OlioBoard Contest

Discovered OlioBoard - LOVE it! Have already wasted many a hour on there. Here is my latest - an entry for the Layla Grayce Modern Coastal Bedroom Design Contest! Would love to hear what you think? (you need to scroll through to find mine - listed under Sweet Southern Symphony)

Playroom Reveal!

Finally finished the playroom side of the room (well, for the most part - enough to reveal it). I only have a few little projects left to do, when I get some spare time (hahahaha! time!!?? who has spare time!).

When we moved into our house I was pregnant with our first child. We were lucky to score a nice 4 bedroom home, with a big backyard (a rarity unless you buy an older home, which is what we did). My husband claimed one of the bedrooms as his "office/junk room". I'm glad it is at the back of the house - I don't go in there unless it is to dump something of his in there - LOL!!! So I claimed the dining room as my office/kid's playroom. We don't have a dining room setting/table/furniture, so this arrangement works great for us. We now have two beautiful girls, who definitely need a functional playroom, where I can also hang out and work, whilst keeping an eye on them.

Now, this room has evolved along the way - DRAMATICALLY! I started out with a little furniture and no real direction. After numerous, numerous, numerous changes/furniture rearrangements I'm hoping now this "final" set-up will work for us :)

So here are some BEFORE photos (these are the most recent before photos - I won't bore you with all the other versions I went through before this one!):

My main problem was the mess. Mess from me with my HUGE desk, and mess from the kids. We were always getting in each others way - it was driving me CRAZY!! So I did lots of research on-line to see what solutions could work for us, hopefully utilizing what I already had. My main inspirations was this first Pottery Barn playroom image, plus bits and pieces from the other images:

Nice storage, clean design - pretty colors.

Lots of lovely storage and great table set-up.

Lots of storage and love the globes!. What a great family room.

WOW - this one has SO much storage - awesome!

Pretty colors, love the "tree" board idea, and the doll house (totally going to try to make that!).

Great set-up, so much room and love the color scheme too.

What a great spot to chill out in!

Great space for imaginative play.

Nice storage and like the cork and black boards.

Another one with great storage and table set-up.

So what did I learn:

1. Group all toy storage together for a more clean comprehensive look.

2. Divide room into halves - one for the kids, the other for me.

3. Move kids' table and chairs away from the wall to free up enough wall space for storage.

4. Use all existing storage - bookcases onto cube storage for better look.

5. Clean up wall decorations for cleaner look.

So here it is - THE PLAYROOM...

Alphabet on the wall (98% completed).

 

Two clocks - one for US time, the other for Australian time :)

School bus shows our schedule for at-home play and learn.

Lots of lovely storage, all together :)

Dress-up corner.

Painting board inspired by a Pottery Barn one (made by my father-in-law - awesome!!)

 

It is all in a small space, but it is working! Clean up is fast, everything has its place. And I think it looks great.

And here is a little sneak-peak at my craft corner. More to come :)

Notes from the Garden

Spring is in the air...finally (again) :)

Here are some pics from my garden, and also some of a sweet little guest having a drink!

Planted some Azaleas - hoping they will survive and thrive!

These flowers were almost dead after all that cold cold icy winter we had. Then all of a sudden - BLOOM!...beautiful :)

My other Azaleas and some other little flowering thing that looked pretty in the store - LOL! That's just how I roll sometimes - all wild and crazy at the plant nursery!! WooHoo!

Oh, and another wonderful surprise - of course all my hostas died over winter. I thought, "oh, well, will have to figure out what else to plant there instead". Then POW! up they come, and just the day after I read about it on another blog. So glad I didn't dig them up.

My grass need cutting, need to re-mulch and need to replace the worn-out gate. But this is just the start of Spring - gotta have somethings to do outside for the next 2 months!

This is a close-up of the pretty-thing-a-ma-jig-flower that i was writing about before ;) Love those little feet sticking in my photo there!

And here is our sweet little friend - look at him - awwww! He is having a drink at the soak-it-hose-bar!

(LOVING my new camera - look at this detail - keep scrolling down to see just how far away I actually was - so cool! It is a Canon PowerShot SX210IS - LOVE IT!!)

(Can't see him can you! He is between the boxwood and the low stringy thing plant! GOSH - guess I should get to know some plant names, huh!)

 
Still lots to do - we have a billion leaves (WE - who am I kidding here - me, I, self, little 'ole - DH is tooooo busy). Soooo, I have a billion leaves to rack up, bag up and put out for collection. Need to weed lawn, fertilize (again) and MOW! (sorry neighbors - you guys are so good to me). And then there's the backyard...