After Christmas Trimming

Anyone else make a huge "Christmas Break To-Do" list? All of those things you've been putting off pre-holidays, hoping you'll find time to be productive after the reindeer stampede passes and the tinsel settles?

We sure did, and boy was it over ambitious. HA! 

After finishing Eleanor's Nursery, we hadn't made any additional progress on our goal of replacing the trim throughout the house. So we decided THAT would be our project; update the trim in our bedroom, the toy room, and maybe get started on the dining room. 

Once we returned home from the holidays (with a week until either of us went back to work) we cleared our schedules, sent the kids to daycare for a few days, and got down to business! 

Fast forward to Friday, and we found ourselves about 85% complete...with one room...and that's it. 

Overall, I was still pretty impressed by how much we got done with only two kid-less days. Was it everything we set out to accomplish? No. Did we still feel pretty great since most of the time was spent juggling a caulking gun in one hand and an 11-month-old in the other? You betcha. 

The entire process went decently smooth too. We used a crowbar to pry off the old trim, picked up all of the new from Home Depot, prepped, painted, then cut each piece down to size. Mr. Harrison even got to help. 

Eric used his swanky new nail gun hooked up to the air compressor to make quick work of tacking the pieces into place. Then my job was to follow with putty filling in the nail holes and sweeping...lots and lots of sweeping. 

Next, we sanded, caulked around everything to fill the gaps, and lastly touched up any white or purple paint that needed love. We used caulk in Eleanor's room too, it created a nice seamless finish, so we wanted to do the same here. 

I'm obsessed with the high contrast between the dark walls and the white trim, plus the thicker size and colonial detail around the doors brings in so much extra character. 

It's taken a little over a year, but this room is finally shaping up! For some reason our home improvement and decorating pace has slowed the more offspring we add. Figures. 

The last big update I'd like to make in this space is painting all the doors. I'm toying with the idea of black for the interiors, and then white for the closets and bathroom. Or maybe just white for everything, I haven't quite made up my mind yet. 

How our room is coming together brings me so much joy. The dark and moody Plum Brown color is such a change from anything we've done in the past. I can't wait to bring in more art, plants, some furniture, and soon hang two more curtains on those bare windows. Of course, that will just give Harrison another prime hiding spot for his new favorite game; hide-and-go-seek. 

Your bedroom should give you all the good feels, and considering every time I walk into ours I look at the trim and do a little happy dance, I'd say we're succeeding. 

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

Bringing New Life to Old Floors

Hello dear friends! 

Things have been busy at the Wellman house. What's new you ask? Well for starters, we've made the decision to SELL! 

Yes, you heard that right. Our adorable little home you've watched us paint, spackle, strip, and stain for the past seven years is going on the market. How does this make me feel? To be honest...ALL OF THE EMOTIONS! 

For real. We have put so much love into every inch of this place, the idea of packing up and leaving it behind makes me want to cry a little. On the other hand, Harrison has become a pro at circling the four main rooms that make up the first floor and could really use a bit more space to roam. We always knew that this would be our "starter home", and didn't plan to live here much past the first kid. Time has come to move on. 

It really is perfect for a young couple who want to take that first step to own property, it's big enough, but not too big, has a beautiful yard and is in a very central location with easy access to both I-75 and I-71 (can you tell I've been working on my sales pitch?). 

Since making this bold choice to move into "phase 2" of homeownership, we made a shortlist of things to tackle before selling. First on that list? Refinish the floors. 

Ever since our first walkthrough, the mismatched foyer and kitchen tiles have bugged me. They're close...but not close enough. Since it wasn't an urgent issue, we pretty much just lived with it. But no more! After some investigation, Eric concluded that under those sticky tiles were original hardwoods. Let's bring 'em out and let them LIVE!!! 

A bit of elbow grease, a long nap from Harrison, the help from two FANTASTIC friends, and voila! We have wooden floors! 

The foyer was simply a click together vinyl and only took about 30 minutes to pull up. We could tell it had been finished at some point in time, but the kitchen was a different story. Three layers of linoleum (yes. THREE), one subfloor, and a GAZILLION STAPLES were attached to this poor poor original flooring. 

Bit by bit Eric removed the staples, while I followed closely behind, broom in hand. Something about having rouge staples hanging around with a 1-year-old in the house didn't sound wise to me. 

Because of the incredible scope of this project, we decided to hire the professionals. We did NOT want to try and tackle this DIY style. Since the whole refinishing process would take about four days to complete, we packed up and planned to head to our parent's house for the week. Before leaving though, we had to decide on a stain color. A couple employees from the flooring company swung by the house and laid out our options. 

I wanted something dark, but not too dark, and also not too warm. Out of the four choices we were given (#1 being the lightest, #4 the darkest) #3 spoke to me. 

So after taking down all our fun decor and packing everything we wanted out of the way into the living room, we took one last look, kissed our old floors goodbye, and hit the road. 

One week later, we returned home to beautiful original hardwood floors brought back to their former glory! 

SO PRETTY!!!! 

I couldn't wait to snap photos and Harrison couldn't wait to explore. And as much as I love tackling a good DIY, there's something magical about walking out the door knowing everything will be complete by the time you get back. 

Can you believe these stunners were hiding under that horrible tile all these years????? I adore how much more warmth there seems to be in our home now. Especially in the kitchen, the contrast between the floors and white cabinets makes me absolutely giddy. 

Excuse the mess, things are still in a bit of disarray. 

BUT OMG just LOOK at these before and afters! 

I can't stop looking at them! With all of our projects, I've always prided ourselves on staying true to the character of our old home. The trim is big and bulky, the ceilings are high, and the floors are now absolutely glowing. 

Makes me almost want to ditch the idea of moving and stay here for another seven years...*trips over Harrison's toys taking over the living room*...almost. 

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

Time to Spruce Things Up for Christmas

Hello, my lovelies! 

Are you one of those types who trim their tree just seconds after the last piece of Halloween candy is dropped into a bucket? Who moves immediately from pumpkins to sugar plums? Snowplowing directly past Thanksgiving all while blaring Mariah Carey and sporting their finest ugly sweater? 

Yeah, me neither. 

In fact, I have a hard "no Christmas until after Thanksgiving" rule. For some reason, I get very defensive on behalf of Turkey Day, maybe because it's so easily looked over nowadays and I feel bad. Or maybe because I think the month of November should be filled with Fall and not Fa-La-La-La-Las. 

With that being said, once it IS the proper time to celebrate the holiday season, I. AM. HERE. FOR. IT! 

I haven't bought new decorations in a loooong while. So since we'd be adding another stocking to the mantel, I jumped at the chance to "spruce" up (see what I did there?) the space above our fireplace to celebrate Harrison's first Christmas with new garland and trimmings! 

This year I wanted bottle brush trees. I've had my eye on these cute little creations for some time, and just love how whimsical they are. You can find them almost anywhere, but the large white ones in the photo all came from Hobby Lobby. They have quite the variety, and with all holiday decor 50% off right now you can't go wrong. 

Hob-Lob is also where I picked up the garland, lambs ear clips, owl pick (how CUTE is he??!!!), and gold tree picks. The red and green berry garland, lights, and "joy" sign I already had, and the small trees I ordered from Amazon. 

My process for assembly went like so; 
1. pour a cup of coffee
2. play Christmas songs 
3. start with the big stuff - garland, berries lights, sign
4. move to medium - white trees, lambs ears, gold trees
5. finish with small - tiny trees
6. before ANY of this, drop the baby off at daycare and take a personal day from work so you can actually be productive. 

When adding picks and such to garland, think about clustering your decorations in groups of three. Mix various heights and textures for dimension, all while keeping visual weight in mind so the whole piece is balanced. 

Holy holly berries that is FESTIVE! 
Such an upgrade from the sad little strand of plastic green garland I used to throw up there behind my knick-knacks. And isn't Harrison's stocking fabulous!? I picked it up at a local boutique, and grabbed three extra in case I decide Eric and I need to match. Or we have 3 more kids...whichever comes first. 

I can't wait for Christmas morning. I dont' think Harry will have a clue what's going on, but if his excitement is anything like when he met the big man...I think we're in for a jolly ol' time. 

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE! 


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