The Lair

Finally.  A picture of the lair.  Not a nice one, but one.  Been promising for several months.  Not much to look at but the basement bedroom set up works for us.  We have two clothing racks to the right of the photo, where our laundry room is, that act as our closet.  People think we are crazy for living in an unfinished basement, but I've heard crazier stories.  For example, why do we pay money to go camp?  Think about it, you pay to live in the dirt, on a pad, with no facilities.  But I love it!  It's not as bad as I thought it would be.  One thing is for sure, it stays nice and cool which is awesome as the weather here has been really warm.

And the payoff will be even better once we have a new space to move in to.  

Eclectic Vintage Little Boy's Room

While my sister is in town she also helped me restyle Ben's room.  He moved out of his crib and into a toddler bed about a year ago.  At that time, I made his room look a bit older and less baby-ish.  Hung a few things.  But then it all went to he** when we closed off his extra door this past winter/spring.

Ben's baby room, it was sooo sweet

 I have done nothing since then.  Over the last year I had also collected or pulled out of hoard boxes all kinds of fun knick-knacks and art pieces for his room. 

So my sister was kind enough to help me pull it all together. Best of all, I only spent about $5 on the 3M strips to hang everything.  (I also spent about $30 last year on fabric for his pillows and comforter cover.  His bed frame was about $75).

the sweet airplane paintings were found in the family hoard-how excited was I to unearth these about 6 months ago???  Steve's dad paid someone to paint these in the 60s.  I great homage to his love of the Airforce and WWII.  The bookcase comes from Steve's parents home. Ben and his grandpa love(d) books!

We purchased the long subway art while visiting NYC last spring and the picture frames are from Steve's parents home. 

The train was a birthday present from Ben's friend, Addie

Yup, I collected lunch boxes in my former life :)  The vintage books belonged to Steve

More finds from the family hoard.  I made the map letter "B"...map modge-podged onto a wooden B

I found the farm at an estate sale-I had the same one as a kid. Yup, still makes the pathetic "moo" when you open and close the doors

Steve's pup-luv!  Yes, our boy loves books!

some of Ben's lovies.  Elle, the elephant, is his fav; a gift from his cousin's W&H on his first birthday

owls hand carved from Germany, white owls made by Jason and tin puppy from an estate sale

love this wall as the signs were from my brothers' childhood room and the license plate belonged to me.  My parents purchased the table (it was taller but Steve trimmed the legs and added rubber feet) and chairs for Ben's second birthday.  I found the trash can at an estate sale and spray painted it.

Hand made burlap "Ben" and Rose City Park sign

the rocking chair belonged to Steve and his bro, the framed alpha signs were free online downloads, the rug was handed down to Ben by our neighbor's friend for free

love this little box...yellow B and BEN from Rejuv and other found family hoard items

Have you ever just had it all come together almost too easily and for almost free?  Don't you just love it when that happens?

The Pretties

Since we are getting close to decor time and the fun stuff in the nursery, I thought I'd share some decorating inspiration.  Of course, I found it all on pinterest :)

I'd like to frame the first letter of her name...and nope, no idea what it is yet via

another great set of vintage alpha cards via

I hope to make this to store her stuffed animals/soft toys in via

love these via

baby sister's Auntie Amber is making her one of these...lucky girl via

love the kites framed in the embroidery hoop via

a lil too colorful but great use of all those buttons I have via

so pretty.  Just wish I had some pearly lying around via

I'm a little all over the place at this point but I think it will all come together in the end.  I think I have some crafting in the imminent future.  In addition, I'd like to make a quilt.  I am half way done with the crib skirt and hope to finish it up tomorrow.

You can see my room inspiration ideas here

Baby Sister's room-patch, plaster, priming phase

Well, this weekend we made some great progress.  We greeted the weekend by fueling up with some Case Study Coffee and Bridgetown Bagels and then got to work.  First up, we loaded our car (wish I had a picture) completely with baby stuff for my brother-in-law and sister-in-law that we have had since their shower that was at our house in early March as well as a rocking chair that we don't need.  Then Steve and his brother moved all of our bedroom furniture to the basement.  Next, they loaded a dresser (an Ethan Allen dresser that belonged to Steve when he was young) that we don't need into Steve's brother's car for their nursery. 
We were left with a much lighter house and an empty bedroom.

Steve was a rock star and got to work while I went to run baby errands with my sis-in-law.
We initially thought he would only need to patch two little spots where the plaster was in poor repair. 

Boy were we wrong.  Steve found multiple spots where the plaster just started to crumble when he touched the wall or removed picture rail.  He removed the picture rail as we forgot to allot for the detail trim over the doors and windows when we installed the picture rail.  The picture rail probably need to be ~1/4" lower.  We plan to put in the trim detail above the doors and windows before baby sister arrives. 

Steve has now patched all the areas where the plaster was majorly failing (we hope anyways).  He has also primed everything (including where we closed off a door to the kitchen-shown above) except one last area he patched last night. 

To repair the plaster, Steve first would scrape out the plaster/paint until it stopped falling away from the wall, then he applied pink plaster weld to the wall and let it dry.  Then he mixed up a small amount of plaster with water until it was sort of the consistency of pancake batter-just thin enough that it won't majorly drip.  He applied it in thin layers using a large metal plaster trowel. 

Not a fun project but much needed.  Hopefully we will have the ceilings and walls all painted and ready to be filled (even if the trim work isn't complete) by the end of next weekend. 

I hope to get you some pictures of our lovely basement lair in the next couple days.

down 2 doors

 

Last August, I wrote about us closing off the door the led from the kitchen to our bedroom-why they had it there in the first place, we'll never know. Midnight snacks?  I am tapping in on those right about now being 23 weeks preggo.

I also wrote about planning to close the door from Ben's room to the entry way.  Now, I can see why that door was originally put in.  Maybe a  door leading to a business out of the house?

entry way-boy, does this look different

Ben's room-the plaster guy plans to skim the entire way to make the texture even being that this wall probably has 10 layers of paint.

Anyways, the day is officially here.  Steve spent the earlier portion of Saturday adding 2x4s to the doorway between Ben's room and the front entry way and then patching in drywall on Sunday.

And here is the drywall patch in our room. 

And while were at it, we should patch that big hole between the kitchen doorway and the stairs

While we would have normally used blue board (a super-sturdy type of drywall type material made for coating plaster over), we went to patch and only had scraps of it.  It is not the sort of material you can just buy on Super Bowl Sunday from Home Depot, sooooo 5/8" drywall it was.  The plaster guy said it was fine based on the nature of the job.
We used blue board for all of the plaster work we did in the living room and dining room when we first moved into our house.
So today the plaster guy comes.  His name is John MacNab.  Several local bloggers highly recommended him-thanks.  I typically get multiple bids but I was told his prices are the best around and let's admit it, I was low on energy when I booked him just two days after Christmas-today was his earliest appt.!

Action Shots! Ben asked me to take his picture while I was taking pictures of the drywall.  Silly lil' man!

Hopefully I will have more pictures tomorrow.  Looking forward to getting these rooms back in order!

One down

One doorway down and one more to go.  Steve took out the doorway between our bedroom and the kitchen yesterday.  not really quite sure why it was ever there but let's just say that the builders of our home liked doors.  I think that our 2 bedroom house originally had about 14 doors.  A little excessive, don't you think?  I guess it's good for heating the house...  Currently we have (or will have once we reinstall the door to the basement stairs) 10 doors and will have 9 after we take out the extra doorway that leads to the front entry way in Ben's room.  The doors are missing to the kitchen, the upstairs, hallway and the extra in our room. 

Before....with the strange extra bedroom door

 After-temporary piece of panel in place.

Do you have any extra seemingly useless doors in you home?  How many total doors do you have?

B is for Bubs

 or Ben or booty-licious. 

 

I think I have written a bit about being in the process of slowly turning Ben's room from a nursery into a big boy's room.  Well, this weekend, in lieu of organizing our attic, I decided it was high time to work on his room.  I have many little projects in progress, but here is a quick one that I finished.  

I have seen so many cool things done with maps on pinterest and of course, letters are all the rage right now.  So I decided that I would take the plain B from Ben's nursery and make it less baby, more boy. 

 I first took the letter and places it on an old AAA map of Oregon that I had laying around.  I was sure to align it so that I would capture Portland (where we live), Hood River (we like visiting that area and go camping near there each year) and Eugene (where Steve is from).  Then I just traced the letter in pencil onto the map and cut it out.

I then used some blue paint that I already had and brushed it on haphazardly.  I like the sort of worn look of it.  Be sure to get a little on the top in case your map doesn't line up just right. 

I let the paint dry for about 15 minutes give or take a few before using good 'ol Elmers to glue on the map.  I let that dry another 10-15 and then mod podged it to seal it all in.

Anyways, I love how it turned out and can't wait to get it up in the big boy room.

best stool for little ones-nice and tall Ikea $8

great little potty stool-especially the nice high guard in front for boys Ikea $5

I think Ben is enjoying running around the house in just his Thomas skivvies

B is for booty-licious you ask?  I couldn't help myself.  We are fully immersed in potty training over here at Rose City Bungalow and I just think Ben looks so booty-licious in his little Thomas the Tank underwear.  And while he hasn't yet told me he needs to use the potty, he has gone several days now with only 1 accident.  While I feel like a repeating record "Ben it's time to go to the potty.  Ben, do you need to use the potty?  Ben, when the timer goes off, it's time to use the potty", it's not too shabby being that he just turned 2 in April but we'll see what happens-he could decide he's over it tomorrow.  Cross your fingers and please send any great potty training tips my way.