Home House Projects

We have been living in our new house since June and haven't really had a whole lot of time between now and then to put our own little touches in.  The summer was insanely busy with vacations and family visits, and the fall was worse with birthdays and hard monthly rotations.  We are finally getting around to making our house more of a little home.

Personally I am more of a "buy it so it looks nice" kind of person and not so much a Do it Yourself.  Morgan on the other hand is my exact opposite (which is why I love him).  He thinks that you can make anything and that he can make things way better than something we would buy.  I don't always admit that he is right unless he really deserves it..and it this case he really is right.  Morgan is the best, he can take one look at something and recreate it even better.  He made me the most amazing wine shelf that I will feature on here soon once we put the finishing touches on it.

Our Hallway Project

We have this awkward little space in our front hallway between the half bath and the closet.  For the longest time I just had a cute little clock hanging on the wall, but it still looked empty.  I went on the hunt to find a little table to fill the space, I found the best one at pottery barn for $400.  Seriously I love Pottery Barn.  I am addicted but I do refuse to pay that much for a end table just to stick in my hallway.

When I was in college my great aunt had given me this ugly little end table to fill space in our horrible awful college house.  After graduating college I had kept it in the basement of my townhouse, not wanting to get rid of it, and then it lived in the garage when we moved into our new house.  Morgan had the great idea of re-finishing that table and using it in our entry way.  So we dug it out of the garage and unbelievably it was exactly the perfect size to fit in the space.  Later that evening we went to HomeDepot (Morgan's home away from home) and got everything we needed to start this little project.

Now I have NEVER used a sander in my life so Morgan had to walk me through it slowly at first.  He made sure that I went with the grain and didn't sand it so much in one spot so that it would be uneven.  Oops on that last part but you can't tell now that its painted haha.  After it was all sanded off we just used spray paint to change the color to a fun blue that matched our hallway rug and half bath.

We were both so surprised how well it turned out!  

If you remember my post from our spontaneous Ikea trip then you recognize the lamp.  The little mirrors I had found at target for around $20 I think.  Altogether this little project cost us approximately $50, much cheaper than that Pottery Barn table I wanted.  Guess that means I have a little extra money for shopping before vacation!

Hope everyone enjoyed their weekend!

Spontaneous Ikea trip

What do you do when you are driving back from New Jersey through Philadelphia, your boyfriend won't let you stop at King of Prussia, and you have an hour to kill before you need to be home.  You go to IKEA!

So today we made a trip down to New Jersey (right across the PA line) for my very best best friend's son's first Birthday Party!! Happy Birthday Keagen!  We had to be home by a certain time and after the party was finished we realized we had a hour before we actually needed to be heading home.  Not wanting to head home early and be lame we decided we would do something as a family to kill some time.  Last week I had went to King Of Prussia (huge mall outside of Philly) with two of my best friends and spent more money then I probably should have so stopping there on the way home was not one of Morgan's top priorities.  

We just started working on a few little cutesy projects for our house (which I will be sharing in a later post when they are complete), so we decided to stop at Ikea!  Now Ikea is a super special store to us, not just because it is totally amazing and has everything you never knew you needed but must buy right when you see it!  About a year ago we had met our friends at KOP for the day and stopped at Ikea quick on the way home.  We were walking through the store when Brook's decided he no longer wanted to be in his carseat and wanted to be held.  He reached his little arms up and said plain as day "Dadad" reaching for Morgan to hold him.  FIRST WORD!

As you can see Sir Baby Bubba is way too cool to ride in his stroller anymore and insisted on riding in the cart and pointing out everything we should buy for him (he has great style).  We found some wonderful things for the house.  I was really looking for a little light to go on top of the end table that I am finishing for our hallway and Morgan was trying to find strand lights to place under the wine rack he had built for us a few months ago.  Mission Successful! Plus a few other fun finds!

Here is my fun little silver lamp for the end table, I think it was around $14 and also some little glass cylinders we found a set of three for $18.  Not sure what we are going to do with them yet but who can't think of atlas 100 things that you can use glass cylinders for.

I call these little extra finds "Wins",  when you find something or do something unexpectedly that is a huge benefit Morgan and I call those moments "Wins".  Brooks is now wanting to be totally independent when it comes to eating (which is highly annoying at times) He refuses to sit in his highchair, has to be a big boy and sit at the table, ON YOUR LAP.  He also insists that he uses his own plates, bowls and utensils..which normally end up flying across the room.  So today I found him some new plastic plates, bowls, spoons and adorable dog cups!

Of course no trip to Ikea is complete without Cinnamon Rolls!  

Someone was really excited and ate the whole thing... He wasn't excited however and the sparkling lemon flavored water that we let him try... haha

Isn't that just the cutest little face in the world! I'm sure when he is 16 he will hate me for these photos but right now they just totally melt my heart.

I am super excited to share my little project that I'm working on for our hallway, right after you walk in the front door.  I just added the second coat of paint onto the table tonight but still have a lot of work to do before its ready to show.

Thank you so much for catching up with me about our day, more fun things to come for the rest of the week I promise! 

Enjoy your Monday everyone!!