I think that it is a combination of a new year, and nesting for the new baby that has made me so excited about doing extra projects. Fortunately, Josh has gotten the bug as well, and we have done some pretty cool things!
For example: We have been wanting to get our living room looking more like an actual room, instead of an afterthought that you just happen to walk through on your way to anywhere else in the house.
This is what our front room looked like until December. Notice the complete lack of furnishings?
Notice also the adorable little Miss posing in her Minnie dress with Minnie!
We did move the loveseat into the living room at Christmastime, and we liked having furniture in there enough that we left it even after the tree came down. But you can’t just have one couch and call it a furnished room.
So, we went to DI and found ourselves a chair.
It is a nicely shaped chair, and it was only $8. But, it just didn’t quite do it for me. So, I looked on pinterest and found a tutorial on how to make a slipcover for such a chair, found some pretty fabric, and voila!
Isn’t she lovely?!
Another thing we did was replace the couch.
This was a good couch, and it is now serving well at Josh’s sister’s new apartment. But we got a bit of an upgrade! We didn’t make it–though, we had seriously considered it, until realizing that since we had zero upholstery tools/equipment, if we bought it from the right place, it would be nearly as cheap to just buy it.
It’s a Settee! 🙂 We love it a lot–especially me!
The room was looking rather nice with the settee and the accent chair. But we weren’t quite there yet. I knew exactly what we needed, and I knew I wanted to pay as little as humanly possible for it. So, I asked Josh to make it for me! He obliged very willingly! He really is the best ever!
I told him I wanted a stool. There was some miscommunication at first which led him to believe that I wanted a barstool in the living room. We cleared that up by relabeling it “an ottoman.”
Josh built the base of the … thing using wood that was left in our garage when we moved in. It was nice and sturdy, though not particularly comfortable with nothing on it.
Fay had fun modeling it for us!
Next came webbing (not pictured), foam, and painting the legs. Thanks to Joseph and Maren for the use of their staple gun for this project!
The paint was pooling at the feet, which was no bueno, so Josh lifted it up to dry
Then we did the upholstery/tufting–I actually did help with this part, as opposed to all the other parts.
I made the buttons. 🙂
And this is the glorious finished product! It’s just what I wanted, and it looks fabulous with the other furniture!
Take a look at the fully furnished living room!
It’s cute and cozy, and we totally love it! But we’re not quite all the way there yet. We (clearly) need some work on the walls, and we need a little something to put with the ottoman/stool to make the room feel more symmetric. We have thought about either a floor lamp, or some large-ish plant; but we are open to suggestions.
We couldn’t have done our living room projects without Josh’s own project! We mega-splurged and got him a table-saw. But using it on the floor was hurting his back, and not great for functionality either. They sell stands, but the ones we saw were super expensive for what you got. So Josh made himself one! It was roughly half the price of the one that they sell along with his table saw, and it works so much better than the simple stand would have.
Ta da! You can take off the piece that sits flush with the saw, so if you just want a work table, you got it!
Another project was decorating the mantel for Valentine’s Day. You can see it in the living room picture; but how about let’s look at it one more time!
I decorated this for $3! We had a bunch of the stuff already in our stash of decor. I made the pink and white flowers on the right out of tissue paper and straws. I also made the heart wreath out of cardboard and some red streamers that we had from last year which I rolled up to make the roses. The garland in the front is a fun story. I had decorated the top and was very happy with it; but I felt like it needed something extra to pull everything together. I didn’t want to go buy anything, though, because I hate spending money. Then one day Fay and I were playing with the little jar of fabric yo-yos that Josh’s mom sent to Fay while we were in North Carolina, and she pointed out all the ones that had Valentine colors. I knew they were the perfect thing! So I strung them all up and just taped the thread to the mantel! They are PERFECT! Thanks Mom! The only things I bought were the frame-centerpiece-thingy which was $2 at DI and some conversation hearts to fill the little jar.
This is getting long! But nobody ever said you had to read the whole thing. So I’m just going to add whatever I feel like. 🙂
I have also been doing some purely nesting projects.
I made the booties for her blessing outfit (She is going to be the most beautiful blessed baby in the whole world! Just wait!!!) I made the hat for her to wear for fun. I hope that it fits her at some point in her baby life. It is really cute, after all. 
This carseat cover is another fun story. I made a carseat canopy thingy before Carter was born, and I specifically made it gender-neutral colors so I could just use it forever after. But I have realized that when you know you are having a girl, you just want your whole life to be enveloped in pink! (Or at least I do.) So I really wanted a pink carseat cover. The other day, I was looking through boxes of girl things and I came across this blanket that someone gave us when Fay was born (I think it was Welcome Baby). We had a lot of blankets for Fay and this one really didn’t get much use. But the patterns were so cute that I couldn’t bear to part with it. When I saw it in the box, I had a vision of it as the carseat canopy! I ran downstairs to see if it fit the carseat and it does PERFECTLY!!! I got some extra fabric from yet another baby blanket from Fay and made the straps to attach to the handle. I even had leftover velcro from the one I made for Carter, so I was able to make this thing in roughly 20 minutes for $0.00! It is such a happy ending for me and the blanket!
We’ve had lots of fun with our projects, and we’re not done yet! Josh just started another project that we’ll use for the kids’ playroom that we are both really excited about! We love our life and have found that it is even more wonderful when we have fun things to keep us busy!
Carter was concerned during the pictures because I was using Daddy’s phone to take the picture. He still looks great, though!
