Five Blondes » decorating

A bookshelf makeover.

Micaela — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 03:30:56 +0000

I’ve been so inspired by the many do-it-yourself blogs that I read lately (you can find a lot of them in my links section) and I’ve been doing a little do-it-yourselfing of my own lately. My most recent makeover was this old, ugly, fake wood bookcase that miraculously made the move all the way to Toronto with us last year:

After some sanding and a couple coats of paint it’s now a whole new woman:

The cost of this project was just some sandpaper and paint that I already owned. Not too shabby!

Raspbaby’s Nursery

Kate — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 15:28:19 +0000

This room has been a work in progress for quite some time. It took a long time for me to decide what I wanted and then when I thought I knew what I wanted, I was scared to make the decision. I’m not a great decorator. I would love to be but just don’t have the drive I guess. I don’t really believe that any room in my house accurately represents me. I love bright colours and patterns and no room in my house has anything of the sort. I wanted this room to be the first room that I actually love and I’m happy with the way that it turned out. I love walking into it and dreaming of when the baby will sleep in the crib and I get to dress raspbaby in all his or her cute clothes!

After all that, here are some photos. (btw taking photos of rooms is really not my forte)

Here is a view of the room from the doorway.

The dresser from the doorway. As you can see we decided on the white Ikea dresser. It’s not the highest quality ever made, but I love all the drawers and the room that it allows me to use to organize! It’s going to suck to move whenever we move.

Here are the cute alphabet letters that you see around the room. I found them at Chapters, they are exactly what I was looking for.

I love the way the crib skirt turned out, and it was super easy too make (thanks mom!) and the quilt made by two of my aunts matches everything perfectly.

Here’s our stroller which matches- I didn’t even mean for this to happen, I guess I just really love green and brown! Mom bought me the diaper bag which is hanging on the back of the stroller. She couldn’t have matched it any better!

Eventually we will move the glider into the corner of the room where the stroller is currently hanging out, but since we plan to have raspbaby sleep in our room in his or her cute cradle, we are leaving the glider in the living room for now.

Here the cradle, it’s in out living room right now because we need to move around the furniture in the bedroom before it will fit. So now we just get to stare at it all day and wonder when we will have a baby to fill it!

Nursery Progress

Kate — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 17:51:01 +0000

The nursery is stuck right where it was 2 weeks ago- it’s half painted. Scott did a bit of progress by painting the ceiling, so now it’s a bright white. But the walls still need another coat. We still have about 7 weeks to go, and I just can’t wait to see it all come together. Today my mom-in-law is coming over to help me finish painting (Scott’s calling her my babysitter).

I threw together an idea board for the nursery, basically incorporating everything we have, and have planned for the nursery.

1. Fabric:

Floral-for the curtains- with a bit of gingham at the bottom

Gingham- for the crib skirt

Blue- for a blind on the windows

2. Crib- the colour of ours is a cherry, but that’s basically what it looks like.

3. Glider- basically looks like that

4. Alphabet Prints- I knew all along that I wanted to incorporate the alphabet in the nursery. Now I need to decide if I want to use them as a sort of border around the room or spell out words. Our boy name repeats a letter so that’s out, but our girl name has no repeating letters, so if raspberry is a girl I’m thinking that will be my choice.

5. Dresser- Mom bought an old dresser at an auction sale and really wants me to use it and paint it yellow (she’s obsessed, yes mom I said obsessed, with yellow). I think it’s a cute idea but I really think I have my heart set on a long dresser (like the one in the idea board) because I would want to use it as a change table as well.

So here’s my next board- with a different dresser, one I have showed before:

This one has a different dresser. The IKEA one. I previously liked it in brown, but since the walls are brown I don’t think it would work, so now I’m thinking of the white option.

I also think I want to put a nice area rug in the room, and I’m leaning towards green, my favourite colour. But I’m just not sure how the green in this rug will look with the gingham green.

Any thoughts?

Christmas Spirit

Kate — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 22:27:15 +0000

Christmas is only 32 days away! Have you started your Christmas shopping yet?

I started my shopping on Saturday, and I have every intention of getting all my shopping done early this year (like that will really happen…). I know what I am going to get for a few people, it’s just a matter of going out and getting it, but since the stores are so busy already it makes me dread going. I’m planning a trip to the One of a Kind Show and Sale in Toronto next weekend. I don’t know how much I’ll get there, because items are usually pretty pricey at events like that, and I’m mostly just hoping to get myself more into the Christmas spirit and maybe get a gift idea for the people on my list who are hard to buy for.

Christmas decorating has begun in my house. I took down my Happy Halloween banner from the fireplace and put up the new one I made reading Merry Christmas. Next will be the tree and garlands. I have plans to decorate outside the house as well this year, but we’ll see if it happens. I took the photo below on November 22nd 2008, so I’m behind where I was last year!

This year I’m also sending out Christmas cards! I still have the same box that I bought about 4 years ago, which were the prettiest cards ever, and this year I found some that are similar so I bought those as well. I spent Saturday writing Christmas cards and eating candy canes.

I figure since Christmas seems to arrive and leave so quickly it doesn’t hurt to start decorating or shopping early (not that it’s really that early anymore, being only 32 days away!)

Some living room love.

Micaela — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 03:03:02 +0000

My living room needs a little love. Between the wedding which took over my life, and saving for a house, I haven’t really put any effort into making it a beautiful and comfortable place for us. Now that we are both working days, we spend a lot of time hanging out in this room together in the evenings and so it’s really coming to my attention that it needs an update in a big way.

I’m not going to post before photos yet, until I have the after photos, but we have so much old, secondhand furniture that just isn’t very nice that I’d like to get rid of or improve:

- An flowered lazyboy that used to be my Oma’s
- A small fake wood bookshelf that I’d like to replace with a big one
- A scalloped edged coffee table recently bought off craigslist which I will paint
- The old, IKEA (I haaaate having ikea furniture.) coffee table which is in the corner on it’s side, pretending not to exist

And what I need to get:
- A couch or something to replace the lazy boy
- Curtains for the windows
- A large bookshelf to replace small bookshelf
- A floor lamp

These are some photos I’ve saved on my computer over the past bit as inspiration. I apologize that I’m not sure of the source of any of them so if you know, just give me a heads up and I will credit it:

This coffee table looks a lot like mine and I’d like to paint mine white too. Also, we’ve been looking for a sectional but just can’t find one we love, but I love this one!

I saved this one when we first moved in as inspiration because with the location of the window and fireplace it’s the same layout as our room and the walls are a similar-ish colour.

And… that’s it! I thought I would have had more but most pictures seem to be kitchens and bedrooms. No wonder I haven’t done anything with ours, I need more ideas and inspiration. Any living rooms out there that you absolutely love?