I Was a Great Mom Before I Had Kids!

Before I Had Kids: "Michael, can you believe we are sitting here, enjoying a meal at a restaurant, and there are kids over there playing their handheld gaming systems?  Seriously, parents need to teach their children how to behave in restaurants.  They should learn how to hold polite conversations, not bury their noses in video games."

After I Had Kids:  "Charlotte!  Gavin!  Nathan!  Mommy and Daddy want to go get some breakfast.  Where are your Mobigos?  Let's pack them.  Nathan, let's bring your Tag Reader!  Gav, should we bring your Superheroes?  Something to color?  How about the portable DVD player?  Mommy and Daddy want to eat in peace."



Before I Had Kids:  "Seriously.  Is it necessary to have a DVD player in your car?  Don't the kids watch enough TV at home?  That's what's wrong with America.  Kids should learn how to hold polite conversations, not be placated with yet another viewing of Shrek."

After I Had Kids:  "Kids, I know we're just going a mile down the road, but what would you rather watch?  The Wiggles, or Cars?  You'll only get to see the opening scene, but at least it's something!"



Before I Had Kids:  "My children will always eat balanced meals.  Fruits, veggies, and a whole grain at every sitting.  I mean, if I don't keep any junk in the house, then they can't eat it, right?"

After I Had Kids:  "Do you guys want Lucky Charms or Trix for breakfast?"


I have learned to eat some serious crow over the past few years!  It's so much more difficult than I thought it would be, but also so much more rewarding.

And how about you?  Have you changed your tune about any of your parenting edicts?

{DIY} Hanging the Oars

After months of searching, we finally found a pair of inexpensive vintage oars we liked for Gavin's room.  I painted and distressed them to make them look "loved," and they fit in perfectly with Gavin's summer-camp-inspired bedroom.  (Which I'm hoping to finish and show you soon!)  You can read about painting the oars here.

Oliver approves of my work on the oars.

The trouble came in when we were getting ready to hang them.  The handle of the oar laid flat against the wall, but the paddle did not.  Being new at this DIY thing, we couldn't decide what would work best to hang them...screws?  hooks?  We weren't sure.  So we packed the entire family into the car and headed to Lowes.  (Which is a whole different post.  Two preschoolers and a toddler in a home-improvement store?  Good Lord, I must be crazy.)  We decided that the best way to hang them would be to screw big hooks into the wall and rest the paddles on them, but I wasn't entirely sold on that idea.  And then, Michael had a moment of clarity:  VELCRO.  Perfect!

So I stuck industrial velcro onto the backs of the paddles:

And stuck them to the wall:

It was super-easy, super-cheap, and the best part:  no drilling.  The Velcro created a strong enough bond that I'm not worried about them falling down.  Isn't my husband smart?  :)

Rehabbed Dressers

During this whole big-kid-room transition, Nathan wound up with the bum end of the deal -- no bedroom furniture.  It's a long and involved story, starting with us not knowing his gender when I was pregnant and therefore buying white furniture, and ending with us deciding that the white furniture that occupied his room would become Charlotte's.  You probably don't want to know the details -- you only need to know that he was furniture-less.

As I was relaying this story to my Mom, she mentioned that she had some old dressers that I might like to use.  They had been in my sister Audrey's room.  As I mentioned in my previous post, we are definitely being cost-conscious with these room-redos, but I also LOVE the idea of reusing and repurposing furniture.  So I went shopping in Audrey's old room, and much to my delight, the two old dressers were charming and small,  just like Nathan's room itself.

But they needed some work.  My mom bought one of them at an auction back in the 70s.  Even then, it needed some work.  I'm sure it dates back to the 30s, at least.  Somewhere along the line the top had been damaged and was replaced with a thin piece of wood -- that piece was now stained and splitting at parts.

 The front of it appeared to be in pretty good shape, though:

The other piece of furniture was a dresser that had been in my family for a while.  My grandmother had bought it second-hand, so I'm not sure how old it is.  Probably around the 30s as well.  I have LOVED this piece since I was little, especially the detail on the top drawers.  This one needed some work too, mostly on the top.  There were some watermarks and stains:

Both pieces have beautiful dovetailing at the corners of the drawers.  They just don't make 'em like they used to!

So I had my work cut out for me.  And I was pretty nervous about it, too, because both of these pieces are so special to my mom.  I didn't want to screw it up.  Here's what I did (sorry I didn't take pictures -- I wasn't sure anyone would be interested!  Next time I'll know better....)

1.  Sanded both pieces down with coarse sandpaper.  It took me about an hour.
2.  Went over both pieces with fine sandpaper to smooth it.
3.  Conditioned the wood with Wood Conditioner and let it sit for 15 minutes.
4.  Applied the first coat of Minwax Stain in Walnut and let it sit for two hours.
5.  Applied another coat of the stain and let it sit for two days.  It took a REALLY long time to completely dry.  I don't know if I applied it too thick, or the humidity affected it.
6.  Applied two coats of Polyurethane to protect the wood.
7.  Bought some raw wood drawer pulls and stained them in the Walnut as well.

They turned out so much better than I anticipated.  I'm so happy that we used these pieces rather than spend on money on something new.  Nathan's room has such "cottage charm," and these dressers fit in perfectly.  Here they are in their new home:

These pictures don't do them justice.  I know, I'm terrible at taking photos.  Katie needs to give me some pointers.  


Anyway, I'm not sure I'll ever buy a new piece of furniture again.  Rehabbing was fun!

DIY Oars, Pottery Barn Style

You may have already learned that raising children is not cheap.  First there are the diapers.  And the clothing that they outgrow every month or two.  And the food that they consume -- I swear, the amount my children eat rivals that of large teenage boys.  And then there's the daycare issue.  So when we decided that it was time to get Charlotte and Gavin out of their toddler beds and into "big kid" bedrooms, we knew we wanted to do it on the cheap.


Michael and I love working on a project.  In fact, I often tell him that I think our marriage is best when we are working towards something.  It could be anything: picking out a new perennial for our garden, looking for Christmas decorations, whatever.  We love having a goal.  So the two of us (okay, mostly me)  were giddy with excitement at the thought of decorating the kids' rooms.  A project!  And a fun one!


I've been spending the last few months scouring flea markets and Etsy looking for treasures to make the rooms perfect.  I definitely could blow hundreds of dollars, easy, on Pottery Barn quilts and bookshelves.  But that doesn't fit with our whole three-kids-in-daycare situation, so it was important to do it on a shoestring budget.


Neither room has a "theme", exactly.  Gavin loves being outside, so we decided to decorate with things you might see at a summer camp.  I decided that I really wanted a pair of oars hanging over his bed, like these from PB:

But Pottery Barn is not cheap (side note: how do they get away with those shipping charges?  Ridiculous!).  So after a few months of looking (I never thought it would be so difficult to locate a pair of old oars!) we scored a pair for $18.  Here they are as they looked when we bought them:

We are using primary colors in Gavin's room, so I bought some Rustoleum spray paint in white, navy, and red.  I painted the larger oar white:

And then I added some blue painter's tape so I could paint some random red stripes:

I wanted to personalize the smaller oar a bit.  First I painted it navy, and then made a stencil of the number 5 to paint on the paddle.  I printed a 5 I liked on the computer, cut it out, and then traced around it with pencil:

Then I painted the five with yellow acrylic paint.  The nice part about this is that I knew I wanted to distress the oars, so I didn't worry too much about paint drips or perfect lines:

 After the paint dried, I got out some coarse sandpaper and went to town on those babies.  Here are my little beauties now:

We're heading to the Depot this weekend to find appropriate hooks to hang them with.  I can't wait to see how they look on the wall!  And we're one step closer to finishing the room...can't wait to show you!