Dining Room Update- 2 Tables

Here is our dining room set for Rosh Hashanah dinner (the Jewish New Year). We pushed both tables together and it was the perfect fit for 12 of us. As you can see, we only bought white chairs, and only 8 of them, so we had to fill in with some black ones. Not ideal, but the layout works so wonderfully day-to-day that I'm willing to overlook a few design issues for now:)

A few more pictures to show you how it's working:

The last 2 were from our 3 year old's Frozen birthday party!

Jessica

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Safari Nursery

What? I'm posting a mood board for a mythical baby and I haven't even showed you MY baby's nursery? Yes, I know. I will rectify that eventually, although, spoiler alert, it's pretty much the same as the room was when it belonged to my daughter (pink and teal nursery), except that I swapped out the pink bedding for my son's old crib bedding (best seen here in the post about double sheeting a crib), and changed the diaper changed to orange.

Here's what I would do for a gender-neutral nursery. Plus, I'm in love with the wallpaper:)

• Anthropologie had a ton of great items including the Gilded Giraffe Wallpaper, Giraffe bust and Giraffe pillow (they also have a zebra one!)
• Elephant Hamper 
• I would arrange these modern safari prints in a corner as shown above (image from here)
• A Boppy cover in deer (you know I love a good deer head!)
• Crib Bedding - the Ben Collection from Serena and Lily

Jessica

No affiliate links were used in this post, I just like to create fantasy rooms for mythical babies:) Pin It

Master Bedroom Tweaking

For some reason, my master bedroom has never fully lived up to my expectations I think it might just be too gray, too dark, something, but I am blessed with a husband who actually cares about the aesthetics of our house, and he is adamant that we keep the wall color. And the gray roman shades. And the gray velvet curtains... So I'm imagining a few tweaks to make it a little more cheerful. 

I'd like to add bedside lamps in a larger scale. These navy ones from Target look good (similar ones here), although I'm also open to these clear disc ones from West Elm.

I'm loving the collage wall from Young House Love. I'm happy with our existing yellow prints from Little Brown Pen of Paris in a yellow color story, but maybe if I brought in more photos of our family, the wall would fill in nicely.

I've already pulled the trigger on these mirror collage frames from West Elm. Plus the 4 prints from Minted: & Bricks, Golden Mums, Sundrop, and Hexagon Cluster.

The corner with the chaise (from Wisteria) could use a little pop of color. Maybe a side table, a lamp, a throw and a new pillow?

Any other ideas for me? I'm not sure how much I will actually implement, but it's always fun to dream!

Jessica

No affiliate links were used in this post, just fyi:)

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Collage Wall in a Boy's Bedroom

So this is what I'm thinking about for our 5 year old son's room.

Existing/Keeping:

bed - the Catalina in Navy from Pottery Barn Kids

sheeting - construction themed from Target

orange nightstand - DIY (I spray painted an old wood side table)

wall color - Marlborough Blue from Benjamin Moore

New:

nautical mirror from Pottery Barn Kids

Cardboard Elephant Head

Artwork Collage including his own paintings, and anything else extra lying around the house

Decals - he wants orange polka dots (similar to in our daughter's room)

He was feeling left out of the great bedroom upgrade, so I decided that he needed a quick refresh. We did his room originally when he was two, so it's been 3 years, and about time for a little mini-update. 

I'm often thinking these things through with the help of Pinterest, so come check me out there, updates and final photos to come!

Jessica

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A Mid-Century Dining Room Update

It's been at least 4 years that we've had this Bjursta table from Ikea, and it has served out family well, but it's time for an upgrade. Nothing crazy, we still have 4 kids under 8, so spills and sticky messes area  twice-daily occurrence.

Here's my master plan:

The main changes are switching to 2 tables and swapping out the chairs for something wipeable. Here's the rundown of our dining room before. We are keeping the striped rug (Flor tiles) for now, and the linen and paper artwork.

Now that we think our family is complete with 4 kids, I'd like to have a table where we fit perfectly as a family of 6. We don't have a breakfast room (or a table in the kitchen at all), so the dining room is where we eat breakfast together everyday at 7am, and dinner together each night at 5pm (small children eat early). Lunch for the baby and preschooler is eaten at the kitchen counter, or out at a park or with grandparents.

So, with the idea of a smaller table, but not wanting to lose the functionality of the large table, I started thinking about having a pair of tables. These West Elm Expandable Mid-century tables fit the bill. We can push them together into an almost-square when we entertain, which easily seats 12 (3 per side), or extend each table and push them together to seat 14-18 (big square versus end-to-end).

The chairs, Becca linen stripe from Overstock, were very comfortable, but got super dirty over the last 3 years of constant use. Even though I stain-treated them, after 2 years they started to look a tiny bit dingy, and by this summer I couldn't take it anymore. It might also have something to do with our tastes shifting to a more modern, or mid-century modern aesthetic. In "fantasy life" we adore this table and formal chairs, but real life and little kids prevent us from spending over $10,000 on a table alone!

We went for the knockoff chairs from EModernDecor, since again, almost $400 per chair for the real version seemed excessive, and the $75 versions work well for us. Each time we buy things that need assembly, my husband and I look at each other and ask, "when will be be grown-up enough to stop buying furniture that needs to be put together"? But then we just do it all over again, since for 8 chairs, the cost saving was over $2500!

Since I'm getting back into the blogging swing of things, I'll have to snap a picture and post the results soon!

Jessica

No affiliate links in this post, just letting you know where to find things:) Pin It

Vacation House Home Tour

It's finally up.

I finally, finally compiled links to all the posts about our new vacation home and put them all in one spot.





You can find the tour under "Vacation Home Tour" in the page bar above.

Or you can just click here to tour my modern dream home.

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Polka Dot Big Girl Bedroom Reveal

We had our baby! He arrived last week, and when I can come out of the sleep deprivation coma I promise to post about him! In the meantime, enjoy the fact that our 2.5 year old has a room all her own and doesn't at all feel displaced:) Here's the "reveal".



And by reveal, I mean, here are the pictures I took and that's as much as I can do in my present condition:)

I actually broke out the spray paint to redo this lamp, massive DIY points for that:)

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Pink Butterflies and Purple Flowers

Since we finished redoing our 2 year old's new big girl room, our 6 year old wanted to "update" her room as well. So I went with the path of least resistance and had her choose new knobs for her dresser online. I'm too pregnant to take her to an actual store:)

She picked flower and butterfly knobs from Target and I think the update is kind of cheap and cheesy looking to my eyes, but she loves it!

Before:

After:

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Nursery Plans for Baby Boy #2

So far all we've done is move our daughter out, take away the pink things, and bring in the blue.

Before, the nursery was all pink and aqua, and I'm hoping that with the addition of navy, green and maybe a hit of orange these walls (Benjamin Moore Barely Teal) will transition to "boy"



We have some things in duplicate (2 sets of crib bedding, changing pad covers, clothing, 2 car seat covers, one pink, one red), and others just in pink from the first go-round. So for those, we just throw a blue blanket on top and call it a day. See the blue blanket over the Maclaren rocker next to the rocker? That's our solution:)



It's very much a work in progress, but hopefully the room will be ready before the baby arrives!

Jessica

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Big Girl Bedroom, and now it begins...

Our 2 year old is big enough to transfer to our old guest room.




Clearly she's the third child since the only picture I have of her in 2014 is this one while she and her brother are each watching shows in their Kindle Fires before preschool. #lowerexpectations

Thankfully when I added the pink and white polka dot wall treatment 2 years ago I knew that eventually the little one would move in. The side table will be moved into my 6 year old's room to make way for a dresser.

Adding the pink and green chevron fabric to the bottom of the curtain panels was on the "to do" list all those years ago as well, but I just let it slide until now. I took the curtains (8 years old from Restoration Hardware) to a local dry cleaner along with fabric I bought on Etsy and voila!

I bought a new rocker from Land of Nod, which I'm hoping will be flanked by a little bookcase, a side table, and maybe a hot pink pouf.

Here's a quick "that it looked like before" reminder...

Another update soon!

Jessica

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A Hide Lamp and Walnut Dresser- Modern Vacation House

So we've made a few additions.

I can't even explain how happy I am to finally have bedside lamps, it took us almost a year in our regular house to find lamps that we agreed on, so when I spotted these lamps (giant scale, made of cow hide, neutral colored) at Crate and Barrel online I jumped at the chance to buy them. Of course, it wasn't that easy. They were discontinued so I searched outlets for them until I found a store with 2 lamps, paid for them over the phone, then begged my sister to go pick them up within the 7 day window.

But, so pretty, and at 50% off, I was super happy about the deal we got.

The other addition is a Whitney walnut dresser from Room and Board. Even though our walk in closet is all kitted-out with Ikea pax closet systems, come this summer and the arrival of baby #4, there will be a crib in the closet, so we needed a spot for a few grab-and-go clothes as well as a spot for baby clothes and to change the baby.

All-in I was still about $3,000 under for my whole-house furniture budget which is why we decided to buy a good quality dresser in here. The accessories are all West Elm and I love them for things like that, but the quality of their dressers leaves something to be desired. I need drawers taht glide easily, pull out all the way, and won't break a year later.

I think with the addition of a rocking chair in the corner, some art, and a modern changing pad, I hopefully won't mind the baby corner of our bedroom, and it will still feel modern.

See our initial master bedroom progress here which includes a source list.

Jessica

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Bunkroom Reveal- Modern Vacation House

Our four year old is our super snuggly one, so he jumped at the chance to have the bunk room be "his" room. The lower bunks feel like forts to him, and he happily invites his older sister in to share when guests arrive and displace her from her pink and aqua bedroom.



The first thing I found was the Moda bunk bed from Room and Board, so we designed the room around them, creating niches that perfectly fit these bunk beds.

They are the perfect mountain-yet-modern bunk beds, super sturdy and strong, and can stand up to kids climbing on them and even adults sleeping in them! As much as I adore Ikea (entire Ikea kitchen and built in closets), their beds are just not high quality enough, especially when we are talking about bunk beds, and the potential for falls/climbing/rough housing.

As in other rooms, we built in closets with Ikea's Pax system, and here we used Antropologie's into the woods fox knobs to bring a little bit of whimsy to the space.

The giant window is awesome, and we used the ironwork flocked curtain by West Elm to bring some navy in. The ceiling is also painted navy, Hale Navy by Benjamin Moore to be exact. The drum light in orange is from Land of Nod. Initially our son wanted an orange ceiling, but after tons of color searching, I just couldn't find a color that worked. We compromised by getting orange sheets from Target for his bed.



The duvet covers have moose printed on them and are flannel (similar to these from Restoration Hardware but I think they were a Christmas season item only, so I can't find them online)- perfect for winter. The other duvet covers are from Ikea and super scratchy and cheap-looking so I think I'll need to upgrade them in the summer:)



Each bunk has it's own book ledge and clamp-on light for keeping books and lovies close by. This is working great, since our son likes to "read" at night, and this way he doesn't have to get out of bed to turn off the light when he's done.

Jessica

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Hannukah in August

Or some other title that explains why I was rummaging around our storage room in search of our dreidel collection when it was 75 degrees outside:)

You see, Lamps Plus and Hometalk partnered together to create a blogger holiday challenge. they offered bloggers a Lamps Plus fillable glass gourd lamp, like this:

and asked us how we would fill it for the "holidays".

Being Jewish, I immediately thought of the High Holidays which are right around the corner in September, but filling a lamp with apples and honey seemed really messy. Anyhow, they meant December holidays, of course. So I jumped on board with my desire to ring in Hannukah early this year, at least in terms of decoration. They will chose 3 winners to be featured in their holiday catalogue and potentially win a $500 gift card, so yay!

Note the metallic garland, sparkle dreidel garland, and collection of dreidels inside.

It tried my very best to keep our Curious George dreidel out, but that's what you get with a 4 year old helper:)

The process was so easy I'm thinking about doing this seasonally (oh, the big dreams I have when all the kids are asleep). Seriously, you just unscrew a nut from the bottom, slide the bottom stand off and fill. Re-screw and you are done.



Ignore all carpet stains, we do:)



When the 6 year old saw it she was super excited, although requests for a singing Hannukah stuffed animal that I only let out for the 8 nights, were quickly put down. There will be I Have a Little Dreidel stuck in my head for 4 months, no siree...

A beautiful lamp full of dreidels, good thing I didn't use chocolate gelt:)

Jessica

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It's Not Furniture, It's Ikea...

Even though I have a tried and true love for Ikea, some things just weren't meant to be.

Like this dresser that we call the "sunscreen cabinet", or the morning launching pad.

After opening and closing the drawers, mostly the top one, 20+ times a day for almost 2 years, it's over. The love is gone, and the top drawer won't close all the way. Boo.

When we moved I thought we would finally be grown up and only buy adult furniture, but the lure of Ikea got to us. It's so cheap! It's so close! It will only take a day and a half to go there, bribe kids with soft serve, buy the item, wait for it, load it into the car while not decapitating said children, schlep it home, unload kids, put kids to bed, unload items, and put together with a million wooden dowels:)



So I'm looking around, and ready to buy an *actual* piece of furniture that can withstand that many drawer movements. Any suggestions?

Jessica

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Stacking Books on the Coffee Table

You all know that I'm not really one for styling spaces, but even I couldn't help but notice that my gorgeous, giant burlwood coffee table in my living room, just wasn't living up to expectations. I do believe that a room without books is a little soul-less, so enter a happy accident when I discovered this post from Oh Happy Day.

The thing is a massive 6 feet long, and the one little tray (that I got from Joss and Main), just wasn't filling the space, or making it feel homey. You can check out my new art additions here.

Thankfully, by adding four neat stacks of books to the table, the space is filled, and I'm actually encouraged to look at these coffee table books!

My favorite books can be found in this post of the gifts I bought myself.

Better, right?

Plus, with 3 kids under 6, there is no way I'm styling this sucker with anything breakable or precious:) Even those flowers were only a there-for-the-photos kind of thing.

Jessica

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