I’m itchin’ to change up my kitchen.  Seriously, folks…I think I might be getting my much needed DISHWASHER soon…so of course I’m dreaming of some low-budget ways to update the kitchen. And as we will be changing things up in the future, I’m thinking of what we need to do now to tie things in down the road. For instance…this wall will have a new countertop and cabinets. Someday. So the stripes have to go. Sorry, stripes…I’ll miss ya’…

Which means I’ll probably do away with the rest of the green on my kitchen walls…

Don’t worry…the countertop, sink, faucet, cabinet doors and hardware, and the lovely vinyl flooring will all be gone someday as well.  Can I rip that horrible soffit out, too?!?!  Read: someday… but for now, I’m thinking paint and fabric will satisfy my need for change.  Especially because I’ll be standing right at that sink, loading my dirty dishes into a brand new dishwasher very, very soon!  So I won’t care what the rest of it looks like, for a while anyway!

So what color will I paint my kitchen?  Probably some form of white…not sure yet.  But I do like green…green cabinets, anyone??  I’m considering it.

How about something more like this?

Rosemary by Sherwin Williams

And I’d love to have this fabric for my curtains…

But it’s a little out of my budget at $138/yard!

So I might try something like this instead:

At only $8.98/yard with free shipping I might give it a try!  It’s not Kelly Wearstler linen, but it will have to do for my little kitchen.

Stay tuned…but don’t hold your breath!

Sooo…we have been doing a lot of switching things up here at Casa Christensen. Which meant I got to choose new paint and re-decorate things! And believe me, I’ve done a lot of re-painting, re-arranging and more re-painting and re-arranging. But I think I finally have things how I want them (for now), so I took the chance to clean up the room and take some photos! And the clean room didn’t last very long…you can put the photos in chronological order based on how many plastic balls are in the photos. How can you expect a toddler to resist a clean room with a basket full of plastic balls?

So to refresh your memory, this is Harper’s old/first room. I’m assuming she’ll have many different rooms throughout her first 18 years with an interior designer for a momma.

I’m sure many people thought it was just fine as it was (if you recall, it did win a contest over at Serena and Lily on Facebook! Their very first Show and Tell contest for September 2009!), but we decided to make this our room as it has a little bathroom.  So Harper’s room was moved to the bigger (longer and skinnier) room and we got the slightly smaller (more square with a smaller closet) and I couldn’t be happier with it all!  We love having our own bathroom, and we’ve solved the clothing storage problem so things are great!

And then her new room…

This is how the room used to look when we first moved in and it was ours.  I liked the orange as a color, but not in my room.  It just never worked.  But I finally feel like things are coming along!  Notice that some of Harper’s painted furniture is in here (side table – now green and the dresser – now with white drawer fronts and new hardware).

So on to the photos of Harper’s new room!  If you look close you’ll see some things are the same, and some things are different.  For instance, the window shades stayed in their original rooms (i.e. we kept the striped ones and Harper got our old brown ones) and I’m so glad it worked out color-wise.  We repainted both rooms, and all of the furniture that I previously painted white for her old room, I re-painted GREEN!  As for her new room color – this is how I chose it.  We already have gray, brown, green and white throughout our house so I started thinking about a new color for her room.  Hmm…what color have I not used?  Orange? Nope, done it already and want it gone!  Pink?  Nah…pink just wouldn’t go in our house.  Purple? Not feeling purple either.  Blue? YES – blue!  So I grabbed all of my blue paint swatches and went through the stack to find one I liked.  If you know me, you know I am obsessed with gray right now so it’s only fitting that the blue I chose is somewhat related to gray.  I love the color – Comfort Gray 6205 by Sherwin Williams. It’s also in a flat finish, and I love how it looks.  Plus it will work if she has a little brother sometime in the future…I promise I’ll take the pom poms down by then!

(10 points to you if you know where this color is from blogland.  Yes, I order paint samples that I see from everywhere!)

I still have some touch-up painting to do (there is a lot of orange peeking out where the walls meet the ceiling) but I couldn’t wait and had to get some photos up.

I also want to re-stain the cedar chests to a darker reddish brown, to look more like the unpainted areas of the dresser.

If you’ll notice, I’m trying to add more black to the room (you know I like a little edginess – there was no black in Harper’s old room except for those lamps which is crazy for our house.  We love black accents.) and black and white accents.

I’m not really an advocate for TVs in a toddler’s room, but our new room has no cable outlet and we just haven’t switched it yet.  So it’s staying for now.

I stole art and shelves and lamps and fabric from all over the house to bring into her room.  Lucky girl.

My aunt painted that picture from a photo of Harper.  I love that she turned her into a little pixie.  And I’m glad I finally got to hang it (it was in the powder bath before but now it goes with her new room!).  Thanks, Aunt Vicky!

I love the new gold accents, in the frame (of a pencil drawing I did in high school – it used to be hanging in the living room) and in the lamp on the black bookcase.

I love the green I picked for the painted furniture.  It’s actually the color in my office – Old Salem Gray, Benjamin Moore HC-94 – so I just used leftover paint.  I knew Harper’s room needed another color and I just happened to have a sample of that green handy, so I put it up against the blue/gray and instantly knew it would look great on the furniture!  Love it.

What do you think of Harper’s new room?  Hopefully I can show ours soon…but I’m still working on art on the walls and it should be done!

So for the breakdown:

• Crib is from IKEA – it has the rail taken off so she sleeps in it as her toddler bed!
• Recliner is La-Z-Boy
• Window blinds are from Home Depot
• White curtains are a diamond matelasse, hand-me-down from a friend of mine
• Cedar chests were made in high school shop class (Glenn made one, the other was a gift for me)
• Black bookcase is from Tarjay (Target)
• Changing table is hand-me-down from a friend
• Black hanging shelf is hand-me-down from sister-in-law
• White and wood dresser is from thrift store
• Poms poms are Martha Stewart from Harper’s 1st Birthday Party
• Black lamps are from Fred Meyer
• Gold lamp is hand-me-down from ?? Glenn’s family I’m sure!
• H-A-R-P-E-R letters are from Land of Nod.
• Striped rug is from Tarjay.
• Harper’s bedding is Olivia by Dwell for Target
• Zig zag striped fabric is Summer Soiree by Paula Prass (Chevron in black)
• Black frames with black and white pictures are Ribba from IKEA

Thanks for stopping by and have a great week!

Phew – I have been busy! But I’m home with a sick little one today, so I have a chance to update you all a little and hopefully I won’t be so MIA for a while. Well, I take that back – when I’m not here, I’m working like crazy so that’s a good thing!

I’ve come to realize that we’re rather spontaneous when it comes to our house sometimes. We talk about our house a lot (more than most, I think!) and what we need or want, but a lot of it is just dreaming. But when something can become a reality, we kind of just jump on it and make it happen!

For instance, we’ve been talking about getting a new bed for a while now, but weren’t sure when it would actually happen. So I decided to post a picture of our old bed on Facebook saying it was for sale to see if anyone was interested – and 20 minutes later it was practically sold! Then we did some final research (we’d already done a lot) and bought a new mattress and bed online – woo hoo!

So next we decided to switch rooms with Harper. Why? Well hers has a half bathroom and Glenn wanted it. But it has a smaller closet and it’s a little smaller so I was a little torn. At first. Her room is more of a square and ours is longer and skinnier (a rectangle). Which after I thought about it, makes more sense for our King size bed. Anyway, we’ve switched rooms, put the bed together, painted and the new armoire for Glenn is on the way (solving the closet problem!).

Luckily both the mattress and bed had free shipping and arrived very, very quickly (thank you, Amazon Prime!!) so we had a new set-up by the weekend! So here’s a sneak peek of our new room – more to come soon!

I love that what took us almost 2 hours to put together, is time lapsed into less than 2 minutes. I also love that Glenn tested the bed out and you see a flash of me about to jump on it, ha! Enjoy!

Putting the bed together from Facebook User on Vimeo.

I have a problem.  I start a blog post, but don’t finish it.  I find 1 good inspiration image, then I get stuck.  My draft list is getting longer and longer on here.  I try to squeeze a post into the free moments that I have, but it’s not enough time.  I have a ton of photos on my camera that never make it to my computer.  And then I have 5 client projects I’m working on.  And calories that need to be burned.  Where was I going with this? 

So I’m going to stick in one or two (okay, 3!) images of a cool product that I’m actually considering for my own house…because I am so excited that the wall between my garage and my laundry room will soon be a distant memory, and it will be replaced with another set a few feet back.  And it will be the new home of my refrigerator and my new pantry.  Because putting food on the open shelf above my washing machine isn’t cutting it anymore!

Beadboard wallpaper. Oh yes…because who can stand to paint brand new wood?  Because I want it painted.  And who can afford to run it floor to ceiling, like my inspiration image.  I saw this image (below) and have saved it for my laundry room.  And I’m a bad blogger and don’t remember where I got it.  Sorry!  I think it’s Martha Stewart, but I’m not sure.  Please let me know if you know!

Cool glass containers should go above my washer and dryer.  Not food.    And I found the cool wallpaper while browsing the latest Land of Nod catalog.  They’re now offering wallpaper (I love the paintable textured options) and eco-friendly Mythic paint from their catalogs.  I’m sure I’ve seen it before, but I forget about things with so many options!

$30 for an 11 yard roll (20.5″ wide). And my mother-in-law can hang wallpaper.  And I am getting a tax refund.  And I’d like to spend it on my kitchen…what are you spending yours on?  Home related or other?  I am excited that our big kitchen plans might be coming to life sooner than expected!

Have a great week!!

-Lindsay

Cool product alert.  Have you wondered how to actually install a look like this? Is it a big board? Is it on a roll (like wallpaper?)?  Is it….hmmm…

{Image via Young House Love}

As you probably know, I’m working on a project that involves a local daycare playroom.  How fun, right? Right.    It’s been a great learning experience for me, and I am thankful for such enthusiastic and trusting clients.  So of course, we looked into a chalkboard wall for the kiddies.  And if you didn’t already know, it’s simply paint.  (You’re probably saying – duh! We already knew that!  Well…the folks at the hardware store didn’t have a clue to what I was talking about so you never know!!)  Anyway, you paint the chalkboard pigmented paint right on to the wall.  The pigments dry harder than normal paint, allowing for a good surface to write on and not damage, and can also be wiped clean.  You can find it in all sorts of colors, but I stuck with black for this project.  And we didn’t do an entire wall in chalkboard paint, we did a chair rail at about 45″ (so not technically a chair rail, but it worked with the mantle above the wood stove visually!) and painted the lower half of the entire room with chalkboard paint.  A dream come true for little ones, right?  I know Harper already loves to take stray pencils to my kitchen cabinets…

I love how they painted the top of the table in the packaging, too!  You’ll have to do some web searching to find different colors, but this black version is available at Ace Hardware.

And to step it up a notch, pair it with a magnetic primer under the chalkboard paint because what kids don’t love to play with magnets?  We only have 3 letters from Harper’s alphabet magnet set left on our fridge…the rest are probably underneath it.

But this way you can paint the magnetic latex primer right on the wall to make any surface magnetic. Just a word of caution stemming from experience – if you’re going to prime, prime the entire wall or section.  I.e. don’t just put this where you want a magnetic surface and leave other areas unprimed – you can see what parts have magnetic (or any) primer, and what areas don’t after you paint a top coating on!

Either way it still looks cool and works great!  Very excited to wrap this project up – not because I want to be done with it, but because I love to see an end result!  Hopefully I can share it with you within the next few weeks!  If I ever get online to blog…

In case you’ve been living under a rock and don’t read Young House Love (or follow them on Twitter or Facebook) then you might have missed their post on the FABULOUS website/blog by the name of Knock Off Wood: How to Build Knock-Out Knock-Off Furniture.  Hey…there might be one or two of you that are coming to my little ‘ol website and haven’t browsed theirs recently…right?

So anyway, on to the furniture plans!  I love these…the carpentry obsessed blogger behind Knock Off Wood is Ana from Alaska, who posts plans, step-by-step instructions and even videos to copy or be inspired by your favorite catalog store’s more expensive furniture pieces.  Plus she’s a mama to a toddler.  Impressive, Ana…impressive!  Here she is in action, oh, just working on a kitchen island.  No big deal…

For instance…have you ever been shocked (like I have) at how expensive a simple bookcase could be?  But they look so easy to build!  And Ana says that they are – this Cameron 3-Shelf Bookcase is in her ‘Fast’ category…but it is on ‘Special’ for $239 EACH at Pottery Barn Kids if you’d like to just buy your own.  No thanks!

{image via Pottery Barn Kids}

And her plans are very nicely illustrated using Sketchup – and did I mention that they’re FREE?  Click here for the plans to make your own ‘Inspired by the Cameron’ bookshelf.

{Image via Knock Off Wood}

And for you more advanced woodworkers, how about your own tiered bookcase, like the Apex from West Elm?  She has a plan for that.  But if you want to buy it, it costs $449 online.

{Image via West Elm}

You can find anything on her site…from coffee tables to beds to picture frames to…

…PLAY KITCHENS!  I was sooo excited to see these EASY plans to make fridges, ovens and sinks for little girls.  Her 3 year old’s room is seriously decked out!  Maybe if I start now I can get something done before Harper’s 2nd birthday (it’s in August, hehe!).

Or you could buy this set from Land of Nod for $448, plus tax and shipping…I do love the chalkboard paint, though!

Or this retro set from Pottery Barn Kids for $699…

And how cute is this ‘Town’ plan?  I need to get Glenn to get building…or have him show me how to use his tools a little better than my current skills.

Thanks for the inspiration, Ana!  And for making building things so simple for rest of us!

{images linked to sources and via Knock Off Wood}