Oh Baby: Nurseries I Adore

Mr CLH & I are anxious to starting working the nursery! I hope to start sharing our plans for our little ones nursery next week & some projects I've been working on. We still have a few items to clean out of the room { and are waiting a pick up from Goodwill } Soon I'll have lots or pictures of the 'before space' to share. So for the time being I wanted to share a slew of nurseries I adore. These nurseries have truly inspired me.


I saw the nursery below on my favorite Canadian glossy home magazine, Style at Home. This nursery makes me smile! I adore the artichoke green fabric drapes and love how the dark curtain rod really sets the color off. I also love the wallpaper!! It so pretty and looks amazing in this little boys nurser. I love the designer (the mom) crated a nursery that's modern with classic touches. 

{ via Style at Home } 

The nursery below is darling, I love the soft grey and white stripes that loop around the room. I found this nursery while trolling around the net and am not sure where I found it. i think the color scheme in the room is so cute and the roman shades look great over the plantation shutters. I like how gender natural this room is and could easily be a girls room wit ha few swaps here and there.  

This nursery is so charming, and you can tell a lot of love was put into the room! I love the delicate mobile and the tall shelves that wrap around the room. The bedding is precious, I love dandelions and to see them on the   bedding is so sweet. 

Those three nurseries have give me so much inspiration the past few months!! I can't believe I just hit 24weeks { 6mos } wow time is flying by! No worries though, our very own project nursery will be soon :)

What style nursery do you prefer? Classic with touches of modern OR Modern All the Way?

Rocking New Addition

Over the weekend we added a pretty rocking new addition to our bedroom. For the first few months after our baby  arrives we plan on having the baby sleep in our room. Instead of making room temporally for the baby's crib, we decided a cradle would be a good solution. At first we planned on buying a new one, then thought why not check out Craigslist? I started my search under the baby and kids section of Craigslist, and quickly came across a cradle. I looked past the messy Craigslist picture { it's always funny that people don't clean up the background when posting pictures on CL } I bought the cradle for $ 30 bucks! The cradle wouldn't fit in my car { sometimes I think my car is an SUV } the seller was kind enough to drive the cradle to my house. The cradle was in great shape, just needed some cleaning and a fresh coat of white
paint.

Mr. CLH cleaned the cradle with mild soup, then primed the cradle and spray painted it matte white. The cradle looks even more darling! Next I started looking for cradle bedding, I wanted the bedding to be all white. I just pictured our baby sleeping in all white bedding like a little angle. I found the prefect cradle bedding on Amazon.com. The bedding is a three piece white cable knit set by Tadpoles: Cradle Bumper, Sheet & Blanket. The bedding was
$ 32.76 and I had a $10 off coupon, so I only paid $ 22.76 and the items were shipping for free. The shipping was super fast, I placed my order on Thursday and the package arrived on Friday. Gotta love Amazon Coupons! The bumper is super soft and the cable knit blanket is OK, its very lightweight.

We place the cradle next to our closet and only a few steps from our bedroom. We love how the cradle looks in our bedroom. Its a pretty addition. Here's our new to us cradle in our bedroom.

The cradle rocks gently back and forth and also has stoppers on the bottom so the cradle can stay un-rocked. The brown and white geometric baby blanket is from Dwell Baby for Target. I love the modern print against the classic style cradle. I found the sweet little bear was a clearance find from The Land of Nod. The little bear was only $ 5.95! It's our baby's first bear. The bear is called the Fuzzy Wuzzy bear.

Here's the inside of the cradle, as you can see the cradle is a nice size. I still can't believe I thought it would fit in the backseat of my car!

Here's a close up of the bumper, the cable knit its so pretty and exactly what I was looking for.

Glancing over at the cradle while sitting in bed, its getting us so excited for our little addition to arrive! Last but not least, I wanted to share the my Amazon Coupon code with all of you!! The $ 10 off coupon is good at Amazon.com in the Baby Store { offer Expires 2/28/11 } Enjoy!

Use Coupon Code at Checkout: 5JH8-KAUMG-LL632L

And that's our rocking new addition to our bedroom!

Oh Baby: Diaper Bag Edition

Warning: Reading this Edition of 'Oh Baby' may want some of your ladies with or without little ones running out and buying yourself a fabulous bag that just so happens to be designated a diaper bag! 


But first things first with our oldest and only child being 10 years old, I hadn't looked at diaper bags in years. Back then it was slim pickings either you carried around a Winnie the Po bag { nothing wrong with Winnie the Po, but I'm an adult! lol } or a dumpy bag you came across in the travel section. So I was floored by all the new options new mommies have now. In many ways I feel like a new mommy when it comes to shopping for our new addition, in my opinion everything is so chic now. I decided to set myself a baby bag budget, after all its its easy to get carried away and spend upwards to $300 bucks on a diaper bag, and trust me I was tempted. But I quickly realized the bag has purpose and will be used to carry: diapers, bottles, changes of clothes, blankets, snacks (for momma and eventually baby) it will also be spit up on, drooled on and maybe even thrown up on. After all babies are adorable but unpredictable. 


My baby bag budget was $ 60 bucks. I knew I wanted a large bag that was stylish, wipe-able and not to far off from my current style of purses. Before sharing what bag I ended up and sharing how much I spent. I thought it would be fun to share all the cute options new mamma's out their now have. 

Diaper Bag One: From Tumi & Leslie Bag for $ 149.99 available at Buy Buy Baby it comes in 3 other colors and its a nice bag. I fell in love with the bag while browsing at the stores.
Damper bag Two: From Ikabag via Esty Mimosa Grey for $ 59.00. I think the bright pattern on this bag so cute!
Diaper Bag Three: From JJ Cole Mode Diaper Bag for $ 59.95 available at Target. Super cute bag, the modern print is darling.
Diaper Bag Four: From  Graco Quilted Tall Duffle for $ 30.00 from Wal-Mart. The bags looks stylish and its very affordable.
Diaper Bag Five: From Skip Hop Dash Deluxe for $ 49.77 at Amazon with Free Shipping. Skip Hop makes great bags that are both cute and roomy. This bag is available in 9 more colors!
Diaper Bag Six: From Kate Spade called Stevie Splodge Dot for $ 394.99 also available at Buy Buy Baby
Diaper Bag Seven: From Petunia Pickle Bottom Peacful Portofino  for $ 168 at Amazon.com. This bag is super cute, more like a back back, I love how the front folds out to a changing pad. 


After spending way too much time looking for a diaper bag, I finally found one that's both stylish, practical and cute. I bought the Skip Hop Versa Bag in Black from Amazon.com. I went over my allotted budget and spent $ 70.00 on the bag, but I did get free shipping! Here's the stylish bag

I think the pretty 'mom' holding the darling girl helped me think about my baby and I hanging out on play dates :)

 Even though I still secretly still lust over the Tumi & Leslie bag, I'm very pleased with my diaper bag! I like that the material is wipe-able and the zipper in the center can make the bag larger or smalled. I also like that the zippers don't blend into the fabric. Here's my bag in person

It my sound silly but I love the pop of color on the inside my my diaper bag! The fabric inside is a pretty of aqua.

Would you splurge on a dream diaper bag or make a diaper bag budget like I did? For those of you with older kids, what did your diaper back look like? 

The Next Project

A couple of days ago i cleaned out our linen closet and gave it a nice update. Transforming our linen closet made me want to freshen up our bathroom. We've completed a bathroom few updates since moving into our home two years ago. Here's what we have done so far: New faucet, bathroom hardware, painted the cabinet dark brown, new mirror and new shower curtain, fresh paint. With all those new additions are bathroom still remained BLAH. Our main objective for our bathroom is Color!  Here's our BLAH bathroom.

 Mr. CLH and I began working on our plan to give our bathroom a mini update a major one is still far off into the future. We want to paint the bathroom a soothing color add shelving and make the bathroom feel fresh. The shelf we currently have is hollow and can only hold a few items not very practical. While I like our current white waffle weave shower curtain, I'm thinking our small bathroom could use a dose of color with a new shower curtain. We plan on completing our bathroom update on a budget. Our budget spend less than $100 bucks. We plan on keeping what works and mixing in new items.

Bathroom Wants: New Shower Curtain? New Wall Color, Bathroom Hooks for Towels, Shelves, DIY Art Work, Bath Mat, Shampoo Holder, and new light bulbs!

We hope by layering in more color in our small bathroom, the small space will feel fresh airy and larger. I'm going to start looking at paint samples and shower curtains this weekend and will keep you posted on our progress

What's next on your project list?

Little Linen Closet - Before & After

Up until a few days ago, our open linen closet was a HOT MESS. I've had thoughts of an organized linen closet for a few months, before it got out of hand. I got tired of walking by it looking all crazy, so I decided to go though all the junk and create a pretty & organized closet. When we first moved into our house the linen closet had ugly cheap doors on the front that didn't even stay shut. I took off the doors to create a more open looks in the tiny space. I'm being very generous by calling the space linen closet its really a nook in our hallway. I found two nice woven baskets at Marshall's for $ 14.99 and that's were the update stopped. Our linen closet has pretty much looked liked this for the past few months, a junk holder.

Yup, this is how the closet really looked liked { keeping it real }

Junk junk and more junk

First I pulled out the bins and went thought all my products, I'm a hair product chick. So it took me a while to part ways with products I haven't used in forever! lol I also moved the small white basket that holds our dogs food and treats and placed in in out kitchen instead. No more walking to the hallway for Mojo's food. After emptying all the shelves and I decided to repaint the inside of the cabinets glossy white and the trim white too. Next I wanted to make each shelf look thick and more custom, so Mr CLH house cut pieces of MDF board from me. Then I used wood glue and blue tape to keep the trim piece in place until it dried. Then filled any minor gap with caulk and painted the trim. Adding the new trim gave the space a sleek look. Here's how the closet looked with new trim / before being painting.

It was extremly hard to take good pictures of this little nook, the space is in our hallway right next to our sons bedroom. Here's how little linen closet now organized and fresh. It looks so much better if I do say so myslef.

I decided to only use one large storage basket for products and placed the loose products in clear plastic bins. The other larger basket I used to hold towels. To create more space in the basket I rolled the towels. Which made the basket look more spa-like. The very top shelf holds extra tolit paper.

I placed our extra stock of cotton balls & q-tips in left over vases from our wedding. I used a wicker vase that was sitting in our dining room and placed extra bars of soup inside. The white box holds medicene, band aides and viatmins free up precious space in our bathroom.

All of our hand towels and bed linens are stored in our coat closet, which also mis-matched towels etc. 

I'm so glad this proejct is complete! The project only closet a few dollars to complte { the box } we had everthing else on hand. How do you like our linen closet makover? How do you keep your linen closet organized.

This Made Me Smile

While 'window; shopping at Lowes { yes, I window shop at Lowes! } for possible new interior doors, I noticed a bunch of lighting on cleanrance. A mini pendant drum shade imdeailty cought my eye, and I love the price. While I was looking at the light fixture, a sales associated said she would mark the price down lower if I wanted to buy it. In short the sales associate marked the clearance price from $ 7.99 down to $ 5.00. She also told me they are flexible with clearance prices!  

We plan on installing the pendant light fixture in our kitchen above our sink.Our new light will be a huge improvement over our current kitchen lighting above the sink. Below is how our kitchen currently looks, I know not a pretty sight { much too dark for our tastes } But we do have a plan for our kitchen.

Here;s the pretty little drum shade pendant I bought from Lowes out of the box the pendant came with all the hardwire to hang it. What a deal.

 I love how the mini drum shade mimics our large eden drum shade with have hanging on our dining room. They both coordinate nicely which each which is a plus since our kitchen and dining room share the same space.

 

We also plan on installing recessed lighting our kitchen as well as a 'main lighting' source. For the main light source, we really like this 14" drum shade option from Lamps Plus which will give off plenty of light & look polished in our kitchen 

 

I'm not sure when we'll hang our new drum shade, we want to get started on painting our upper kitchen cabinets soon and taking care of the ugly tile counter tops. Below is the kitchen we adore and want to transform ours into. Lucky for us our kitchen layout how is close to this one. 

{ I came across this kitchen a long time ago, please email if you know the link for this kitchen! }

Buying the pendant shade on the cheap, really makes me what to break out the paint and getting started on painting our kitchen and maybe grabbing a sledgehammer to our kitchen counters. Its OK for a pregnant lady to swing a sledgehammer, right? lol

Find any great clearance deals lately?

 

Our DIY Headboard Done

Over the weekend we finally completed out DIY headboard for our Master Bedroom. This was a quick project, but it took awhile to get around to. We plan to complete a number a projects in the next few months before the our new little one arrives.

But back to our headboard project. After much consideration and debate between a light grey fabric vs. a dark grey fabric. We went with a dark grey linen fabric{ so glad we did } Our inspiration for our was the Nail head Upholstered Headboard from West Elm. Here's a glance of our headboard.

Supplies:

Particle Board Cut to 63 wide x 43 high { just a smidge larger then a Queen bed width }
2 Twin Mattress Foam Pads
2 Yards of batting
2 Yards of Muslin
2 Yards of Dark Grey Fabric
Staple Gun and Staples

Here's what we did. Instead of buying expense foam, we bougth two twin mattress pads from Wal-Mart and placed the flat part of the pad on top of the board. Then place the other pad contoured side down, which created a nice thick pad. Note: The pad wasn't wide enough to cover the entire length, which is fine because the portion is the very bottom of the headboard which will be cover by the box spring

Next we placed the batting over the pads and then wrapped the foam around the board and stapled the batting and muslin in place.

Then we stapled the grey fabric on the board. First we stapled the top then bottom and then sides. We pulled the material very very tight. Then I carefully trimmed the excess fabric from the back of the board.

We really like how the headboard turned out, it looks great in our bedroom. I also love how soft  the headboard is, its nice to sit up in bed and have a nice thick cushion to lean on. We decided to skip nail heads on our headboard and prefer how it looks without. We are also playing with the height of the headboard and most likely will raise it a few inches. Before the headboard after, a reminder of how bedroom looked pre-headboard.

Here's our diy headboard in our bedroom.

There are a few projects left to complete in our bedroom: sew Euro Pillow Covers, hang curtains and install new blinds and eventually hang artwork. I'm excited that our bedroom is closer to being completed.

What project are you looking forward to completing?

The Painted Dresser

I've been lusting over the idea of painting a Craigslist { find } dresser a pretty color. In the past I've painted our buffet in our dining room and our bedroom dresser both white. Both turned our so nice, its hard to go wrong painting a vintage price white. I've gone bolder when painting chairs { the bold bright yellow one in our living room, and the pretty blue vintage chair } however, I've yet to paint a dresser a pretty color. I found some pretty dressers that have given me plenty of inspiration to paint a vintage dresser and turn into a pretty elegant modern piece. 


I love this green painted dresser, its classic lines look amazing in color.

{ via here }

This pale blue dresser looks classic and simple. I love the thick knobs and the little key holes peeking though on each drawer. 

{ via here } 

By now I'm sure most of you have seen the pink painted dresser Nicole from Making It Lovely did for her daughters nursery. Isn't just darling! She chose the perfect pink for the dresser and truly transformed it. 

{ via here }

Now I just need to find the perfect dresser to paint, or maybe give our buffet in our dinning room a little color makeover! With paint the possibilities are endless?


What;s the last painting project you tackled? Did you opt for color or played it safe?