Surf Wall Art

While Lowell is working on the furniture for Little Lowell's room, I am working on some new artwork for the room. I loved all of the surf inspired artwork at my favorite store but did not like the price tag at $50 per plaque.  I was pretty successful at recreating a few Christmas plaques over the holidays so I thought I would give these a try as well.

Lowell cut me a few pieces of wood and I broke out my paint brushes. I am very happy with the finished project and hope to make a few more over the next few weeks to finish up this project.

Playroom: Favorite Room In The House

The downstairs bedroom has undergone the most changes in the three years we have lived in this house. It started out as a home gym and was a boring white color much like the rest of the house.  I decided to get a little adventurous and painted this room a dark blue color.  That color lasted about a week. The only reason it lasted that long was because I knew it would take at least four coats of a nice beige to make it go away!  The beige gym turned into a beige office and that lasted for a couple of years.  The office never really got used and last year when Little Lowell's toys were taking up every inch of our living space we decided to turn this space into a playroom.

Now that the toys are under control in this room it feels like we have reclaimed the rest of our house. I organized and cleaned the room while my little guy was sleeping, but the room hardly ever looks this tidy.  The room usually looks like someone just finished playing, went out to get a snack and will be back any minute to resume playing.  Usually after I clean up the room Little Lowell gives me a look that says "Hey, why did you put all of my toys away!" He usually then goes right back to pulling everything out.  I really don't mind that this room is usually a mess, because that just means that it is actually getting used.

My mom got Lowell the red play kitchen for Christmas and he spends so much time there everyday.  He loves to open and close the doors and pretend to cook, although you are more likely to find him trying to cook his toy cars.

 It is a hard to tell in these pictures but we repainted the room a light yellow to match the family room.  The book case below was Lowell's in college and used to hold all of his textbooks.  Now it holds all of Little Lowell's smaller toys.  I painted it white to match the play table in the room.

  

All of the green bins are labeled and this helps with clean up.  I have also noticed that since I have labeled these baskets Lowell will help the help the little guy with clean up as well since he now knows where everything goes.

 

 Last year when we were putting this room together I knew we needed a play table. I wanted one that would also provide storage.  The table I was eying in the store was over $400, but we started looking at other options since that was not in the budget.  I was overjoyed when I found the exact same table in great condition on Craigslist for $125.  I convinced the lady to knock off another $25 and it was ours for 1/4 of the price!  Little Lowell always forgets that there are more toys under the table. When I pull the drawers out he usually doesn't come out of the room for a good 20 minutes, which in toddler time is like 2 hours.

 Although the drawers and baskets are great for stoarge I like having the larger toys up against the wall so Little Lowell can easily access these without asking for my help.

 We used pictures from a Curious George book and framed those in the white frames on the wall.

I hated having to cut up a book, but I think it really did help add something special to the room.  Little Lowell also enjoys the artwork and points at them and says "Monkey George!"

Under the pictures are the rain gutter bookshelves.  I wanted to have a lot of book storage without having to take up much space in the room.  This was the perfect solution and it added a colorful addition to the room.  I keep all of the board books on the bottom shelf for Little Lowell to get to on his own.  I love walking into the room and finding Little Lowell surrounded by books he pulled down as he is pretending to read them.

We have a couple of hooks by the door to hang up all of Little Lowell's backpacks.

 

 We love that the playroom has these double glass doors because we can still keep an eye on Little Lowell when he decides to close the door.  This room is right off the kitchen and family room so we spend most of our day downstairs

 Behind the play table is a little decal mural that we stuck up on the wall.  Little Lowell loves pointing out each of the animals.

 The bunting near the top was really easy to make. I just cut out the fabric and used fabric glue to attach it to the ribbon.

I made enough of these bunting banners to run them across most of the room.  One of Little Lowell's friends once told me that we must have lots of parties since we always have these banners up!

 We wanted some seating in here for adults, but didn't want to take up to much floor space. We found these large poofs at World Market and they are perfect to sit on and are great to hold all of the stuffed animals that Little Lowell has collected.

Although we had to combine our office and loft space upstairs we think it was worth it since we now spend so much time in this room.

 

When Little Lowell has someone to play with him in the room he does not want to leave and will sometimes close the door to keep me in there with him.  When he plays by himself he will usually spend about 20 minutes in there at a time, but again in toddler time that is like an eternity.

 

Going forward we still need to paint the baseboards and will eventually put up crown molding in the room. 

Linked to: Thrifty Decor Chick

Happy Birthday Bryce!

Little Lowell has become quite the little pro at attending birthday parties.  Two weekends ago we went to a birthday party for one of our friends from school whose son was turning one year old. Little Lowell had a blast; he was high-fiving Elmo, wanting to take another whack at the pinata and enjoying all of the good food. He spent the rest of the day talking about Elmo, bubbles and asking for more birthday cake.
This weekend we celebrated Cousin Bryce's 2nd birthday.  On Saturday morning when we told Lowell he was going to another birthday party he was running around the house yelling "birthday, birthday!"

Bryce is definitely Little Lowell's best buddy.  We were at the park the other day and a woman was calling for her son, who was named Bryce.  Little Lowell's eyes lit up, and he thought his cousin was  about to make a surprise appearance.  He was very disappointed when this other Bryce walked up and he spent the rest of our time at the park looking for his cousin.

We all had a great time at the party and can't believe how big these little ones are getting.  It seems like Miss Emily just arrived, and she is about to celebrate her first birthday in a couple of months.

 Little Lowell was happy to sit next to the guest of honor for cake time, but I am willing to bet that he was just as happy to sit next to the cake.

After the cake the boys went back to playing games. They were more interested in all of the lights as opposed to actually playing any games, but I have a feeling it won't be long before they are begging for tokens to play.

 (Lowell and Jim playing air hockey)

 (Playing Basketball)

 (Teamwork)

 (Miss Elizabeth)

 Lowell has been busy putting a new transmission in his truck, but now that he is done with that, he is ready to jump back to work on the long list of projects we have around here.  First on that list is finishing the furniture for Little Lowell's room.

 He has started sanding the dresser and nightstands and hopes to start on the bed frame this week.  The bed will probably take some time since there are so many grooves and slats to the fame.