Why Don't You Swing On By?

Good day friends! 

Before sitting down to write this post, I was actually having second thoughts. Is this topic interesting enough? Would anyone actually care? It's not a mind-blowing transformation with epic before and after shots like the thousand of other design and DIY blogs out there. Should I even write? 

In the world of Instagram, Reels, Snapchat, and TikTok, blog posts today feel like they have to be professional style magazine quality to stick out and seem "worth the read". Massive home makeovers that can't be anything short of an HGTV episode. So it's easy for small crafts and DIY's to seem unimportant, even if they were a lot of work and took a lot of time. 

But then I stopped. 

My husband just refinished, repainted, and rebuilt a BEAUTIFUL swingset for our children to enjoy and grow up with. THAT is currently the most exciting project in our life, THAT is extremely impressive to me, and THAT should be the only reason I need to open my computer and write a fun little blog post.

So let's get into how we took an almost decade-old battered swingset and turned it into this beauty!

When we first moved in, we noticed the giant swing set right away because it was only a few houses down from ours. After getting to know the neighbors and finding out their kids were high school age and older, Eric asked me one day, "Do you think if I brought it up, they would be willing to give us their swing set since the kids don't use it anymore?". He was only partially joking, but for real, what harm could come from asking? 

Time went by, and we kind of forgot about it. That and we had a baby, so our minds were a little occupied, but one day while on a walk we ran into those neighbors and got to talking. After a few minutes we somehow ended up on the topic of backyards, and without ANY prompting from us, they said, "Well do you want a swing set? We have one!". I kid you not. 

We laughed and told them how we've had our eye on it for months. So one weekend we invited our friends over, the guys deconstructed, walked the pieces across two lawns, and dropped it into its new home. 

I wish I took a picture of its original state, but although in decent condition, it definitely had seen some wear and tear. That's why Eric's first goal was to give it a proper bath and strip away some of the original finish with a power washer. 

Once the job was inspected and approved by our resident swing set professional *cough* Harrison *cough*. Eric used a power sander and wood stain and finish stripper to remove any remaining color.

Once the wood was back to its original state, it was time to paint! All Eric needed was three consecutive dry days for everything to cure. This doesn't sound like a lot to ask for, but Springtime in Ohio can be pretty damp. Lucky for us though, it can serve up some incredible rainbows too. 

When the skies finally cleared, it was time to paint. We didn't use actual paint, but a full coverage wood stain. Our color choices were Red Mahogany for the main structure, and black for the roof. I thought this would give the treehouse portion a bit of sophistication...and match the new black roof we had put on the house. To make the job go even faster, Eric moved everything out on the lawn and used a paint sprayer. It took just a couple coats and a few hours for the whole job to be complete. 

After MUCH anticipation, it was time for the grand reveal! I don't know what we thought Harrison would do, but he wasn't quite sure what to think at first. I think Mom and Dad were way more hyped up than he was. 

After we showed him around and guided him up the ladder, he quickly figured things out and was up at the crow's nest in no time. And only a few days later he mastered climbing up the slide, all three swings, and how to maneuver the monkey bars (with our help of course). 

We used to spend hours swinging outside at our old house, so it's wonderful to have a place for Harrison to play again in our own backyard. You could tell how much our neighbors family adored this swingset, and by refinishing the entire piece, we hope this old girl can provide our kids a place to climb, swing, and let their imaginations run wild for years to come. 

Check out all of our home improvements, by visiting the OUR NEST page.

Eleanor's Tropical Bohemian Nursery

 Hello my beautiful friends! 

Can you believe it's already March? I personally can't wait for Spring, and on a whim bought 7 new  houseplants to bring a little more greenery into our home. Have you ever ordered live plants over the internet? I purchased mine from Lowes, and was pleasantly surprised with how they were delivered! This may or may not be a good discovery. #plantmom

Along with bringing in botanical life, we also recently brought home our newest family member! Eleanor Kay Wellman was born Tuesday, February 16th and she is practically perfect in every way. And even though she'll be sleeping in our room for the next month or so, we wanted her nursery to be the first room completed in the new house. 

So let me introduce you to Elle's tropical bohemian bedroom! 

You may recall in this post, I shared my inspiration for the nursery. I wanted bright colors to accent a soft pink, all tied together with wood textures, plants, and additional jewel tones. 

The final product ended up slightly different than the plan, but I am still overjoyed with the transformation of this little room! The pink is Mellow Coral by Sherwin Williams and it's perfect. Not too bright, not too "Pepto", just perfect. The accent wall was created with removable wallpaper from Target, and overall wasn't too difficult to install. For the price compared to actual wallpaper, I love the result. 

The dresser and crib were found on Facebook Marketplace, and the rocker was a Wayfair purchase. After the countless nights of awkwardly bouncing on a bed with Harrison, I wanted a legit rocking chair for baby #2. No questions asked. 

The rest of the decor was curated from items we already had. Picture shelves last used in our bedroom, frames and paintings from the gallery wall, the mirror from our small bathroom, and the rattan plant stand previously used in the dining room. There are a few new things sprinkled throughout, like that gorgeous hand-stitched embroidery hoop from CivilThreadsCo (be sure to check her shop out!), that macrame plant hanger which is giving me total 70's vibes, and Elle's baby book! Which I HIGHLY recommend to every mom, and Lucy Darling is my favorite since purchasing one for Harrison. They're beautifully designed and feature plenty of room for pictures and writing. 

I also DIY'd Eleanor's name sign from a bunch of random supplies on hand. An old poster frame, butcher paper, watercolors, and some faux flowers that were lying around. For a days' worth of work, I'm overjoyed with the result. 

The last major detail we changed was the baseboards and molding. Originally the plan was to remove the old, prime and paint it all white, then reinstall. But after Eric started analyzing how much work that would be...we pivoted. Especially since neither of us actually liked the builder-grade tim in the first place, it would be 100% worth tossing out the old and purchasing the thick beautiful style we wanted. So now our plan is to slowly update the trim in each room as we redecorate. 

Something else I wanted was craftsman molding on top of the doors. That was a detail I absolutely adored about our old house, and jumped at the chance to recreate it here. Eric nailed the install, and the look and feel of the space has now been elevated to a whole new level. We are still finalizing the style we want around the windows, but once that's ready we can dress those poor naked sills! 

I could keep gushing about Eleanor's nursery for a while, but I'll wrap things up. Jumping back into decorating and creating a fresh space alongside Eric has felt fantastic! I can't wait for our kids to run the halls and grow up in rooms we personally touched and transformed. Not to mention the satisfaction of a classic "before" and "after" will never get old, and I hope you agree! Especially after laying eyes on the journey this room took from boring beige to beautiful bohemian! 

Check out all of our home improvements, by visiting the OUR NEST page.

Creating The 2021 Mood...Board

Cheers to a new year! 

I could start this post by writing about how much of a dumpster fire I thought 2020 was. But literally, everyone and their cousin have already done that. So instead, I'm going to skip the negativity and actually acknowledge the accomplishments and shining moments that happened last year. 

To name a few; we celebrated Eric's sister getting engaged, Harrison turned one and had the cutest little virtual birthday party ever, found out we were pregnant with Baby #2, sent love and happiness to a handful of friends and family members who got married, many babies were born, Harrison learned to say a dozen new words and now has countless tricks, both Eric and I discovered we can work remotely without missing a beat, sold our first house, moved into our new house, and lastly, had a quiet little Christmas that might be remembered as one of my favorites. 

I am thankful. Every. Single. Day. 

Your word creates your world. So let's begin creating 2021 as the year we count our blessings, care for others, and just be kind. You want this year to be better? Then speak it into existence! 

So what am I creating for the year? Well for starters I'm creating an environment that is a reflection of myself and my family. Our new house is a blank canvas, and my goal is to transform it into a warm and beautiful space that's functional as well as a teensy bit funky. Planning the style for a whole house is a big task though, so I first took to Pinterest to help organize my thoughts. I created a "new house" board with sections for each room, and any color or decor inspiration that struck my fancy was sorted into its proper place. This was extremely helpful and let me look at everything as a whole.

After a while, I took all the photos I'd gathered and started getting in the mood. Mood BOARD that is! This is hands down my favorite part. Seeing a room come together piece by piece is like a gigantic design puzzle that technically has no "right" answer and a million different ways to solve it.

The first room I worked on was the kitchen. I've dreamed of deep teal cabinets for, like, YEARS. Teal cabinets with glam hardware and a bold backsplash. That's all I've ever wanted. And maybe it's because we've been married for almost 10 years and he's finally learned to trust my vision, or I've just worn him down, but Eric actually agreed with me when I showed him my idea. I want to remove a set of cabinets and swap for floating wooden shelves to bring in more tones from the floor, update the lighting, install hardware, and add a backsplash.

The white wall color will continue through the kitchen and into the living room since it's all an open space. As for paint, I'm following the professional opinion of Mandi from Vintage Revivals and giving her perfect white a try. White walls may seem boring at first, but it really gives us a lot of freedom to bring color and texture everywhere else without being overpowering. To balance the pattern of the kitchen backsplash, I really want to paint our fireplace black and flank it with built-ins. This will also help hide our tv when it's turned off since the whole space above the fireplace will be black as well. More gold light fixtures, a huge rug, and of course plants will all help tie this room together. 

In the opposite direction of the living room is the dining room, followed by the playroom. We've already purchased the gold chandelier and are keeping our original table and chairs. I would like to upgrade our little china cabinet for a larger piece and replace the red rug with something that has more color variations. For the walls, I'm really digging these inspo pics of a lower half painted white with a chair rail, and the upper half black...even the ceiling. 

The playroom is where all of the kid's toys are currently located, so along with a soft rug, I'd like to create a lot of storage with bookcases or cubbies. I have this wild idea to put up chicken wire on the walls so we can clip their artwork up to display, but we'll see. 

There are a couple more spaces downstairs, but I don't have boards for those...yet. So let's move upstairs to the master bedroom! Here I really struggled. I had all of these images saved with beautiful dusty green walls and was convinced that was the direction I wanted to go. But as soon as I started putting color on the walls, I hated them. All of them. Nothing about the greens got me excited, and Eric literally said "I don't really want to wake up to any of these colors." Thumbs down. 

So like Ross on Friends, I pivoted, and bought a rug! Figured that would be one of the more expensive purchases we make, and finding a color to pull from there would be WAY easier than randomly picking one from the deck. 

Even with it still rolled up but laying near our tossed pile of pillows, it's STUNNING! What was the lesson learned? Don't try to force something just because of a bright and shiny pic online. Trust your gut and go with what brings you joy! For me, that's jewel tones with mid-century modern accents. So as of now the wall color is yet to be determined, but we'll see if I can find those dressers I'm dreaming about. Someday! 

The last few rooms I have pulled together are for the kiddos! Of course, I'm super stoked about the nursery. The mood I'm going for is tropical boho. Just think pink, gold, and ALL of the pineapple decorations. This will be my first experience with removable wallpaper, so if anyone has advice let me know! 

For Mr. Harrison, I wanted to feature his current obsession with "vroom vrooms". Which translates to cars, trucks, trains, and pretty much anything with an engine. I still really love the dark blue color we used in his nursery, so that may come back, along with car decals, the red rug from the dining room, and an industrial light fixture to "man" it up a little more. 

Seeing all of these rooms come together makes me so happy! Now we just need to get to work. Especially since we're down to 1 hand with the number of weeks until this baby is scheduled to arrive (eeeek!). 

Check out all of our home improvements, by visiting the OUR NEST page.