Pottery Barn inspired toy chest

Recently while cleaning out my closet for installation of our new carpet, I “found” the old toy chest my kids used 25+ years ago.    Once I got it emptied, I didn’t want to get rid of it, mainly for sentimental reasons.     Then it hit me that it would be the perfect toy chest for my grandson Jackson’s room.     Taking my cue from a toy chest featured in a PB kids catalog, I shamelessly copied it.    The toy chest is a little roughed up but I think that adds to its character and it will certainly get dinged up when Jackson throws his toys and trucks in it.   

So here’s what the PB toy chest looks like….

…and it costs $199.00 plus S&H!

I spoil my grandkids but I’m really not into spending over $200 on a toy chest!

So I got out some stencils and red craft paint and in just a few minutes I had my own version of the PB toy chest…

Had to do a little gluing and clamping of one of the boards that had come off.  

I cut out each letter of his name and taped them down, spacing evenly.   This was a quick and easy project and will come in real handy for Jackson’s room.       

Then in a few years when Jackson outgrows it, I’ll stain over “Jackson” and stencil “Cade” on it, so both of my grandsons will get to use the toy chest that belonged to their parents.     Pretty neat, huh?     I thought so, too!

Looks like my glue didn’t dry clear.     Any ideas on how to get this glue residue off?     My husband said try using something like Goop Off.  

We’re off to the gulf area again for a couple of days then SEC football starts Saturday.     W-A-A-A-R EAGLE!

Welcome Baby Cade

Yesterday at 3:09 p.m. my son and his family welcomed a new addition to their family….a baby boy!    

It has been such a long wait from this …..

to this!

Isn’t he gorgeous!   

What a long day we had.    The doctor was supposed to break Jennifer’s water at 5:00 a.m. so I got up at  4:30 a.m. and headed to Birmingham around 5:30 (BTW, traffic was crazy even at 7:00 a.m.!)    When the doctor came in to do an ultrasound to see how the baby was positioned, he found out he was breached, so they decided to do a c-section, which Jennifer was not happy about at all!   She was originally scheduled for surgery at 1:00 p.m. but the doctor’s schedule ran late so they finally took her to the O.R. about 2:40 and at 3:09 this angel baby arrived!   

Here’s dad “suiting” up

I don’t know about you, but when I had babies I looked nothing like this right before I delivered!    She has the easiest labor and deliveries I’ve ever seen!

My boy and his boy (those lights make his hair look green!)

Big sister McKinley holding her little brother for the first time

 

And of course cousin Taylor had to get in on the action.     Being a twin, she never got to hold a new little brother or sister…as her “baby” brother was only 2 minutes younger than her!   And yes, that’s an Auburn hat he’s wearing!

I’ll be doing babysitting duty for the next couple of weeks so my blogging will have to take a backseat.    I do have quite a lot of decorating projects on going as the painters have just about completed painting the rooms since the water heater damage.    The tile floor in the master bath will go in next week and then carpet.   After that two more rooms will be painted and then hopefully once I get back to my “normal” schedule I can put the rooms together and have some photos to share.

My inspiration for our bedroom came from this photo I got from the wonderful Cote de Texas blog (thanks Joni!) as the headboard is almost identical to mine as well as the drapery panels and dust ruffle….fingers crossed my room turns out half as pretty as this one!

I decided to go with Macadamia as the wall color in our bedroom and bathroom and I love it.   It’s the perfect khaki color, not too dark or too light.    I also bit the bullet and ordered a duvet cover and euro shams from Pottery Barn (like the one above) but I haven’t tried it out on the bed yet. 

Have a great week and stay safe…..

Judy

Color Suggestions?

Since our crisis with the hot water heater (if you missed that you can read about it here) I am now having to chose a new color for my bedroom walls as well as carpet.     I have not liked the wall color since it went up about 2 years ago so while this ordeal is very stressful, I’m looking forward to a new wall color in the bedroom.

Now I need all you decorating divas to chime in and give me some suggestions.     Here’s what I’m working with and what has to stay:

1.   Upholstered headboard from Ballards in creamy pintuck.     I have been using a white matlasse spread and with dark khaki dust ruffle and shams.    It’s not working.     For whatever reason, the headboard comes off yellow-y with the white although I’ve seen that combination in blogland but of course, colors aren’t always true on the internet.    I’ve also considered making a “slipcover” for the headboard with ties on the side to match a dust ruffle and shams….see I’m all over the place on this!

2.    We have a triple dresser and highboy in a dark cherry finish…these have to stay.

3.    The window treatments are tortishell bamboo blinds and my go-to drop cloth drapes.    I plan on sewing a wide contrasting border at the bottom like I did in my dining room but haven’t done that yet b/c I’m not sure what I’m using on the bed!

I wanted to just paint the walls a creamy color but that’s been impossible to decide.     While at the paint store Saturday, someone in there was getting another gallon of paint in Macadamia…which I really like.     Another color sample I have is Woodstock Tan which is a really rich color but hubby thinks it’s too dark.  I guess I could have the Woodstock Tan cut to 1/2 the strength.

Now I’d love any suggestions for paint color and if you have some inspiration pictures you could send me a link to, I’d love that as well.     The sheetrock work is being done tomorrow morning so I’m thinking the painting will start over the weekend.

I can’t wait to hear from ya’ll!

The Sky Is Falling

….or in my case, the ceiling!    When we got back Sunday afternoon from our little trip, hubby was laying on the bed watching TV when he noticed some pretty serious water damage on the ceiling.    Our water heater is directly above where that damage was.     So  he went up in the attic and long story short, we had to turn off the water heater, drain the darn thing, and go to HD for a new water heater and drip pan.    Hello big bucks!    

On Monday afternoon water heater fix it guy came by and let’s just say it was about 150 degrees up in that attic!    After removing the old water heater and putting the new one in the attic, he someone cut a water line and water gushed out everywhere!    Hubby ran out to where the water main line is to turn it off but water was pouring out of the ceiling in our bedroom and den.    I was running around putting towels, bath mats, pots and pans under all the drips until they got it stopped.       About 8:00 last night water heater guy left so he could return today to finish up.      He notified his insurance company so now I’m sitting here waiting on Serve Pro to call me to come out and “assess the damage”.     I see lots of drywall mess in my immediate future but I guess I could look on the bright side cause I’m getting my ceilings fixed and painted (which they desperately need).

So now 25 years worth of “stuff” in the attic will have to come down (don’t know where all THAT will go) so the Serve Pro folks can be sure there is no mold growing up there (yuck)……

….how’s your day going?

UPDATE:

I was on the phone with hubby and heard a sound….went in the bedroom and here’s what I saw!!!

This was before the ceiling fell….still waiting on Serve Pro, they are being pulled off another job.

Below is a pic of the ceiling in the den:

Just spoke with the insurance lady and she assured me everything will be taken care of….new ceiling, new carpet, hardwoods (if necessary) and whatever else is damaged, plus clean up.    However, she warned it will get worse before it gets better.

BABY ON BOARD

My little grandson is due in just a few weeks so Saturday I helped my daughter host a baby shower for son and DIL.     We got up bright and early Saturday morning and drove to Birmingham with the car loaded down with what we hoped was everything we’d need.      Shannon had ordered the cake here in Montgomery at Publix and we picked it up at the Publix in Birmingham near my son’s house.      I had purchased one of those neat drink dispensers for the lemonade but it sprung a leak.    Fortunately, that was the only “fly in the ointment”  so we had to serve drinks from a plain ol’ pitcher.     Other than that, everything went pretty good.

I took some quick pictures of the table after we got it set up.    Nothing fancy, we just had a very simple menu.  

There were three sweet little ladies at the shower.    My two granddaughters, Taylor and McKinley, and a little friend of McKinley’s who is the daughter of Jennifer’s best friend from high school.    Another friend from McKinley’s school came in later with her mom.

 

They played dress up by putting on different princess outfits.    For some reason, Taylor didn’t get in on the first dress up go-round – she’s wearing the dress I had made for her last fall for Little Miss Christmas On the Coosa.

Love this frame Shannon had made for the baby.     A  good friend of Shannon’s makes these frames and sells them on line.    She has a link on her Facebook page so if anyone local is interested in seeing more of her work, let me know and I’ll give you the link.    By the way, these are the colors we’ll be using in the nursery.      We’ll also be incorporating beadboard wallpaper!

Here’s our little baby’s first official “photo.”   I can’t wait to meet him!

Jennifer (middle) with her sister and mother.

Daughter (Shannon), me and Jennifer.

Little mommy (she never gains much weight).

One of Jennifer’s friends made the darling diaper “cake”

Since I’ve been having so much going on lately, I decided to treat myself to a little pampering this week.      I remembered that I had not used two of the spa treatments in the spa package Shannon gave me a few months ago.     I had to schedule both treatments this week as the package expires on July 31st.    So here’s what you’ll find me doing….

Tuesday – body glow treatment (not exactly sure what this is)

Wednesday – manicure

Thursday – hair appointment (not part of the spa treatment but a necessity – gotta keep those gray hairs under control!)

Friday – hubby and I going to the gulf coast for a couple of days for a little get-a-way!

Hope everyone has a great week and do something special for yourself!

Short Break

I’ve got so much going on in my life right now that I haven’t had time to blog about anything but I’m hoping things will slow down for me soon and I can share more than just all the craziness going on.        This weekend I’m going back to my son’s to host a baby shower for son and DIL as our little grandson will be arriving mid-August.    We are making more repairs/improvements to mom’s house since her sale fell through and our realtor wants to hold an open house.     So please don’t forget about me while I’m on this short break!

4th of July, a New Blog Friend & Some Good News!

What a title!    I didn’t think I had enough of each subject to do a separate post for each so I’m just going to lump all these three things together into one post.

First up, our 4th of July celebration was spent at my sister’s lake house.     My mom was rarin’ to go so we picked her up around 11:00 a.m. and headed out to Lake Martin.     We just fixed sandwiches for lunch and then hung out on the pier and took turns riding in the boat.    The lake was really crowded on the 4th as it usually is but there were more people than usual because (unfortunately) the oil spill on our beautiful gulf coast has prevented many people from spending their holiday at the beach.     Late in the afternoon my sister and I started the fixins’ for a “Low Country Boil”.      This is an easy, quick and delicious way to serve a crowd.     Basically, we just put several pots of water on the stove and added some seasoning to the water.     Then when the water boiled we added mini ears of corn on the cob, cut up sausage, small new potatoes and shrimp.      After it’s done, you just dump it all into a big bowl and that’s it!    We were going to have a salad too but somebody (me) forgot to bring the salad!

Here’s a few pics of our day on the lake and our Low Country Boil supper:

 

The geese swam right up to the shoreline looking for food then lined up to follow the boat….the kids got a real kick out of seeing the duck’s “feet” in the water

    

This sailboat is the first one I’ve ever seen on the lake but I loved it!

This beauty is my nephew’s girlfriend….we made her sit in the front by herself cause she made us feel old, white and fat!

Livin’ large on the lake

Wonder where they got a flag that big?

  

The water looks  muddy cause we had tossed in some seasoning packets

We used two bags of the shrimp

And here’s  it is all ready to eat.    This dish takes no time at all to cook and tastes wonderful!

  

 

Now I’m going to tell ya’ll a little bit about my new blog friend, Elizabeth Ann.      Every time I go to Birmingham I try and stop in this great little shop called Consigning Interiors.     It’s a little mini mall where vendors display their items for sale.      Back in April I noticed a wonderful little booth so I took a lot of pictures of it.     At the time I was looking for a pretty turquoise mirror and I found exactly what I wanted in this booth.     Here are some pictures I took of  Elizabeth Ann’s booth back in April:

 

Above is the gorgeous turquoise mirror I bought which is now hanging in my dining room (see photo at below)

 

       

 

When I was in Birmingham two weeks ago, I stopped off to check out her booth again.    I noticed she had a business card and on it she listed her blog name!     I couldn’t wait to see her blog.     I e-mailed Elizabeth and told her how much I enjoyed seeing her booth and how happy I was to find out she had a blog.     Elizabeth Ann was kind enough to allow me to showcase her booth here.      So now we are “blog buddies” and we have plans to meet sometime in the near future.   If you live in or near the Birmingham area, I highly recommend a trip to Consigning Interiors and don’t forget to stop by Elizabeth’s Ann booth and see all her wonderful items.     This week she has just restocked her inventory and redecorated.    I know she would love you to stop by her blog and welcome her to the world of blogging.

 

And finally, I would like to thank everyone who left a comment on my post about my mom’s house sale falling through.      It really meant a lot to me as I have been so discouraged with this particular buyer who is still causing problems.     BUT, on Saturday, we got a letter from our congressman who had received word from the VA that my mom is approved for the VA assistance I had applied for back in October!    This lifts a tremendous burden off my shoulders  as it means she will have now have enough money each month to help meet her expenses at the assisted living facility.    Plus she will get “back pay” from November 1, 2009!!!     I had contacted my congressman back in April and never heard back from his office so I was really pleased to see that his office had followed up on my inquiry.      We still need to sell her home but this will ease the financial burden for now.

Thank you for all your prayers and encouragement.