Playroom Redo Limps Along

So I see that I last blogged on January 6th about an upcoming playroom renovation. And I notice that the date is now January 28th. That's 22 days into our renovation. How's it coming along you ask? Well, I can only say that it's, well, limping along nicely. I have big plans. I am going for a sort of vintagey-schoolroom-bugs-theme look with ample storage space, reading nook, and work space.

We started off strong. Got a contractor, put a hole in the wall, and built that reading nook we wanted. Then it was off to find furniture....big boy furniture that might actually grow with the boys and withstand some abuse. But the catch was, I didn't want to spend any money. That's kinda hard to do. I checked on Craigslist, but alas, nobody was giving away their cabinets without expecting you to tear them out first. And any not-free-but-quite-reasonable deals on Craigslist never lasted long enough for me to get an email off to the seller.

I picked up a few small items, a print here, a vintage poster of a frog there, a small area rug designed to look like grass at Ikea, and a couple of book shelves. Found some fabric for the reading nook cushions and a lady to sew me up some fancy cushions. And today, Carter and I (well, Carter actually), picked out some super cute butterfly fabric and I covered some corkboards for the boys.

And just last week, we found a cabinet distributor who was getting rid of his discontinued, damaged items for quite the low price. We picked up a bathroom vanity, a couple of drawer units and some upper cabinets for under $160. A little bit of white paint and some shelves and we are getting closer to my vision.

Here are a few pics of the renovation thus far. I'm hoping to have it finished in the next two weeks! Stay tuned.

A New Playroom

Sooo, we have two playrooms. It sounds a bit over the top, but that's just how it is. We have five bedrooms. Two for guests and one bedroom for us. All of us. We co-sleep. Otherwise known as bedsharing. AKA sleeping as a family unit in one bed, getting very little sleep, getting kicked, punched, and poked every 15 minutes. But I digress.

Sooo, we have two playrooms. Which, once the boys go into their own beds, will turn into a bedroom for the boys and a playroom. I have recently discovered Pinterest and it is addictive. Too many ideas, too little time. But, it has motivated me to redo one of the playrooms into a room where the boys can still be boys, but there is room to grow.

I have had an image of a "vintage schoolroom" in my head for a while. I snagged an old school map with pull-down maps of California and the World off of Craigslist for free. I also snagged an old globe as well. They both have USSR emblazoned across them, but hey they were free and they are vintage. The maps will hang on one wall and I split the globe in half and plan to make pendant lighting out of the two halves.

Tomorrow we go from plans to reality. I have a contractor/handyman coming to create a reading nook out the playroom closet, complete with ladder and to build a tunnel between the two playrooms. I got the inspiration for the reading nook from this sleeping loft at Design Sponge.

Can't wait for this room to be done. I will post before and after pics soon!

Insect Boy

Carter and Wyatt had a bug party for their birthdays this past October. We used the Wildlife Company, an awesome organization that does school and library events as well as birthdays. They are a bit pricey, but lo and behold, they had a Groupon special for half-priced parties! Woooo hooo!

I admit, I tend to steer the boys' birthday party themes in the direction that would be most fun for me to decorate. This year "we" decided on bugs. So bugs it was and bugs are what came to our party. A giant millipede, a hissing cockroach, a centipede, a tarantula, and a bug-eating hedgehog. There were also sour cream and onion crickets to sample. Ugh, no thanks! It was a lot of fun and quite the learning experience. Check 'em out in my links!

But, it started something that I'm afraid has spiraled out of control. We now have a collection of bugs. Two hissing cockroaches named "Sassy Larue" and Sassy Larue" (after our beloved bearded dragon), two millipedes, "Millie" and "Mr. Cute", and a tarantula named "Turtle".

I suppose I'm the one to blame. I have visions of my children on the Oprah show in 30years admitting that well, they just would have never become world-renown (and may I mention terribly handsome) world experts on all things scientific, if it weren't for their mother fostering their love of bugs at an early age. They will turn and thank me for buying them their first $2 hissing cockroach (against their father's better judgement....he's so not getting credit for their accomplishments). I will nod and mouth "I love you" and we will have a lovely lunch at a lovely cafe following the show. 'Cause they will totally love hanging out with their mother.

You can't tell me you don't have these fantasies. They are so much better than imagining other future situations: You've been caught blazing a joint under the school bleachers? ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

So, in the hopes of keeping my kids on the straight and narrow, we now have a collection of insects. They really are kinda cool. The hissing cockroaches are nocturnal, so if you turn your head just so and the lighting is just so, you can catch a glimpse of them huddled under their driftwood by day. By night, if you go in the room at 2am and fling on the light, then you can catch a glimpse of them scurrying back to their hiding place. The millipedes pretty much just wander through their cage and nibble on rotting veggies and mashed up dog kibble. They are fun to hold and examine. And their little faces are rather cute I might add.

The tarantula is the best pet. Every other day I lift her lid, she races over to me, and I fling a cricket into the cage. She bites into it, vomits her stomach contents onto it, and then sucks it dry. AWESOME!

But it's all totally worth it. Carter was sitting holding Mr. Cute just the other day. I said, "Carter, it's time to put Mr. Cute away." He replied, "but mama I want to hold him just a little bit longer.....and don't call me Carter. I am Insect Boy."

Okay Insect Boy, it is these memories that make it all worthwhile.

New Year's Resolutions

I have finally decided to put my New Year's resolutions to print. They are, in no particular order:

1. To lose five pounds.
2. To run more.
3. To not yell "are you kidding me?" at my kids when they are out of control. (Although hearing my four year old shout it at his two year old brother has almost been worth it.)
4. To not yell at my husband. (Okay, that is totally not going to work out for me, so I will need to retract that one.)
5. To only yell at my husband when he really deserves it. (Still not going to cut it for me and also has proven to be too difficult even in the last 2 minutes that I've been writing this, so.....)
6. To trick my husband into believing that I am yelling at him less in 2012 than I did in 2011. Ha! That's it! Totally manageable.
7. To update this blog more than once every 6 months.

Time for bed. It is almost midnight and I have absolutely no idea why I am up this late. I also have no idea how I will ever achieve resolutions 1 - 7 on five hours of sleep a night. Ugh. This is sounding very much like one of those word problems in high school pre-calculus that used to totally make me nervous.

"If mother A gets little to no sleep and child A wakes up at 4:45 a.m. and child B wakes up crying fifteen minutes later, what are the chances that mother A will lose five pounds, actually go running, and not yell at father A that morning?"

Thinking, thinking, thinking. Aha! I've got it! The answer to that problem is......ZERO! Zero chance that mother A will do anything but sit numbly in front of a cup of coffee in the morning. Sit numbly while mumbling "are you kidding me?" to child A and child B. But mumbling isn't yelling now is it?

Good night!