Mallory Colliflower

Looking back at the few “before” photos of Charlotte’s nursery, I’m really embarrassed at what I brought her home to.  Especially compared to what I brought the other two kids home to. Stella’s nursery was a page out of the Pottery Barn Kids catalog.  No lie.  While Lenny was off in Vegas for a bachelor party two weeks before I was to have a baby, I took a page of the catalog down to the PB Kids in Coral Gables and did her room.  Everything but the furniture, because that I already had.  I can honestly say that I didn’t put an ounce of effort or thought into baby Charlotte’s room prior to bringing her home, aside from making sure she had a crib.  I spent a lot of time in the beginning of the pregnancy looking at blogs and searching for nursery inspiration. (apartmenttherapy.com/family, laybabylay.com, etsy.com, pinterest.com)  But the fact that we were keeping the gender a surprise, made my choices difficult.  I wasn’t crazy about alot of the gender neutral.  So then the joke became  that my sisters would decorate the nursery while I was in the hospital.  ”They’ll have $500 and 48 hours to redesign the nursery.” Our own little design reality show.  But that never happened.  BUT my sisters were off work the week I came home from the hospital and they offered to come over and just start “hanging stuff up.”  I had a lot of framed pictures that I hadn’t hung up in the new house, so we figured we’d at least use those as a starting point.   But through various discussions that week, the “nursery makeover” started to become a reality.  Instead of $500 and 48 hours, it became “$400 and a trip to Ikea.”  Which I was thrilled about.  Charlotte was barely a week old, so I wasn’t setting foot in an Ikea, but I had complete and utter faith in what my sisters would be able to create.  I gave them a short wish list.

*a laundry hamper

*bedding for the queen bed that was being housed in the room.

*a container to hold diapering supplies for the top of the changing table

*organization for the dresser drawers (really something to hold baby socks)

*a hanging light fixture

Everything else was fair game.  I really didn’t care or have an opinion.  This room was originally supposed to be a guest room, which is the reason our old queen bed was up there.  I decided to use the antique vanity given to me by my old neighbors as the changing table.  And thank god Ikea started carrying cribs again after the drop side crib recall.  (we donated our crib and rocker to a women’s shelter just days before we moved).

Mallory and Chelsey spent 3 hours shopping at Ikea and three hours here at my house putting together and rearranging the room.  What resulted is by far the most beautiful room in our house.  It’s childlike without being too “baby.”  It’s a room that Charlotte can truly grow into.  The queen bed, that we had originally planned to eventually get rid of is now staying.  I figure Charlotte will go from the crib to the bed.  Nothing some side bed rails can’t fix.  (Hell, it’s a Temperpedic mattress, glad we found a place for it).

So now I really want to redo Stella and Owen’s rooms.  I want them to be super cute, super chic and super cheap!

We’ve had quite a whirlwind holiday season in our family clan this year. Christmas came and went faster than ever. As a late Christmas gift, Courtney’s third little one (another girl!) made her world debut the next day at 8:45 p.m. weighing in at 7 pounds, 4 ounces. For more baby cuteness, check out Courtney’s post on her photography blog. Baby Charlotte may have been ready to start her life that day but the room that would be her nursery was far from it.

Back when Courtney found out she was pregnant, she began tossing around the idea of doing a nursery makeover for the blog. This would be a tricky project since Courtney and her hubby decided not to find out the baby’s gender until the big day. The plan would be:

• Court has baby (yay!)
• Chelsey and Mallory spend a day going shopping with a budget for decor to turn the drab upstairs bedroom into a cozy, colorful space for mommy and baby – boy or girl, depending. No painting walls. No new flooring.
• Assemble, hang, rearrange and accessorize. All in one day. Phew.

Here are some ‘before’ shots of the room and the new little bundle. You can’t have a nursery post without a small dose of baby cheeks! Isn’t she just pinchable?!

Before heading out on our trek to IKEA, Courtney showed us some of the items she already had that we could work with. Stella and Owen’s old crib bedding still had life in it and the dark brown vanity doubled just fine as a changing table. This antique painted duck used to be our dad’s when he was a boy and was collecting dust in Courtney’s garage. Blasphemy! We had to use it somehow.

The silver glittery “Dream” garland was a souvenir from Court and Lenny’s recent trip to California. Dreamy indeed.

It helped a whole lot that Courtney and her talented photographer friends take gorgeous pictures of her babes. Charlotte will be constantly surrounded by the love of her big brother and sister, both in photos and in the paintings they made especially for her room during craft time with Titi Chelsey.

Courtney gave us a wishlist of items (overhead light fixture, a rug, a bookcase, etc.) and trusted whatever design choices we made to tie them all together. After four hours of deliberate decision-making at IKEA, Chelsey and I couldn’t wait to get back and get started.

And here’s the final product! Truly a labor of love from everyone who helped…

So far it looks like Charlotte will be perfectly at home in her new abode! Next up: More kid’s room makeovers, this time for the big brother and sister. Stay tuned!

In this room (all from IKEA):

• Rug
• Curtains
• Light fixture
• Bookcase
• Flower decals (this specific style not available online)
• Mirror
• Photo frames

Christmas must have arrived a week early.  Do you recognize the room that is currently gracing the homepage of IKEA’s Share Space site?!

Yep, that’s our bedroom! Exciting right!? Opening the email from Katy, the IKEA Share Space editor,  informing me that my bedroom was chosen as their Pick of the Week felt like opening a Christmas present! They even wrote a blog post about it! If you follow our little blog then you know how much I love the idea behind the Share Space, so being highlighted as their weekly pick is even more gratifying; a testament to how versatile everything from IKEA can be! Read more about the design choices I made in the bedroom here.

This also gives me a chance to gravel at all of your footsies and beg for forgiveness for not posting on SND more often. I’m not sure us sisters realized (even with the post load divided by 3!) how tough it is to keep a blog nice and fresh. Between jobs, new babies, holidays, other jobs and all of the in-between, it’s certainly not easy but we promise to do better. At least if not yet, then definitely by January. I mean isn’t it the perfect New Year’s resolution?? I think so!

Note:  This isn’t a sponsored post and I’m not compensated in any way for kissing IKEA’s behind. This is merely an expression of true brand love. 

I love social networks. I also love IKEA. You can imagine my delight when I stumbled across this post on Making It Lovely about IKEA’s new design-centric social networking site called The Share Space.

If you’ve ever longed for a website where you could upload photos of the inside of your IKEA-filled home, tag the items in your rooms and see inspiration from other IKEA fans’ interiors (with links to each actual IKEA product), then Share Space is for you.

Once you sign up or login via Facebook Connect, you can upload up to three images of each room in one of several categories. Right away I used some of the photos I’ve taken for this blog to share my living room and bedroom. You can earn “kudos” when other uses save your rooms, share your favorites on other social networks and build a wish list of items you want to pick up on your next trip. I didn’t realize how much IKEA I had in my rooms until I started tagging away:

I always swoon over the showroom displays set up on the floor of IKEA and they seem to be updated each time I make a trek to our local store, so inspiration abounds. I’m limited, though, to photos I snap on my iPhone which just send up sitting in my photo album and I can never truly capture the correct colors of the paint in most of the rooms that I fall in love with. And while the room displays they come up with to showcase their products at the store are gorgeous, I’m more intrigued about how *real people* mix and match their modern, contemporary and traditional pieces in real life.

I love seeing our white HEMNES dresser in a room that is completely different from ours, with pastel walls as opposed to our deep blue ones. I get excited to picture our KARLSTAD sofa in new surroundings and think about how we can rearrange our LACK shelves on blank walls that await us in our next abode.

Are you already on Share Space? Where do you get inspiration for your IKEA goodies? We’d love to hear from you in the comments!

I had a really fun adventure with my best friend Amanda as we decided to go to the thrift store on a complete whim. After aimlessly browsing isles of patterned pants and awful, dated women’s suits, I realized that the thrift store in our area was not one of high-fashion garb like the shops where homegirls on fashion blogs get their “thrifted” pieces from. This was not a fancy designer consignment shop. However, there were definitely some hidden treasures in the American Thrift Store that day, and with the help of Mandy, I bought them all. For a total of about $20. What kinds of cool and unique things have you found second-hand?

hair down

What some will look like in 40 years.

spicy black beans with chipotle avocado sauce, cilantro, tomato, lettuce, cucumber, red onion, & sprouts

bridesmaid hair

kate spade new york multicolor sandal | Nordstrom

Star Wars TOMS - I should paint a pair for Owen.

statement necklace

Honey Butter Pork Tenderloin by mommahenskitchen #Pork_Tenderloin #mommahenskitchen

Gerber Storage Bench - Red, from Target. $195

Desert Blue Storage Bench - Blue, from Target $195

Storage bench $199

Minus the words on the wall

Green Monster Hummus

:D

ToneItUp™ Protein Pancakes!

Single Song Workouts

how to knot a belt.

Asian-Marinated Baked Chicken

Tuscan white bean soup

This long-forgotten gem of a cleaning agent may be used with a little water or vinegar to lift even the most stubborn stains. Unattractive grout driving you batty? Mold and mildew stains got you reaching for the Prozac? Burner pans and casserole dishes giving you fits? Cream of Tartar is your new best friend.

boneless chicken rolls stuffed with mozzerella and a garlic - onion mixture

Bridesmaid hair

Bridesmaid hair

Bridesmaid hair

Love the texture in her beachy waves.