Baby Boy’s Room and Organizing with IKEA

If there’s one thing that calms my mind, it’s an organized space. But if you walk into our house at any given moment, you are likely to find toy cars scattered across the floor and stacked on top of blocks, dress-up clothes trailing down the stairs, and a couch covered in stuffed animals. That’s pretty much our every day scene on our main floor living space. And as long as there is a narrow path for me to walk safely through while holding a baby, I’m okay with that for now. Because that’s life. If you then venture upstairs to the bedrooms, there is a bit more order. Mainly because we play up there only a fraction of the time as we do downstairs. But I do love playing and just being in our kids’ bedrooms. The girls are proud of their rooms and what they’ve helped them become and I hope Guyguy feels the same one day too.

We already had most of the big items (dresser, glider, and crib) as they’ve been passed down from the girls. Instead, we were only left to find the fun stuff for Guy’s room– items for a gallery wall, some room accents, and tools to organize all the little things. Here are three IKEA finds we used to give us some order:

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CUSTOM APPLE WATCH BAND with CASE STATION

You guys. Case Station. We’ve mentioned their custom phone cases before with the “Perfect Mothers’ Day Gift.” And now we’re bringing them back because we just can’t get enough. But this time, they stepped it up even more. Case Station now offers custom Apple watch bands. Yes, please. Because if I can have my phone match my watch and have my kid’s art splattered all over both of them, then I’m all in.

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THE PERFECT MOTHERS’ DAY GIFT with CASE STATION

Thanks for everyone’s input on the last post regarding our family travels. Since then, we decided that the trip to Estes next month seemed more appealing to fly 1 hr as opposed to a 10 hr drive. Duh, right? So the flights are booked and the VRBO is reserved. We’re basically already there. 😉 The thought of minimal cleaning (oh, and quality time with my loves, of course) has me counting down the days. But now let’s talk about something else I’ve been pretty giddy about: my new phone case from Case Station.

I’m not a techie person, seldom wear a watch, and lose my phone daily. So getting me a tech-related gift for Mothers’ Day wouldn’t normally score the hubby many points. Until now. Recently, we each got a phone case from Case Station and I couldn’t be more satisfied with the design, quality and durability. In the world of a billion different phone cases, I wanted something personal and practical. “Personal” meaning I wanted the imagery to mean something to me. “Practical” meaning “when the girls I (who am I kidding?) drop it daily, it will hold up and prevent injury to my phone.” Here is why we think Case Station is a step above the rest in creating the perfect personalized phone case:

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CAMERON the EASTERN BLUEBIRD + COOL BIRD STUFF

Mya had bird camp last week, which means they made some bird crafts, listened to bird calls, read bird books, and sang bird songs… which– for all of you who know Mya just a little bit– couldn’t be more perfect for our outdoorsy girl. It seems Mya’s birdie obsession started even before her first birdday party! (Ahhhh– looking back at those pics, I canNOT believe how much my girls look alike!) So in the spirit of the bird, I must share some bird finds and a fun story with you guys…

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KID DECOR: GRAPHIC ACCENT WALLS

We’re spring cleaning over here. Mya loves cleaning and organizing (and I’m hoping this continues until… forever.) Her most recent job is going through all her little things in her room and deciding what she wants to donate. Sometimes she’ll come across something and says, “I don’t really like this anymore. Let’s give it to baby Leah.” So thoughtful– pawning off what she deems as junk to her lil’ sister. (Insert eye roll here.) But she seems genuinely thoughtful when she says it, so we’ll go with it!

As we’ve been spending our rainy days decluttering in the girls’ rooms, it got me thinking about what I would love to do in their rooms in five or so years. The girls’ rooms are considered “finished” for now and their rooms are some of my favorite spaces in our home. But if I didn’t have a budget, their whimsical, yet sophisticated spaces would look a lot differently. One of the elements that I looooove seeing in kids’ rooms is a bold and bright accent wall. If there’s any space in the home to apply something so graphic, I’d say this is the place to do it. And since my feminine side is rejoicing everyday with two little girls, I would definitely go with some large scale florals.

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BABY LEAH’S ROOM

We’re finally getting around to showing you Leah’s baby room! I took these pictures back in early November, but not much has changed since then… except now we actually get to enjoy baby girl’s room with her! There are still some small things left to do, but if I wait to reveal before every little thing is “finished”, you might not see it until 2017! And I’m just too excited not to share…

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FINDING INSPIRATION in ABSTRACT PAINTINGS

We have a blank wall that stares you in the face when you first walk in our front door. It’s nakedness makes me uncomfortable and the issue needs to be addressed. The solution? We’re going to slap a big abstract painting up there. But that means I need to paint something. And recently, unwinding at the end of the night has been a bit shy of artistic production– involving dark chocolate, graham crackers dipped in milk, and pinterest. If you follow our pins, you have recently been bombarded with colorful, saturated paintings that I hope liven your senses. At least that’s what they do for me. Or maybe it’s the sugar. But I’m going to say it’s the inspirational art.

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PLANNING a BLUE SPARKLY BIRTHDAY PARTY

Mya turns 3 in less than a month and she definitely has more opinions in the party planning than the past two birthdays. Whenever I drop her off at preschool, she usually has a request, such as “Please get me chocolate milk and applesauce at the store.” But recently, the requests have been centered around her blue sparkly birthday party theme: “I think I need a blue sparkly bow for my party” or “I want all my friends to dance with me” or “We’re going to paint at my party… but don’t worry, we won’t make a mess” or “Everyone will wear blue!” So yeah. She definitely has inputed some ideas and I love how she’s so into it. I’m also pumped as to the ease of planning a one color themed party!

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MYA’S ROOM

Welcome to Mya’s room. As she is growing up way too fast and her room will also be ever-changing, it’s fun to document her little space. It’s difficult for me to pinpoint a specific “theme” for the room, except that it’s filled with color and feel-good things. Many items are from my childhood and we were able to save a lot of money on furniture. Her crib is from Ikea and the white cabinet/ shelving unit was given to us. Every picture, blanket, and stuffed animal is meaningful to us and probably won’t be to you; but we hope you enjoy the tour nonetheless!

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SHELVING FOR KIDS

One of my favorite things to find are inspiring kid rooms. Probably because they’re whimsical, colorful, and anything goes. Since my Kid Decor Pinterest board is getting out of control, I thought I’d narrow down some cool kid shelving solutions. Besides the abundant naked dolls on #4, these creative takes on storage are totally winners.

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BASEMENT BUILDOUT : THE PLAN

Teaming up for a home construction project probably isn’t the way most couples envision celebrating an anniversary together, but we have never been too concerned about doing things the conventional way. Life is pretty sweet with Ashley, and seeing her excitement to break out the power tools and learn some construction basics together is just another item in the long list of reasons why. To get things started, and especially since we’re rookies in this business, we wanted to get a good plan in place before we tackled this project. After some quick reading on the right way to build a wall, it was back to SketchUp to design our closet. On top of giving us a visual of what our completed project would look like, it helped get an accurate materials list together.

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