Landon's Room - Photo Project

A child's room can be so fun. I always catch myself being pulled by some uncontrollable force into that department when we walk through Ikea or any other store. There is just something so fun about all of the colors, patterns, and unique wall decor.

When Ben and I first moved into this house, this is what Landon's room looked like....

My eyes squinted when I first saw this hideous salmon color. But I had a whirlwind of ideas of what we could do with this room. Of course like I mentioned before a room can't be transformed overnight - it takes time to add one added touch after another. To slowly add little things here and there and watch a room develop into what you pictured. That's the fun of it all!

First thing's first. Get rid of the pink. This picture doesn't even do it justice - trust us. 

It looked worse in real life! 

After looking over many paint swatches we decided to go with the color Blissful Blue by Sherwin Williams (6527). This was more what we imagined for this room. Yay, No more salmon! After putting in the furniture, and hanging up some shelving and pictures. This is what we were left with...

Ahhh, so much better. 

Welcome to Landon's room! If you were here at our house at this very moment he would be pulling your hand to come on in. He loves this space. Every day he asks us to come and play in his room with him. It's cute to see that he loves it so much. Actually it might just be the train table he loves so much...that's probably it! 

We tried to make this room a "reflection of him" in our eyes. His favorite things include trains, cars, dump trucks, planes, & boats. Typical boy right? 

So we had fun searching for things of that nature for this room. I hit the jackpot when I found this adorable bedding. It had everything I was looking for! It's the UTELEK duvet cover from Ikea. You can check it out Here. I just noticed they also came out with this one as well. Super cute for a little boys room! I just think happiness when I look at this bedding and all that it has going on. So adorable. 

This wall was pretty much the aftermath of my pregnancy projects with Jeremy. I think making art for a room can be so much more personal and special than buying overpriced pictures. So I got out the scrapbook paper and modge podge and got crackin. I can still remember the look on Ben's face when I'd start loading everything onto the kitchen table at 10:30 at night. As of right now - sleep is definitely the priority in this house! So let's be honest - these past few months that definitely isn't happening. But I'm thankful I was able to complete them when I did. It adds a little something special. 

I'm sure you noticed from the title of this post that it says "photo project". Well after staring at this big blank wall and sifting through pictures on pinterest  like this and this, the ideas came flooding in. 

Ben brought it to my attention that blacks now offers 4x4 picture prints. You can imagine my excitement! I don't have an Instagram account but I really love the look of the small square pictures. So I was pretty thrilled to hear about this. If I can remember correctly I think Ben got a kiss for making that discovery!

I went through our photos and picked out some of our favourites. 

Of course we had to include the people that Landon adores so much. Family and Friends!

We'll eventually add to the wall over time and switch out some pictures here and there as he grows, but I'd say we managed to get a good mix at the moment. And for those of you that are family and friends and haven't made it on the wall yet - you will eventually! I need to go through more pictures and ask people for permission first before I print out their face and pin it on the wall. This is just what we started with so far. 

I wanted to go with the whole picture clothes line sort of look - so I picked up these mini clothes pins from Michaels. They were the perfect size for this project and looked so cute attached to the string. 

Once I had all the pictures on the string and started to hang them up, I noticed something was missing. They didn't stand out exactly how I hoped they would. So I cut out squares of scrap book paper and glued them to the back of the pictures. Surprisingly this made a big difference. 

I really liked this look better. Next we had to decide on the height that the pictures should be. They had to be high enough on the wall so that Landon wouldn't be constantly trying to grab them and pull them down. Once we found our desired height, we added some nails, put small looped knots in the ends of the string and hung them up. 

We're really happy with how it turned out! It was a super easy project and I think it definitely makes this one big empty wall more complete now. 

If you're wondering about the change in the bedding - Landon had an accident on the blanket. Oopsy!

Once Landon gets a little bit older I think I might actually swoop them down more and add more strings of pictures under the last 2 on the bottom and maybe one more up in the left corner. But for now this is perfect for him and he loves pointing out all of the familiar faces:) 

Home Sweet Home & a Nursery for Baby

How is everything going with the new house? This is the question I'd say we get the most these days. Besides "When are you due?? Must be any day now right??"

 We have quite a collection of pictures stored from the progress over the past few months - and so many people have been wondering where our Home Sweet Home is. So we have much to share with you all.

Finally, we have found Home.

Feeling at home really is such an important aspect that affects the quality of any long stay in one place. It's the feeling of comfort and belonging. Unpacking those stacked boxes and knowing they won't be re-packed next year is honestly an indescribable emotion for us.

Neighbours are friends to us already, we've fallen in love with a living room window facing the front yard, and the trees. The TREES! I never thought we would be so thankful to have such big beautiful trees on our street.

To see squirrels and other wildlife running around our lawn, and to have couples walking by constantly with little ones in strollers. Most people might be thinking "Hmm, sounds like pretty normal stuff to me?" But for us, this is something we've been craving so bad that we weren't able to experience on Beaumont Crescent in Kitchener. But we are thankful for each place we've lived each year - it's given us a clear perspective of things that we really wanted in our first house. We've grown closer as a family, and of course become professional movers along the way!

We have many plans for this place and of course things will get done slowly over time - but we're loving the improvements so far. A huge thank-you is in order to my Uncle Mark for doing all of the painting for us! And for helping out with other repairs around here. Ben is becoming quite the handy man himself nowadays so he's excited about getting his hands dirty and tackling some bigger projects around here.

We'll update more when rooms eventually come together completely over time. We mainly just want to thank you all so much for all of your encouraging words and prayers for us during this big step - we appreciate it so much! We are so excited and thankful to be raising our family here and look forward to the future ahead of us. We were going to to do every single room in the house in one post - but figured that would be a bit much all at once. So we'll start out with one room at a time to make it not so overwhelming. For us I mean;) So we will bombard you with tons of pictures now. Which is the fun part anyway right? :)

We finally finished the Nursery! At 2 weeks before the little peanut's arrival. Well, we're sure he'll be fashionably late just like his brother...but it's still nice to feel like everything is ready and waiting for him. So here it is - officially complete!

Before and after pictures always seem to amaze me. To scroll from one picture to the next makes it seem like you just snap your fingers and "Viola! Big transformation all in a few seconds!" Not quite...

It doesn't show all of the little details like putting furniture and shelving up, making sure each picture frame is perfectly straight, and the tedious little jobs like hemming curtains and organizing the closet. But each hour of work that went into this room was fun for us in it's own way. 

It was our together time after Landon went down for the night. Just the joy of being together and taking the time to put so much love into something for someone that we will soon be holding tightly in our arms. The grumbles and laughs when things wouldn't turn out as expected - and to try hard to keep quiet since a little child was trying to sleep in the next room. 

The looks Ben would give me on an early Saturday morning when I'd ask him if he minded getting the drill to hang something up. I have to give my husband credit here for having so much patience with me. When he would see my excitement he just couldn't say no. I love you hunny! 

We wanted to do the same we did with Landon's nursery and place little things on his shelf that were meaningful to us. Like the music box from my childhood - the little bear figures were Ben's special touch from Germany, and the little lamb that belonged to my Grandmother. 

Pulling these little guys out of the box brought back lots of memories for us from the first time around. Anything that would sing or rumble was a favorite for Mr. Landon. He helped me pick some special ones that we should hang up for little brother. 

These pictures always make me smile when I see them. I had an idea in mind of what I wanted to put up on this wall - and just let my imagination go. So I busted out my scrapbook paper and some modge podge for these fun little projects to keep me busy while Ben played soccer in the evenings. 

What a coinsidence that this little music box plays the melody for "twinkle twinkle little star". :)

This "Too Small" bin is something that most mommy's will totally understand! Best idea ever! It has the perfect spot on the top shelf of the closet. I'll speak for Ben when I say that he is super excited about this!

I'm definitely liking the after picture of this room a whole lot better! We're ready for you little one. We just have a few more final touches to make to Landon's room and that will be the next room officially completed. So keep an eye out for that post coming soon. Thank you all so much for reading! Have a great week!

S