Our Life Lately...

Hi everyone!

I hope this fall season is starting out perfect for all of you! I am personally loving the crisp air and sunshine. Whenever a new season starts i always feel refreshed and excited!!

I am happy to announce that we are now a family of four! Zeke was born on August 12th. He's wonderful and perfect and big brother Cru adores him... we are so thankful.

House projects have been on hold the past 9 months but we have now started work in the basement to make it a space we can use! It is a temporary fix until we can sink some real money into it but we have a fun plan to turn it into a fun and functional family area. I will keep updates going on that. 

We're looking forward to some cooler weather, our birthdays, the holidays and basketball season! I'm also excited to get back into blogging!!

Ottoman Makeover

A couple years ago, I picked up two of the most basic of ottomans from IKEA.  With hopes and dreams of making amazing covers for them, I did manage to make a somewhat decent cover for one, while the other was left to rest naked in the basement.

 

 

In February, Cru spent a night very sick with temperatures of over 100 degrees.  That was the night the second ottoman got a second chance.  I ended up sleeping in that chair that night so I asked my husband to bring it up from the basement for me.   I loved it so much, it stayed.  However, it needed some love.

I spent a while mulling over what color/pattern I wanted to cover it in.  Crus room is already so bright with lots of different patterns and textures, I wanted to be careful not to choose something that would compete.  On the easy side, his room also allows for the use of any color.  So that left my pallet with lots of options. I get overwhelmed in fabric stores so I was thrilled to find this fitted sheet in the kids section of IKEA.  The green color is a solid so I knew it wouldn't compete with all the patterns in the space and the green color would pull out the green in some of the art in the room and pull your eye off of the blue and red which has a heavy presence in his room!  For $6 I had my ottoman cover!

 

 

If I wanted to spend the time (which I didn't) I could have cut and sewn it to the perfect size and create an attachment system so I can remove and wash as needed.  Instead I pulled out my staple gun, flipped the thing over, pulled it tight and stapled away!  I was prepared to cut away the extra fabric underneath but was able to just staple it out of sight.  Kind of a ghetto method, but it worked for me and what the eye can see looks great!

 

Here she is!

 

 

I really love the way it looks in Cru's room.  It pulls from the greens in the Vintage Disney attraction posters behind the chair and on his desk.  Easy peasy! 

 

 

A Room for Playing

You may remember the office I showed you not too long ago.  Well, it's life as an office was short lived because in reality, we're not office people.  We don't need an office, we don't want to sit in an office, so we decided to get rid of the office....

Now it is a........

PLAYROOM!

Since all the bedrooms are upstairs and the toys were starting to overflow in the living room, the office was the perfect room to create a kid space.

I told Justin about my idea and he rolled his eyes.  You see, I'm changing things... all the time...  I can't help it.  I get bored with things and need to switch it up.  So he reluctantly agreed to me changing it when I told him I would do it all for free.  I promised to use only things I have and that I wouldn't buy anything.  

This made the whole process pretty easy since everything I needed I had on hand.

The bookshelves used to live in Cru's room. I loved them there but I thought they would be better utilized in the playroom, especially when he get's older and wants to read more throughout the day. The chest is an old (beautiful) chest from Japan that a great uncle brought home from WWII.  I threw in all my old dress up clothes and costumes thinking that maybe in a few years they would all get used again by little ones. :]

The couch is the same one that was in here while this room was an office.  I put a quilt that was made for Cru on the back of the couch and threw on some brighter throw pillows I had on hand for some color.  The curtain panels were given to me a long time ago.  I only had two panels so I cut each one in half and hemmed them up to create four panels.  It worked out perfect and now the room is so much brighter than before!

One of the great things about this room is how central it is.  Whether the adults are gathering inside or outside, the kids are close by and can be seen.  I really love how this room came together!

When it came to storage for this space I knew I wanted an IKEA Expedit shelf for toys.  In my promise not to spend any money I asked my sister-in-law if she wanted to do a furniture swap!  I gave her the two bookshelves that used to reside in this room in exchange for this one and it was a win-win!  My shelves fit her decor better and hers mine! 

I also did another photo wall...  Justin told me it makes no sense but that was kind of the point.  I wanted it to be random and just full of kid-like things.  The needle point of the black lab is cool because of our Abu and Ace.  I've had that for a while and paired it with cru's 20-week foot prints, a map of the US, a vintage Disneyland attraction poster, a Walt Disney quote, some knitted shoes and a couple other random things.  

We don't have a ton of toys, but I know they will accumulate in the coming months and I am so happy that we have a space to put them as they come.

My plan for this wall is create a space to display homemade art.  I'm not sure exactly how yet but that is my plan!

I feel like this room came together perfectly! The best part is that it didn't cost a dime! These are my favorite kind of makeovers. Many times furniture pieces find new life just when moved into another space! 

Time to host a play date!

Paint it On!

Three years ago it was my wonderful idea to paint the house an olive green...

I don't like it. The grass is green, the plants are green and the house was green.  I had nightmares about green...

This summer we decided to add some color! I turned to Pinterest for some color inspiration and out of the millions of choices there are, charcoal gray got me all excited!  I think it such a great neutral but adds a modern flare to whatever you put it on!  It's not the most exciting color choice but I knew I was going to pair it with a bright color on our screen door.

We decided to go with a light butter yellow for the screen door. I looked at both the house and screen door paint canister to catch the paint colors but they aren't on there! So sorry I can't share those with you. 

Anywho, I love how the screen door turned out.  I'm still startled by the brightness when I pull in the driveway but it's very fresh looking and has a cheerier presence.  Another change we made was to move the house numbers from the right of the door to the bottom of the screen door.  The black numbers are a great contrast to the light yellow and I think it makes the numbers stand out more. The yellow on the door matches the center of the mums I recently planted for the fall season!  It's the little things... :]

I also made a quick DIY fall wreath for our door.  I used a wreath form from the dollar store and some ribbon and festive fall garland I had on hand.  It turned out simple yet cute and I like how the orange looks with the yellow and gray of the house!  Once I add some pumpkins and a cute yard sign I'm making, it will all come together!

Down the road we have plans to extend the entry and add some more curb appeal but until then I am very happy with this!   I also have to shout out to the hubs for working so hard on this! You rock babe!

Our Backyard

For a while, our backyard looked like this...

It has definitely been a work in progress for the past couple years but this summer we finally got somethings completed.  Three major projects we finished have completely transformed the way our yard looks.  The painted house, patio and back deck have made our yard go from boring to waaaayyyy better!

The gray paint really makes the house pop where the green blended into the grass and trees.  The deck really makes the french doors the focal point of the back yard, and the patio really sets the tone of the space by creating a hangout area where before it was all grass.  I failed to plant anything in my pots because it got too late in the season, but next year I hope to have lots of color in them.

The gray really makes the windows stand out too. We obviously need a new roof.  We are hoping to do that next spring/summer.

Here are some detail patio shots...

The eating area...

The deck.  We wanted to create long steps to double as extra seating for people.  We didn't want to make the deck big because from the top landing you can see right into our neighbors yard so wanted to keep the patio and entertaining spaces on a lower level for more privacy.

BBQ.  We plan to build a nice built in outdoor kitchen area along the edge of the basement stairs you can see behind the BBQ.  It will double as a guard for that scary edge.  (don't worry mama friends, we will build a temporary fence till then)...

On this wall we have plans to build a pallet bar to place drinks or whatever else.   You can never have enough serving surfaces!

Another plan we discussed is running the patio all the way over to the dog run. 

The dog run is still awesome. We love having this space to put the pups if people are over or when we're gone during the day.  They have access to the garage too so they can be warm and dry.  We built them an elevated pallet area to lounge (see left end of dog run).  We used all scrap wood and I wanted to build this so that they weren't laying in their own poo poo.  They like to sunbathe so it gives them a potty free area to hang.

The elevated flower beds are a new addition as well.  We haven't landscaped (obviously) but I want it all year round green and I will just plant a few perennials to add some color.

We're going to add gravel along the side of the house where the scaffolding is in this picture and all along the fence line between the fence and grass.  We also need to stain the fence but that will all have to wait until next year...

Until then we have a great hangout space for us and the pups and whoever wants to join us!  We had a great summer with lots of outdoor projects but I'm ready for fall and to hibernate.

We have a few little projects around the house we'll do but I mostly want to organized, sell and donate all the stuff we have in our basement and garage.  Until all that I feel very accomplished in our summer projects and am so thankful for a husband that works sooooo hard!

Patio and Deck!

Summertime equals outdoor projects for the Dobson house and we have been at it!

For about two years we have had little makeshift stairs leading out to the back yard from our french doors. This summer it had to be changed. We decided to finally use a bunch of free pavers we had to build a patio and build large wood steps coming off the back doors. 

The first thing we did was rip up the sod from our desired patio area and dig out about 15 inches of dirt.  After that we poured in about 12 inches of gravel and an inch or two of sand to allow for proper drainage and to create a plyable surface for leveling.

The next phase was to level the ground out and start laying pavers.  Our leveling method consisted of running two long rebars parallel to one another that ran the width of our patio area then taking a 2x4 board and running it perpendicular down the rebar pieces to push out excessive sand and make things even.

Then justin and his pops started laying the pavers.

Once all the tile was laid, we started building the steps (I say "we" but it was really all Justin).

We stuck with a really easy design since we are novice deck builders and because we just wanted something safe and simple. 

I love the steps because the can also be used as additional seating!

I placed some of my flower less pots to stage the space. You'll notice some missing pavers, we had to wait for them to come over from Spokane. They are now in place and the space is really coming together!

We're still working back here, (think gray paint :]). Ill be back soon to update you on all that jazz!   

Hope you're all having a great summer!

The Office

The Office is one of our favorite TV shows but it was also a room in our house that needed to be addressed.  Our Office or the Dobson Den has been a long time coming.  We knew right when we purchased our house that we wanted this room to be an office/last option guest room. 

Here is how the room started out.  It had a horrible pink paint job and some weird burgundy carpet that was just lying on top of the hardwoods.  It was all sorts of bad, but this sort of bad is totally our thing.  We could see the potential.

After a paint job and adding some moulding near the top of each wall, this room became our temporary master since the upstairs was phase II of our home makeover and was completely inhabitable.

It completely lacked style and storage but we needed somewhere to rest our weary heads and this was our only option for the time being!

That spring, we decided that this was the perfect room to add french doors to our back yard.  Our house is so old it didn't have a sliding glass door so we wanted to make the back yard more accessible for us and our new pups.

Then we continued to sleep in there for another year... 

We finally moved upstairs and after we did we through the office furniture in there.

Here is what the room looked like right before Cru was born.  Spoiler: It's scary!

Then I got my crazy pregnant lady hands on it and now the space looks like this:

We're at a good stopping point for now.  It's definitely not near completed, it's a total "work with what we have" space. Now that the baby toys are getting to be more, I am thinking of reworking this into and office/playroom/guestroom.  I have some fun ideas but it will have to wait until fall when we are done with the exterior projects.