Tag Archives: house

Alice’s room: the finished version

So I know I caused many of you (including myself) great pain last week with the butt-ugly pictures of Alice’s room in chaos. And it wasn’t just the chaos–it was the ugly washed-out lighting of the overhead light and poor exposure and color balance. If I never look at those pictures again, I will be a happy woman. So after finishing the room about a week and a half ago, I decided to wait until the following morning to photograph it, when the light was streaming in the window and beautifying everything it touched.

There’s nothing like morning light to make a space feel extra fresh.

Walking in from the hall, this is the first view of the room.

The little hanging butterflies and polka-dot sheet were given to me by my friend Emily, who got them in turn from her friend. Thanks, ladies!

And the quilt, my absolute favorite piece of bedding, was hand-made by my sister Erica.

Thank you thank you thank you!

The little Marcy doll was a purchase my husband made at Cedar Point a few weeks ago.

He hopes that she and Alice will become special friends.

Turning clockwise, the next stop is the changing table . . .

. . . which was the butcher’s block in the kitchen of our old apartment.

I’ll have to stop myself from saying “put that baby on the butcher’s block!”

It just sounds wrong.

Above the butcher’s block is one of my favorite wall-hangings. The other week I got a surprise package from my cousin June, and in it was a vintage Alice in Wonderland paper doll. I put it in a frame and love the results!

The other picture we hung is from a set of three. My friend Eve made me lovely burp cloths–so lovely that I decided to frame the fabric and hang them throughout the room!

Hope you don’t mind, Eve.

And how better to turn a butcher’s block into a changing table than with bins! A bin for diapers and a bin for wipes, both of which just slide right out . . .

. . . and a bin with all of her little accessories: bows, ribbons, shoes, socks, hats, sunglasses, etc.

Continuing our clockwise turn, the next thing we come across is the gigantic closet, which occupies the whole back wall.

Inside, all her little things are organized.

(though we have since installed the car seat in our car–not the ordeal we imagined it might be, believe it or not!)

On the left side, we have a hanging organizer with bedding and cloths.

The big green bag on top has extra diapers that simply wouldn’t fit in the bin.

I think plenty of diapers is a good thing . . . or so I hear.

In the middle of the closet is a tall cupboard that houses clothes:

With bins inside that I can pull out as if they were drawers!

The little skirts, for instance, are all here:

To the right is another hanging organizer, with swaddlers on top and then onesies each assigned a cubby by size and type (long sleeve/short sleeve). It may look a little messy, but I promise it’s all thought-out and structured.

And further to the right are her sweaters, outerwear and assorted dresses.

On the shelving above is her Pak N’ Play, ready to go for all our out of town trips.

One of my main concerns about Alice’s room was the mismatched factor. Besides the crib and crib mattress, which we bought new at our Ikea trip, everything else was recycled from other past rooms. Which isn’t a problem–reusing stuff is great–but I had visions of a horribly hodge-podge room being the final product. Which might make me cry.

I wasn’t reassured it would all work until, well, it worked.

Until everything was in its proper corner, at the proper angle.

Continuing on our clockwise adventure, the next stop is the side table/rocking chair area.

The side table used to house our microwave at our old apartment, and now houses this adorable turtle nightlight from Aunt Jacquie, and breastfeeding paraphenalia inside the cupboard (nursing pillows, breast pump and the like).

The top of the microwave table was so beat up that I decided to cover it with a polka-dotted burp cloth from a set my friend Vessie bought us.

On that final wall are built in shelves that we have definitely put to use!

How can such a small little girl already have so many books???

I’m delighted.

I decorated the bottom shelf with some girly things, mostly gifts that to me represent all the love this little girl is being born into, though she doesn’t even know it yet.

Another framed burp cloth from my friend Eve . . .

. . . these lovely purple cut-out pictures that my cousin Emily made . . .

. . . and a wire basket (from Mama Kitty and Big Jake) full of the pink paper flowers my friend Carrie made as decorations for the baby shower she threw.

I’m so glad to be having a girl. It’s occurred ot me: what the heck would I put on this shelf if I were having a boy?

An . . . airplane?

Who knows.

And our clockwise spin has brought us back to the crib!

I painted that little shelf (from the basement of Mama Kitty and Big Jake) white, and put up a watercolor of flowers my mom painted, and the final framed burp cloth.

I love it. I have such a sense of peace entering this room. We’re ready for you, little Alice!

Our new apartment: we are settled at last!

As you know, we moved on August 17th, and I’m happy to say that we’ve been 100% settled since Friday September 14th (just 4 days after the goal I had set). And even more–I finally have pictures to share!

Let’s start in the front of the house. We occupy the second floor of a 3-unit building, and after unlocking the door the first thing you do is come up a big set up steps under a skylight. As soon as I had my camera out and ready to take pictures, I heard a key in the door and . . .

. . . welcome home, baby!

Just in time for a little photo shoot. Because what everyone wants when they first walk in the door after a long day at work isn’t a hug and kiss as you may expect, but a camera in their face!

. . . right?

Anyway. The first stop for incoming people is the shoe bench (actually two of them side by side, courtesy of Ikea).

The front of the house is basically a big kitchen/living room/dining room area, which I tried to photograph from a number of angles to give you a sense of the space.

The dining room area is a nice size for our little round table (inherited during our undergrad days from a certain Darius Fong), but I wonder how a larger table would make it feel–cramped? We want a table that can seat more than 4 people, but we’re a little afraid that if we upsize, our guests will end up being packed into their dining situations like sardines.

Oh, and that door against the wall leads to a little balcony which my husband loves to sit out on. I’m still a little leery of spiders and getting debris and leaves on my bottom from those plastic chairs. But I’m working on my phobias as we speak.

We turned this rolling cart thingy from a coffee station (in our previous apartment) to a wine station.

And above it hangs one of my favorite paintings, from the walls of Mama Kitty and Big Jake’s house.

It reminds me of my Wisconsin roots and makes me feel . . . I don’t know. Good. Nostalgic. Peaceful.

In the dining area we put our big ole shelf:

Not a perfect fit for that wall, but close enough.

It houses things that delight me: my cookbooks!

Glasses and pictures!

And a bin at the bottom for Alice’s bibs and little utensils and such.

After a month of packing and a month of unpacking, having everything in its place and not a single box remaining anywhere to be seen feels glorious.

My husband and I are matched in this sense–we are creatures of order. We love harmony, routine, and our spirits have a much easier time being peaceful when our surroundings are peaceful.

So I feel like I’m breathing easier than I have for the past couple months. And being done with everything move-related is probably why I’ve been able to go from losing pregnancy weight to finally gaining some.

More shots of the livingroom area:

In these pictures, the fireplace/mantel area looks a little cluttered to me. In our defense, we had to use decor and furniture to cover a series of hefty cables coming out of the wall above the mantelpiece (originally there to connect a TV) and to the right of the mantelpiece (surround sound), as well an unsightly pipe coming out of the “fireplace.”

And in real life I don’t think it looks as busy as it does in these still shots, for whatever reason.

I have presented my defense, and I rest my case.

I’m so glad to finally have this painting out, since it represents Spain to me (the artist was a friend of my mom’s from her painting circle in Madrid).

And the framed cross stitch from our friend Kathy brings our church in Delaware (EP) to mind–and into my prayers.

This is my new morning devotional area:

It’s such a peaceful, wonderful spot for early morning meditation and prayer.

I love it.

As for the kitchen, I didn’t take that many pictures . . . maybe because we didn’t really do anything to make it look so nice. It was already nice. Which is an apartment first for us!

I guess in the above shot we were in the middle of dinner preparations, hence the slight disarray on the counters (i.e., the rice cooker). Please pretend in your mind that it’s all picked up before we move on. Thank you.

One of my favorite things is that the three hanging lamps above the bar-height kitchen counter are on a dimmer, so late at night we can have a nice, quiet glow coming from the kitchen area.

Alright! So if you can stand to see more, let’s move down the hall. Our first stop is what we call the 3rd bedroom/computer room/library/{insert name of guest staying with us}’s room. So far it has been John’s room, my mom’s room, Jon’s room, Ben’s room, and Julia’s room. Maybe we should simplify and just give it its own proper name. Like Harvenschtein. Or Hepselforthgard. Something with an H, definitely.

As you can see, we own a lot of books.

Which is why I love the wall shelving we got at Ikea–our tomes have outgrown our bookshelves, and used to be sitting in piles on top of them. No longer! Now they all have a proper place to sit.

I should also point out that those frames will not hang empty forever–I’m ordering prints from photos I’ve taken of Chicago, which should arrive semi-soon.

Rotating clockwise, we have the dual desk action area, with a writing desk for my husband . . .

. . . and, next to it, the smallest computer desk we could find for our desktop.

Next to which is a closet.

I’ll show you what’s in it!

All our instruments (acoustic, classical and electric guitars, djembe, violin), sewing stuff, games, our filing cabinet etc, all organized by my amazing husband. And apparently, a rotary phone on top of it all.

So that you can take a call in total privacy.

And if you visit, there are even hangers, and some space for you to hang your clothes! So c’mon by. Or something. You’ll feel right at home in Hepselforthgard!

As long as your spine doesn’t object to our bony futon.

Next up is the guest bathroom, which I found an awesome shower curtain for at Target.

My husband made sure to equip the bathroom with a clock, in case you get distracted by your intense grooming rituals and need to know exactly how much time you’ve spent plucking your left eyebrow.

Next up in our trek down the hallway comes Alice’s room on the right, but you’ll get pictures of that tomorrow–that room deserves its own post.

I didn’t photograph the laundry area (I figured you guys had seen it before), but there are a series of bookcases we moved into the widest section of the hallway because, let’s face it, they just weren’t going to fit into the 3rd bedroom.

Believe me, we tried.

Hence, our ‘media’ bookcase with DVD’s and some CD’s:

(from Ikea! And the laundry area is behind the doors to the left)

(and in case you’re disoriented, I turned around to snap this picture, so we’re facing towards the front of the house, and the door you see on the right goes into the bathroom we just visited) (metaphorically speaking)

And, turning around again to face the back of the house, here are the bookshelves (the door at the end of the hall is our back door) . . .

. . . that precede the final door into our bedroom.

Yes, our books have yet to be organized and alphabetized and such, but don’t worry! With my husband in charge, it’s bound to happen. It’s only a matter of time.

Finally, we have our bedroom! It gets so much lovely morning light.

Which makes getting up so much easier . . .

. . . though not easy, mind you. Nope, not at this stage of pregnancy.

And if you like the bedding, you must know that it all came from Rummage. I love, love, love shopping for bedding at Rummage.

And at risk of being repetitive, we LOVE that the big light hanging from the ceiling (which came with the place) is on a dimmer. It makes night time reading extra fun and cozy.

We’re loving our bedroom set from Ikea, and I think my husband made a great choice with the bedside tables and lamps.

As you can see, my night time reading appears to be all about . . . well, food.

We’ve decorated our bedroom pretty minimally, and for the time being we’re really enjoying that. There’s a lot of empty wall space, but I don’t feel moved to fill it up. For now, we’re keeping it simple with a few pictures of us.

I love this open space.

And the dressers were 100% necessary to house my clothes . . .

. . . which, at our old apartment, used to live in a closet in our 2nd bedroom.

No more! I love having my clothes in my actual bedroom. No more naked dashes across the hall . . . at least none out of strict necessity.

Sorry–was that way too shocking? I can’t quite tell. Hunh. I’ll have to remember to turn on my self-censorship/propriety gauge system tomorrow, because obviously I failed to do so when I got up this morning.

We even have a built-in hidden shelving area in a nook by the window, mostly used by my husband. Since it’s invisible from most areas of the room, it doesn’t necessarily have to look matchy matchy . . . but if it ever starts to get under my skin, I reserve the right to go hog wild and purchase 20 matching bins.

May I highlight the current bin action happening?

Thank you.

I neglected to photograph the master bathroom connected to our bedroom, so I’ll just refer you to this post to refresh your memory. But having a bathroom right there is so awesome–I can’t even believe it.

Thus endeth our tour. Tomorrow it’s all about Alice’s room!