Together, Life is Sweeter

As August winds down and September approaches, we are putting the final touches on the last two major projects around our house - The Boys Rooms.

Kinda crazy that we will actually have two of these crazies running around our house soon. Well, one won't run for a while, but you get what I'm sayin...

With the arrival of Little #2 pending, we decided to move Gabe to a BIG BOY Room this summer. The transition has had its ups and downs, but overall it's been a good move for Goober.

And here it is! Gabe's New Room:

I'll be honest, Gabe really didn't have a whole lot of say in the space. Ha! But I incorporated his love of trains and planes, well really anything with wheels, and I think he likes it just fine :)

I reused some of the decor from his baby room, as well as other items we already had around the house. Then added a few new pieces of art to make it a little more Big Boy friendly!

This locker cabinet was a huge score at a garage sale a few years back. It had been sitting in the basement just waiting for the right space. I made the wood top mainly because the metal corners were a bit sharp, but it also helped blend it with some of the other decor.

His Railroad map is one of my favorite items in our whole house. I found this at the flea market a few years ago, and built a wood frame out of simple lumber. It's huge, awesome, and I love it!!

These were just empty frames that I had sitting around, because lets me honest, I have a lot of empty frames just sitting around...

I still have a vision of a long shelf toward the top of his wall to house his wood train and other "stuff" that he has accumulated in his 3 years of life, but that can wait.

For now we are super happy with the new space!!

I feel like we have been working in overdrive around here!! Sorry blog world...between chasing Gabers, grad classes, and projects, blogging has fallen to the bottom of the list. Don't get me wrong, we are enjoying some of the more relaxing moments of summer, but we have also been doing A LOT of work around the house. Checkin things off the To Do List definitely helps calm this mama's nerves that at least the house will be ready for Little #2...

So here is a (not so) quick recap of some of the projects of the last few months...

1. GARDENS :)

I had been wanting to put in a garden for a few years, but wasn't exactly sure where it should go. The past few summers the back yard had gotten really, really wet, which led me down the path of raised gardens. Well, we stumbled upon some nice cedar boards at the ReStore and I took it as a sign! They weren't too difficult to put together (says the prego lady who didn't help a whole lot) but hopefully they will yield lots and lots of yummies! I have had to battle the crazed rabbits that live in this neighborhood, but we are still seeing lots of green progress!

Checking the tomatoes!

2. TREES

Staying with the outdoor theme, we finally have some trees planted on our property! And I think they look mighty fine! Grandpa Don and Grandma Looney thought the Schmelzer boys should have some trees, and so we headed to the nursery. For those of you up on your trees, we put an Autumn Blaze in the front and a Crimson King in the side yard!

I love when you stumble upon 3 foot sections of rebar when digging in your yard...

3. LAUNDRY ROOM

So the other main theme has been storage. With the coming of Little #2, there is a real need to consolidate our junk and to make better use of space we currently have. One such space was our laundry room. We needed this to have much more functional storage and to be prettier :) I wish I had a "before" picture, but I don't, which actually may be is for the best. Just think of white wire shelves, with little functionality, and lots of junk thrown basically everywhere. That's pretty accurate.

Well, once again a trip to ReStore saved the day. We found some really nice, solid wood cabinets. After a few coats of grey paint, up they went. Noah painstakingly created floating shelves to fill in the remaining space, and Jeff gave the whole room a facelift with a coat of paint. Somehow along the way, we also inherited a new washer and dryer, which just caps of this redo!

4. GARAGE LOFT

As Little #2 is set to arrive this fall, our spare bedroom upstairs will no longer be "spare". Which means its function as a storage area is no more. So again, we needed to find a home for the stuff which currently resides there. Most could go to the basement, but space is limited there as well. So there needed to be a shift... stuff from the basement up, stuff from the spare room, down. We decided to create a "loft" in the garage to store many of the seasonal and extra items that we don't need often. Noah came up with an awesome plan, and it turned out great.

And if your are curious as to what Gabe does during these projects, the answer is dance parties in storage trailers...

And now to the...

5. BASEMENT

Over the last few years, we have made improvements to the basement, but one item left we just hadn't got to was electrical work. Well, Uncle Kuhly came over and helped us check another box from our list. We were able to add some additional plug-ins, switches, and lights, to make the whole space much, much more livable. We also moved some furniture and added a beadboard accent wall to what has become my craft area. I will eventually pretty it all up, but right now I am totally ecstatic with just how it is :)