Liam & Lyla's Room Makeovers

Our main gifts to Lyla and Liam for their birthdays this year were room makeovers. Lyla had outgrown her crib and nursery and Liam's love for blue, black, and superheroes far outweighed the camping theme he used to have. I always want my kids' rooms to feel like a reflection of themselves and a place they love to spend their time playing in. I included them on several of the decisions and this view from the hallway makes me smile every time I walk past it ...

Here was the original mood board I made for Lyla's room. I wanted it to be dainty, whimsical, and filled with pink (her favorite color!). I knew I wanted to add wallpaper in her room and that whimsical floral wallpaper could not have been more perfect. I also added the board and batten wall trim for some extra dimension and visual interest around the room. I have been in love with that Jenny Lind style bed forever and it was well worth the wait for how long it took to ship to us. We kept her original dresser and a lot of her artwork/photos from her nursery on the walls. The curtains make it feel so cozy in there and the ruffled pink zippered bedding is such a dream! I love how her room came together and feels like it was truly fit for a princess ...

A few new additions from her original gallery wall ... a couple of my favorite prints of her from our family photo session this fall and that burgundy and gold piece of art that she painted all by herself several months ago. It makes me smile every time I walk past it knowing she has a piece of her own artwork on her wall.

This basket has been well loved over the last three years and is constantly chipping paint, but I think that's what adds to the charm. It is currently stuffed full of all her favorite baby dolls and animals. 

Here is the mood board I created for Liam's masculine room makeover. I love that it will grow so well with him! Nic wasn't a big fan of the bed at first, he said he thought it looked like it came from an orphanage. haha I think it has grown on him a little over time. We switched out the boob light for this milk glass flush mount, added some buffalo plaid blackout curtains, replaced the bedding that has already been dominated by a chapstick in the dryer (I cried inside!!!), and the most daring choice of all, the dark walls! Everyone I told about this project thought I was crazy but I had to keep telling them, "just wait ... it is going to be SO good!" I don't want to toot my own horn but I definitely wasn't wrong. ;) The perfect grey/blue/black walls above the board and batten trim completed the room!

We hung the art I made from his party over his bed ... 

Swapped out the art in this frame for a picture he painted of Batman!! How incredible is that?!

For now, he still has his smaller dresser in there but we plan to swap it out with ours someday when we get a new bedroom set. His room is definitely lacking in storage but we have made use of all the possible space in there with lego storage under his bed, a dresser drawer filled with superhero costumes, and closet shelves covered in lego creations! I love how simple yet impactful these superhero symbols are to add to the theme of the room and the piece in the middle is a fun letter board where he can switch out the saying anytime he wants.

I mean really though, how good did those dark walls turn out?! RIGHT?!! I love it.

My favorite part of all, they both absolutely adore their rooms! Liam spends so much time in his and Lyla still tells everyone she sees 4 months later, "I got a new big girl bed, wanna see it?!". Definitely the cutest rooms in our house!  

Our Backyard Renovation

It was time for project ... like the rest of the world during quarantine we decided to do a home renovation on a part of our home we knew needed love the moment we walked through it, our yard! A dead patch of grass along the back of the fence, a fire pit that hardly got used, a bunch of wonky bricks lining the permitter of our yard that our kids would rip up to search for bugs and then accidentally put them back over the top of sprinkler heads. It needed help, so this is our before ...

The very first thing we did was pull up all the bricks and replaced them with curbing ... something we wanted in our last home but didn't have the luxury of affording at the time. We removed the stone surrounding the fire pit and used some of the leftover grass to fill in the hole. Thanks to root stimulator, it has grown in so nicely! We wheel borrowed all the old river rock over to the side yard and laid down new landscape fabric.

The Saturday that the rock was delivered we worked all day long. The kids were troopers and loved helping with their shovels! Our bodies ached after that day. haha

I took all of the old bricks and made a cute path below these back windows and around to our side yard ...

There is still a big heap of them you can see near the gate. We plan to rip out some grass up front and use them as an extended flagstone patio off our porch where the grass just gets too damp. A project for another day!

The next step was one of the best parts in the process, picking out plants! Liam and Lyla had a blast running around the nurseries in their boots ...

Thanks to my dad for letting us borrow his truck, we brought home several redbud trees and a spring snow crabapple to replace a maple in the front yard that was planted too close to our house.

We spent the next several days planting the trees and adding peonies, dogwoods, boxwoods, and hydrangeas in-between. We also planted some perennials (coneflowers, daisies, and zinnias) from seeds. We added some small starts of english ivy to try growing up our metal fence for privacy too so I'm excited about those! We'll see how much they fill in over the next couple of years before planting too much more. I didn't want to end up with overcrowding. It absolutely transformed the space and looks so beautiful out there now!! Take a look ...

At the nursery where we bought our rock, they gave Liam a small strawberry plant. Since we don't have a garden yet, we planted it in this pot. He was so excited to have his own plant and reminds me all the time to cut off the flower stems to encourage root growth for fruit. I don't think we will have any strawberries this season but hopefully next year!

When Rue died last fall, we had her cremated. They gave us this beautiful box to hold her ashes and we picked out a "snowball" bush to match her white tail and buried her beneath. She always loved our backyard at our last house. We also surrounded the plant with the moon (she was a night owl) and heart shaped rocks we found right after she passed away to remember her by.

Pinching myself to have my own peony bushes that are flourishing in my yard despite the awful clay soil!

Our next project is this side yard. For a while it has been our dumping ground where we put extra rocks and dirt throughout the renovation. We were so thankful to have kept it all because it ended up helping level the ground over there for cement to be poured in a couple of weeks! We tore out that extra patch of grass up to the curbing (you can see the progress from the first to the second picture). Eventually we'll have a shed over there and some hanging garden boxes from the fence. Perhaps a little sandbox. Who knows, maybe even a hot tub one day!

We also strung some cute lights (the crazy cord situation has since been solved) and upgraded our patio furniture from the one my mom gave to use which we were so grateful to have in the mean time ...

My favorite place! Isn't it so magical?! I love it!

It was a lot of work, but worth every minute! Now, I sit out here and read a book while the kids have quiet time or we roast s'mores as a family around the fire table. We swing and play and cut flowers from our very own yard to put in a vase on the kitchen table. It feels like our own slice of paradise in the world and I'm so grateful!

Lyla's Dollhouse

I can't tell you how old I was or what daycare exactly but I have this vivid moment as a child when I saw my very first Victorian style dollhouse. It was something that had been passed down in that family and I could tell, was very special to them. At this daycare, we weren't allowed in the bedrooms of the children who lived there. All the toys we played with were in the living room or outside but one day she made an exception long enough for her daughters to show me their dollhouse. I remember it sitting on top of a small night stand, the outside painted pink with white shutters. It had intricate staircases of the swirling nature leading to different bedrooms on different floors. The beds were adored with the perfect amount of floral and while I didn't touch a thing, it was the most incredible thing I'd ever seen.  

When I had Lyla I dreamed of making her one for Christmas someday and this was the year! My creative side reveled in every moment I spent on this special keepsake for her. I bought a kit from Hobby Lobby at the beginning of November and finished it on December 21st, just days before giving it to her. It came in a thousands pieces of raw wood that needed to be labeled, organized in phases for assembly, sanded, painted, and wood glued together. I learned the true art of how long it takes for wood glue to cure and dry, it took the most amount of patience I'd say. But it all resulted in this and it was exactly as I had dreamed ...

The original had a second tiered porch which explains the side door from the master bedroom but an open balcony just fit what I imagined so much better. 

And what says Christmas time more than tiny little wreaths on every window and a "baby it's cold outside" front door mat! 

I covered the chimney and front porch steps with tiny bricks I made out of a painted egg carton. 

A view of the inside from the back ...

The cutest mommy and daddy mice ...

I made all the rugs out of velvet paper and sewed the bedding so it would have sheets the mice could slip underneath when they go to sleep ...

While I wanted her dollhouse to be unique, I also wanted it to be special and reflect the things she not only loves but that are in her own childhood home a little bit. The living room had to have a mini version of our family picture on the wall and a tiny blanket ladder!

I also designed the fireplace for the perfect tv stand and sewed curtains for the window in this room.

I love the two toned staircase so much!

This is the master bedroom ... I made the canopy bed and found the sweetest print of an angel bunny to remind her of Rue in heaven that I turned into wallpaper from this room. The fluffy white pillows were sewn from the same fabric I made our living room pillows in our real house and painted the nightstand pink just like her pink dresser in her own bedroom. 

The wallpaper is my favorite!

That tiny picture of her and Liam ...

This is the kitchen with the most adorable floating shelves filled with everything the mice need to have a dinner party. ;)

One side has the cutest hatch to play in the back of the bathroom or dining room ...

Everything is cuter tiny!! Like that little wooden stool for a piano bench, a tiny mirror, and the light fixtures. 

This is the hodgepodge room. haha It has a spot for the piano, a washer and dryer, and the bathroom in the back. The herringbone floor is my favorite part!! All of the floors were incredibly time consuming but so worth it in the end ... I made them all out of stained or painted popsicle sticks to create wood floors. 

The sweetest scalloped wallpaper in the bathroom ...

The attic is the most played with and loved part of the whole house ... I made it with the baby mice in mind ...

I can't get over how darling they are!!

There is another bed up there and a tiny little dollhouse that opens and can fit things inside. 

I also adore the attic wallpaper. The tiny little snowflakes in the winter floral pattern will always remind me of this special Christmas, when I gave Lyla her dollhouse. 

There were a few dollhouse pieces that survived our house flood back in the day that I was able to use and it made it extra special having some pieces to include from my childhood. The piano for example which I painted black and the forest green bed in the attic. The rocking chair was also mine and was broken but I glued it back together and it doesn't look too shabby after I covered it in a coat of white paint.

Next to having my children (haha), it was my favorite labor of love. I hope she cherishes it for years to come and that one day I can pass it on to my grandkids.