Bathroom chandelier

One of the items on my list for redecorating my house was installing a new light over my tub. Since the month after we finished construction on our house, I have wanted to replace the lame can light over the tub. I kicked myself for not doing this while we were actually building the house, but it's hard to get every single thing right or perfect even when we built it ourselves and picked everything out. It gets a little overwhelming. Plus, most towns have a code that doesnt allow for light fixtures to be a below a certain height from the bath tub so as to prevent electrocution. Probably a good thing. I think my new light fixture is code worthy bc it's close to the ceiling and our ceilings are tall.

I found this chandelier on amazon and loved it. Bought it and my husband opened the box to install it and of course it came in 100 pieces. Literally
So he had one of his employees come over and put it together who did it much faster than we ever could.

Forgive the lighting in the second pic. Once again, I am blogging from my phone bc I'm too lazy to take pics with my nice camera and then upload them
On my computer.

Staying put

It's official! We've been in our current house for 2 years and 4 months. That's the longest we've ever lived in one place or house we've owned! And what's even more unbelievable is that we have no plans to move! We still talk about moving but old habits die hard. Since we are not remodeling or building a new house, I have an itch to scratch so I am redecorating a bit. Getting some new furniture for the front living room (which I'll blog about in another post). For now, I'm enjoying staying put!

Stained concrete floors

It's been a while, but I didn't blog over the summer so I'm playing catchup on certain home improvements we've been doing. Yes, we've been home improving our 2 yr old house that we custom built. Why? Because its 2 years old and usually by this time we are either remodeling another house or have moved into another house. Ive got the itch... And we really like where we are and our house, but I need I scratch that itch.

So, one of the projects was our porch floors. I was choosing between slate tile or staining the concrete. Obviously, staining is much more economical because I don't have to buy tile. Plus, if I didn't like it, we could always tile over the stained floor. Turns out, I really like the stain. And it was super easy. We did both the screen porch an the front porch. Here's pics of the screen porch. It jus gives the room that finished look.

Bathroom redo

Since we are about to welcome a baby girl into our family, I figured that the bathroom she would share with her older brothers should be gender neutral instead of truck/transportation themed.  Not that she would care until later in life, but I'll admit that I watned to refresh their bathroom anyway.  Plus, it's also the bathroom our guests use, so I made it a little more age-neutral too.

Basically, I just bought a new shower curtain, hung a new picture and removed the towel bar (which, I don't know why I had one put in in the first place) and replaced it with a coat rack.  Reality decorating tip:  while towel bars are nice, I have come to find out through practical application that towel bars are NOT our everyday friends, therefore, it's something I don't need in my life.  What I'm saying is that when you have towels on the towel bar, they look nice when folded up perfectly and no one uses them.  The problem is when they are used, they are wet and get hung back up on the bar and are (1) not folded nicely and (2) can't be folded nicely because they need to dry.  So, my solution in all our bathrooms has been to use robe/coat hooks.

Shower curtain: Potterybarn. Shelves: Land of Nod

Frame: Potterybarn Kids clearance. Picture: vintage postcard from Chicago's world fair depicting the world's first ferris wheel (a special place for us), coat rack: Ikea

Frames: Ikea-they hold pics of my boys' names written in the sand on the beach of Lake Michigan and I have a spare one for Abby Claire. Towel: Potterybarn

Snow day!

Well, it finally snowed in Texas!  It should be all melted tomorrow, but that is just enough time to enjoy the snow and get it out of our systems!  Enjoy some pictures of our first romp of the day in the snow.

We'll be repeating these scenes a little later today!!!