Look What He Can Do: Part 2

Our Dining Room

The Dining Room is one of those many rooms in our house of which I totally forgot to take a before picture. I managed to crop a kitchen photo down to show through the doorway what the dining room looked like before.  Not a great before picture, but it gives you an idea. 

The dining room was already very pretty, just not quite our style.  We changed it by taking down that wallpaper border, repainting, and adding bead board.  We kept the floor because we think its a beautiful floor. 

We also gifted the chandelier that was in the room and replaced with a more "us" light fixture that we found on Bookoo for $20.  I love it!  

Now, this room has masterpiece #2, that I mentioned in the previous post.  For the last 7 years, we've had the same tall four person dining room table.   We currently have that table in our kitchen breakfast nook. 

It's a nice table but wouldn't be quite right for a dining room.  So, instead of going out and purchasing a dining room table, we decided to let James try his hand at building one. I found a farmhouse style table and plans for building it on pinterest.  James used that as a starting point for the table he built.   

Now, James will tell you the table isn't perfect and didn't turn out exactly how he wanted; but I just love it! I think he did a wonderful job!  Take a look, I'm pretty sure you'll agree. 

I need to get some photos or wall decor for that blank wall!

I love our dining room!  James plans to build a matching farmhouse bench for one side of the table which will add extra seating and look wonderful!  

Oh, I forgot to mention. James purchased lumber from a local guy and planed it down himself to make this table.  It took a lot of work and patience as the result clearly show. 

Thanks for listening to me brag on my hubby! Hope you have a blessed day!

Look What He Can Do! Part 1

So,I told you all I was returning to blogging.  I then posted two new blog posts in one week and....it's been almost 2 months since.  I apologize. Unfortunately, blogging falls pretty close to dead last on my to do list so most of the time I am just too busy to get to it.

Today, Jay is at preschool. Gunnar is napping and I am waiting on laundry to finish so I decided to take a few minutes and go ahead and blog!  I am excited to share this blog post with you because it's all about my amazing, talented, hubby.  Yep, consider this a brag on James post.  :)

Over the last 6 months I've been sharing with you our remodels in our first home.  Most of this wouldn't have gotten done without the skill and know how of my hubby.  Today, I am loving being able to share with you two more rooms in our home.  Both of which has a special piece of my husband craftsmanship in them.

First up,  Jay's room.  Jay's room was pretty basic when we moved in.  Here it is when we first looked at the house.

Good space, filled with large furniture.

To make this room more suited to a (then) 3 year old boy, we painted.  I let Jay pick out the paint colors. He said he wanted blue and red.  So we went to Lowes and chose the two shades.  He decided he wanted to do blue with a red stripe.  So that's what we went with.   Here is his room just before we started painting.

 

Here's what the paint job looks like :)  I love the color we chose together.  They are perfect for a little boy!

I bought new curtains and bedding for him, but everything else is decorations that I made or purchased when we lived in Missouri during James' Afghanistan deployment in 2012.  So it was a relatively inexpensive room to decorate.

The very best part of this room, I've saved for last.  When we moved in we didn't have a bed for Jay.  He'd been in a crib before our stuff got packed into our storage unit in Hawaii in 2011.  Then he slept in a toddler bed in Missouri in 2012, that I sold.  So it was time for him to have a twin bed.  James decided that he could probably build Jay a pretty awesome bed.

However, if you remember, James was fairly busy after we moved into our home in June.  We worked hard on the house for 2 weeks and then he had to leave for the instructor pilot course in Alabama for 2 1/2 months.  Therefore,  Jay slept on a mattress on the floor in his room for the better part of 4 months.  He didn't seem to mind :).

James finished this bed  in October. The night before Gunnar was born, he and I were out in the garage applying a coat of polyurethane to finish it off.  The good thing about that is the day we brought Gunnar home from the hospital Jay came home to his brand new bed.  A wonderful distraction for him.  So far, he loves his bed.  His friends love his bed.  He already wants Gunnar to sleep up there with him :).  It's a great bed that should last for years to come.

I'd say he's pretty happy with it! 

 James still has plans to make a bookshelf on the left side underneath the bed.  Jay's favorite part of this bed is the slide.  My favorite part is the chalkboard :).  I love to draw and write him messages on it.  Such a blast!  

Well, there you have masterpiece #1.  Told you James was talented! :)

I'm gonna go do some cleaning and laundry but I am going to attempt to get to part 2 of this post later today.  So stay posted for our dining room reveal :).