BOYS ROOM: sourcing furniture

Hi guys! I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving! With temperatures here in the 70’ s on Thursday, there were no complaints from me! And yes, I had a very good “black Friday”!  Now that all of that is behind us, it’s time to get back to business in the boys room!

We last left off with me showing you the “street” on the wall

Now it’s time to find furniture foe the room.  Originally, I planned to put a desk between the two beds.  The problem?  I didn’t take the right measurements as far as the beds are concerned.  Now I must find a nightstand that will fit and not look cramped and that will work for the design of the room.

Here are two that I’m considering at the moment

These cube type tables are at Target.  I think they are really cute and the boys would love them! I’m not really sure how they would look between the beds and they only have black and white available.  Yes white would look fine, but thinking back to my inspiration

I think that some type of metallic table would look great to represent the chrome found on cars!  With that in mind, I think these tables from West Elm would look great

 

I think the silver finish would be perfect for the space.  And I love the shape.  At $129, the price is a little high so I may look around a little more before biting the bullet and ordering them.  After I decide on the table, I will have to find a dresser or chest of drawers because my campaign dresser that I planned to put in the room won’t fit… darn!

Which table do you like, the cube or the West Elm table?

BRAVING BLACK FRIDAY {my tips}

The day that you guys have all been waiting for is finally near! No, not Thanksgiving, but the day after…Black Friday!

Yes! My favorite day! Why? Because I get to shop without my husband asking me what I need! For some odd reason, he NEVER questions my reasons for going out at 4:00am to shop! 

Because I know many of you will be out Friday morning, and that for a few of you this will be your first time out, I decided to share a few tips with you.  Hopefully I can help you make the most of your shopping adventure!

 

KNOW THE SALES

Find out all the stores that are participating in Black Friday.  From there, find the stores that offer the best deals on the items you need and also find the store that offers the second best prices!

 

PLAN YOUR TRIP

I have a mall literally 10 minutes away from me.  And surrounding that mall I have Target, Best Buy, Toys R Us, and Sams Club.   I also have a Wal-mart close by, but in a different direction than where majority of the stores are.  This problem is where my next tip come into play…

 

GET FRIENDS AND FAMILY INVOLVED

Okay, so you have to go to Target for a TV, but you need a laptop from Wal-mart.  Have your friend or family member go into the other store while you are in Target.  Or how about this, you don’t really need any of the major items from a particular store, but you do want a few of their stocking stuffers, the same plan works for that too!

 

HAVE YOUR LIST READY

 

There is nothing worst than waking up at 3:30am and having to make a list.  Better yet, getting out of the house and not being able to find your list.  Print out your shopping list and print multiples.  Give one to EVERYONE you can think of just in case you do forget it, you can call that person.  Oh and leave one in the car too!

 

CASH OR CREDIT?

My advice for this question…CASH! Or, better yet, DEBIT! Okay, I know that some credit cards have rewards with them and that’s fine.  For example, with my Target card, I can get 10% off with the coupon I received the other day plus an additional 5% off for using it.  They also have coupons in their ad that ends today that I can combine with those discounts.  Did I use the card? YES MA’AM!!! BUT, i turned around and paid it on the card.  See this is what I learned (the hard way), a deal is not a deal if you’re going to pay A LOT more for the item later.  It took a while, but my husband finally got through to me;-)

 

BE CAREFUL

 

Here a picture of one of my carts last year.  Notice that it is still dark outside… Also, notice the guy in the background.  Nothing happened with this person, but you never know who is out there watching you.  I see a lot of people go out and put things in their cars and then head back inside.  DO NOT DO THAT.  As soon as you head inside, BAM, your car is broken into and that’s not good!  If you must go back into a store, I suggest you go to your car, act like you are leaving and then park your car in a different parking spot.  And try not to pack things into the car, but into the trunk.

 

HAVE ENOUGH ROOM

 

So you get to the store and realize that getting that 42” flat screen is worth it after all.  Well, not if you’re packing into a Sebring!  My truck seats 8, but with the third row let down, I can still seat my Black Friday “crew” and my items! My back windows are tinted, but I do plan to take a quilt with me to cover my items…Be Careful!

 

HAVE FUN BECAUSE THERE IS ALWAYS TOMORROW!

I always have fun!  Even when I don’t get a particular item that I had my mind set on.  Shopping on Black Friday is really fun, but don’t forget that the sale continues on Saturday! So if you oversleep Friday, set your alarm for Saturday!

 

I hope that these tips are helpful when you get out Friday! I wonder if I’m missing anything…Do any of you have any tips of your own to share?

 

P.S, I learned from Mrs.Chic that Goodwill is participating in Black Friday with everything being 50% off! They are definitely on my list!

WELCH'S AND A $100 GIFTCARD GIVEAWAY!

While having breakfast this past Sunday, I quickly realized how soon Thanksgiving is coming. Why would I think of Thanksgiving over breakfast you ask? Instead of Thanksgiving dinner, I host Thanksgiving breakfast/brunch at my house! And just putting together a breakfast to feed the seven people in my home right now is no small task

To see the full post and enter the $100 giftcard giveaway, click the original post here.

IN THE NAME OF GOOD DESIGN

Hi there! I hope you all had a great week.  My day was terrible yesterday.  Bren had a fever of 106 due to an ear infection.  After coming home from his doctor’s appointment, he went to sleep.  While he slept, I decided to work on their car wall.  A few minutes into painting, I heard a strange noise and I turned around to find that Brendan was having a seizure.  I can not tell you how scared I was.  It all came down to how when he went to sleep, he bundled up in his covers and it brought the fever back up.  The paramedics came and told me that having a seizure with a fever is the bodies way of trying to cool itself off. And to keep giving him a rotation of Tylenol and Motrin every three hours along with his antibiotics.  I have three kids and I’ve seen a lot when it comes to their illness’s, but to see your child jerking and eyes rolling in the back of their head is an entirely different story.  All in all he is doing fine now and a few hours after his fever broke, he asked to go outside! Boy do they bounce back fast (of course he didn’t get to go outside!).

Today I wanted to discuss being daring in design.  A lot of you liked the idea of the cars being on the wall  in the Big Boy room, but you didn’t agree with gluing them to the wall.  Some said that the wall should be interactive.  Some said that I should try Velcro or magnets.  Okay let me address those suggestions:

Letting them play on the wall with the cars would be a good idea except for the fact that the cars are the length of your hand and are a little rougher than the usual Hot Wheels.    Therefore if they played with those cars on the wall, that would damage the walls.

Then with the Velcro, I thought of that too, but the cars would probably not go back on the walls.

Magnets wouldn't work because again, unlike Hot Wheels, under the car is plastic.  So it wouldn’t attach to the magnets anyway. 

I think I look at this project different.  This is more of art to me.  When I thought of the idea for the wall, my first thought was 3-D art on the wall.  It’s not meant to be touched by the boys.  I know that may sound mean, but my boys are car fanatics! Therefore, they already have these cars to play with.  I went and purchased these specifically for the wall.

 

If they do decide to pull the cars from the wall, yes it will tear the sheet rock, but its nothing major that can’t be fixed.  I realized that people panic when it comes to doing something that may require a few fixes when the design is no longer wanted.

 

For example, Janell recently built a headboard for her bedroom

and what did she use to hold this headboard to the wall?

 

I absolutely love this headboard.  I am actually trying to come up with a way to do my own version of it! Yes, when its time to remove the headboard, there will be damage to the wall.  But, in the name of great design that’s a risk that deserves to be taken.  When I start on a project (now anyway) I think about long term.  Will I like this next year?  Will it still serve the purpose after I’m done and have moved on to another project?  And if you answer yes then by all means “GO FOR IT”!!!

I turned a closet in what is now TJ’s room into a closet office

People (including my husband) questioned my decision to take away a closet.  It’s been over a year now and we don’t miss the closet.  In fact, my son uses it now to do his homework

 

and I also turned my coat closet that is in my dining room next to my kitchen into a pantry

My husband was not feeling this makeover at all! And this was a year ago too.  To this day, he still says he misses the coat closet.  I don’t! I mean have you seen my kitchen?  There is not a lot of storage in there!

All in all, decorate your home for you.  If you LOVE something or feel as if a certain space would get better use as something else, go for it! You can always get it back to how it was before!

 

What are your thoughts on this topic? 

Stay tuned next week for more updates in the boys room and tips on shopping Black Friday sales!!!

LET’S CRUISE BABY!

I hope that you had a chance to check out my guest post on Cottage and Vine today!

As promised, I’m back with an update on the Nick and Bren’s room! First, can anyway name the movie that the title of this post came from?  An all time favorite in my house!

As you know, the room is painted and it has a very wide (30 inches) black stripe.  I originally wanted to do a chalkboard stripe, but with my boys that wouldn’t work!

Now, if I just leave this stripe as is how boring would that be?  So you know me….let’s up the wow factor

I knew that a '”street” on the room would be perfect, but I didn’t want to just paint stripes on the wall.  So while in Hobby Lobby I found a pack of wood slats for $1.99 for 6 which was perfect!

Once again I put the kids to work! All I had to give them was a pack of fruit snacks;-)  ***Side note*** make sure they finish the work before you pay them!

As soon as they opened the fruit snacks they were left me to finish the work myself.  That was fine.  The craft paint wasn’t giving me the look I wanted so out came my high gloss ultra white paint!

 

Next step was to figure out how to attach them to the wall.  I originally used my Elmer’s glue that’s similar to Gorilla Glue….

One thin line of glue 

All was going good, but it wasn’t holding the way I needed it to. 

Then my sister walks in the room and asked why I didn’t use my glue gun.  I knew she was going to be useful for something!  So out came the glue gun

PERFECT!

Cool right?!?! Yeah, Nick is going to be so excited when he comes home! Now, what’s the use of having a street in your room without cars??? It just don’t make sense right?  Stay tuned because the cars are coming next!

And yes, they will be glued to the wall (in a different way)….Talk about torturing kids;-)

What do you think so far?  Have I gone too far with the glue?  or have I not gone far enough?!

THE GIFT OF TIME…..NO BATTERIES REQUIRED

Hi guys! I’m participating in Rene’s gift giving series over at

My topic today is gifts for kids.  And like the title of this post….No Batteries are required! Head over and check it out!

 

 

Come back later today for an update on my boys bedroom!

BIG BOY ROOM PART 2 (FINAL INSPIRATION)

Hello out there! If you’re still interested in what I have to say, I want to let you know that I have started on my youngest two boys room! What is the final inspiration for the space?

That’s right! Very cool sports cars! And what do they all have in common? A stripe? Black? Chrome? Blue? Yes! Yes! Yes! and Yes (except one)! If you are following me on twitter, then you’ve seen the paint color and a peak at the beds! You were also able to see my mishap with primer! For those of you who don’t tweet…No worries, I got pictures for you too!

The wall color is growing on me! And no, that stripe is not chalkboard. After thinking more about my 4 and 2 year old, that wouldn’t have been a good idea! Don’t worry. It’s not going to be just a big black stripe!

The bed is the MALM platform bed from IKEA. Nick insisted on a black bed.

Here is my starting inspiration for the room! Nick handed me one of his favorite hotwheels and told me he wanted his room to look like it! Umm…Okay Nick!

And the worst thing that could have happened….I spilled the primer on the floor. I asked (on twitter) if I should get my carpets professionally cleaned or purchase my own cleaner. Many said get it done professionally. Well, after this happened, hurried to Target to grab a cleaner while my sister was at home scrubbing and soaking my carpet. Guess what? The spot is GONE!!! See in the picture of the bed? The foot of the bed is where the primer was.

I’ll post better updates on the room next week! What are your plans for the weekend?!