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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DAYS AT HOME with BANNOR TOYS

You know how sometimes you have a plan for the day… and then you remember you have kids… and whatever vision you had was just a joke really? Pile up Mya getting sick, some gloomy weather, and post breastfeeding hormones and the past week was pretty thrown. But rainy walks around the block, lots of pajama days, and a daily dose of Moana seemed to do the trick. Last weekend, that’s exactly what happened– we stayed home to get well and recharge for the week. All the bins and baskets of playthings were thrown on the living room floor and we all just camped out by the fire. Most of the time, I have the girls pick up things as we are done playing with them because it leaves less of a mess for me after bedtime. And because #mamatired. But last weekend we just let it happen and looked past the mess to find two happy girls, perfectly content with being together at home with just us parents. Which I’m going to pretend will always be the case. Because this is my heaven.

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BOOKIN’ GOOD

Can you believe that when I first met Derek, he had never seen a Pixar animated movie? Like he hadn’t seen Toy Story. It was almost a deal breaker for our relationship. But I eventually got over it and gave him another chance. 😉 Because I don’t care how old you are, those movies are classics. (Mya and I are currently obsessed with Moana.) And little did I know, children’s books would also become a love of mine.

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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.

Bcollage

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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…

HrtL

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DIY NUMBER PLAQUE

Never before has the number 4 seemed so much larger than the number 3. Since Leah joined our family unit just over a month ago, I have learned that little projects (or heck– even just the laundry!) are more tedious tasks than ever before. I have never felt more victorious than when I drove in the car with both girls weeks ago by myself to run errands. Extremely exhausted, yet victorious. Today’s errands consisted of two Leah blowouts, Mya constantly needing “more snacks!”, me not being able to collapse a double stroller in the parking lot, two Leah feedings, and a mysterious something sticky all over Mya’s pants… all within an hour and a half. I might never leave the house again. And yet the number 4 has never seemed so beautiful.

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HOLIDAY CARD WREATH

Mya and I love getting snail mail during the week. And since the holiday cards are already starting to come in, it has added even more excitement to her Christmas spirit. It’s also making me realize that some people seriously have their acts together if they’re sending out their holiday cards by early December. That is certainly not the case with us! I gave up on that a long time ago. And we send ours out for Valentines’ Day. Because it takes me that much longer… two more months. Womp womp. But I did want to somehow display everyone else’s cards; and with some already-owned supplies, it was super easy.

CloseUp

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GROWN-UP GIRLY GIFT GUIDE

I was going to compile a list of maternity items that’ve helped me through this pregnancy. And then I realized that they’re not maternity items at all because I was too cheap to buy much of anything that I’d only be able to use less than 9 months. Especially when I can live in sweatpants everyday. And I’ll probably have stretch marks because I didn’t get a bellyband; and I’ll probably have back problems because I didn’t get a pregnancy pillow. But I got a super soft infinity scarf, a mommy journal, and some other goodies instead. So I think the tradeoff was totally worth it. And I’m hoping these items will bring you comfort too… if not for you, for some other special gal pal. And most are great stocking stuffers, so just drop some hints to your man friend and make his job a little easier this year.

collage

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BASEMENT BUILDOUT : DRYWALL

It’s been a month since we finished framing and hung the drywall for our basement project. We had hoped to be sharing the final outcome with you by now, but the finishing touches have been stuck in idle as we’ve turned our focus to knocking out a few outdoor projects while the weather is nice. So, for a quick project update and to hold you over until we complete the finish work we’ll go ahead and give a glimpse of the new and improved space. Again, we’ve compiled a list of our handiest tools to complete this phase of the project.

DrywallTools

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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!

Hallway-ps

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LIVING ON THE EDGE

Over the past two years, we have explored a few landscape edging options and have become proponents of the approach that “less is more!” First, we tried an easy-to-install, no-dig plastic edging. In general, we were pleased with the look, but over time this edging had a tendency to float where it wasn’t staked down and still allowed grass and weeds to creep underneath it. Second, we tried a limestone border using rock from a nearby construction site. We placed a temporary border next to the plastic edging last summer with plans of permanently installing this spring, but in the short time we had it we decided it wasn’t quite the look we were hoping for. So, on to round three with what we think is our best solution yet.

BackEdging

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BASEMENT BUILDOUT : FRAME OF REFERENCE

With every home project, we’re learning that having the right tools makes things a lot easier. Ashley jokingly claims that I married her for her power tools because she owned more than me. (I guess that’s what you get when you end up with an Interior Architect — bonus!) And we basically have the best neighbors ever — who not only lent us a ton of framing tools, but spent an entire day helping us in the basement. So with the compilation of our tools and their tools, we really had no excuse to not tackle the basement framing plans. And since half of any project is prep time, hopefully the following will save you some time with your framing project. Here are some lists of tools and building materials needed to frame a wall:

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