A Princess's Kingdom!

I am so incredibly pleased with how my daughter's room turned out. She slept in her room for the first time since I started this (3 weeks ago) and I asked her today what she thought of sleeping in there. She said " oh mommy, I loved it! I felt like I was in a fairytale!!"

I know I gave what was suppose to be a sneak peek a couple of days ago, here. Of course I was a bit picture happy and showed you the whole room minus the furniture. Today I will show you the room complete with furniture. I had in mind to purchase a brand new bedding set but wasn't having much luck find the perfect one. Well as it turns out her current bedding was perfect for the room. I was lucky enough to find curtains at Bed, Bath and Beyond.
Just a quick recap:
The mural was created using a stencil kit from My Wonderful Walls. I added shading details and the special detail to the princess's dresses.
Wall Color: Serene Sky (Behr) Peridot (Behr), hills faux painted using glaze and craft paint.
I added a clear protective coat made by Valspar because the hills seemed to wipe off during touch ups. This added a sheen to the stenciled images (craft paint is matte) and makes me feel more comfortable that all my hard work is protected
Toy Storage is the Trofast from Ikea and I LOVE them!
My Wonderful Walls is offering my readers 15% off of their entire purchase now thru December 31, 2011 just use coupon code:  Mcp15 

Okay on to the complete room, you may now enter:
 

Before:

 

After:

 A little detail:

There are a total of 3 princess on the wall, I posted up close pictures in my sneak peek here: Princesses

Thank you so much for letting you share my daughter's room. I worked really hard and it was totally worth it to see how delighted my little girl is. Next up will be my son's room which will be finished a a few weeks.

Linking to these Parties:

Princess Room a Big Sneak Peek!

Moving into a new house doesn't leave much time for blogging but I am excited to give you a glimpse into what I have been working on the last couple of weeks. The first project I have tackled in the new house is my 5 year old daughter's room. I wanted to do something more then paint  the walls and had researched DIY mural's. I was happy to find several options from paint by number, wall stickers, and wall stencils. I showed my daughter several different styles from fairy's to garden themed but she was adamant about having a princess room. I decided to go with My Wonderful Walls Perfectly Princess Stencil Kit, (see coupon code below) I liked the number of stencils and thought with this I could really create a "Kingdom" in the room. The stencil kit arrived very quickly and included brushes and a color suggestion chart. I changed up the colors slightly but only in the shades of the particular colors. I started out painting the  backdrop for the stencils, a sky and hill scene. I have to say finding the perfect sky and hill color took me some time. I had planned on painting the sky portion pink but my daughter told me "the sky is not pink it is blue" and she wanted her sky to be blue too. Okay, finding a sky blue color that wasn't to blue, gray, or loud was a process but I finally found it and it is beautiful!! I chose Serene Sky by Behr and for the hills I chose Peridot. Once the room was painted (thanks to the help of my sister and hubby) I decided to add addition depth to the hills and faux painted them.

On to the stenciling, I had some concerns with how the stencils would work on my textured walls. I spoke with the owner of my wonderful walls and he did say they would work but that it would had some bleed through. It did have bleed though but I had plenty of background color and it was easily touched up. I will show this to you in the pictures below. The hardest touch up was on the faux painted hills because it wasn't just a solid color that I could dab into but I figured it out. It took me quite a few days to complete the room but I am so pleased with the results. I think I would have been done sooner but I really wanted to add a little more detail to the images and I went back and added shading and detail to the princess dresses. It is not necessary to do that because the stencils on there own are loving but I do like the effect he added detail gives. If you are looking for something to make your child's room special I would recommend My Wonderful Walls.  I am giving you just a sneak peak into the painting of the room because the room isn't fully put together yet. I havent' decided on curtains and bedspread just yet. I will be back this week with the "BIG" reveal! Once this room is complete I will be starting on my son's room which is a Pirate theme, I just order his mural which is a paint by number Pirate Map Mural.  Well I hope you enjoy this little sneak peak!

Here is a coupon code especially for my readers: Mcp15 Enjoy 15% off your entire purchase at My Wonderful Walls until December 31, 2011.

Before:

Painting:

Adding the faux touch:

 Bleeding Through

 Touched up

 Finished Painting:

 Just a little detail:

 The three requested Princesses all dressed up!

I hope you enjoyed looking at my blog today. I will be back in a few days to share the completed room with you!

Linking to these great Parties!!

Making the World Cuter Monday

All Moved In, Let the Projects Begin!

The great thing about moving is it allows you to get rid of a certain amount of junk that has been collected. I thought that I would have a difficult time doing this but low and behold, I got rid of a lot of stuff. The only thing I didn't seem to go through was my crafting stuff but I will get to that when we put my craft/guest bedroom together.

I want to do so much to the house it has overwhelmed me. We bought our house through a short-sale and the house was not cared for at all. Every where I look there is scuffs, dirty walls, holes, leaks, an area of a window where the dog scratched straight to the metal, and the list is growing. We had quite a bit of rain and discovered a link in the roof. The good news is other then the leak most of the list is cosmetic and patch up and painting will make a huge difference.

If we knew for sure this was our forever house we would do a kitchen renovation, new flooring and carpet but that is on hold until we are sure. The first 2 or so weeks I have sat around so unsure of what I can do in the DIY fashion that isn't going to break the bank but that will add style and value the house. I have decided that the kids rooms was a great place to start.

One of the main things I wanted to do was figure out toy storage and buy dressers for my son. So off to Ikea I went and purchased 6 Trofast storage systems,  two 3 drawer Malm dressers and one 6 drawer Malm dressers. Well actually I ended up having to build the frame of the 6 drawer twice! My older girl was helping me and lost her balance falling through the back of the dresser (she is fine). This broke three pieces but thankfully Ikea exchanged the whole thing. I don't have pictures of mine but just so you can see what I have done the last few days, most of which happened yesterday (all three dressers and two Trofast) here are pictures:

 

 

 

 

I have to say, Ikea is so easy to put together. I know it isn't top quality but I think it is top quality in this type of furniture.. okay did that make any sense? It is sturdy, cost effective and again putting it together was a cinch, time consuming but easy!
I have ordered a princess stencil kit for my little girls room and for my little man room a Pirate Map.. I am excited to get started on the decorating and painting for their rooms. I am still trying to figure out paint colors and such but the building of the furniture and has given me a boost to start doing what I can.

I hope to come back in the next few weeks with progress reports and maybe a project or two!

Flooring, Painting, and Kitchen's on my mind!

It looks like I will be moving in the next couple of weeks. Several and when I say several I mean forever ago, we made an offer on a house being sold through a short-sale. It was a house that was not in an area we had previously been considering. We decided to look at it anyways because it had the number of bedrooms we wanted and we figured it would give us layout ideas.  Now, my husband and I have looked and many, many houses over the years from brand new model homes to fixer-uppers with the swap-thing living in the pool. We had a pretty good idea of what we wanted but the two main things were 5 bedrooms and a large backyard. We had been focusing on a particular area which would have moved us 20 or so minutes further north but with the location came the $$$ price. We looked at the house, the BACKYARD and then left. Over the next few days both my husband and I were thinking the same thing, should we seriously be consider that house.  It has the two main things we want and it is offered at a much lower price than anything we have seen. We talked about it and decided to go take a more thorough look at the house. Even though the house is only 10 years old it needs some help. It is a house where at one time had 5 teenagers living in it and it shows. It was built with all builder grade materials with absolutely no upgrades. We looked past that and saw what we could do to make it home. Walking into the backyard is a highlight of the house, with palm trees, pool, deck all wrapped up in about 13,000 sq feet! We again questioned the area, it's not in the hood but wasn't where we planned. We had to adjust our thoughts on that, we realized we would not get anything like this anywhere else, we could put a little money into it and make it amazing, and still be in for less then what the new houses or even the older house are going for in other areas. Our offer got accepted a few months later but then we had to enter into the loan phase of things. This was the hardest part but in the end we got the loan approval and signed loan docs on Friday. We should have keys this weekend!
Although I am excited, I am also very nervous. I am so exited to move in and start the upgrading but the whole change part of moving is tough. We have money to start upgrade but the furniture part will have to wait. We will have a mish-moshing of stuff for the next couple of years but seriously if we had money to fully furnish a house we would be buying in La Jolla, so it's okay.

We have picked out our new flooring, which I love but every time I mention my flooring selection I am met with "dark floors show everything". Here is a room scene with the flooring:

It made me second guess and I went back to the flooring store to possibly change but in the end I love the dark floors and I will invest in a Swiffer! We are going to focus on the first floor upgrades only and will be adding the flooring to the entrance, walkway, family room, kitchen and dining room (leaving carpet in the living room and stairs) The best part about the flooring is we got them for 1/2 off what the normal sales price would be. In all honestly I had planned on a color a shade lighter then this but the price difference was double and it just didn't make sense.  The other major upgrade will be to the kitchen, yikes!
Oh, this is what I want to be the highlight of the house. I have many kitchens pictures saved, they are all white cottage kitchens. Of course my kitchen isn't close to the size of any of these pictures but I am hoping to have a mini version. Here are a few of my saved ideas:

The last picture is a good representation of the actual size of my kitchen and what I have planned. There are 3 elements I am planning for the kitchen, creamy white cabinetry, an amazing back splash: 

 An apron front sink:

 and a nice cooking range. Of course the budget will dictate what actually becomes the kitchen but boy it is fun looking at these pictures!
Painting will take place all over the house but the one area that I have no clue about is the living room, entrance and stair area. These area's are all second floor high. Which means what ever color we paint has to be the right color because repainting will not be an option. In my last house I painted rooms more then once, one room 4 times! I want to have a warmer color or even a cooler mid-tone color. It also needs to be a color that can be considered a neutral color so that I bring colors in through accessories. I am really drawn to greys as well as grayish browns.

I have to remember that this isn't going to all happen overnight, that it is going to take time, possibly years before we get the house looking the way I would like it to look. I know decor doesn't make a home, my family makes it home and what a lovely home I have!