It's Here!

The new sofa is here!!

It arrived Saturday and we have already been enjoying it.

It's from Ikea- the Karlstad series. I was very skeptical about buying a sofa from Ikea at first. We wanted something that would be affordable, and that would take the wear and tear of kids. So, after some online research, and this blog post, I was convinced it was a good decision. After all, Ikea caters to families with children.

Rob and I took a few Ikea trips over the past couple of months for our kitchen project. We spotted the Karlstad sofa on one of our outings and it was in this color and with the aluminum legs instead of the boxy wood ones, which is why we probably took notice of it. I LOVED the color and the fabric, which is the Korndal Medium Gray. I wanted a neutral color sofa, but have been having a difficult time with browns and tans. And the tapered steel legs were much more my style than the ones that come with the sofa.

We looked into getting the chaise version instead of the sectional at first, but decided that the sectional would provide more seating and would fit better in our space.

As with all Ikea furniture, you have to assemble it, which was actually easier than I thought it would be.

When it first arrived, I was feeling overwhelmed- see below...

But, after a rescue by grandparents to take Aiden for a few hrs., it became less overwhelming.

Once we got all the pieces out of the box, it didn't seem as scary.

Rob worked on putting the pieces together, following the wordless Ikea instructions carefully. While I put all the covers on. It is all "slip-covered", but it is tight-fitting so it doesn't look like a slipcover.

Aiden's already enjoyed the "big new couch" as he calls it, and he's right-it is so big that we can all stretch out on it comfortably!

Hope everyone enjoyed their weekend!

Etsy Friday- organization

I love to be organized. I admit that I am not always great at it- I do have drawers, closets, and areas of our home that aren't very organized. But, I feel that life is happier when you are organized. This time of year often puts people into organization frenzies. I guess it goes hand in hand with spring cleaning. I have a whole pile of things for good will- getting rid of stuff is often the first step in organization.

So today's Etsy post are some things that may inspire some organization.

There are a ton of fabric bins/baskets that you can find. Especially if you have kids, you know how important it is to have something to keep toys and books under control.

{Fabric Bin}

A good wall calendar is important to help you to remember things like birthdays, dinners, parties, etc. I know everyone is all high-tech now with their Iphones and Blackberries, but I am an old fashion kind of gal and like to have things written down.

{Vintage Wallpaper Calendar}

Etsy even has some great printable calendars where you pay a small fee, usually about $5 and then you are sent the design and then you can print it out. Doing this at Christmas would be a great way to get a couple gifts out of it too since you can print as many as you want for personal use. ( I just love this one with the Mid-century chairs!)

{Printable Calendar}

There is an area in our kitchen that just collects clutter from mail, keys, etc. A good magnet board could help in an area like that. And you can even find cute little magnets. And a key rack would help prevent losing keys.

{Black and White Magnetic Board}

{Metal Serving Tray Memo Board}

{Glass tile magnet set}

{Bicycle Key Rack}

And lastly, I came across this and just had to post it. I do all the bills in our house. My father is an accountant and taught me how to budget from a very young age. I also just enjoy it- I know, I am a nerd. I like sitting down and writing out bills (again, old fashioned, I don't pay everything online) and taking out my calculator and budgeting our money. Ok, I know, you are considering never looking at my blog again because you think I have issues, so I will stop now. When I saw this bill organizer, it just made me swoon. This is exactly the kind of thing I would love.

{Bill Calendar}

So, there you have it. Maybe you will do some organizing this weekend? Either way, hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Out with the old, waiting for the new

Our new sofa is being delivered this weekend, and our old one is gone forever. So right now our living room looks like this.

It actually hasn't been that bad not having a sofa. The white chair is from our bedroom and is so comfortable, I wish that we used it more. But we won't have room for it down here with the new sofa.

Although I don't want to tell you about the sofa until we have it and I have pictures to show, I will give away that the color is gray, which is one of the reasons I am so excited about it. I felt that our current living room curtains being dark brown, wouldn't go too well with the new sofa. I got some fabric and am in the process of whipping up some new curtains. However, season 3 of Mad Men just came from Netflix and therefore I only got one curtain done. But here is a picture of the fabric. It is Waverly's Cross Section in charcoal.

I will post pictures of the sofa hopefully on Sunday or Monday. See you tomorrow for Etsy Friday!

And the "Lucky" winner is....

Thanks to everyone who entered the giveaway! I was excited to see that people actually read my blog and hopefully enjoy doing so. I had a good time checking out all of your blogs as well.

I decided to let Aiden pick the winner- I thought that those of you who didn't win couldn't get upset with him!

I had to interrupt his morning shows, but managed to get him to pick a number.

The winner is #16 - Jhenna. Congratulations!! Just email me your information and pick out a print from LuckyBluebirdArt.

Thanks again to everyone who entered and I look forward to doing another giveaway down the road.

Happy Monday

This morning I woke up to gray and rainy skies. But I'm not complaining- we had a beautiful weekend with 75 degree weather and lots of sun. Although we had a busy weekend we were able to spend time outside, which was refreshing.

We had some friends over for dinner Saturday night and I got to use these napkins that I bought a while back for the first time.

I got them on clearance from Dwell Studio around Christmas time. I cannot afford stuff from Dwell Studio, but I love their designs and confess I often covet their products. These napkins were regularly $64 for a set of 4 (?!?!!) and I got them for $20 for a set of 4- so I bought 2. I just couldn't resist. They were the perfect color yellow for our dining room and now that spring is here, I certainly don't regret buying them.

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend!

Don't forget to enter my giveaway -you have 2 more days to enter!

Etsy Friday- a giveaway!

The weather is gorgeous outside, so I will try and keep this short because neither of us should be on our computer right now.

I've never done a giveaway before- I have no idea how many people actually look at my blog, and that's ok with me. I keep this blog because I enjoy decorating. For me, our home and making it what it is, is something that I love. I feel blessed to be able to stay at home with our son, and it brings me joy to make our home a place that the 3 of us love being. So, I don't write this blog to become well-known. Not that I am opposed to that, or to others who have made blogging their career. But I do this mostly for me, I just hope that others enjoy it and feel inspired by it.

Ok, enough of that- so, I am doing a giveaway that is sponspored by no one, but a little gift from me to you (ok, one of you). I could spend hours on Etsy looking at all their lovely stuff, and I have mentioned LuckyBluebirdArt a few times now. I finally got around to ordering a print for the kitchen.

I mentioned to Amanda (the seller) in our Etsy convo how much I love her prints and have mentioned her a few times on my "Etsy Fridays". When my print arrived that I ordered, she also sent another print, that I had put on the blog. Isn't that just soooo sweet of her!?!

So in lieu of her kindness, I decided that I am going to do a giveaway of any one 8x10 print from LuckyBluebirdArt. I am excited about doing this giveaway because it's something that I have in my home and hope it is something that you will enjoy too. I am also happy to support an Etsy shop, and maybe it will inspire you to do so yourself.

So all you have to do is comment on this post: ETSY ME!

I will keep it open through Tuesday 3/23

I will ship anywhere in the US

I will announce the winner on Weds. and the winner can check out the shop and pick out any of the 8x10 prints.

have a happy weekend! :)

Farewell

If you know me, or read this blog regularly, you know that I have been battling with our sofa for quite a while. You know that while I love this sofa, it is not conducive to life with a toddler, (or a dog). As Aiden gets older, it becomes more and more clear that the sofa is not cut out for life with a toddler- especially a toddler boy who likes to wrestle and jump. I will find buttons on the floor that popped off, the cushions aren't as comfortable as they used to be, and although I have done a good job keeping up with getting it cleaned, I will never buy a white sofa again.

I have been trying to find the perfect sofa for quite awhile- online, in stores, and I even thought about just getting a slipcover made for the current sofa. But, I never found anything that I felt really good about. I want something that will fit our lifestyle without compromising our style of decorating. We also don't want to break the bank.

So, all this to say, Rob and I found the perfect sofa. We weren't even trying- it just happened. (ok, I know this all sounds extremely cheesy) But, it does seem like fate- especially because we decided we weren't going to buy the perfect sofa until we sold our current sofa on Craigslist, for a decent price. And one day, when I was feeling frustrated with our sofa, I just decided to post it on Craigslist to see what happened. And 2 hours later, an excited girl from Philly contacted me. And she is picking it up this weekend. And we ordered our new sofa yesterday.

So, we are saying farewell to our beloved sofa. I am a little emotional- this was the first big purchase we made as a married couple and it was with us in our little West Chester apartment, moved into our first home with us, and got us through those long sleepless night when we bought Aiden home.

I'm not going to share about the new sofa yet. Lets just take this time to say goodbye.

(if you think I am a complete nutcase, I understand)

Etsy Friday

My birthday is in a few weeks so I put together a little post of gifts, that I think any girl would be excited about.

I've admired this necklace for a long time- I actually noticed it when I watched the Bachelorette last year and was excited that it was an Etsy product!

{Turquise Monogramed Necklace}

What girl doesn't love pretty stationary, especially when it can be personalized?

{Leafy Personalized Cards}

We all know I'm a sucker for a pretty pillow

{Queen Annes Lace Pillow}

I don't know why, but I think "Earl Gray soap" sounds yummy. Maybe because I have had Earl Gray Ice Cream at one of our favorite restaurants in town, Majolica, and I know it sounds like a strange flavor, but it was SOOO good.

{Earl Gray Tea Soap}

And lastly, this kitchen towel is just so cheery!

{Hand Printed Flour Sack Towel}

Hope everyone has a great weekend! It is supposed to rain here all weekend, but I'll take it over snow and cold weather.

Kitchen breakdown

So, as promised, I wanted to share our budget and costs for our kitchen makeover. Here is the post with before shots. Sorry to bore you with more pictures of our kitchen, but I have a hard time doing posts without pictures.

Our budget for this project was $1,000 and we were determined to stay within budget. We were doing this "Trading Spaces" style (minus the whole trading spaces/time limit part).

The whole reason for this project was to make an island to provide more counterspace. So, by using the cabinets that we already had, for the base, we saved a ton of money. It didn't take long to decide on the pre-cut butcher block from Ikea. By only spending $200 on the countertop, we were able to stretch our money.

We did repaint, which wasn't neceseary, but something we have been talking about doing, and decided now was a good time to do it. We always get Lowe's Valspar paint and have always been pleased. This particular color is Seashell Gray and I love it!

I made the curtains from 2 yards of fabric I ordered from Etsy. I can't promise that I won't change these from time to time. We all know how much I like to do simple sewing projects like this to change things up a bit. But the fabric is Michael Miller "Mod Geo" in green.

I also ordered a couple of prints for the kitchen from Etsy which I haven't shared with you yet because one hasn't arrived yet and I haven't gotten a frame for the other one, but I will let you know when I get them up.

So, here's the breakdown list:

Base Cabinets- FREE

Butcherblock countertop (Ikea): $195

3 legs for island to provide more support (Ikea): $25 each, total $75 (sorry can't find the link but they are Utby)

New light fixture (Ikea): $25

Stools for island (Overstock): $200

Knobs for cabinets (Ikea) 10 packs at $4 ea.: $40

Shelf for under potrack (Ikea): $70

Paint and supplies (Lowes): $40

Fabric: $20

Art (prints from Etsy): $40

We probably spent around $75 on other random things that came up that we needed to get like caulk, dry wall to repair the wall, etc.

TOTAL: $780

So, we still have a little over $200 left! We still need to do the backsplash, but don't anticpate that costing too much becasue we are using the most basic white subway tiles that cost less than 50 cents each. If we still have money left over I would like to get a new trashcan since ours is broken.

There you have it! I am so glad that we stayed well within our budget and were able to do all we wanted to.

Spring Break

I am taking a little break from 'Etsy Fridays' today. Although, I did make a couple etsy purchases this week that I will share with you once they arrive. But, it feels like spring out today, and I am excited. Even though there are still some small patches of snow around and the ground is way too damp to take Aiden out to play - it's coming, and I say, bring it!

So yesterday, I ran down to Produce Junction, where it only cost me $5 for 3 bunches of flowers.

And I spread them all over the house.

And it makes me happy.

And it's the weekend, which means Rob is not working.

And Saturday night I get to see these girls:

Hope you all have a happy weekend!

Pocket Doors!

I was reading Decor8 last week and was noticing on this post how similar the floors of the house were to ours (I love our floors). Anyway, I noticed in one of the pictures that there were pocket doors between the living and dining rooms. (I didn't want to put any pictures from the post because I think they are copywrighted, but check out the post and you will see what I am talking about). Anyway, I immediately said to Rob- we should have pocket doors in between our living and dining rooms! In which he responded, "I know, I have said that before". I have no memory of this conversation. In fact, Rob is always saying that we should knock down the wall between the living and dining rooms.

Anyway, the point is, I now really want pocket doors. It would be nice in the winter to close off the rooms to feel more cozy. Or, when entertaining, you could just go into the living room after dinner, close the doors and not feel like you need to clean up dinner right away.

apartmenttherapy

I feel like maybe at some point our house had pocket doors there. When I researched a little bit online, it said that pocket doors were really big in the 1880s and 1890s. This is exactly when our house was built.

above from Door16

I am pretty sure that we would probably need to hire someone to do this. Rob said that he could probably do it, but it seems really complicated- removing the dry wall, to install the doors inside the walls. But, I think it would be worth it in the end.

I realized I didn't have any pictures of the actual door frame so I had to snap a quick one this morning while Aiden was eating breakfast and watching TV.