I was holding out on posting pictures of the baby’s room. I felt like it wasn’t done. Then I realized, it’s totally done, it’s just not Pinterest done.

But what room is ever done? Especially for a baby. Toys will be added. Lamp shades will be changed. Framed pictures and prints will accumulate. Slowly, he’ll develop a personality and preferences that will be reflected in his room. But until then? Eye-catching patterns, bold colors and interesting objects. Perfect for a baby. Okay, enough jibber jabber. Here’s where our kid *sleeps.

*Yes! He’s actually sleeping in this room. We co-slept for three wonderful months, and still do on occasion. I highly recommend it for new, breastfeeding moms. Just be sure to follow safe co-sleeping practices.

Now that he’s 4 1/2 months old, he loves to study patterns and abstract objects. Like I said, color and texture were the “theme”.

The dresser is from Habitat, it holds most of his diapers, blankets, wipes, pants, bibs and sheets. The shelves are IKEA, relocated from our living room.

When I took these pictures, we were still changing him on our bed with a towel. Now we’re using the changing pad. Yes, that frame is still empty. Best thing ever: glowing tap light for night time changes.

The shelf has three frames with pictures of us (his favorite people, duh), a baseball glove (to brainwash him early I guess?), baskets with a few essential for easy grabbing and some knick-knacks.

Favorite knick-knack: wood cars that were my husbands when he was a kid. Yes, those are his adolescent doodles on them. So cute. Behind them, an abstract print of Simpsons characters (last year’s anniversary gift, “paper”).

Some sweet UNC slippers. More early brainwashing.

A Melissa and Doug stacking set and a couple of stuffed animals my mom brought back from Kenya.

The crib is from Target and I made the panels for the skirt. Not pictured: three space bags of clothes.

Another favorite: the hanging mobile. He’ll stare at this for days. Or, like 10 minutes before he gets bored.

The easy-access bookshelf is great, but I’m thinking we need more book space. I’ll figure it out eventually.

Oh, betcha didn’t see that coming. We got some LED fairy lights from Amazon. They have a nice glow – a little too bright for a night feeding (the intended use), but still fun for him to look at.

I hung them with tiny clear Command Strips. I’m tempted to move them behind the curtains so the glow is more gentle (the LED doesn’t get hot, we never keep them on more than 15 minutes), but I can’t bring myself to pull 15 of these things off the wall and restick them.

And a peek inside his closet. My advice: hang all onesies and shirts by size. Not by label size. By length. The kid wears 3M in one brand and 12M in another.

And, just because: our monitor. It’s an AngelCare motion + sound monitor. There’s a flat motion detector that goes under his mattress. The wire runs down the crib leg, under the carpet and to the nursery unit (which has a nightlight). Super nice because our kid basically only sleeps on his stomach, and this thing sounds an alarm if he stops moving for more than 20 seconds. We’ve had three false alarms (he wound up in a far corner of the crib each time), but it was 100% worth the investment.

So what’s the little dude up to these days? Expanding his vocabulary, of course.

We have some other things we’re working on in the house. We found an antique high chair that needs refinishing. We’re in the market for a new dining room light. Our living room furniture has shifted a bit. There’s a file cabinet (exciting!) that needs painting. We’ll get to them and I’ll share it all eventually!

Just ignore the end-of-season horrible garden beds in the back there. Urgh.

We got these chairs last year and I stained them. I didn’t intended to do anything more to them, but I got my hands on a HomeRight Finish Max Fine Finish HVLP (high volume, low pressure) sprayer.

I’ll skip the detailed process because there are a ton of guides out there. Check out Gail at My Repurposed Life for great videos and how-tos.

Obviously, I had to prime the chairs since they were stained. I needed a (1) stain-blocking (2) exterior (3) wood primer. Definitely forgot the stain-blocking part. It’s been two weeks and no stain is showing through, but I’ll keep you updated (I’m sure you’re very concerned about stain leaking through my paint job, right? heh.)

I wanted to pull a color from the umbrella. Brown and orange were out, out of personal preference. Yellow and green were too light (I was scared of that whole stain spotting thing). So blue it was. Mariner by Sherwin Williams was a close-enough match. I got a quart of their exterior latex enamel in high gloss.

I didn’t take any pictures of myself spraying it because my husband took the baby to his parents’ house that afternoon, and setting up a tripod…ugh.

Anyway, two weeks later, we have these chairs that are bright and fun with a lovely brushstroke-free paint job.

The FinishMax has a slight learning curve with adjusting the spray amount, but a quick knob turn on the trigger can fix it. And I learned the hard way (as I usually do) to keep an eye on the extension cord so it doesn’t drag across the fresh paint job.

I can’t imagine priming and painting these by hand. I would have gone crazy with all the nooks and crannies, and frankly, it would have been sloppy because I am not a patient person. This was way easier and, unlike spray paint, I got to choose an exact color.

Clean up was a pain, but only because it required thoroughness, which I find tedious. Again with that patience thing. Dried paint = bad. All it took was warm, soapy water though. I’ll probably avoid ever using oil-based anything in it just because I detest solvents.

Now I suppose I need to paint the royal blue plant stands, but that can wait a season. It feels weird painting brand new things.

Anyone need something painted?! I know a lady who can hook you up with a sweet paint job. (It’s me. I’m the lady.)

Disclaimer: HomeRight provided a Finish Max Fine Finish HVLP Sprayer for this and future projects. All opinions and wrong primer usage are my own.

A few years ago, we had one of those cheap, white plastic outdoor dining sets. The kind you find at a community swimming pool. In an attempt to spruce it up, I sprayed painted it. Since it was plastic, I used a primer for plastic and outdoor spray paint.

Within weeks, it was chipped. We ended up chucking it because it looked too horrible to even donate.

So, this time around, I decided to try something new. Krylon Fusion, specifically designed for plastic.

We have this deck box. It’s nice and beat up, the perfect candidate for painting.

I used gloss since the enamel is a bit tougher. It looked really splotchy at first, but evened out after a day of drying in the sun.

It looks so much better now. But it’s not perfect. In just a few days, chips had flecked off. Pretty disappointing.

I only prepped it by scrubbing it down. Maybe I should have sanded? Used a deglosser? Or even primed again? Who knows. I’m not calling it a total fail because it IS better looking, even with the chips. I’ll let you know how it holds up through the rest of the summer.

So there you have it. Plastic, spray paint and the elements just don’t go together.

But here’s the problem. It’s white canvas and faux-leather. Canvas bag? Throw it in the wash when it gets dirty. But this? Not so much. Not to mention, it’s quite summery looking. So I got crafty.

GUYS. I got crafty. I don’t blame you if you did a spit-take.

Here’s my recipe for fun:

1. Fabric purse
2. Martha Stewart paint
3. Martha Stewart fabric paint medium
4. Paint brush
5. ScotchBlue TM Painter’s Tape
6. X-acto knife
7. Ruler

I pulled off strips of ScotchBlue TM Painter’s Tape and, using an X-acto knife, cut them down the middle. A cork surface was great to cut on. A kitchen cutting board would probably work well too. I tried scissors for this, but it was super hard with the long strips. Hard, but not impossible.

Then I cut short pieces, three inches each.

I did the arrow pattern by sticking two short pieces together in a right angle.

Then I applied everything to the purse and gave it a good rub so the ScotchBlue TM Painter’s Tape would stick.

Next came the fabric paint. I had never done this before, so…you know. It was scary. But it turned out easy! One part fabric paint medium and two parts of paint made the acrylic paint ready for fabric.

I brushed it on, hitting the taped areas first to create a seal, then doing everything else.

Moment of truth!

And there you go. A painted fabric purse, using ScotchBlue TM Painter’s Tape.

The ONLY part that I don’t like? After the first coat of paint dried, I went back and touched up blotchy spots. Umm. It just dried blotchy. Hopefully it’ll fade into itself and blend better. Just an FYI if you try it yourself – slather on that fabric paint, and leave the tape on for the second coat and paint the whole thing again. No spot touch-ups.

Summer bag is now a year-round bag! And no more dirty canvas worries.

Disclosure: I was given ScotchBlue TM Painter’s Tape for this project. The craft and opinions are all my own.

The deck is stained and wow, does it feel (and look!) good.

A brief deck recap: Most of our decking and railing was split and starting to rot. The previous homeowner had never retouched the stain. So last summer, we ripped it apart and, using the existing foundation, rebuilt it.

After investing so much time, energy and money into rebuilding our deck, finding a stain that would protect it was very important.

We chose Acorn Brown by Thompson’s WaterSeal in a semi-transparent formula. In all, we used one and a quarter containers of the stain. One could have been enough for our small deck, but the boards absolutely sucked up the stain. For other supplies, we had several cheap polyester brushes, a couple of containers to hold the stain and tons of rags.

As I mentioned in this post, we would stain a bit, let it set, and wipe off excess. That worked perfectly for the balusters!

The decking didn’t need wiping. I just brushed it on evenly, working with a wet edge and taking care not to splatter.

So why Thompson’s WaterSeal? It prevents water damage, is UV and mildew resistant and has a good color life. A single coat of the semi-transparent lasts four years on decks and six on fences (which is good to know since that’s a on our to-do list).

The application is easy too. It only takes one coat and dries in two hours (though we found it dried much faster in 80 degree weather!). And since it’s a no-stir formula, we avoided messy paint sticks and needing to stir a can every ten minutes. (Ignore the butterfly bushes, they’re going to be planted around the side of the house)

Part of me wishes I’d gone with a transparent stain instead of semi-transparent. We had our fair share of drips and overlapping layers, particularly on the balusters and railing. A transparent stain would probably hide those mistakes better. But, I’m looking at our staining job through a critical lens. I see all the mistakes because I was there when they happened. So are they that obvious? No, not really.

Check out the waterproofing. These are our adirondacks (stained with a stain + sealant in one).

And just past that, you can see the beaded water on the decking. Yeah, I’m thinking we may have to re-stain those chairs!

So if you’re staining something that lives outdoors, or just looking to waterproof a surface, I wholeheartedly recommend Thompson’s WaterSeal. It’s easy to use, has a good reputation and, best of all, works!

In case anyone is wondering: Table and chairs are from Target, Adirondacks are from Hayneedle, pillows are Threshold from Target, small table is Room Essentials by Target, plants, pots and stands are from Lowe’s, lantern is IKEA, umbrella was a gift.

Here’s the deck saga: Deconstruction, rebuilding, railing, balusters, done with building, starting to stain

So, in honor of the little time thief, I thought I’d talk about cloth diapering.

While he was in utero, we decided cloth diapering was a good choice for us. Less waste, cheaper, pretty cute and reusable for future children.

At our first baby shower, people were like —> :-O Whaaat. Cloth? How does that work? (Except my grandma, who was all, NBD guys this is way better than what it used to be.)

There are so many kinds of cloth diapers. Fitteds, flats and prefolds, all-in-ones, all-in-twos, pockets. A local baby boutique has a nice blog explaining the different types. After research, we decided bumGenius 4.0 pocket snap diapers were right for us.

While these dipes are one size fits all, Charlie was too skinny to fit in them at first. So for the first month, we used disposables. Now we’re in cloth diapers 90% of the time. And so far, so good.

These have vertical and horizontal snaps for adjusting the fit. As he grows, we can let out the snaps. (There’s also a velcro option, but we read the velcro ages poorly.)

The cover is waterproof. Inside, there’s a fabric pocket for a cloth insert. The diapers come with a newborn and regular insert (the regular is thicker and absorbs more). The fabric pocket is made from a material that wicks the wetness away from the baby’s body.

Gratuitous naked baby shot. He’s totally horrified.

It all sounds fine and dandy…but what about dirty diapers?

Enter, this guy. It’s a Bumkins cloth diaper sprayer, and it’s connected to the toilet’s water line. So when we have a poopy diaper…

…we just spray off the solids and flush it down. (We also have a Spray Pal splatter shield, but it’s cumbersome and more work than it’s worth, in my opinion.)

From there, I separate the insert from the diaper and both go in a wet bag, which has a waterproof liner.

I know what you’re thinking. That diaper still had some serious yellow stains on it. Not to worry though! Breast milk is water soluble, and it comes right out in the wash.

The cotton inserts usually come out of the washing machine with a little yellow on them. The power of the sun takes care of that right away.

We have enough diapers in our stash that we can do laundry every other day. We’re not using any special detergent, just homemade stuff (Borax, Fels Naptha and washing soda). The wet bag gets washed too. We have two of them, so when one is being washed, we have a bag to use. Plus we have a small travel wet bag for when we’re on the go.

We’ve had a couple of leaks, but heck, we have leaks with disposable diapers. Disposable diapers have a handy wet indicator that I kind of miss. The cloth leaks happen when he saturates the pad. No blow outs yet! Overall? We’re super happy with the cloth diapers and can’t imagine using disposable diapers all the time. And Charlie? He’s pleased!

We still have a stash of Pampers though, for night time. I avoid changing his diaper in the middle of the night, but if he has a giant poop during a 2 am feeding, I change it. And tossing a disposable into the trashcan next to our bed is much easier than getting up and putting the diaper in the wet bag.

Conclusion: cloth diapering is not scary. I’ll keep you updated on how it goes when we introduce solids and he starts going to daycare!

Anyone else cloth diaper? What’s your experience? Favorite covers?

As an adult trying to stain her deck, that weather has been very annoying in the past month.

Everyday, 30% chance of scattered thunderstorms. Everyday, drought (or an errant three minute downpour.)

Last Wednesday I looked at the forecast. Open skies for SIX DAYS! As soon as Hurricane Arthur got out of town on Thursday, we were set.

Friday, we prepped by cleaning the deck. Before:

After, significantly brighter:

It looks so easy in before and after pictures. But it wasn’t great.

I bought a gallon of no-scrub deck wash that was supposed to cover 300 square feet. Halfway into spraying our 12’x12′ (144 square feet) deck, I realized I was almost out of wash. Ugh! Luckily, it takes four minutes to get from our driveway to Lowe’s. Husband went and picked up another bottle.

So I finished spraying and started rinsing. As I was spraying, I noticed this pulpy, cellulose-like layer peeling off. Hmmmm. When it dried (you can see it best near the bottom of the broom, the white stuff):

And the same happened in places where I walked:

So I ended up sanding the railing and a few spots on the decking. Word of wisdom: bleach-filled deck cleaner will eat. wood. up.

I looked online at product reviews and others had the same issue. Most of the positive reviews were associated with composite decks. Oh well. In the end, we got it clean and ready for stain.

We waited two days for the wood to dry, and on Sunday, started staining. We tackled the hard part first, balusters.

I couldn’t imagine doing this alone. Two people made it so much easier. I’d paint one side, he’d do the other.

Then we’d wipe off the excess.

Rinse and repeat in the hundreds of nooks and crannies.

Our handy helper. (Side note: went for his first peds visit. He gained 10 oz in one week and is in the top percentile for length at 23.25″!)

There are several spots that don’t look great, but my parents, deck staining veterans, assured us that as soon as the sun hit it for a couple of days, any splotches would blend.

Yesterday, I stained the decking in four staining sessions during Charlie naps. I need to move the furniture back today, but Charlie is having one of those needy mornings where he cries as soon as I put him down. So it looks like I’ll have to snuggle him today. Poor me.

Living Without Paper Towels

Two years ago, we gave up paper towels. Instead, we bought a pack of plain cotton towels to cut down on waste. So how’s it going? Are we still at it?

Yes!

The cotton towels are so basic. They’re perfect to use at meals and to wipe up little spills. Cleaning them is easy too. They go in our weekly laundry load of whites (an hour long hot cycle with a scoop of oxiclean.) The pack came with 14, which was plenty, but we got another pack in December to make sure we never ran out in a week. We got 14 for $17. Now, it’s only seven going for $21. So yeah, just an FYI – you can probably find them cheaper somewhere else.

As for regular cleaning, we use rags made from old dish towels and t-shirts. I didn’t like the idea of wiping down a bathroom sink with the same towels we use during a meal.

So two years without buying any paper towels? We’ll consider our towel investment a success.

Spray Painted Door Knobs

I did a brief update on this project last year, but I recently got a question about it, so here’s another update!

The interior spray painted door knobs are in great condition. The only nicked paint is on the latch plate in the door frame, from the latch moving across it. It’s so minor, it doesn’t bother us. Someone told us their store-bought bronze latch plates did the same thing and recommended clear bumper pads.

The front door handle is a different story.

It’s not great. Obviously, the lock has had a key jammed in it several times a day for two years. So that makes sense.

But the handle? Boo. Not sure what’s going on there. A huge chip appeared at some point last year (we think moving furniture scraped it) and it’s slowly spread.

I definitely want to repaint these (and coat them with a clear enamel) but I recall installing the lock being a huge pain. So I’m avoiding it for now.

Rustoleum Countertop Transformations

Remember when our kitchen looked like this?

The riskiest project we took on was Rustoleum’s Countertop Transformations. It was a relatively new product and we weren’t sure how it would turn out or if it’d even last.

Good news! They look as good as new. We treat the counters nice – using cutting boards and trivets – so we expected them to stay in good shape. (Full disclosure: this is an old picture. I didn’t take a new one because I didn’t feel like cleaning off the counter!)

One day we’ll invest in new counters, but until then, we’re very happy with this.

No TV In The Bedroom

Last summer we ditched the TV in our bedroom. Instead, we started reading before bed. Definitely a good change. After all, less technology in the bedroom is better for sleep and…other things. Wink wink. (But maybe not?) (Sorry mom)

But it didn’t last. Well. It did. But when Charlie was born, I found myself sitting in bed all morning for feeding sessions. It got boring, and I really wanted to watch the news.

So the TV is back. But only for the morning news (and World Cup action.) It’s still banned at night, to keep the environment lazy and quiet to get us all ready for sleepy time.

So here’s a tour of our terrible, awful backyard. Full of weeds, bald patches, an unstained deck and next to no landscaping!

This spring, Ryan got an itch to build more garden beds. He added two more to our collection.

He’s growing asparagus, basil, tomatoes, cucumbers, cauliflower and black beans. He had snow peas and spinach, but they died during a weeklong 90 degree streak. He also tried onions and peppers, but the peppers didn’t take when he transplanted them and the onions mysteriously disappeared (I blame the birds!). He also tilled a giant 40′ x 10′ stretch for watermelons, cantaloupes and other sprawling fruit.

I love gardening, but given my earlier displaced center of gravity, I haven’t done anything with it this year. It’s truly the husband’s pet project!

You might recall we had also been composting. We stepped up our game with a dedicated compost bin (on the far left of that bottom picture). Ryan built it using cedar fencing. It’s pretty huge! We don’t have any plans to harvest what’s inside. It’s just nice to not fill up our trash can with food scraps.

And here’s the deck now. We haven’t stained it yet (we had to wait since it was new, pressure treated lumber), but we’re teaming with Thompson’s WaterSeal to show off a couple of their great products. We just need the forecast to stop having a 30% chance of scattered thunderstorms every single day!

The table is from Target. Their patio stuff was on clearance and we snagged it for $70. The matching chairs were only available online and went on sale this week, so they’re on the way. The umbrella was a gift from Ryan’s parents.

The Adirondacks are from last summer (I won them at Haven Conference!). The table is another clearance Target find. I grabbed a couple of clearance outdoor lumbar pillows too, but forgot to put them on for the photos.

Moving down, Ryan bought an Acorn grill a few months ago. He absolutely loves it and I love that he shares in some of the cooking! We had it on the deck until we brought the new table home. It’s better down here on the concrete. The deck box is a piece that needs some work. It’s going to get a paint job, perhaps as early as this weekend.

Zooming out a bit, you can see we have a trash can problem. Yuck-o. Needs to be hidden!

So that’s what’s going on. But we have some things to do:

• Wash and stain the deck
• Paint the deck box
• Repair a leak in the gutter
• Replace floodlight with a sensored floodlight
• Get a new screen door
• Add lattice to the base of the deck (and stain it!)
• Plant a couple of bushes around the deck steps (and add more plants elsewhere – we’d like a couple of fig bushes and some smaller fruit trees)
• Overseed the yard
• Build something to hide the trash and recycling bins

This stuff is really just scratching the surface. Adding accessories – lighting, candles, plants, etc. – is really what will make it an enjoyable space.

Eventually, we want to fence in the backyard and lay a patio at the base of the steps. Those are two long term projects though.

I’m hoping to tackle the staining very soon! Just waiting for a two or three day drought.

How have you made your outdoor living space better for the summer?

This happened months ago, but I just got around to doing something with the mirror.

Me and the Mister were in Lowe’s, browsing a clearance endcap. I saw a mirror marked down from $60 to $30. I picked it up to examine.

Behind us, a voice said, “Name your price. I need to move this stuff as soon as possible.” It was a manager. He was redoing the endcaps. He told us to name a price for whatever was there.

I mean, we didn’t need random bits of tile or bronze light switch plates, but a mirror? Yes please. (But not before Ryan asked what we possibly needed another mirror for. JUST BECAUSE, DEAR.)

Anyway, I offered $20, and the manager agreed. “Tell the cashier Mike So-And-So told you you could have it for that much.” Deal.

We went to check out and told the cashier, “Mike So-And-So said we could have it for $20.” The cashier smiled, rang it up, and punched his keyboard to change the price. “I’ll do you one better,” he said. “How about you just take it for free.”

Umm. OKAY!

Moral of the story: hang out around the clearance endcaps on a restocking day and maybe Mike so-and-so and his trusty cashier sidekick will let you have a bargain mirror.

But then the mirror sat in the corner of our guest room for ages. I was going to hang it in there, but thought, eh, why not the nursery? It was originally gray, but I spray painted it a glossy aqua.

In addition to the mirror, we have a footstool. I found it at a thrift shop for $18 back in March. It works perfectly with the Graham glider. But I wasn’t in love with the gray-blue fabric, and the washed out black paint wasn’t doing anything for me.

So naturally, spray paint and new fabric!

Like with the table, I used black chalkboard spray paint on the base. The fabric is burlap, and was a freebie from Online Fabric Store last year at the Haven Conference (by the way: super sad to be missing that this year, but Charlie will only be five weeks old, and I’m so not ready to travel).

Rogue big toe photobomb. Ooops.

First I pried out the existing staples. Wasn’t hard; whoever upholstered it used a terrible staple gun, so half of them were wiggled loose.

That revealed a somewhat grody piece of fabric from your grandma’s house in 1982. Bleh. I didn’t bother taking it off. I was tired of messing with staples.

From there, I just stretched the burlap over the stool. It’s just like stretching a canvas, but easier.

Done! Two simple projects for less than $25. Yay for freebies! I’d like to get a fun, colorful pillow for the glider too, but that lumbar pillow is so great for nursing. So just imagine a fun, colorful pillow.

And the nursery is one step closer to being complete. The last major project is making a skirt for the crib. I have the fabric, but I also have a newborn, so…it’ll be done by the time we have our next child.

PS: Dad went back to work today. Me and baby are so very sad. Wish us luck on our own!