Ch-ch-ch-changes!

If you know me, you know I always have a project of some sort. Here are some of our latest 'projects' :).

This is (sadly) the 'before' picture of McKinley's room. I LOVED this room, and spent WAY too much time obsessing over the little details.
EVERY little detail... I made all of the curtains, painted all of the furniture, you name it, I spent HOURS on this room when she was little! This photo is dark, but this was her little 'tea party' corner. Ahh, girls. Ignore the castle on the wall, that wasn't part of the room, I think it was a poster left over from her birthday party that year that I temporarily allowed to be hung on the wall. :)

Well, one day it all went on Craigslist and I started over. Yes, all of it. Furniture, curtains, and all. The toys had gone to the finished playroom, which left the room feeling bare, and we knew we would eventually put McKinley and Mason together in that room, which meant bunk beds were a must. Pink just wouldn't do for a boy/girl room. SO, it all went. And I started over. That was a year and a half ago. I did a beach room, which did NOT work out the way I wanted, so I finished it (hung everything on the walls, etc.), then tore it all down a week later :). Matt loves me. Finally I ran across a design magazine with a playroom that I LOVED and had intended to use for our playroom design. I had gone another direction with the playroom, and forgotten about the idea. When I ran across it again it was perfect, I just had to adapt it a little to make it a bedroom and presto - a weather-themed bedroom, perfectly unisex!

Complete with bright primary colors, hand-painted clouds, magnet-board map (with magnetic airplanes, etc. to fly on it), felt weather chart (with changeable weather pieces), and more.The checkerboard table is my favorite, it was the same white table from McKinley's girly room, but with a new coat of paint leftover from our Shrek-green bathroom :). It wouldn't be a weather room without bright colored raincoats - which my kids INSIST on wearing ANY time it starts to rain! It was a fun project, and I FINALLY made the kids' beds so I could take a picture of it!NEXT - my car. It was really not a very sad day when I let this beauty go - she really needed to retire, I had been stranded on the side of the road (and in the left-turn lane on the highway) WAY too many times! And we replaced her with this! I had a few mini-panic attacks about buying a 2010, I am WAY too conservative to spend money on a car, ESPECIALLY a brand-new car, but I LOVE my Pilot, and I am so glad we went for it. Sometimes reliability is worth the extra $. Just ask Matt - he had to answer all of my distress calls from the side of the road when he was too far away to come help me. :) And yes, I gave up on my minivan dreams. I still sometimes daydream about automatically opening doors, but for purposes pictured below (camping, off-roading, etc.), as well as the snow issue (I have ALWAYS had 4-wheel drive, I don't know if I could survive a winter without it!), I gave in and went with the mid-size SUV. It was a compromise, and I still SLIGHTLY envy the minivan soccer moms, but until it stops snowing in Utah I am SUV-bound. And finally, the pantry project. If you know me you know I have a serious issue with wire shelving - which was everywhere in our house. This was the last area to be re-done, and now I am happy with my fully-organized accessible, wire-free pantry! yea! I don't have a before photo of it, but you get the idea. Also, I locked up our medicines in a locking toolbox on the top shelf of the pantry - my kids can climb shelves WAY too well and I had heard too many horror stories about kids getting into pills, so now we are safe, Matt can barely remember the code to get into it :).

That's all for now, but watch for a nursery update SOMETIME in the future, for now it is just an empty room with no inspiration, I am working on getting creative with it!