The Patio

So this post has a little to do with me, but mostly to do with my husband. I tend to take the reins designing big projects, then turf them over to the hubby so he can do his manly work putting them together. I'm very pro-feminist, but hey, I hate to use power tools. And let's face it, I'm useless when it comes to digging a decent hole. :)

At our last house, my husband was able to build our deck, but at this house we wanted a screened in porch and figured that was best left to the professionals. To help with costs, the patio became our DIY project. Most people think we are nuts for doing this project immediately after moving into our house, but let's not forget that my house is full of screaming, energetic boys and they NEED. TO. BE. OUTSIDE. And I don't want to be sitting in dirt and grass while supervising them;) The last straw for me was really when my outdoor couch and chairs were sitting out front, a-la white trash chic, and a giant wind gust tumbled them across the street to the neighbor's house and busted them up along the way.

I love the look of a flagstone patio, but it was very far out of the budget and not quite as DIY-friendly. After a bit of shopping around, we decided on purchasing from Home Depot. I had a 20% off coupon from my USPS moving packet, so I used that during the purchase in order to save the max amount allowable, which was $200. The other benefit to using Home Depot, is that they do the purchasing per-stone. Once we were finished, I was able to return about $100 worth of unused pavers with no problems whatsoever. Designing was a bit of trial and error. We designed on paper during our many snowy days and thought we had come up with the perfect design. Once the snow melted we went out and marked off the space, then moved our patio furniture into it and realized we were way off. Some more Tetris-like antics and we finally figured out how we thought the layout would work best.

First step in the building process? Pack up the boys and get out of town:) We've learned from past experience that DIY projects are one giant headache, which is multiple exponentially based on the number of little kids you have running underfoot as you work on it. So hubby stayed home to dig away while I took the boys on a little Spring Break adventure with Grandma.

As with most DIY projects, things never work out as planned. But, he was able to complete a good deal of work while we we gone. Removing sod was a piece of cake because it was very new and not rooted to the ground. Digging out was a whole other ball game since we essentially live on a giant piece of stone with a bit of dirt mixed into it.

Next up was adding the paver stone, leveling, then the sand. At that point, we returned from our trip and I was able to help out with laying the pavers. My husband did the cutting and I put together the world's most eye-crossing puzzle. We worked about 12 hours or so that first day laying stone and then another 8 hours or so the next day. Lastly, sand was brushed into to the cracks to fill it in. For a more accurate description of how to complete this project, just Google it. As I said, this was more my husband's project than mine.

One part that I took on as my own was the landscaping. I really love how it finished the whole project off. Now I just need to figure out how to keep it alive! Hopefully sometime in the next year or so we will be able to put in our planned L-shaped bar and built-in grill. We created a concrete base already to prepare for it and plan to buy one of those DIY outdoor kitchen sets online. A few years down the road, our plan is to put in an outdoor fireplace along the big curve. We will very likely hire someone to do this project and save ourselves some giant headaches.

Things we learned along the way: 1) Projects always take longer than you plan (duh), 2) Install underground gutter extensions - we put this on one of the gutters, but for some reason neglected the other one. The very first day it rained, we had a bunch of floating pavers. We've done a quick fix for now, but I think one day we will need to find the motivation to go back and do that part properly. 3) Plan for the long-term. We thought we were doing this and had the piping installed to be able to put in a built in grill later on. What we didn't think about was the fact that it would be so dark out there at night. I wish we had thought to put in outdoor lighting. This is something we will have to go back and take care of at some point in the future.

Last step? Margaritas, and a heck of a lot of them!

Kid's Study Room

I figured I would start my project posts off with my favorite room in the house so far. For a little background, we built this house and moved in about 9 months ago. I love being able to build our own house and customize everything. My husband was pretty set on a particular elevation that left us with an extra room attached to the traditional living room and dining room. They called it the Library. He wanted that elevation for the stone and brick front and by default we ended up with this Library. I personally did not want an extra room in our house. I wanted a comfortable house on a large lot. Unfortunately, in Northern VA the only way to get a larger lot was to buy a larger house. But honestly, who wants an even bigger house to clean?? So this Library in the model home was decorated as a beautiful wine room with built-ins, a bistro table, etc. But really, how could that be functional in my house full of little boys? Assuming that I ever got to the point of collecting multiple bottles of wine that needed a storage place (UNLIKELY, wine doesn't last long in this house:)), it's not as if I could ever take the time to sit and relax in that room, tasting wines and socializing. I have to do all of my wine drinking at night after the kids are asleep, hidden away in my room while I enjoy a relaxing evening of folding laundry and catching up on my reality tv shows.

So that leads me back to this big empty room. I decided to turn it into a kid's study room. I had always had this idea and assumed I would make my dining room a shared kid's study space. This worked out so much better because I could really get creative with the decor. Growing up, I never spent much time sitting at the desk in my bedroom to do homework, so I never really wanted desks in my kid's rooms. Additionally, I don't like the idea of kids having computers up in their rooms. I want them where I can see them and supervise them. I want them to be forced to interact with their parents and siblings. I may change my mind once I have a house full of disgruntled teenagers, but for now I'll stick with this plan. But I don't want them at the kitchen table. I love my kitchen and I don't want it overtaken by kid stuff and clutter. This room was a great solution because it is close enough that they can shout out a question to me while I'm in the kitchen cooking, but out of site from the tv and video games.

When I start to decorate, I like to trust my instincts. My first step is to find my inspiration. Without this inspiration, I find that my decorating is kind of boring and missing cohesiveness. I need that inspiring piece to focus my direction. For the kid's study, my inspiration was a giant wall map. I helped my friend apply one to her kids' bedroom and was in love with it. I've always had a bit of an obsession with maps and love to stare at them and study them. This seemed perfect in that it was educational, but also a real visual statement piece - something that would look appropriate to children growing, but not tacky. The downside was the price. She purchased her from Pottery Barn Kids for about $200. It was high quality, thick glossy material with the ability to use dry erase markers on it. But let's be honest. What mom of four little boys in her right mind would ever set her kids loose with a dry erase marker and encourage them to draw on the wall?! After a little searching, I was able to find a very similar map from Target.com for about $68 and free shipping. It was a much thinner material and matte, not glossy. However, I actually found it easier to apply, much like wallpaper. It comes in 8 sections and gives you options for arranging the map to highlight different areas of the world. One big tip when applying this map is that it will be difficult to align the sections perfectly. Once the adhesive paste is applied, the paper expands, and then contracts as it dries. I had a hard time lining up sections because some were already dried and contracted while others were expanded. But I don't really notice this unless I look really close. I then had my husband add a trim border around the whole map, then painted the border a white to match our baseboards, and then painted the walls and ceiling shades of the neutral beige I chose for my house. The effect was pretty stunning, in my opinion, and always receives comments from house guests.

My other big inspiration was the chandelier. When we built the house, I had them install a ceiling junction box with the hope of one day putting a super cool light fixture in there. I set out on my internet searches looking for a real statement piece, but something that wouldn't break the budget. Yeah right, good luck with that! Lighting is freaking expensive!! I came across a couple sites where they had DIY orb chandeliers. I thought, hmm, it's worth a shot. I decided on a bright red color for it after seeing a neighbor's dining room chandelier which she had painted a bold red color and it looked stunning. So my friend gave me a an old, ugly brass chandelier that she had on hand and had decided not to use. I cleaned it up and removed the extra pieces around the candlesticks. To create the orb, I used large quilting hoops. You need 2 sets of hoops, and cut the tops of them. Now comes the bang-your-head-against-the-wall frustrating part. You need to glue the tops of the hoops to the top of the light fixture. I used Gorilla glue, but it takes a long time to dry, so I ended up with a bit of super glue as well to get that short-term hold. It really was a pain in the butt to get it to stay in the correct spot. Additionally, you put a screw on the bottom where the hoops all overlap, but I can't remember if I did that before or after gluing - I think before. Once the glue is hardened, you need to be super gentle with it. It is definitely not as durable as a metal one. The final step was to spray paint it. I also chose some filament light bulbs that I found at Home Depot. They were more expensive and not as bright, but look pretty cool. And then I added a crystal to the bottom of it to give it that Ballard Designs finish.

Next, I worked on my table and chairs. I purchased a dining set off of a local yard sale Facebook group. It was too contemporary and too small for me, but $60 for the whole set so I figured I would go for it. Unfortunately she had sold the table leaf separately, so my husband built me a new one. Not perfect, but definitely doable. I wanted a nice, durable top for the kids to work on, so I used General Finishings Java Gel Stain. It took 3 coats of the stain and then 2 coats of a polyurethane top coat. This stuff is just amazing. Super easy to work with and looks incredible. Very durable too. I ended up painting the table base with Annie Sloan Chalk Paint in Greek Blue, distressed with dark wax. The chairs were painted in ASCP Antibes Green, distressed with dark wax. Then I stumbled across this wonderful fabric that I loved at JoAnns, and happened to purchase it over a holiday weekend with some amazing discounts that I then used to reupholster the chairs.

I knew I needed some sort of shelving for the boys to store their supplies, but once again I was discouraged by the prices. The solution just kind of fell in my lap. On a Facebook yard sale site, someone was giving away a 3-piece media cabinet for free. I had my eye on the 2 side pieces as potential for my family room, but he wanted to give away the set together. Funny enough, I ended up not using the side pieces and then loved the center piece for the kid's study. I painted the doors with chalkboard paint and decided to leave the rest with it's natural wood so that I didn't overkill the painted furniture idea. On the inside the shelves were all scratched up from the tv they used, so I sanded and painted over those. It had this handy little outlet in it meant for attaching your tv components, so I thought - score! I now had a family charging station for their ridiculous amount of electronics and have gained back the space on my kitchen counter. Lots of storage on the bottom and top gave me a place to keep all of our school supplies and a cubby for each kid to keep their "stuff" that usually ends up sitting on my kitchen counter. One PSA: Be careful with chalkboard markers! I hate the idea of chalk dust everywhere so I thought they were the perfect solution, but I am having a very difficult time removing them and will need to repaint the doors so that they are useful again.

My final project for this room was a growth chart. I had painted a similar chart on a door at our old house, but wasn't in love with it and the placement of it. I was hesitant to paint it on a wall because I thought it would look funny in 5, 10, 20, 30 years when I needed to repaint the walls around it. So my solution was to have my husband add a trim border around it and paint the background a slightly different color. This way I can change the wall color and decor of that room at any point and the chart can remain as is. 

I made my own burlap curtains using a super simple technique, then add some kid's artwork and tchotchkes that I had sitting around the house and purchased from HomeGoods (my favorite store, ever:)). The indoor/outdoor rug was an amazing find and deal from Home Depot.  And there you have it! I really just love this room and I my kids have already gotten a lot of use out it. 

Welcome!

Well, here I am, finally venturing into the world of blogging. You will have to bear with me as I feel my way through this process. Writing isn't necessarily my "thing," but many have asked me to share how I have done different projects and how I manage things as a busy mom, so I thought this might be a good way to show you: a) you TOO can express your creative side and implement fun ideas and b) life isn't always as neat and tidy as it seems - it is all about putting on a good show:)

A little about myself: I grew up as a dancer, gymnast, acrobat, athlete, and cheerleader. I played musical instruments and loved artistic endeavors of all types. Generally, I was your typical over-achiever.  I've never been great at sitting still unless it involves a Caribbean beach and a cocktail in one hand.  And I've never been very good about doing things the way that everyone else did them.  I've always followed people, but then tweaked things so that I was marching to my own beat. Oftentimes this made it hard for me to relate to people and make friends in a child's/adolescent's world where sameness is what is accepted, but now I've finally accepted this individuality and am finding that people are responding well to it and really enjoying my ideas.

Like all women out there, I wear many hats. I work as a Physical Therapist on weekends, after receiving my bachelors from University of Maryland College Park (Go Terps!) and Doctorate in Physical Therapy from MGH Institute of Health Professions. I volunteer with Cub Scouts and the PTA with all of my extra free time. I'm a part-time Jamberry Nails Consultant. I'm an amateur home decorator/DIYer/furniture restorationist. But my real job right now is Stay-at-Home Mom to four crazy, energetic, destructive little boys.

You heard me correctly. FOUR boys. And a male cat. How in the world did this artistic, girly, gymnast/dancer/cheerleader, who loves all things pink, end up with four boys and zero girls?? I love my boys, but they are just a ball of energy.  Literally. One giant ball of little boys wrestling on the ground with arms and legs sticking out, rolling around and knocking my lamps on the ground, alternating between giggles and crying. I stand by and wait my turn for the crying and then the necessary cuddles and kissing of boo boos before they jump up and say "ATTAAACKKK!!!" and dive back into the ball. My husband can usually be found laying underneath said ball of boys, being pummeled in the face and unmentionables as he snores away - a special skill that is acquired only after having so many balls of energy attack you constantly for eight years straight.

So, that brings me back to my blog.  Now that my kids are growing out of the baby phase (sniff, sniff...), I'm finding myself with time and energy to begin expressing my creative side more. I've been honing my home decorating skills for years and finally am in love with my style and choices. Not so in love with my budget. That lead me to begin crafting and DIYing to decorate my champagne house on a beer budget. I'm finding that I appreciate and enjoy my decor so much more since I created it myself. This lead me into the world of furniture restoration. I started by painting a few pieces from a yard sale to use in my house, and that led me to painting some pieces for friends and selling some of the pieces that I flipped off of yard sale websites. I wouldn't necessarily consider this a part-time job, more like a creative outlet.

My hope is to share some tidbits about managing a chaotic life and expressing creativity through design and nails, meanwhile giving you a few laughs as you glimpse into my House of Chaos.  Happy reading!