& baby makes.. seven?

if you count brewsky, bailey, benson & roar we're about to become a household of seven come november!

tyler and i found out we were expecting on march 5th and our lives have been a whirlwind of excitement and anticipation ever since! our little boy, cohen ryder, is set to arrive around novemeber 11th.. just in time for the holidays!

between work, summer projects, and baseball tournaments we've been doing our best to get cohen's room ready before the school year starts. of course, we happen to have the shortest summer break ever in cabell county this year so its definitely crunch time!

i designed the bedding at babybedding.com and i highly recommend it to any expectant mommas! they have a great selection of bedding options and fabrics. you can make changes to any bedding set they've designed or you can design a bedding set from scratch from the massive selection of fabrics. i loved the brown modern zoo print so i built the set around it. tyler and i wanted something fun that worked for a nursery but also could grow with him.

this is stock photo of the bedding from the website

i got a lot of nursery decor ideas from this blog. you can filter and search by gender, color, theme, etc. its where i got the idea to paint the wall where the crib would go...

the squares turned out better than i ever could have imagined; even up close they look like a decal and not hand painted. the whole process only took about 3 hours; measuring for symmetry and putting up the tape was the most time consuming part.

next up: new hardwood floor and furniture. both of which, should be finished this week. tyler just came back from a baseball tournament in indianapolis so he's taking a day of R&R before starting to lay the new floor tomorrow. so progess is being made!

baby countdown:

17 weeks 4 days to go!

smörgåsbord

i started this blog as an assignment in a journalism/public relations class i took at marshall and i decided to keep blogging after the semester ended. that was 2 years ago.. i fell off the wagon for a while, but i'm back at it! usually blogs tend to have a central theme.. life, politics, crafts, reviews, etc. my blog does not, its a smorgasbord. and because its my blog, i can do that :) so this post, will be about crafting!

lately, tyler and i have been very crafty people. one look around our home and you can see how talented tyler is, especially when it comes to carpentry. because of his talent, he's become very picky (and so have i) about items we purchase for our home. tyler would rather build whatever item it is we have in mind, than settle and buy something in a store we aren't crazy about.

for months, we have been looking for a small table to go against the wall in the family room that separates the opening to the dining room and game room. after multiple unsuccessful trips to hobby lobby, big sandy, and other stores we decided to build one ourselves.. and this is what we created :)

of course i didn't leave hobby lobby empty handed; the 2 vases and flower arrangements were a must have! they matched the family room color scheme perfectly.

as for the specifics on the table, it was actually very easy to make and only took about 45 minutes. the shelves are poplar and the legs are pine; the legs were pre-fab and bought at lowe's. tyler used a router saw to create an edge on the shelves so they didn't look plain. i put two coats of regular black paint to get the color i wanted and three coats of polyurethane. normally, you don't want to use regular paint on wood but the black wood stain i found wasn't dark enough no matter how many coats i put on the test piece. by putting three heavy coats of polyurethane the surface is smooth and can easily be wiped down when dusty and won't lose any shine.

i love how it turned out; its the perfect accent piece for the room and the wall! and not to toot my own horn, but it looks store bought! (toot! toot!)