Another Bathroom Reno

While we have poured many hours, blood, sweat, and tears into our upstairs bathroom renovations (master, guest) over the last year, we have one half bath on our first floor that wasn't feeling any love.

listing photo

It was always on my long mental list to get this room cleaned up a bit. But seeing as it's a completely functional room, it was certainly not a priority. I planned to spruce this room up while out on maternity leave - fresh paint, fixtures, maybe some shelves. 

Lucky for me, we got to hand this one off to the professionals. The water damage in the kitchen meant that the half bath got a new floor and ceiling as well since its located right off of the kitchen. Wait, so someone else will be painting this room on our behalf? Wahoo!

What the contractor took care of:

• Installed a new ceiling and freshly painted it
• Installed our faux wood tile flooring
• Installed new baseboards (after losing a piece of the original)
• Shaved down the door due to the new tile flooring, which incidentally fixed the jamming problem we were having with it.
• Painted the room using a paint color we already had on hand (master bath reno) - Benjamin Moore Baltic Gray

I had picked up a couple shelves at Target a few months back after watching them get so deeply discounted they were practically free - $2.98/shelf. Yes, please! And the shelf styling is thanks to Homegoods, oh and Charmin ultra-soft.

It never ceases to amaze me how a few simple updates can really change a room. Not that I'm calling the tile install simple, but I think the biggest game changer here is the fresh paint. 

So, what's left to do in here?

• Update the light fixture. I think something like this will look great. 
• Updated fixtures - the sink is not going anywhere anytime soon but the faucet, towel holder, and TP holder are all dingy.
• New door knob - battle of the brass doorknobs over here...
• New window shade
• Hang these prints back up (across from the shelves)

I think it's safe to say we are DONE with bathroom renovation projects for a very long time. Phew!

Fun Fact Friday 09.12.14

Two posts in two days, mama must be doing something right! ;)

I'm dedicating this fact Friday post to things in which my only regret is not knowing/purchasing them sooner.

1. Swiffer Sweeper Vac. I'm pretty sure this has been on my mental list of "need" items for over a year now. A friend had told me how great it was for her hardwood floors and dog hair and I tucked that info away. Well, being home everyday and having Tucker as a shadow has led to dog hair literally everywhere! He's spending much more time upstairs than he ever has before and I just couldn't stand all the hair and sweeping anymore. This little vaccuum is seriously amazing. I really wish I had bought this sooner. With only have one room of wall-to-wall carpet in this house, using the swiffer vaccuum for quick clean-ups has been a life-saver.

2. Lazy Girl Hairstyling Hacks. The name of this buzzfeed article says it all. I tried #22 immediately after reading the article and it worked so well! My hair doesn't always stay up in a bun easily but this was so easy and successful. I've also tried #5 and was just as impressed with the results. You know I'm on board with #3 and #2 is next on my list. :)

3. The best way to toast bread - Thank you Courtney for introducing me to this toaster life hack. If you have a toaster, place both slices of bread in the same toaster slot so that the outsides toast but the insides stay soft. We have a toaster oven so while I loved this idea, I never tried it. Until yesterday when a lightbulb went off and I stacked the 2 slices of bread on top of each other. Genius! My sandwich was sooo good with the semi-toasted bread.

4. Pushpins App. After a little bit of googling to find a good list app, I downloaded Pushpin and have zero regrets. It not only allows me to create several grocery lists - regular grocery store, Target, etc. But it looks up all the sales at the grocery stores in my area and lets me add those specific items to my list. AND it lets you link up with other phones! So I keep my grocery store list linked up with J's phone so that he can stop at the store on his way home if needed and he has the list ready to go.

5. Microwave Life Hack. Thank you J for finding this one.We have eaten many re-heated meals since Baby Girl joined the family and using a coffee mug to elevate one dish above the other works so well! Kudos to the kid's mom who thought of this one!

I love that 3 of the 5 are life hacks - I wish I could say I thought of any of these but nope, this brain is fried. I am forever grateful to the geniuses above though!

Have any other good life hacks I should know about??

What are you up to this weekend?
Fact: I haven't done a Fact Friday since the beginning of May. Yikes! I'm going to try to at least get these out each week - it's a nice way to quickly go through a few things on my mind.

J&A are in town this weekend to visit L! She is soo excited to see her Auntie J and meet her Uncle A. Auntie doesn't plan to ever put her down. ;)

Have a fantastic weekend!

Baby Girl

On July 20, 2014 our lives were forever changed by the birth of our baby girl, L. I remember the weekend as if it were yesterday and I hope these memories never fade.

Before I share her whirlwind birth story, I felt I needed to at least introduce you all to her! I've chosen to cover her full name but her nickname is Lucie and I will refer to her as L going forward on the blog.

We are soooo in love with this little lady! 

Pictures for our birth announcements were done by the talented Beth Miga. And I used Etsy for a template (which my brother-in-law was kind enough to then tweak for me). 

She has been such a joy. And it's hard to believe she'll be 8 weeks this coming weekend. Gah, where did the time go?!

I plan to take a monthly photo of her and add a small recap of her current stats. It will be so fun to look back! So here's her 1 month summary:

In between play time, nap time, and feedings posts are definitely taking a bit longer to put together these days! But I'd love to get her birth story written up soon while it's all so fresh in my mind.

I'm an Auntie!

Somehow, it's been nearly 4 months since my nephew was born. 4 months!!?? I'm ashamed I haven't given him any blog time yet. But it was important to make sure my brother and sister in law were comfortable with this, and then yeah life got busy, and right, I had my own baby!

But, without further adieu, I'm so excited to introduce you to this handsome fella - JR. I think it's best I keep it to initials (the internet can be scary yo).

Anyways, I feel so lucky to call this little guy my nephew. From the moment I held him it was true love. He is such a happy little boy with the biggest smile. Getting a baby to smile at you is the best feeling ever! #success

JR was born May 7th - a week before his expected due date. But we all predicted Meg would go into labor early so we were just counting down the days. Getting the text from her saying heading to the hospital nearly sent me into tears at my desk (ok, it did. I definitely teared up at work). We were all soooo excited for them.

Meg went into labor late in the day on the 6th so we knew it would be a long night and couldn't wait to get the message of his birth. Clearly no one slept because when Dan sent out a group message just after 5am with the announcement we were all so quick to respond. JR was born at 4:53 am on the 7th and was just the most beautiful baby boy. He weighed in at 7 lbs 12 oz and was 20.5 inches long. Everything went well. Perfection!!

Over the past few months, we've enjoyed watching JR grow into a laughing, smiling, babbling (and drooling!) little guy. He's got plenty of rolls to eat up and is as healthy as can be. He loves to talk these days which is just the cutest thing ever.

 Look at that adorable face!

His smile is going to break some girls' hearts someday! 

Auntie loves you JR!!