baby's room / it's finished!!!

i have had lots of people ask for pictures of the baby's room and it's finally 100% finished! i am obsessed with this room- i seriously just want to sit in here all the time. we actually have had it like 90% finished for over a month, but a few technical difficulties set us back. for one- the shelf sagged so we had to fix that. and, in doing this room i realized how much i hate diy- i procrastinated finishing the curtains until last night! 

i came up with the plan for the room about two months ago. we were pretty much totally moved in to the house. it was getting close to october and i realized i had no idea what direction i was going in. so i spent a weekend on pinterest looking through my boards and coming up with a plan. you can see my original thoughts in this post.

the very first thing we did was paint the wall (obvs). i wanted to do a geometric pattern, and came up with the colors. i made a drawing in photoshop to make sure i thought it would look ok. we got samples of each of the colors and jarman executed all of the painting while i was out of town one weekend. 

i loved the look of cribs with painted slats. only problem was those cribs were way out of my price range. so i got the ikea gulliver crib in natural wood color and painted the slats myself. this wasn't an easy diy- i almost died doing it i hated it so bad. the crib comes semi-put together: the slats were already connected to the tops and bottoms. this made it so i had to use a tiny paint brush around the edges to get good lines. i'm so happy with how it turned out- i think it looks awesome. but just know that it was not easy. i will remind baby jay of the hard work i did on his crib daily. oh and we used the same navyish blue that we painted the cradle- it was ____.

for now i'm using little black polka dotted sheets from target (they no longer sell these ones). i love their simplicity. i'm sure they will be changed out quite often. i actually painted the pillow. i got the fill and cover from ikea (a total of $9), and used leftover paint from the wall to make a big dot. it's so hard to find good pillow covers- i might start doing this for all my pillows! the little panda bear was also an ikea find. jarman plans to sleep with it for a few nights to 'get his scent on it', so that the baby will be used to it. or something ridiculous like that.

i always planned to make a gold himmeli mobile. but, then bright lab lights came out and i knew i had to use them somewhere in the baby's room (plus the himmeli that i tried to make looked ridiculous). i knew i wanted copper accents in the room- so i came up with this idea to make an arm over the crib out of copper, and hang a cluster of bright lab lights from it. the arm was super simple. i bought a 10' pipe of 3/4" copper (the cheapest kind- there were two different ones)- it was $17 at home depot. i had the rod cut in to a 5' piece (for the part that would climb up the wall), and 2' piece (the part that extended over the crib), and a 3' piece (which i used for the clothes rod. i got one 90 degree angle connecter, 3 end caps (2 of which were also for the clothes rod), and 2 wall connectors. we super glued the pieces together, then screwed the arm in to the wall. i love how it looks- especially against the dark color on the wall.

i really wanted plus sign curtains- but again didn't want to spend a lot. i got two sets of plain white curtains from ikea and added the plus signs myself. i first tried stenciling the plus signs- but that would have been a nightmare. i settled on using black electrical tape! ha so random i know, but they turned out just how i wanted them to! i continued the copper theme by using copper pipe as the curtain rods, and just used the basic hardware from home depot to hang them. the curtains make the room look so much better- behind them are more ugly vertical blinds.

the elephant head was the very first thing i bought for the baby's room. i got it the weekend i found out i was pregnant (from home goods). i also got the little gold display case for shoes, and the maps book that weekend. the globe is vintage, and the deer head, toy and yellow box were all found at home goods. we used an ikea lack shelf (which was a complete nightmare- we ended up adding brackets underneath because it kept sagging). i used old curtain brackets to hang the copper rod (we just screwed them in to the shelf).

the eames style rocking chair (under $100!!) was part of my group gift from my baby shower. i needed something small, because it's such a tiny space. i thought about not having a chair at all- but i'm so glad i got it!

for the changing table we used some lockers that we found in jarman's grandpa's garage. we topped it with an ikea desk, and a changing pad. i got the changing pad cover from the land of nod. we hung organizing baskets above for diapers, wipes, and all the other accoutrements necessary for changing diapers (right now we have books in there too). we used an ikea shelf bracket to hang the cage light (from target).

the rug was $30 from ross! such a steal!

the room is also jarman's office- so we had to include his desk and everything. above the desk we hung some plans that his grandpa had made for a sail boat (in cheap ikea frames). the whole desk set up is ikea- the linnmon collection. 

and just one more picture to end on a good note! what do you think???

entertaining / easy tablesetting for a crowd

though we love creating elaborate tablesettings (see here, here and here), often we don't eat at perfectly set tables like that. also, we usually have way more people than our dining room table can handle- we have lots of family and friends with big families. most of the time our tables look something like this when we have guests over. we use our big kitchen table that seats twelve, and keep our normal centerpiece on the table which is low enough to talk over, and small enough to fit the food on the table (we are all about family style).

for this table we used our ikea runners (we got our on sale for $1.99 each). we have 8 of them so we put two across four times. down the center we have a chevron table cloth that was made for my cousin's wedding. we used basic white square plates and my favorite little grey plates. instead of doing cloth napkins we used paper ones (also from ikea!). we brought in my world market dining room chairs and combined them with my mom's wood chairs.

since we are already sharing easy tablesetting, why not share one of the easiest and most delicious appetizers that we frequently serve.

cheater bruschetta:

this appetizer is super easy to throw together last second before your guests come over- plus it has almost all of my favorite foods. all you do is toast some bread (we usually use the rosemary bread from costco). spread some pesto on top, then placed sliced fresh mozzarella (which we also get from costco) and tomatoes. top with freshly shredded parmesean, salt and pepper. then let guests pour balsamic vinegar over their individual servings- if your pour it for everyone they get a little soggy. eat up!

my bedroom makeover / it's finished!

i am so excited to share the pictures from our bedroom (and my whole family is ready for me to be done talking about it- they keep telling me i'm putting way to much thought in to the smallest room ever!). but, this small room is home for the next few months and i want it to feel like it. plus, whatever i get for this room will carry over to our next place (until i get sick of everything again, of course). anyways, sorry if i overload you on pictures of my room- they all looked so awesome it was hard to trim them back.

{ps. find the before pictures here}

the desk area:

we started out with this same desk top from ikea, but in the smaller size. then we started buying the pieces to add to it (the drawers and shelf), and realized we needed the bigger desk. i got the glossy table top- which was totally worth the extra ten dollars. we painted the legs and brackets gold (with spray paint from home depot). i found that amazing chair at a thrift store and covered it with blue velvet that i got at a fabric store in san diego. most of the desk accessories are from target's clearance sections from the past couple of months (it's dangerous living only 1 minute away from target). 

hanging above the desk is my pendant from world market that i got from my bridal shower and still love. it is combined with my west elm terrarium and ikea planter (that i may have macramé-d myself- i'm super craftsy these days). next to the desk are ikea shelves with some of our collection of books. the curtains are actually shower curtains from west elm (we got them for our old house and still love them!)

the bed:

so we used our bed frame that we got from west elm when we first got married, but added a headboard. somehow when we went out to a sketch storage unit in santee with our friend, we found this amazing headboard and the guy sold it to us for $20! i was so excited. i was originally wood, and apparently a very funky wood because every time we tried to spray paint or just paint it little bubbles would come up. so jarman painted, sanded, and repainted that baby about 5 times. he was so sweet- he promised he would fix it as many times as he needed to for me to like it. and i love how it turned out. we had our gold dots on the wall made, and i spaced them 6 inches apart. the painting above the bed is from my old house, and was from home goods.

i love my art wall next to the bed so much. i get to lay in bed and look at all of my favorite art and maps of some of the places jarman and i have lived. i got most of the frames from ikea and target- i will probably do a whole post on the wall at some point. i have another ikea shelf that acts as my nightstand. we don't have enough room to scooch the bed over because our bed is so dang big (we can't and will never give up our king bed). i have my old urban outfitters lamp on the shelf where i charge my phone and computer at night. 

my emerald green sheets were from ross (i love them but you get what you pay for, they already have a hole in them). i got the grey blanket at the end on super clearance at west elm ($20- i didn't even want a blanket down there but how could i pass it up!). i love my nate berkus geometric duvet cover from target oh so much. i got all of those serena and lily pillows at home goods, which were another thing that i wasn't planning to buy- but how could i pass up sequined gold and silver pillows. i lucked out in my shopping for this room!

the dresser (and rest of the room):

you may recognize my dresser from my wedding. we painted it chartreuse so that it could be one of the only things that was my true wedding color (it was before it became the most popular color ever!). we skipped the priming/sanding so it is chipping super badly. and, it is still missing the drawer that my dad threw away. i still love it though. i have an ikea mirror and target light for my 'dressing station'. i stole that little geometric wooden stool from my mom.

lets just take a minute to talk about that necklace holder. this was my biggest splurge on the room. it is from west elm and is possibly the most amazing thing i have ever seen. more amazing than justin timberlake's future sex love sounds concert. i don't even know what else to say.

my lamp is vintage from my aunt, so is the mirror tray. all of the jewelry is my own. looking the other way you can see my teeny tiny closet. we took the doors off to make a little more room. i put up my old world market curtains to cover the clutter.

seriously though, i love my room (like you can't tell). i ask jarman every morning if he is so excited to wake up in such a cute room? he usually is. thanks to jarman for a. putting up with all my crap (how much i can talk about the tiniest little things), and b. putting up all my crap (building the desk, painting the room, hanging all my shelves and rods). also thank you mom for helping me with all the little details. she (literally) nailed the art wall and the desk area.