Baby Boy Nursery Inspiration!

Ok, its offically just going to be baby boy week here on the blog! I can't help myself. Here is my inspiration board for our baby boy's bedroom, playroom, and bath accessories :) Everything below is from Restoration Hardware Baby & Child, where I plan on registering for the "cute" stuff.

I also got this name banner from The Land of Nod. (As you can see, we are going for a planes theme). We have the name picked out but we are going to keep it a secret until the baby is born! (TWICE in the last month I have thought distant Facebook friends had already had their babies based on how they would reference the baby by name on their status updates... Only to be shocked when I finally hear the baby is born several weeks or months later! Weird isn't it?)

Baby Boy Clothes!

Thanks everyone for the sweet comments about our baby boy on the way - they mean so much to me! :)

So lets continue on the topic of baby boys! I remember some of my friends telling me their one disappointment with having a boy is that they are not as much fun to shop for... So far, I COMPLETELY disagree!! I've had so much fun shopping for little boy outfits and pajamas that I cannot even help myself! Here is a collage of a few things I just LOVED:

From Nordstrom, Baby Gap, Serena & Lily, and Carters :)

Holding the clothes makes me just want to hold my little sweetie!!

Boy or Girl? It's a..... !!!!!

We had a gender reveal party this weekend with our families...

It's a BOY!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So, so excited! We feel beyond blessed :) 

Restore Deck Resurfacer - One Year Later

If you remember, last year we had to repaint our deck because of a violation we received after our city did exterior inspections on all of the houses. Wanting a quick fix and knowing we are going to rebuild the deck within a few years anyway, we opted to try Restore Deck Liquid Armor Resurfacer. (You can see the link to the original posts here and here). In case you aren't familiar with this product and don't want to take the time to read the previous post, this product is basically a really thick, sandy paint that is supposed to fill cracks and resurface your deck. It comes in a huge array of colors (we chose "bark") and at first I loved the impact! It brought our red stained, worn out deck back to life with the rich even chocolate (errr, bark) color! I thought it was amazing.

I'm sorry to say, however, that it has NOT held up well! Not well at all.

The coat has worn thin in sooo many places and you can see the original wood coming through. (Don't be distracted by the cute pup and pretty mums!)

The whole entire deck is like this. Even in areas we never even walk.

The area by the door is the worst though. It looks like it aged 20-years in one year. UGH!

Overall now the texture of the deck is just hideous. I'm sure if we bought another few gallons we could put on another layer and fix it up, but I'm also afraid if we make the coating thicker it will wear even faster. And I don't really want to spend my money to fix a problem I don't think I should have had to fix in the first place if it were a better quality product! It doesn't sit right with me that a company becomes even MORE profitable because they make a crappy product you have to keep replacing, so I have a hard time giving them any more of my money. 

The other frustrating thing is that to redo the current deck at this point would really not be fun. Sanding it when it was red and worn would have been one thing, but trying to sand and strip it now with this sandy, gunky texture it would nearly be impossible.

SO, for now we've decided to let it look like crap and then next summer we'll talk more seriously about replacing the entire deck and/or doing a better short fix. (Thank goodness my city doesn't do exterior inspections every year!)

Overall, I would not use this product again. It was a quick, cheap fix and quite frankly we got what we paid for!! 

Painting Mistake #9483294829

AghhhhHHHHHhhhhh!!!!!!! Here we go again. I think I have more posts now on painting mistakes than I do on painting tips. Oh well, such is life.

So, we are working on building built-in cabinets in our kitchen around the refrigerator (super excited!) We have the basic frame built and decided to prime before installing the shelves/trim/etc. because it would give us easier access to the nooks in the crannies in the back of the unit. So far, so good.

(And yes, many more posts on this project coming soon!)

In all of our PAST projects, we've used Kilz primer and its worked incredibly well. It stinks to high heaven when you are applying it, but the smell usually dissipates very quickly as it dries, and it dries within a few hours. (The label even says it is dry within the hour) Works for us!

Until the lady with pregnancy brain is the one sent to Home Depot, and buys a different version of Killz than we've used in the past!

Instead of buying the Kilz 2 Latex Primer (on right), I bought Kilz Complete (on left).

I should have been tipped off when Evan started telling me how it was going on better than he ever remembered (I guess thats the pro! Evan thought it went on thicker and smoother)

HOWEVER, the stuff stinks. LIKE REALLY REALLY REALLY STINKS!

Of course I kept my distance and was upstairs or outside during the afternoon while he was working, but I remember thinking as he was finishing priming that it smelled faintly stronger than I remembered. (Of course I chalked it up to my heightened sense of smell... at first...) But come 10:30 at night when we needed to close the windows on the first floor before heading up to bed, the smell became CONSUMING and I could start smelling it upstairs. Well, that was an instant deal breaker for me so at 10:45 we packed our bags and headed to my in-laws to sleep. Being pregnant, I'm not taking a any chances! 

Now its Sunday and we have every window open in the house and every fan we own blowing at high speed. Still, Tuckie (the dog) and I are on the deck enjoying the fresh air and I think this is where we will be parked until heading back to my in-laws again tonight! The room STILL stinks but it is getting much, much better.

Why the difference? I think it all comes down to the fact Kilz complete is oil based and the Kilz 2 we usually use is Latex (and water based). We've only ever used Latex paints before in our house projects and I would absolutely stick to them going forward. Even though they say oil based primer is more durable and smoother, we've had such good experiences with the Kilz latex paint in previous projects that without a doubt any benefits of using an oil based primer are outweighed by the terrible smell issue! I'm sooooo mad I didn't look closer at the label! I don't know what I was thinking.... Oh well, lesson learned. Again!

For more posts on my painting mistakes, go here: 

Painting Tips I've Learned from Mistakes I've Made

Fixing Another Design Mistake

Lately!!

I feel like I say this every time I post, but I'll say it again: It's been too long!

I have a dozen projects and updates to share, but instead of delving into each one I'll just give you the overall big picture of what I've been up to lately.

• First and foremost I'll say that lately it has been babies on the brain!! I'm currently 17 weeks 5 days :)We find out the baby's gender next week! I can honestly say I've never been so excited for anything in my life (with the exception of maybe my wedding!)
• We are slowly putting the nursery together. We got the crib and the changing table!
• This weekend I started getting out the fall decorations.. It has been so cool here the last couple of days, I love it!
• Finally started buying some maternity clothes. It was really rough at first (too many low quality EXTREMELY high priced items) but finally found some things I like that are SO comfortable and didn't break the bank.
• Cravings.... This week its frozen yogurt with fresh fruit! Could be worse ;)
• We also spent a lot of Labor Day weekend working on a kitchen project that I will share soon... :)

Hope you are all doing great, if anyone even still reads this!! I promise I'll give more detailed updates soon