate…oh I do not like it at all. 

So there's our kitchen reno! Later this week I'll finish up our reno. 

Xo,

E