Baby’s Leaving the Crib

It’s official: baby’s flying the nest. Our third daughter, who is three, is the proud owner of a new twin bed (actually, it’s the bed her older sister used before moving into her own room). The twin bed has a super comfy mattress which is much more luxe than her natural fiber organic crib mattress.

She’s used the new bed a few nights and all in all, it’s been a success. I think she likes the “bigness” of the experience. For us, it’s not even bittersweet. I am happy that our family is growing up. I used to be sad when the kids outgrew their clothes and such, but now, with a 9, 6 and 3 year-old, I’m excited that we can drop naps and do things. We travel easier. We see movies. We don’t have all the gear. 

Friends with younger children will ask me, “When do you know it’s time for a big-kid bed?” Of course, every child is different but we generally evicted our first two girls from their cribs when a new sibling was almost on the scene.

With Girl #3, it just seemed like the right thing to do. She’s getting bigger and the aforementioned organic mattress had a groove worn in it. Baby was also waking a lot at night. We think she probably just wasn’t comfortable.

So far, so good with the new bed. She’s sleeping great and seems to understand she should stay in the twin bed and not roam around the house at night.

Here’s a link to a children’s room interior design Pinterest board I made when we set up the room the first time with two twin beds. It doesn’t look much different now. I think I’ve said it before, but the painting in the picture, above, is my favorite of Jonathan’s.

Bonus: we’re selling things on eBay to help fund our summer vacay. This is incredibly fulfilling because our basement just has too much stuff: outdoor equipment, books, kid stuff. So, that crib will get a new home and we’ll be a little closer to the beach!

Crib: Baby Mod, “Modena”; Painting: “Poultry in Motion,” by Jonathan Fenske; Pouf: Crate and Barrel; Rug: Angela Adams. 

The Best Things In Life Are…Six Dollars?

We’ll start this post with a yahoo! and congratulations to Amber for winning our necklace giveaway from Etsy shop budpnq (say “budbud”) and artist Katie Fenske Bridges. Congratulations to Amber and thank you to all who entered. Amber, I’ll shoot you a note about receiving your beautiful new necklace.

Now, to today’s post:

We’re thrifty people and loooove a good bargain. Since I dig interior design and house tinkering so much, I long ago learned how to shop garage sales and thrift stores for items for my home. I even once spray painted simple wooden dowels a silvery textured paint so they would look like metal curtain rods underneath some sheer dotted panels. Friend, I know some serious skillz. I am also blessed with patience. If I want something, I will save and stalk it and save some more.

Lately, three things have entered our home from thrift stores that each cost about $6. I like the price! And I like what we found.

This is the iconic Umbra OH! Chair. They hit the scene back in 1999 and are still made today. Designed by Karim Rashid. Price: $6

This ubiquitous wooden chair is probably from Target, but plenty of other places make their own version, such as Crate and Barrel. I replaced the folding chair that was at my desk for this one. It’s more comfortable and I like the zing! of color. Price: $6

We’re kind of cheating on this next one. The table was indeed $6, but it was a hot mess of chalkboard paint and multicolored legs. The great news? This baby is solid wood and made incredibly well. I don’t know where it’s from, but it’s definitely high quali-tee. I pleaded exhaustion for painting after our recent family room makeover, so Jonathan picked up the roller. We used Valspar’s National Historic Preservation colors in Jekyll Club Veranda Ivory. The seagrass baskets underneath are a nod to Jekyll Island. Price: $6 plus a quart of Valspar. 

You truly never know what you’ll find when you go out thrifting. Just make sure to bring your six dollars, and good luck! What’s your best thrift store/garage sale find? Tell us in the comments!

Family Room Makeover: It’s An “After”

We’re done with our DIY family room makeover! Well, I guess you can never say “done” because there’s always something, right? We would loooove to install hardwoods one day. And we’ll always arrange art around our house. And I did just order a Threshold side table on Target’s “Clearance on Clearance” online sale. Target, you vixen! Anyway, we all know decorating a home is an ongoing process. This summer’s project, however, has come to a close.

You can get caught up on the beginning and our open shelf building and even our desk construction. Other readers will remember this is where we started in June: too much kid clutter, a green wall color I was beginning to loathe and bookshelves that were falling apart:

And here we are now. This is our “After.”

We arranged the chairs and couch to create (we hope) a welcoming space that says, “Sit down and relax.” Before, the couch faced all of the toy mess and I always felt like sitting down was something to do in a hurry, on my way to pick up a toy. I rarely ever sat on my couch (that I love!). I would despair of the kid junk, too. We don’t have a toy room or spare room for kiddie flotsam. I just couldn’t figure out how to fix it. And then I did.

We ended up donating most of the baby’s toy bin. Rattles and teethers were all tossed, since she’s past that stage. Toys she never played with (even if I thought they were so cute or so German or so eco-friendly….all donated because if a child doesn’t play with a toy, then why keep it?) After all of that purging, we were left with a basket worth of awesome baby toys. Then, we sold the bins on Craigslist. The second toy bin was curated down in the same manner, although our 4 and 7-year-olds had veto power over most of the save-toss decisions. We placed that bin in the basement and if they want a toy that they can’t live without, they can go down there and get it. This has happened exactly once.

The yellow table was a surprise. I originally wanted an ottoman in front of the couch and even started a jam jar fund (when I want something that’s outside the household budget, I start a glass jar with a picture of the thing I desire. I sell stuff on CL until I have enough funds.) Anyway, as the jar fund began to grow, the ottoman started looking pretty indulgent. For the cost of a well-built fabric ottoman, I could do a lot more with my decor budget. So, I shifted gears and went the coffee table route. But I wanted rounded edges, no cold stone or rough wood. I found an inexpensive Queen Anne-style coffee table for $40 on CL and then purchased about $21 in paint. I used Valspar’s Oatland Daisy after I sanded the table and did some very minor repairs.

The open gray shelving combined with the mid-mod dresser is definitely my favorite part of the entire room. You know how you want something to go in your head sometimes? And it hardly ever turns out that way? Well, color me happy, because this time, what I envisioned actually worked out. I hope I’m on a roll.

I won’t lie, the baby knocked over this vase of zinnias after she woke up from her nap. We do not keep anything delicate at her height. (I held back the other two girls by drawing an imaginary line behind the couch while I took pictures.) I’m just keeping it real, folks. This room does not look like this now. It won’t ever look this way again. That’s why there’s a stack of library books in the next picture. The only thing we can keep down low are books and usually, they are strewn around the room. We don’t do knick-knacks. Or balls of pretty HomeGoods twine. Or jars of sea urchin skeletons. Are you kidding me?

The art on this wall is work by (clockwise from top); Robert Matre, Matre Gallery, Atlanta; Near and Deer from Fat and Appy; and Katie Fenske Bridges. You can see her amazing Etsy jewelry shop here. The chair is vintage.

I posted this picture the other day (it’s from last week). I love my desk and I’m thrilled it cost a fraction of a store-bought desk. Hurray!

I thought the coffee table might be too hard at first for our rough-and-tumble girls. All of the girls have rolled off the couch and hit it at least once. But they are learning to avoid it. And I placed a few extra pillows under the coffee table for fort building. It’s funny…now that they don’t have all of their broken and abandoned toys living in the family room, they use my stuff to play: baskets, pillows, blankets, cushions.

Whew, that was some summer! You can’t see it, but the girls are panting around the corner, dying to be released to trash the room once more. But that’s living with kids and I’ll take it every day of the week. The best part of the new room? I “enter” by walking past the couch and snuggle into the cushions. Within minutes, at least one child has piled on top of me. Babies climb up, 4-year-olds nap and 7-year-olds talk theology and pranks on that couch with their mama. It’s heaven. So, I would say my main goal of making the room fit our family better has been achieved. And I don’t have to paint anything anymore…at least for a while. Happiness!

Sources:

Wall paint: Benjamin Moore “Moonshine” color-matched to Olympic’s No-VOC in satin; Couch: “Petrie,” Crate and Barrel; Mid-mod dresser: Mod Mid Century; Orange chairs, ottomans: Storehouse; Wooden desk: custom; Open shelves: “Straight 10” shelf brackets by Tyler Morris Woodworking, Fort Collins, CO; Paint on desk and open shelves: Benjamin Moore “Storm Cloud Gray” color-matched to Olympic’s No-VOC in semi-gloss; Rocking chair: vintage; Coffee table: Craigslist, painted with Valspar “Oatland Daisy” spray paint in flat (legs and sides) and same color but with liquid paint in satin (top); desk chair: a store in Atlanta, I’ve forgotten the name, sorry!; Media cart, curtains, trash can and silver shelf: IKEA; Pillows: HomeGoods; White pouf: Crate and Barrel; Art: most is FatandAppy.com or Jonathan Fenske; also, Robert Matre, Katie Fenske Bridges; Bruce Clark; Emma Klingbeil.
We’re Jennifer and Jonathan. And we’re parenting three girls and making art. Thank you for visiting our blog! Please stop by again. 

A New Wooden Desk in the Family Room

I’m happy to report our family room makeover is complete. Today, I’ll show you the corner desk Jonathan and I collaborated on. A little backstory: I don’t have a proper desk in our house. We have a desk in the living room where Jonathan works, and I mooch off of his space when he’s not working. It’s an arrangement that we started once I quit my social media job back in April. So, we’ve kind of limped along, me working when he’s not. We know we need a permanent solution (finish the basement? rent a studio offsite?) but for now, we’re winging it.

That’s how I came to the “what should I do with that corner in the family room?” You might remember that the “Before” family room looked like this:

Check out the back corner on the right—that space to the right of the red rocking chair. I knew I could put something there special, and it finally hit me: a DESK! My own desk, lah.

Jonathan is Mr. Frugal and when he heard I was looking at $300 West Elm Parsons desks (he heard because I said, “Honey, I think I’ll put a Parsons desk here!”), he went into DIY mode. Love my man.

We picked up a cheap piece of oak plywood from Lowes (about $15) and some thin oak strips to give the cheapie board a nice edge. Then, we used the paint we had for the open bookshelves, Benjamin Moore Storm Cloud Gray color matched to Olympic No-VOC Premiere paint in semi-gloss. (You can read all about those shelves in our recent shelf bracket DIY post.)

First, Jonathan attached the thin trim strips to the front and one side of the desk (the back and other side would touch the wall, so they didn’t need trim.) He pre-drilled the holes (to keep the wood from splitting) and used deck screws and wood glue. Then, he propped it up in our indoor/outdoor woodworking shop. (Otherwise known as a “garage.”) It was now my turn!

Jonathan countersunk the screws for me, leaving a little hole to fill with Plastic Wood. I scooped some up with a spackle knife and swiped it on. The Plastic Wood tends to sink, so I did this twice after letting the first application dry. We did all of this so the trim edge would be smooth with no bumpiness from the nails.

After that second application, the hole was nice and flush. I sanded it well.

I then brought the desk top into the house and primed it, using the Valspar Bare Wood primer we used for the open shelves. I also primed the two Parson legs I bought from Lowes. They were about $9 a piece and are made of a solid hardwood. Pretty and simple. We just needed two because the back of the desk was designed to rest on little rails. More on that later.

The next day, I moved on, painting the legs with the gray paint. This is my favorite picture. Of course, we have peanut butter on the floor. Don’t you? (True story: Our 17-month-old toddler will go into the pantry, take out food and leave it on the floor. She’ll sit down beside it, as if to say, “I like to eat, people. So, why aren’t you feeding me NOW?”)

I painted the desk top, using the roller. I like the even coverage and it’s faster (for me, anyway). Gray happiness!

At this point, Jonathan jumped back in and attached the leg brackets. This was pretty cheap—I think a few dollars each. We bought two, of course.

And here’s a shot of the table leg, masterfully painted, don’t you think?

Jonathan carefully measured and mounted the poplar support rails, pre-drilling the holes before attaching them to the wall.

Using a level, he made sure the desk top was level before attaching the desk to the rails (from underneath, so the screws wouldn’t show, and, once again pre-drilling the holes).

And after drying and arranging, here it is:

Sources:

Orange chair: Storehouse

Desk, custom: (read this post!)

Art: Sweet Pea in Blue and Fast Car, both by Fat and Appy™ Modern Art for Children (this is our line of modern art prints on canvas). Canvas of rock and tree with silver frame: original still-life painted by Jonathan Fenske.

Paint: Benjamin Moore Storm Cloud Gray color-matched to Olympic Premiere No-VOC in semi-gloss.

Chair: Modern furniture store in Atlanta—can’t remember the name

Trashcan, curtains, silver shelf: IKEA

White porcelain votive holders: Target

Sitting fox: Zsolnay

Stained glass window: Vintage

And another shot, from the left.

You know me, I like to get all artsy.

This is a tincut from the Georgia folk artist R.A. Miller. This is the first piece of art I ever bought. I was 18. I still adore it.

So, that’s the path from boring blah spot to my own little corner and my own little chair! I’m really happy to sit there, work, organize and kind of just daydream sometime.

What’s next? Pictures of the entire room so you can see how our family room makeover turned out! I was held up a little by some long days of cloud coverage (photos with a flash drive me crazy, and I wanted to spare you that). Also: I picked up a Queen Anne-style coffee table and painted it, so that took a few days. It’s in the new room and I wanted to debut that cutie pie table here. So, soon and very soon!

DIY Book Shelves: Gray Goodness

Our DIY family room makeover continues. We have shelves! This is terribly exciting because we have three small children + a ton of books that have been stacked all over the place for the past week while we work on the room. The book issue became a bigger problem as the days wore on because the baby (age 1) would knock them over. The other two girls (ages 4 and 7) would swoop in and then crack open the books, sit on the books, build forts with the books and fling books at each other. This led us to coin a 500-year-old proverb: “Books belong on bookshelves.” (You can read about what we did with the old bookshelf here.)

Luckily, we were in the process of making open wood bookshelves. Here’s what we did.

First, we headed to Lowes. We picked out the three least warped “white wood” boards for the shelves we could find and then had them cut to our desired length at the store. Since we went with the cheapest wood (about $37), we knew we would have to sand and carefully prepare the boards, even more than usual.

Children love going to large home improvement stores. They seem really grateful and happy to accompany their parents on such errands.

Seriously, we just try to keep them alive at places like Lowes. If you turn your back for a second, our two older girls will be playing house underneath 20 tons of drywall.

Once we returned home and after I nursed an iced tea to erase memories of the shopping trip, I set up my woodshop outside the garage.

Ya’ll about to get jealous….this is one sexy wood working area:

That’s right. Picnic blankets make the BEST woodworking tables. Tyler Morris would not approve.

I sanded the “white wood” (what? is that like “white fish”…you don’t really know what kind of fish that is? Did I buy Frankenwood?) making sure to round the corners and the edges. I used a sander we’ve had forever. It made it really easy.

The next day, I wiped the boards down with a damp cloth to remove any sanding debris. Then, I used Valspar Bare Wood primer and painted both sides of the boards and the edges. Jonathan walked by and said, “Why don’t you roll it?” when he saw me waxing on and off with a paint brush. I think I thought the paint strokes would look….I don’t know, painterly, or something so I ignored his advice. Big mistake—more on that later.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the gorgeous shelf brackets were ready, so Jonathan started using his stud finder to locate the studs in family room wall. Here’s a picture with the first shelf bracket up and ready for business:

And here is Jonathan doing the ubiquitous “Stud finder? I’m right here!” picture. We are too cheesy, I know:

After a while, here is what it looked like when all nine brackets were up. Loveliness! Jonathan is uber careful and used a level, measuring stick and anchors (for the non-stud areas) as he worked. We took this photo the morning after he installed the brackets. You can see the now-dried shelves, at right.

And speaking of those shelves, I ended up using the roller on the tops and sides of the shelves after my attempts to go “authentic” failed. The paint applied with a brush looked clumpy and sloppy. But with a few gentle roller strokes, the boards looked beautiful. Should’ve listened to my man, I know. Next time!

I should note that Tyler’s brackets come with little wooden caps to cover the screws. We are thinking about leaving the screws uncapped, for a more “gritty” look. Or, I guess as “gritty” as a suburban Colorado house gets.

After all of this work, I flopped on the couch and read HGTV magazine. A nice bit of escapism…especially when your house is torn up and the children are mewing for food and you’re not really sure if you can get to the refrigerator.

Jonathan then installed the shelves, cheating one just a tad to accommodate its unexplainable shrinking overnight. This part went really easily, so easily I wasn’t even around to help and just woke up to new shelves one morning. That’s service! Thank you, Mr. Fenske.

Finally, we moved our mid-century dresser we found on Craigslist into place, added books and a pared-down collection of favorite things and installed our art from different rooms around the house:

We’re not done yet…and we’ll show you the rest of the room soon as soon as we install the desk. We’re in the process of building it now (while baby naps today, I will be sanding it out in the “wood shop,” er, garage.) The desk will go to the right of the Sweet Pea in Blue. You can see the white edge of the desk chair where it will be installed.

Going to nap now. Just kidding! I promised I would stop ignoring my children while I feverishly paint and try to find room for all of the books that do not fit on our new shelves (by design…we really wanted to start fresh with less stuff in the family room. Guess that means a book purge is in my future!)

Enough about us. What about you? What projects are you working on? Feel free to leave a link in the comments. 

Darling Gray: In Which I Ask Way Too Much From A Can of Paint

We painted our family room and kitchen (they are one continuous room) a seedling green in 2007. I was into gradients back then, so the color in the family room was lighter and the kitchen was a darker version of the green. I liked the color for years, but lately, I knew I wanted to go gray. At first, I was thinking a dark gray but Jonathan said that would be like living in a storm cloud in the most used room in our house. I knew he was right, so I went on the hunt for the perfect gray.

Sadly for the gray color chips of the world, I was asking a lot. I needed the Perfect Gray to be smart, sophisticated, not purple, not blue-gray, unassuming, farm house honest, city loft cool, reassuring, a little brash, not too arrogant and neutrally neutral. That’s not too much to ask out of a gallon of paint, right?

I have a bad habit of picking a paint off of a swatch, painting a room and later ending up hating it. So, this time around, I knew I needed to pony up a little money for paint samples. I headed to Lowes with three kids in tow. I poured over a lot of paint cards while piloting one of those ridiculous race car carts. The girls were their usual rambunctious selves, so I just threw fruit snacks at them from time to time. Luckily, Lowes is huge, so my children were able to blend in a little bit more.

Not so much at Benjamin Moore. It’s a standalone store, and since I wanted to see their colors (I’d never used them, but had heard good things about their paint on Young House Love), we headed over there. I met the coolest mom who was also looking for her perfect gray, so we bonded over that while her girls played with mine. Sadly, my loud, boisterous and hungry children (it was near lunchtime) were a little much for the staff there, so we made a hasty retreat after I paid for two paint samples.

Now that I’ve gone the paint sample route, I have to say I will always do it this way. A sample is $2.98 and I ended up purchasing a total of four. The samples at Lowes are larger, but even Benjamin Moore’s smaller samples give you enough to paint a huge section of wall if you want to.

Here’s what we ended up with:

The pattern thingie at right is our hanging panels over the sliding glass door.

At first, I was sure Gray Horse was my dream color. But then I remembered Jonathan’s storm cloud warning. I think he was right—it would be too dark. So then I fell in love with Silver Spoon because I felt it gave the the punch I wanted. I painted Silver Spoon everywhere. And then I returned to it over and over, like a hopeful lover. We had to be together, right?

Alas, it was not to be. Silver Spoon was, well, kind of a Purple Spoon. And I knew if the wall looked purple, I would despise it with a white-hot fury.

So, I turned to Moonshine and you know what? It is a genius paint color. Absolutely perfect. Really. I first read about it on Young House Love and didn’t think it would work because we have trim that’s a warm putty, not white like  YHL ‘s John and Sherry. Their Moonshine pops with that white trim. But Moonshine being the lovely lover that it is…well, it did the trick. And I do feel more sophisticated. And about five pounds thinner. This is some paint, I have to tell you.

Here’s the week’s most unflattering picture. And this is the best painting pic we have. Egad.

I love, love, love this gray! For the record, we color-matched Moonshine by Benjamin Moore to Olympic’s Premium No VOC in satin. I have painted a lot over the years, and I have to tell you, this paint doesn’t smell at all. There is zero odor or “new paint smell.” As a mom of three small children, I blow kisses to Olympic. It’s like we never painted. But oh, yes, we did.

The kitchen picture looks a little shiny…I think I took the pic when the walls were still wet.

So, I’m really happy with our new gray. I’ve also been busy grabbing a few things here and there, stretching my makeover budget. I bought pillows and baskets for throws at HomeGoods. Oh dear, I love me some HomeGoods.

We’re getting there! Little by little. Can’t wait to show you the shelves…I’m over the moon about them. Love how they turned out.

We’re Jennifer (novelist, mom, blogger) and Jonathan (children’s book author/illustrator, dad, runner and artist). We also have a line of affordable modern art canvases for children. Thanks for stopping by! 

The Magical Wood Shop: Tyler Morris Woodworking

For our family room makeover, I knew I wanted gorgeous new bookshelves to replace the battle-scarred, petulant unit that we placed on Craigslist last week. (Update: it’s sold!  Score one for Team Honest. We told it like it was and still, a really sweet lady bought it. I think of her every day. Did she get home and as various parts fell off of it, did she slap her forehead and say, “Oh, now I get it!” I hope not. Maybe the old bookshelves got their act together after I publicly shamed them. Maybe? Probably not.)

Anyway, back to the bookshelves. We didn’t have the stomach (or budget) to purchase another set of bookshelves, so I decided to make them. I read a ton of blogs and settled on open wooden shelves with wooden shelf brackets. After checking out the shelf brackets at Lowes, I felt there was something else out there. I didn’t know what, exactly, was out there, but I figured Mr. Google would tell me.

My searching led me to Tyler Morris Woodworking in Fort Collins, less than an hour’s drive from our home. Tyler makes gorgeous shelf brackets and so I called him (probably babbling) about how I loved his brackets and I couldn’t wait for the mail and could I drive up there today, like in four hours, and oh yeah, I’m bringing three children under age eight to your workshop filled with dangerous tools?

Tyler graciously agreed to allow us to crash his woodworking shop. The first thing I noticed: it’s really clean and organized. I thought to myself: Jonathan would loooove this place. My man is so organized and the chaos of four women drives him crazy. True story: he just bought a plastic tub for all of our shoes we kick off in the garage. Our scattered shoe piles were pushing him over the edge. So now we have a shiny new tub that is brimming with eighteen colors of Crocs.

But anyway, back to the wood shop:

Tyler and his team make shelf brackets, corbels (a fancier bracket for countertops), recipe boxes, serving trays, cutting boards and a branch tray that is out-of-this-world pretty. This is the cabinet where he grabbed our order. Look at that neatness!

While we were in the wood shop, my two older girls made up a gruesome game why the baby wasn’t allowed out of her stroller. Basically, the game was all of the ways Baby Fenske could be injured if she were to climb out of her stroller and toddle around. (Of course, everything in the shop was safety protected, turned off and otherwise harmless to well-behaved children. My girls were, thankfully and unexplainably, good for our visit.)

We chose the “Straight 10 Wood Shelf Bracket” which is gorgeous. There are four woods to choose from: Oak, Maple, Cherry and Paint Grade (which is American Poplar). Since we planned to paint our brackets, our choice was easy: Paint Grade. They are $18 a piece and feel like a mini-woodworking miracle. I had to restrain myself from petting the bracket and calling it “My Precious.”

Saturday, I lined up the shelf brackets for painting. They come pre-sanded, so it was a pretty easy job to cover the kitchen table with newspaper, grab the primer, brush and go.

I applied one coat of Valspar Bare Wood Primer to each bracket. It was a little tricky getting under each part of the bracket. You also have to hold the bracket, so that part doesn’t get painted at first. I ended up laying each bracket down and painting over the part that my hand covered. I’m sure there’s some more proper woodworking way of doing this, but I just went with it.

I let the brackets dry and then lightly sanded them. I took a damp cloth and wiped off any sanding debris. Now it was time to paint!

I chose a deep gray because I wanted contrast with the new wall color which will be a light gray. (I’ll do another blog post on the gray wall color.)

This gray is “Storm Cloud Gray” by Benjamin Moore, color matched to Olympic’s no-VOC Premium in semi-gloss. I love the way they turned out. As I went, I would sometimes miss a spot and the white primer would blaze on through. I got better as I painted all nine brackets, but it was dicey at the beginning. If you look carefully at left (above), you can see one of our gray paints we sampled on the wall.

I adore these shelf brackets and can’t wait to see them on the wall of the family room. Thanks so much to Tyler for his good-natured patience with our visit (and my pesky questions). We’ll post more pictures soon!

Next up: Can a gray wall color battle insecurities, make me feel designer-ish and generally produce a peaceful feeling of well being? I certainly hope so! 

Family Room Makeover: It’s On Like Donkey Kong

Bad things happen when husbands travel.

Things like reading one too many posts on Young House Love. Adding images to my Ideabooks on Houzz. Trolling Craigslist for mid-modern furniture.

So, while Jonathan traveled for work for eight days, I diligently tended the homefront, the Fat and Appy front and the three girls under age seven front (including two ballet classes, three gymnastics classes, one drama camp performance, untold grilled cheese sandwiches, three playdates plus a bottle of wine shared with my neighbor, Felicia. But who’s counting?)

And while the little angels slept, I plotted big-time about what to do with our child-friendly family room that makes me want to surrender my Dwell subscription. We have good furniture (minus the bookshelves); we have great art. The room is light-filled. It’s just never, ever come together. So this week, I Googled, trolled, schemed and dreamed.

You can probably see where this is going: It’s time for a Family Room Makeover!

This morning, I purchased a mid-mod dresser on Craigslist that will anchor the new family room back wall. It’s gorgeous, wonderful, amazing. We’ll (and by that I mean, Jonathan) build shelves. He’s even going to make me a corner desk since I don’t have a proper desk but kind of drift all over the house with my iPad. A wall color change is also in need. Our seedling green was pretty in 2007 but I am over it, yo.

Here’s what we’re working with:

Tons of toy overkill…would love your suggestions about what to do with that. We’ll need to replace the floor lamp bowl at the back right that was broken twelve hours after an all-family IKEA trip. Also, we’ll probably rearrange art because we like to do that. The rocker at right will stay—my parents redid it as a gift and I love it. The antique hutch at far left was my grandmother’s and I adore it, staying. Have to figure out what to do with the television. We’re not big tv watchers, but we like to have a set for Netflix DVD’s. I can’t imagine spending money on a flat-screenie-thingie. But that honkin’ tube-style set is kind of ridiculous.

The bookshelves are already on Craigslist. You can read how I tried to warn potential buyers what they are in for with these pretty, lying shelves. They’ve been ridden hard and put up wet. We tried to love you, O Bookshelf, but you would have none of it. Farewell, farewell.

So, it’s on! We’ll share the journey with you as we go. And this will probably be the last time Jonathan travels for quite some time, don’t you think?

Hello! We’re Jennifer and Jonathan and we’re tickled you stopped by. Sign up for our Fat and Appy emails at left or follow us in the normal places. Welcome!