Two years ago we moved into our new house with no window coverings (which you’d expect with new construction). Just my luck, our new ceilings were a foot taller than in our last house so none of our old curtains would work in our new home.
I ordered free samples from three different places, and Select Blinds easily had the best color options. I went with the whitewashed, gray-and-white-striped Ouahu Shell from the Designer Ultimate series for the bedroom, and the whitewashed, gray Luna from the Premium Costal series in the kitchen. They’re almost the same - except Ouhu Shell has a white stripe detail and a tan weave, whereas Luna is solid and has a white weave.
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When I heard one of our favorite brands, Munchkin, was launching a personalized line I jumped at the chance to try them out. The Munchkin Snack+ Snack Catcher is our go-to snack cup, and for good reason.
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I consider myself an expert car traveler when it comes to kids. My in-laws live 2.5 hours away, and my husband and I both have grandparents that live 45 minutes away. We go to my family’s lake house almost every year and it’s an 8 hour drive. We take car trips somewhat regularly, you get the picture.
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The furniture in this family room was brought over from a previous house, and the overall design hadn’t been refreshed in over 10 years. When the time came to update the space, the goals were to brighten it and give it a casual, mid-century modern vibe. The honey oak floors and trim are staying for now, and working around the inherently traditional features of the house while trying to make it more modern was one of our biggest design challenges.
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I love our house, but I’ve never loved the bright yellow door our builder picked before we bought it. No offense to my yellow door friends, it’s just not my color. I found that fall is the perfect time to paint an exterior door (at least where I live - Illinois). The spring is too damp, the summer is too hot, and the winter is too cold. Because we don’t have a storm door, painting the front door means having a sheet of plastic as our front door for 2 days, so weather is a very important factor. We opted not to remove the door from the hinges for the same reason.
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When it came time to address the playroom, I gave myself a budget of $1,000. I know this is just a season of life and this room won’t be a playroom forever and let’s face it - it’s a playroom for a little boy. Things are going to get beat up! Knowing this space is ultimately temporary, I didn’t want to spend a fortune. However, we needed some larger furniture items. For one, more toy storage. For this, I looked to IKEA. These lower shelves are actually 3 separate pieces and can go in the kids’ rooms or their closets once we no longer need a playroom. We also needed a small, apartment-sized sofa that pulled out into a bed. I looked high and low and assure you, the one I found is the lowest price you can find for a sleeper sofa that pulls out into an actual bed (not a mat on the floor).
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When we first moved into this house, I was SO happy to finally have a playroom. At our old house, the living room was the playroom which was…challenging. As a stay-at-home mom with a growing family I was so grateful to have the space to dedicate an entire area just to playing and learning. We went back and forth on where the playroom should be and ultimately decided against having it upstairs. At the time our son was 18 months and he needed to be within earshot and we spend most of our time on the main floor. By using the flex room as our playroom he could play while I cooked, cleaned up, or worked at the kitchen table.
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