Is there anything better than Ikea?

This is just the tip of the giant Swedish iceberg

I bought a yard of Ikea fabric while in Minneapolis to use as “inspiration” for the new nursery/playroom but I’m already changing my mind about it. It’s very…yellow. And the green is sort of a split-pea-avocado shade that may be too modern for me. It does have adorable birds and a fantastic amount of orange so I’m hesitant to trash it, but it may end up as a single throw pillow instead of the main color scheme.

I’m sort of shocked at my total NON-desire to do Baby Sandy’s nursery in pink and purple and crystals and ruffles and flowers. I want primary colors and clean lines and shapes and animals and have no plans to paint the almost-white walls and beige-yellow moldings. (And not just because I hate painting, especially trim.) My taste in nursery decor has pulled a total 180 in the past year and a half. Maybe I’ve been looking at too many nursery tours on Ohdeedoh. Or spending too much time stalking Morgan at The 818.

For example, if I had had a girl the first time I think I would have gone TOTALLY overboard with the nursery theme.

Like this. Only PINKER. With a giant chandelier.

Or this one. Only SPARKLIER.

OR THIS ONE. Which I will admit is pretty cool. Really cool. I kind of want to go to there.

I think it’s good I came to my senses for Baby #2, don’t you? (My husband may have just pulled a muscle from nodding too hard.)

So here’s my question: BESIDES Ikea, where should I be shopping for nursery stuff? Pottery Barn Kids is…boring. I get the CB2 catalog but none of it is very baby-friendly. Same with West Elm (and holy over-priced end tables Batman!) Should I just start stalking Craigslist with a passion?

P.S. So we actually WENT to Ikea Sunday and I bought…none of the above. I did buy this:

EDLAND dresser

It is MUCH paler gray in person and will match both the yellow & beige walls & carpet and that fabric I’m growing to like more and more every time I look at it. Plus, it’s huge. I’m going to put it in Baby Evan’s room for now (to solve our current NO DRESSER problem) and move it into the new nursery once we get our renovations done.

I also bought the easel I’ve seen approximately fourteen different people blog about this month, with a chalkboard on one side and a white board on the other PLUS  giant roll of paper you can pull over it for crayons. Baby Evan is a little young for it still (did you know chalk will write on almost any surface, including your own face? BABY EVAN DOES) but I mentioned it at least forty times as we walked through the store and E wanted me to shut the hell up likes buying me things I want.

Next time, I’m going to mention the moose rocker.

Did you bring your giant hat and your cucumber sandwiches? Are you wearing a conservative floral print tea length dress? Are you prepared to stand around in the grass pretending not to be just a liiiiittle too drunk for 3 pm on a Monday? Welcome to the party!

Ok, so it’s not THAT kind of garden party. In the spirit of the Twitter Home Tour a few weeks ago, Little Boy Green set up a garden/window box/house plant/flower/veggie/sand/rocks tour and of course I jumped on the bandwagon. Because hellooooo have we NOT learned that I am a)incredibly nosy and b)willing to post 80 bazillionty pictures of my house on the internet just to get out of writing about bodily functions for one day?

May is still really early for most plants here in New England. Well, really early or too late, since my bulbs and flowering trees have already faded and my actual flowers are only juuuuust starting to bloom. My goal has always been to have one of those continuous color gardens you see in the magazines but who am I kidding? I can barely identify half the crap I’ve planted in the past three years, and Google isn’t very much help with questions like “greenish yellow plant with sort of spikey leaves purple fuzzy flowers blooms in august smells funny”. And also, make sure you have safe search on if you ever need to confirm what a “grape hyacinth” looks like. JUST TRUST ME.

Our very tiny front lawn

My mother once told me my grandma doesn’t believe in planting flowers in front of your house. Something about it being gaudy and tacky and the only things you should see from the curb are evergreens or bushes. Apparently the previous owners also subscribed to this school of thought, since the front of our house is kind of boring, other than the ten minutes that the rhododendron is blooming. I usually make up for it with half a dozen flower pots on the front steps and some impatiens in the stone flower boxes in the front but it’s a) too early for most annuals and b)I can’t afford flowers right now because of something called MY MINIVAN. (Sidenote: I talk out of my ass a LOT when it comes to gardening. I know just enough to be dangerous and just little enough to blow a couple hundred bucks a year on plants I have nowhere appropriate to grow. Please don’t take anything I say seriously.)

Facing the house, this is the right side. The left side has an ugly chain link fence and the tiny side yard where we keep the trash cans and dog poop. You won’t be seeing that.

The vine on that arbor is a wisteria, which makes beautiful purple flowers. Or at least it WOULD if someone could remember to prune it before it uses all it’s energy double it’s size and attempts to strangle the rest of the plants. I do this almost every year.

Despite the fist-shaking I did at the previous owners regarding the inside of the house, I can’t complain at all about their landscaping. They spent THOUSANDS of dollars putting in a ton of perennials that require no effort on my part and creating a beautiful, mostly private yard in a crowded neighborhood. To tidy it up, I just use the most efficient pieces of gardening equipment ever which can be found on archute.

View through the arbor. Also, I TOTALLY photoshopped that grass to hide the big dead spot. And spelled echinacea wrong.

There’s also a hardy hibiscus plant over by the poppies. It makes huge tropical pink flowers even though it looks dead every spring. The rest of the stuff is weeds. This side is sadly neglected.

Clockwise from top left: rhododendron, bleeding heart, wisteria, honeysuckle

Worst place to plant a rose bush ever. Despite pruning the CRAP out of the hydrangea every year it keeps getting bigger.

One of the best things about my landscaping is the large number of cutting flowers – lilies, hydrangea, irises, roses, lilacs, daffodils, tulips. I can almost always have a bouquet or two in the house without spending a dime.

More honeysuckle, lily of the valley (one of my favorites, my name means lily-of-the-valley) and irises

This bed was originally totally empty (previous owners used it for veggies) but I like flowers too much to dedicate that much space. I planted the blueberry bushes in honor of Baby Evan just a few weeks after he was born.

I planted the radishes to mark the rows for the carrots, as suggested on the package. They’re the only thing I’m attempting from seed this year – seeds and I don’t really get along.

The previous owner told me this was his “friendship garden” because the plants were all gifts from friends or cuttings from their gardens. I’ve added a few but mostly left his work alone.

View from the back steps. Please excuse the EIGHTYBAZILLION helicopters (seeds from the tree) on everything.

Damn tree. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a nice enough tree, it just shades a lot of my garden and drops helicopters everywhere.

From top left: Poppy, rose (I BEGGED it to open), columbine, herbs, sweet william

LOVE my clothesline, especially now with all my diapers to sun-bleach.

The dead grass and empty space on this side of the yard is going to be a patio. Some day. It was supposed to be this year’s project but the cost of the materials might be more than we can afford this season. Luckily I have a wonderfully handy father who will come and do all 50% off the labor for free and who knows how to build patios.

This space – the back edge of our property – gets forgotten a lot. Luckily it’s pretty self suficent.

I REALLY REALLY wish I could afford a garndener, just once or twice a season, who would come in and clear out all prickly stuff.

Sad, forgotten herb garden behind the garage. My mom and I cleaned it up a couple years ago but it gets overgrown REALLY fast. I only go back there now to hunt down chives.

And just in case you needed proof my garden is just as messy as my house, here’s the back steps, “vintage” wagon, dirty grill and sad empty hanging baskets.

So there you go! My garden. And I always refer to it as “the garden”, just because I feel like “yard” is sort of a lie and, truthfully, “garden” just sounds nicer. Have you seen the cat? Oh she’s in the garden. Honey, I’ll be out in the garden reading. No Baby Evan, stop ripping up the garden! Besides what you saw, there’s also a grape arbor over the ugly trash can side yard (although it didn’t make any grapes last year) and two kinds of clematis on the ugly chain link fence. Plus probably a bunch of other flowers I forgot about/don’t recognize/can’t remember.

Thanks for stopping by! Be sure to visit the rest of the Garden Party participants!

I’m not really sure how I got involved with this crazy undertaking, but let it serve as a warning to you, dear readers. Don’t ever say “Wow, that sounds like a good idea!” on Twitter unless you are willing to dedicate at least a week of your life to that idea.

Today, I’m participating in the Twitter  Home Tour with 10 12 14 a bunch of other fellow bloggers. Instead of our usual posts where we open our lives and families and joys and struggles to the world, we’re opening our doors. Literally.

Now, before I start with the eighteenbazillionty house pictures, let me share a tiny disclaimer. The home you are about to see does not exist. It is an illusion. A fallacy. A lie. A figment of my imagination. It is impossible to come and visit this home in any city, in any country, on any planet. The home I am sharing today is not where I live. Oh sure, technically it’s my address, the land and walls and roof we pay our mortgage on each month. But the house I actually live in does not look like this. It is a perpetual MESS. There are toys everywhere, dishes in the sink, laundry piles waiting to be washed or folded, boxes that have only made it half way to the attic and wait in the hallway to ambush your ankles at night. My home is lived in. It took a ton of work to make it even kind of presentable for these pictures and even then I dragged stuff in and out of every room as I took the shots. And you’re probably going to look at these pictures and think “Jeez, this is her house at its BEST?” so my disclaimer is unnecessary. But I started this blog to share a truly honest view of pregnancy, babies and life, so I couldn’t do this tour without being honest.

OK, since you haven’t given up yet, on to the tour!

View from the street

First let me tell you the story of how we bought this beautiful house. I used to work in a real estate office (sidenote: BEST. JOB. EVER. for nosey busy-bodies like me, especially nosey busy-bodies who love houses)(which is really why I’m doing this house tour thing at all) and one day this house came on the market. It was waaaaaaay out of our price range but I loved it so much I printed out a copy of the listing and taped it to my fridge. Every time I looked at it I thought “If only I could live in a house like this SOME DAY.” I’ll spare you the long version of the story but eventually they lowered the price, we worked out our financial problems and VOILA! Home sweet home.

Front steps

In a couple more weeks those stone flower boxes will be filled with flowers, but I can’t plant until Mother’s Day. It’s the #1 gardening rule in New England – once the weather is nice, WAIT A MONTH or you’ll lose all your plants to a late frost. The old wash bucket is for flowers too. I try not to keep junk in my yard for no reason.

Front door

A porch swing is for swinging

It's a pretty big porch

My father, mother, E and I rebuilt that porch last summer, knowing that THIS year those bars to keep the baby from falling through the screen would come in handy.

Ok, NOW you can come in.

Entry table and mirror - found in an empty rental house next to the one I used to live in. I adopted them for my own.

Entry bench - old seats from a real theater my mom bought at a garage sale and that I envied EVERY DAY growing up. Now they're MIIIIINE.

Not pictured: Dirty socks, newborn size diapers, popcorn machine from the party, three pairs of shoes, about a zillion books and possibly some Christmas decorations I keep meaning to bring upstairs.

To the right of the entry is my Formal Living Room

Facing the front of the house

Mantle of the fireplace

Why yes that IS a large mahogany buffet in front of a wood burning fireplace. No it doesn’t usually go there – I moved it for the party and decided it can just stay for the summer. We bought it at a flea market to use in our dining room…and then bought a nicer china cabinet later the same day. So this buffet was a sofa-back table in the living room until I threw out the sofa. Now it’s homeless. If you’d be interesting in adopting this very well behaved, totally housebroken buffet, it’s available for a very reasonable price. Also, I used to have really cool stuff hanging over the mantle but took it down for the party and fell out of love with it. I’m currently accepting suggestions for what to do next.

One of my best flea market finds: $20 cane and bent wood chair. Came with the cushions too.

Our floors. I loooooove our floors. Someday we'll have them refinished and restored but I swear we will never, ever change them. Scout's honor.

AHA! Collection #1: Decanturs. These are actually E's. We keep them in one of the built in cabinets by those half columns in the living room.

Ok! On to the dining room! Most of which you’ve already seen from the living room!

It took me three tries to pick two shades of yellow I could live with in that room.

And those CURTAINS. I debated over those curtains for MONTHS. Oh Pottery Barn, thy name is hell.

Last wall of the dining room. As promised, my glass chicken collection is on the piano. Everyone should have a piano on which to display their glass chickens.

Oh you don't have a glass chicken collection? What a shame.

This is the cabinet that replace the homeless buffet. There are more glass chickens in the left hand side. OH! AND! The top "drawer" is really a fold down desk. *SWOON* Hidden desk!!!

Did you happen to catch Collection #3 in those dining room photos? Here’s a hint: it’s milkglass vases. The kind you can buy at Goodwill for 25 cents. The kind people at yard sales GIVE YOU because no one wants. What can I say, I like junk.

OK, back to the entry. If you go straight from the front door, here’s the hallway.

Hallway

The door on the left goes to the basement, the second door on the left is the half-bath. The door on the right is the pantry, the second door on the right is the coat closet.

The way to the basement also as a side door to the teeny little fenced side yard.

And THOSE stairs go down to the basement. Which you will not be seeing. It's dirty and gross and full of tools and boxes and cat litter. Really, just a basement.

Half bath. Teeny tiny half bath. Let's call it quaint.

Yes, I would definitely call this quaint. And yes, I did clean that tile.

What every quaint bathroom needs: a GIANT FLOWER PAINTING. $10 at a neighbor's garage sale.

OK, done with the boring stuff and on to the parts of the house we actually LIVE IN. I’m going to start with the kitchen.

Why yes, this is part of the kitchen.

Remember how I talked about my lack of counter space? Well that spot right there, with the shoes and the high chair are, is where my new kitchen island is going. But until it’s installed, please admire the truly gorgeous tile floor my husband and father installed.

Here's a quick peek out the back door to the one car garage and part of the garden. I hear there's going to be a garden tour post in June.

Back to the kitchen. Here’s your free tip for today: No matter how nice you’ll think it looks, don’t install tile on the diagonal. Just trust me.

We call this our wall-o-kitchen.

Even at its cleanest, please notice the total lack of work space on the counters.

Now on to a room you’re probably going to recognize if you’ve ever seen a single picture of my kid before. I would say we spend 95% of our at-home, awake hours in this room.

Finally!

Oh yeah, THAT'S why we hang out in here. And I don't mean the books.

Our renovations include: painting the walls (Ralph Lauren suede in case you were wondering) new ceiling fan, having the floors refinished and E’s woodworking projects – both bookcases and the toy box.

The first of two wall word decals. 10 points to the dork who names the source! Here's a clue: E and I both love this movie equally.

Collection #4! Bird pictures over the toy box. Purchased from Etsy for less than $12 each.

So that’s the first floor! How excited are you to find out there are TWO MORE TO GO? I promise I’ll try not to drag it out forever. But first lets go back to the entry so you don’t get lost.

See, NOW you remember what the entry looked like! For future reference: note the green things on top of the window. They might come up later.

The stained glass window is from a flea market (and please note, when I say “a flea market” I really mean “all the same flea market I go to far too often”). I hung it up because I couldn’t find curtains I liked and that window looks RIGHT out onto my neighbor’s house.

Collection #...what are we up to? 5? I bet you don't even know what these are. But I do. And I collect them.

We made it! We're actually up the stairs!!

All that crap hanging on the walls are awards, certificates and other random crap E has collected during his time in the Navy. Other military families will recognize it as an “I Love Me Wall”, although in our case it’s an entire “I Love Me Stairwell”. If he gets any more commendations I’m going to need a much taller ladder.

Upstairs hallway and another of E's certificates. I think he got that one for going through the Suez Canal.

The following rooms are featured in a clockwise direction starting from the door on the left in the picture above. Try to keep up.

Not pictured: TONS AND TONS OF CRAP.

I know the giant tub LOOKS awesome but I'd trade a normal tub-shower combination for that giant tub and the HORRIBLE stand up shower in a second.

Not pictured: Blue plastic baby tub, the three dozen bath toys, a large pile of towels and several pairs of baby pajamas I usually keep in that adorable chair.

Adorable Chair: $30 from a neighbor's garage sale. Perfect for hiding tubes of Preparation H under when you don't want all your guests to know about those hemorrhoids.

Back when this bathroom was for grown ups, I used to light these candles and relax with the jets in the tub and a glass of wine. Sigh.

BEST PART OF THE UPSTAIRS BATHROOM: Laundy hookups. No more carrying baskets to the basement!

A note about the room you’re about to see. All the stuff, including the wall color, used to be in what is now the nursery. I had redone the WHOLE ROOM less than a year before I got pregnant without thinking that room made most sense for the baby. Doing all the painting just about killed me.

Do you see Collection #6? I do. And part of collection #7. Please ignore the elliptical machine in the corner. PLEASE.

The chandelier was 75% off at a Bombay Company store that was going out of business.

Why yes, I did used to watch a lot of Trading Spaces. Why do you ask? p.s. That pillow is totally held together with hot glue.

Art deco furniture is from...can you guess? A neighbor's garage sale. I got the dresser, mirror, headboard and footboard for $100. Plus she delivered it!

Cedar chest from a flea market. Globes from a flea market. Chair in the reflection from a flea market.Cat in the reflection from...the devil.

Now you get to see where the magic happens. I’M SORRY. I HAD TO. PLEASE FORGIVE ME.

Why yes, that bed IS enormous. Thanks for noticing.

Wall words #2. Whatevs. I think they're cute.

And here's all the proof you need of just how uncool I am.

And I'm back to redeem myself! How cute is this idea? I think I saw it in a magzine but I will totally take credit for inventing it myself.

How about that Navy guy kissing the nurse poster? Is that +1 or like -10000 on the cool scale? Wait, don't tell me. I don't want to know.

Just in case you’re STILL READING this post (bless you) now you get to see the nursery. Where the baby sleeps! I have to say, when I set up and designed the nursery I had no frickin’ clue what a baby needed. Take  for example, a night light. With the light on, Baby Evan wakes up every couple of hours, notices I’m not there and cries. In the PITCH BLACK, he wakes up, gets bored and goes back to sleep. Seriously, if you’re struggling with sleep problems, turn off the nightlight!

This room used to have carpet. Horrible, 3-D looking carpet. THIS IS WHAT WAS UNDERNEATH.

I’m actually shocked by how much I HAVEN’T changed since we first set up the nursery. Besides the size of the clothing, a lot more books and toys and the foam mats for naked baby time, it’s almost the same. Of course, I also added the chalkboard wall but since I put the changing table back upstairs it’s kind of hidden. I’m still in love with my Where The Wild Things Are slash Pirate slash Palm Tree slash Adventure theme. Very cohesive.

Someone still rocks Baby Evan in that chair every night. Good purchase.

Cool design feature time! This is a plate rack I used to hang clothes because the closet is already full of my own stuff. The Wild Things are from my sister.

Evan's crib friends. Quite a mixed crowd.

This was my whole inspiration. I like to think it gives Baby Evan good dreams about good books.

This concludes the Twitter Home Tour. Good-bye. Nice to see you.

What’s that you say? I mentioned the house was THREE floors? No no, you’re imagining things. There’s not third floor. OK, well, TECHNICALLY there is. TECHNICALLY that’s where the fourth bedroom is.

Sigh. Fine. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Scared yet?

This is just the landing. Run while you can.

AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! AVERT YOUR EYES!!!!!

Would you believe me if I swore on my baby's life that this is an IMPROVEMENT over what the room looked like when we moved in? It used to have black and orange giant zoo animal wall paper. For real. Some day we're going to recarpt and paint the walls a color that can't be described as "flesh" but for now, it's just junk. And not the good kind.

Oh my God, I am EXHAUSTED. I hope you aren’t bored to death of me by now and wondering where the mommy blogging went. I promise to never do this again. Mostly because it was WAY too much work for one day but also so you don’t have to read it. No one needs to know about my glass chickens and my globes. That’s what she said.

But if you’re enjoying being a nosey-parker house-peeker, please check out the rest of the bloggers taking part in today’s Twitter Home Tour. You can find their links below.

Once upon a time, @MomNom, @jennandtonica, @emmie_bee, @heirtoblair, and @ColeEmmett were talking about home decor on Twitter. We thought it would be so great to be able to see each other’s homes! A *bunch* of other tweeps joined in, @Alena29 put together a terrific button, and #twitterhometour (or #twitterhouseparty) was born! Feel free to join us – add a link to your home tour post (pictures, video, or both!) below.

One of the reasons I’m not a very good cook is I’ve never had somewhere really great to practice. At least that’s what I tell myself. Growing up my mom was always shooing us kids out of smallish kitchens while she cooked since little people underfoot while you chop and boil and bake and heat is a good way to end up in the emergency room. Since I never loved cooking I never focused much on kitchens when I picked out apartments and until recently would have sacrificed everything but a fridge and a microwave for a walk-in closet. When I first saw the house we live in now, I fell in love with the hardwood floors to the incredible mouldings to the front porch…and was THRILLED with the newly remodeled kitchen. Stainless steel appliances! Corian counters! Ceiling height cabinets! A gorgeous stone tile backsplash! It’s so PRETTY and SHINY and FULL OF CHARACTER I knew I would just love baking pies and boiling water (my specialties) while admiring the grape arbor out the window.

Unfortunately, I soon realized “full of character” is the real estate term for “almost no counter space” and “nowhere to put the mail” and “where the **** am I supposed to keep any FOOD?!” Over the years I’ve tried adding tables, carts, baskets, chairs, hooks and bowls in various places but nothing has helped control and organize the overflow of junk. It’s gotten worse since the baby, since my diaper bag and camera have permanent homes on the counter by the back door and when I come in carrying a baby everything else just gets DUMPED. Even when the kitchen is super clean (which, honestly, it almost never is) I only have about three feet of counter top to make dinner on, divided in the middle by the stove. I’ve set more than one pot holder on fire because I was using the stove top as a work surface. Setting things on fire is NOT GOOD when you have a toddler.

Since we won’t be moving in the next couple of years, I finally decided it was time for a permanent solution to my lack of counter space. Lucky for me the guy who did the original kitchen remodel left his name and contact info under the sink. Lucky for HIM the custom cabinets he put in are impossible to get anywhere else so we’re trading him our first born for an island/peninsula/breakfast bar thing. Well, we tried to trade him our first born but with the economy as bad as it is right now he wanted cash instead. Babies just aren’t worth what they used to be. Luckily, we had saved a little of our tax return for home repairs (in case we did have to put the house on the market) and I convinced E it would be best spent on this project. I may have also promised a large number of homemade meals, cookies and pies IF ONLY I HAD THE COUNTER SPACE TO MAKE THEM. I guess it’s time to dust off those cookbooks.

Unfortunately, it’s going to take at least two months before the elves hobbits blind nuns cabinet…eers? make the cabinets and then another week to get a big slab of countertop in so until then I’ll just have to try not to burn the house down with a tea towel. Wish me luck.

Before I had a baby, it seemed very important to have a nursery. I needed a room for the baby’s clothes and crib and a rocking chair and bookcases and toys and a changing table. A room dedicated to baby’s little life and little things. So we did the guest room shuffle (nice furniture to back bedroom, back bedroom furniture to third floor, third floor boxes to storage space, that’s what it’s all about) and turned the small front room into the baby’s nursery complete with a theme and matching furniture.

Then we brought the baby home and lost the second floor of our house. It just didn’t exist anymore, except for 15 minute blocks of time for a shower or maybe a quick nap in a real bed instead of on the couch. It was definitely too far to go every time my incredibly throw-uppy baby threw up and needed a new outfit. Add diaper changed to clothes changes and the nursery might just as well have been at the top of Mt. Everest. Only hours after getting home from the hospital we gave up all pretense of a nursery and turned our family room into baby central. E dragged the changing table down, we bought an extra diaper pail, a basket for baby clothes and we’ve never looked back.

Ok, I look back. All the time. I hate having that damn changing table in my family room, even if it does make my life easier. It’s big and disorganized and a constant reminder of how lazy I am. It also ruins all my good baby pictures.

Not to mention once the baby was mobile it was impossible to keep him away.

So right after Christmas I decided it was time to get my family room back. Baby Evan thrashes and squirms so much on the table I was changing him on the floor most of the time anyway. Plus we needed something to contain the explosion of baby toys that followed Christmas. I swear those things breed when I’m not looking. A couple of days in the basement, one new set of router bits, and a trip to Home Depot later and E had made my toy box dreams come true.

TADA! One husband made toy box, sturdy enough for climbing, painted with non-toxic VOC-free paint and built to prevent baby finger slamming.

My love of chalkboard paint goes on.

It’s big enough to hold all our toys and stuffed animals and whatever board books happen to be lying around at the moment with room for at least a few more. I can now un-baby the floor after bedtime in about 40 seconds, close the lid and not have to worry about tripping over a squeaky block on my way to the liquor cabinet refrigerator.

And that, my dears, is the story of how Mommy got her family room back.