A Closet Fit for a Doll(house)

Nora Kate's closet is done! I had mentioned before that I came up with an idea about creating a dollhouse in Nora Kate's closet.  The amazing Holly Romm created it!  First, I met with Holly to explain my vision and if we could do it. She loved it and made me even more excited about it! I met with the Closets of Virginia and we got to work. And by we, I mean my dad who did the demolition and painting, the trash guys I paid $40 to haul all the existing materials away, the closet installer, and Holly.

My dad came for 2 different relaxing visits to see us and do manual labor.  Sometimes I forget that my dad is 71. Seriously, can I still be doing manual labor when I am 71 (probably not since I don't do it at 34--but you know what I mean).

Here is the before picture of what her closet looked like. The closet did not have a lot of space to hang clothes up. It was mainly shelves and cubbies, which just collected crap, but not a lot of clothes.

The cubbies are the first thing you see 

the hanging room was small and difficult to use

I'd made some crack at my dad--that's his "watch it kiddo" face! ha

Starting the demo: It was so loud in there as he was pulling everything off the walls. It echoed-we finally stuck cotton balls in his ears. He's a trooper!

A little helper! 

After the mud and all the holes were fixed, my dad painted the whole thing with "Super White" by Benjamin Moore. 

Ready for new shelving!!

Next the new shelving was installed. The bottom half is where we will store her doll stuff. When she gets older we will remove the bottom shelf and add another bar on the left side and the hanging right side will be left open to give room for longer clothing.

Holly came and started painting! She first painted the whole closet a beautiful blue color and then clouds all over, including the ceiling. 

Holly came back the next day to complete the dollhouse look.  

The grass and flowers continue all the way around

All we need now is some doll furniture and a little girl to play in it!

(her latest smile face--sigh)

I am so happy with how the closet turned out. It is better than I could have imagined! 

There was one wall in her room that I never knew what to do with. It was the first thing you see when you walk in her room and because of the roofline I never knew what to do with since it is a half wall. I did not feel like I could hang pictures on it. Holly suggested painting a print on it with her name written on it.  It is so cute! I love it and really completes her room. I told Billy it really "needed" it, he told me I need to learn the meaning of "need". Nevertheless, I'm happy with it!!

Here is the wall plain before

The after!

A bonus sweet little brother in this picture!

Now I am going to fill the closet back with her clothes and get settled back into her room.  I love her room and feel like it is complete now.  

We are getting closer to the renovation-our start date is January 11, 2016!! 

Ready, set, keep waiting a bit longer & a new dollhouse closet

We are getting closer and closer to the renovation.  Thankfully, I am running after 3 kiddos or I would not think about anything else. But like most big events in my life, I try not to think about how I am going to handle the difficulties until the day arrives.  I was telling my best friend that I wasn't worried about what we would do during the reno because I had bought a $40 toaster oven at Costco.  She looked at me sideways and asked if that was I all normally cooked in at home.

It went something like this:
"have you decided if you are going to move out during the renovation?"
"No, I bought a toaster oven."
"What?"
"At Costco, for $40, it is great"
"What?"
"So I can cook and we can just hang out in the basement"
"What?"

It made me realize that I will be much more disrupted that I had thought and we are going to move out for a couple months. Hilton has a branch that owns apartments in different buildings in the area-they are fully furnished and there is a set daily rate that includes insurance, cable, internet, electricity, etc. I am not going to move our furniture.  So if we can show up with our clothes, I will move out.  Billy is so excited that someone else was about to talk some sense in me and I can stop talking about this magic toaster oven.


A month ago, I took Nora Kate to the American Girl Doll store as a celebration of potty training.  We had a blast. My parents gave us my Samantha doll when I was growing up.  We had her cleaned at the store and she is as good as new.

We also bought a "just like me" doll that we named, Molly.  Nora Kate was obsessed with the doll house at the store.

I knew we wanted to buy her this doll house, but I have a weird thing with their rooms being clean. I feel like if you have a clean clutter free sleep space, you sleep better.  I came up with the idea of transforming her closet into a doll house.  Her closet has existing built ins but I never felt like they were a good use of the space.  There were a lot of cubbies but not a lot of space to hang her clothes.  Billy's work partner's sister does faux finish so I called her and we came up with a plan. We are completely gutting her closet and going to start from scratch. I am having new built ins put in and Holly, the painter, will come and make the inside of the closet look like the inside of a dollhouse. She is also going to paint a print on the low hanging wall due to the dormer in her room.  I do not know what exactly to do on that wall, so a paisley print and her name will be put there.  I cannot wait!

This should all be done mid September, so i will post all the pictures when it is completed!

BUT I have plans for the kitchen and I am meeting with the cabinet people next week when the kids are back in school...ohhhh it's getting closer and closer! More on that later!

It all goes by fast...

A little off topic of my renovation journey....

My uncle John's public memorial is today.  Our family traveled to Florida a few weeks ago to gather  to celebrate his life privately.  It was everything I would want my life celebration to be, filled with love, laughs, tears and the people who held him the most dear.  It is impossible to watch my aunt and his four daughters go through the pain and suffering of losing him.  I once asked my mom if she missed her parents.  She said, "yes, I think you miss your parents forever".  I am afraid that she is right. My uncle was one of those people that you always wanted to be around.  He was funny, loving, smart, made you feel like you were the most important person in the world.  He listened intensely. I never felt that he was just waiting for me to stop speaking so he could say something. He loved his family fiercely and I am grateful that I was lucky enough to be part of that love.

When you start having kids people are constantly telling you to cherish every moment because it all goes by so fast.  As my oldest just turned 5, I completely agree.  I feel like I just had him.  His tiny hands and feet have been replaced by "kid" feet and hands. He was just an infant and now he is a boy.  It was fast and I know that it will only go by faster. I realize that my time as a child must have flown by for my parents.  I can now appreciate how it must feel for my parents to see me with my 3 children.  I wonder if they think, "but she was just an infant, how can she have her own infant".

As I reflect on my time with my uncle, I do not understand how his life went by so fast.  I think about his mom holding him as an infant and how he must have grown so fast in her eyes. My time with my parents generation has been so special to me, but I always assumed they would always be around.  There is something so sad that this bubble has been broken.

So yes, lady at the supermarket, I will cherish every moment with my kids, but also with my parents, uncles and aunts.  It all goes by so fast.

Nora Kate's Room

When we lived in North Carolina, we did a nice nursery for Liam.  He was our first and we didn't know any better.  I spent hours and hours looking at boy nursery pictures online.  Spent countless childless hours looking for the perfect bedding for our sweet baby.  I made my parents paint polka dots along the top of the room for a border look, without having to use an actual border.  Then Liam came into our lives and we could not have been happier.  He stay in our room in a pack and play until he was 8 months old.  Billy referred to his nursery as an upstairs living room.  One of the nicest rooms in the house that no one ever used.  Sigh!

matching a plastic form to the bumper

Tracing it on tracing paper to the plastic

My dad's an engineer and did the math to make them perfect

The first polka dots

Painting them on

Fixing the valance

The finished room

Yes, it was cute and I am glad we did it, but seriously, we matched the polka dots to the bumper that you can't even keep in the crib when the baby sleeps there (but since he never slept in his crib, it stayed in there for a long time!). Honestly, when we moved, it was my hardest room to part with. 

So when our sweet Nora Kate came along, we did not do a nursery because we did not want to throw our money away we were moving and then by the time we bought our house, it seemed silly to do it when she was 6 months old.  So I decided to use the "nursery" money and put it into her big girl room and bedding.  My parents gave us my old antique furniture that I grew up with so I didn't need to buy furniture. The room that we made her's was already pink with one brown wall.  It was the room of a pre-teen so once we rid the room of pre-teen angst, we were ready to roll.  I liked the color pink so we painted the brown wall, pink the match the rest of the room.  

                                  

The Brown Wall

I went to pottery barn and sold a kidney to decorate their rooms.  Seriously, why is there stuff so cute?  I think that they merchandise is well made, so that (sort of) lessens the blow.  I knew I wanted to do blue and pink for her room.  I found this set and loved it.  Apparently, college girls were coming and buying the quilt for their dorm rooms! I felt like that was a good sign, since I decorated her room for her to grow into it. 

The Elephant pillow matches her crib bedding

I added this bolster pillow to break up the square and rectangles

She has two window seats in her room that begged for cushions. I imagine her sitting on them with friends gossiping or talking on the phone about how WONDERFUL her mom is, girls do that...right!?!

I wanted to make the pillows out of fabric that she could age with and would not been too young looking.  I had no idea how much pillows cost. The main expense is the foam on the inside.  I was shocked! I found this fabric at an outlet store.  It is outdoor fabric so will do well not to fade in her window. 

A perfect fit!

The next thing was the sun bursts over her windows.  The fabric that was there was brown and had pink and orange polka dots. The previous owner had made them herself and you could tell! I had some new ones made which ended up being much more difficult than I had anticipated.  The sunburst is a perfect half circle with an extra inch down on each side. I had it measured professionally and then they made a wooden frame to go around the window and the material uses velcro to attach it.  I had black out material put on the outside of the fabric for two purposes: 1) to keep light out 2) so pink elephants wouldn't be seen from the front of our house. I decided on a "younger" looking fabric to make sure her room didn't look too mature.  I know I will have to replace this print in the future, but thought it was a perfect compliment to the slight elephant theme I have in her room. 

The before

The fabric up to see what it would look like

The elephants up!

Lastly, I wanted to replace her light fixture.  Both of the kids rooms had outdated ceiling fans.  There were two issues, they were hung too low and they were ugly.  So I did not want to spend the time remounting them if I really did not like them, so we replaced both lights.  Billy really wanted to put another ceiling fan in, but I disagreed.  What is it with men and ceiling fans??  I went back to my outlet lighting store and found this adorable chandelier.  I was a little weary of it being pink and wondering how that would "age" with her, but someone suggested I could always paint it later if pink did not match her future room colors. 

The Fan

I had her initials made from a Etsy shop and hung them above her crib.  I am not sure where will be put them once her crib is moved out.  Maybe above her bed? 

I did a picture gallery with some white frames I found at pottery barn that were one sale! I think it is very sweet and I can change out the pictures as she grows. 

I bought these mirrors from Target.  I wanted to do something behind her door and think mirrors are a great way of using wall space without spending a lot of money on art. 

We have ordered a nice chair for her room to replace the glider.  It should be here is about 8 weeks.  I decided on a light cream (almost white) fabric because I want her to use it for a long time. We decided on a slipcover so it can be washed if needed.  

Once we move the crib out, I will probably center her bed and maybe move a dresser next to the bed to double as a night table.  This may give her more play room on the other side of the room.  I love her room and love going in there! I hope she enjoys it as much as I do.