Ike's Baby Bachelor Pad Revealed!

Finally finally finally, despite many obstacles and a complete lack of sleep, I managed to photograph Ike's new nursery/playroom and today is the day I'm sharing it with you -- my fellow members of perpetual renovators anonymous. If you recall, we wanted to get rid of the queen sized bed in Ike's nursery, because who wants to play sleepover party with a snoring toddler in the room? Plus, Ike desperately needed some space to store his growing toy collection. Ok, I desperately needed to get the toys out of the living room, and for the most part we have succeeded. Triumph!

So, without further ado:

Hooray! We're so glad it's done, and it's become an infinitely more pleasant place to spend time.

And a view of the facing wall where we have the changing station, plus a peek at me shooting the room. I really hope I was wearing a bra that day...

Since I'm sure you're dying to know, here's the skinny on how this whole plan came together. The first item at hand was stuffing our giant queen sized mattress in Ike's closet (I can't believe it fit). Then we headed out to Ikea and bought some Expedit shelves and a kid's Kritter table and chair set, for a total cost of about $120.

I have to say the white stuff wasn't my first choice, but finding good vintage funiture for kids is HARD. And expensive. I looked everywhere for kid's furniture, but Ikea really had the best, cheapest selection. And look at all that delicious toy storage.

Now that we had a jumbled mass of mahogany and stark white furniture, the paint drama descended on me like late stage ADHD, or maybe like early onset Alzheimers, or something else really really bad... after mixing up approximately 876 samples, Sanders cut me off and chose Pratt and Lambert's Wolf. I LOVE IT. Have I mentioned lately that Sanders is a genius? He is. Go see him, or email us with your painting conundrums. He can fix them up lickety split.

After solving the paint problem, I scored the antique Heriz rug on craigslist for $160. It's old and has taken a beating, which made it perfect for a kid's room. Plus I've been dying for a Persian rug forever, since way before I wrote this post. Double plus this sucker is ginormous and triple plus it has been recently cleaned, which is HUGE deal for vintage Persian rugs, especially if you're a lazy mom like me and you love to lay on the floor. You can't just steam clean a Persian rug, and professional cleaning is crazy expensive -- it cost the previous owner $600! But if you want one for yourself (and you know you do), Naomi over at Design Manifest wrote an excellet primer on how to snag your own.

It was of the utmost importance that we spend as little as possible on this project, so every single other thing in this room is something we already had: I got the Italian hot air balloon chandelier at Round Top over a year ago and Karly told me to paint it black (that Karly is one smart lady -- smart enough to design a beautiful nursery right the first time around, as in without a giant unnecessary bed). The drummer boy painting was also a Round Top score. I've had the fabulous Klein blue velvet rocker since we moved into this house over three years ago, I scored the rocking horse at a thrift store before Christmas, the stuffed giraffe was something stupid like $3 at the thrift store, I've been toting around the vintage 50s sailboat painting over Ike's crib since May 2005 (the thrift store sticker is still on the back), the mahogany furniture is early Phyllis Morris that we bought in California years ago, and the other toys and artwork were gifts from very generous friends and family -- many of them made by hand.

I did get a few great 20x200 prints for Christmas that I put in here, including two by Jenny Odell and this one by William Wegman. Also, I traded Karly some plates for the coolest sconce in the world, which you can barely make out in the second picture. It's a hand holding a lightbulb and it makes me gigglesnort every time I switch it on.

In case all you parents out there were wondering, yes -- we do have more toys than these. There are two giant scooters parked in the closet (just for the pictures), and although we definitely reduced the amount of toys in the living room, there are still a lot of toys out in the living room. Kids like toys. Go figure.

That's it for my tour, except for the most important part:

Ike loves his new room, just like any king loves his castle. And it's a good thing, because I am not repainting it again.

At least not anytime soon.

Look! New Kitchen Pictures (Because I Have Avoidance Issues)

I have been working so hard at avoiding Christmas shopping that I deep cleaned my range top rather than making a list and checking it twice. Sure, my family will cry cartoon sized tears of sadness when they realize Santa must have found them to be naughty rather than nice, but at least our kitchen is clean. And to further squander my precious (nearly non existent) free time, I took pictures of our new Ikea shelves and artwork.

You may recall that we completely remodeled our kitchen over a year ago, but if you'd like to check out the whole story, click here. We finished the bare minimum literally a week before Ike was born, so we didn't have time to accessorize or even install the shelves I had planned for. It looked pretty barren over by the sink:

My spice rack wasn't even full. But at least the paper towel holder was a klassy touch.

Too bad our kitchen has the worst. lighting. ever. Hunny Bunny caught me with my tripod in the kitchen making 10 second exposures and asked me why I was shooting in complete darkness. Maybe someday if I have an even BIGGER issue to avoid, I will actually whip out my light kit and make real pictures. Anyway, you get the idea. Shelves: check. Thrifted tchotchkes that will likely be rearranged on a daily basis according to the whims and vagaries of my highly mutable temperament: check. No more paper towel holder: check.

I was feeling the primary colors when I picked up that nifty cubist painting (must be a long lost Picasso, right?) at Round Top for $30. I snagged the vintage lithograph of the Roman forum at le thrift store for $2.99. Look, I filled my spice rack. Also, it is 1:02 pm.

I'm still on the fence about the brass light. Ok, I'm not even on the fence. I picked up a huge vintage round glass fixture with a black chain that will be perfectish kitchen over the sink, but I've been too lazy to install it... so far. Christmas isn't here yet, right? I'm liking the shelves, though. We used Ikea's Ekby series, and the finish matches our cabinets perfectly.

That's really all I have for you today, but I'm trying to squeeze in more time to photograph mini house updates. I created a new category on the right column called Erin's House, where you can track the evolution of our humble abode over the last two and a half years (good gravy, I've been blogging forever!). I made a category for Karly, too, but she'll have to file all her own projects when she returns after the new year...

I can't put off this Christmas shopping forever, you know.

Morning Wood

Despite my long standing love for hardwood floors, I extolled the virtues of carpet in Monday's post. This mystifying self revelation came about when I started to calculate potential renovation expenses, because carpet be cheap. True, carpet can be crazy ass expensive (Camilla from Designalogue wrote in to say she installed wall to wall ALPACA freaking carpet in a client's home), but if you're a careful shopper, it can also be quite reasonable. Although I've never had carpet installed, Collyn of ModFruGal has, and she quotes her price for hardwood flooring plus installation as being around $10 (our cost was similar when we redid the kitchen floors), vs carpet at around $4. So, if you're covering a lot of sq footage like The Hunny and I may be in our new/old dream home, that is a HUGE difference. Still, I'd like to explore all possible cheap flooring options, and lovely reader Michael pointed us in the direction of plywood floors. Say what???? First I wax poetic about carpet, and now plywood?

No really. It's kind of awesome.

I mean, would you be mad if your floors looked like this? (Thanks to Michael for the image!)

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised at this woody turn of events, since this isn't the first post I've written about how chic plywood can be. But it is interesting to see it used as flooring in homes where hardwoods or concrete would traditionally have been the materials of choice.

Marine plywood in a super modern Italian designed house. via Dezeen

And of course you could always paint your floors, like this plywood floor in an art studio. Since it's plywood, you don't have to feel bad about covering your beautiful hardwoods.

These plywood floors were painted to look all rusticky and stuff. Via Coastal Living

Perhaps imperfect floors would give you the perfect excuse to experiment with designs. Although the next set of images are traditional hardwoods, these ideas could work equally well on inexpensive plywood. via Design Sponge

I always like a good checkerboard. In muted tones, the pattern remains very neutral.

This room isn't really my style, but I like the idea of painted stripes.

These are marble, but there's no reason you couldn't inject some hot geo drama into your floors, as in this Miles Redd designed home.

But of course, white painted floors are always a popular choice. Check out Door Sixteen for excellent info on how to paint your floors white here. Image via Living Etc.

Although an opaque paint would most easily disguise flooring imperfections, a nicer plywood floor would look awesome with a translucent stain that allows the grain to show through.

Stenciled and stained chevron hallway via Alicia B Designs.

This room is a little too country, but the floor rocks. via Country Living

This diagonally stained room by Mark Cutler is AWESOME. He explains how to do it here.

The simple, ebony stained floors in this home designed by Sabrina Bignami could still be gorgeous in plywood.

So I'm thinking plywood sounds like an interesting flooring option, but I'm a little concerned about installation. Do you glue the boards to the floor? Nail them to each other somehow, so that they float? What happens when the boards expand and contract? Does anyone have plywood floors, or have experience installing them?

Inquiring minds need to know.