There's always money in the banana stand.

We need to get at that banana stand...

So, I've had a couple of people ask me where I got the duvet cover in this photo:

And the answer is La Redoute!  It's a great French company that sells clothes and home decor [I may have just bought some clothes from there...], and I'm a little bit obsessed.  It took me months to find this duvet cover.  Pathetic, I know, but I had this whole idea of what I wanted the room to look like, and I didn't want to get anything too girly [for D's sake], but it needed to be light and airy feeling.  It ended up costing us about £35 in the end, which wasn't too bad.

It got me thinking about how much we spent on furniture, etc. when we moved, and it wasn't actually all that much.  We needed to move somewhere outside of the city because of the little monster, and we really needed a place with at least 2 bedrooms [not that we use more than one at the moment, but that's beside the point...], and we ended up finding one with three!  Perfect.  We love having the spare room for when my parents come to visit [or if anyone else comes to visit since we live so far out of the city], and once the little guy gets a bit bigger he will actually sleep in his own room, which will probably be more traumatizing for me than him, since even when I put him in there for a nap I'm checking on him every 10 minutes to make sure he's still breathing [neurotic, I know...].

For today, we'll start with a budget breakdown of the master bedroom, since it's where we bought the most new stuff.  We ended up doing that room last when we moved in, because we knew we wanted a new bed, and didn't want to be moving our old bed back and forth since I was all full of baby by that point.  This was my inspiration [and I say 'my' inspiration because D couldn't have cared less... he trusts me... for the most part]:

from Coastal Living. 

1. Painting the walls:  We got all of our paint from Wickes, which sells it's own name brand stuff.  I wasn't sure when we started the nursery, but that turned out great, so we went ahead with the master bedroom.  The color we ended up choosing was Nickel, and we love the way it turned out.  I was going through a bit of a gray phase at the time, but it looks great [SO much better than the nasty cream color that was there before].  We did all of the skirting, dado rail, and wardrobes in a satin white, since they were in need of a lot of love as well.  Total paint cost: £45 [7.5 liters in total].

2. New bed.  We got the bed at a place called Paul Simon, and it's a great bed.  £800 worth of awesome.  This is the most we've spent on anything [not counting the wedding/engagement rings], but we figured it was worth the investment.  We spend so much time there!  Even with the baby [actually, I sleep better now that the little guy is out... I was SO uncomfortable for the last month that I was pregnant... did I mention I was 2 weeks late?].  I didn't actually realize how comfortable the bed was until after I had E.  Anyway, the bed is a mattress and divan, with a gray fabric base that has two drawers.  Delivery was free, and the guys even brought it upstairs and put it together for me [not sure they would have done that if I wasn't as big as a house at that point].

3. Headboard.  This is my shining moment in the bedroom, it only cost £10.49, and took me 20 minutes to put up.  A little backstory: I wan't actually planning on doing this... I was planning on doing this [from Martha Stewart]:

Cute, right?  I wanted to have a little desk area on the opposite side of the room between the windows, but I was having a really hard time finding a desk that would fit the space that didn't cost a fortune.  Plus, I'm impatient when it comes to doing stuff.  If I have a project that I'm really into, I want to do it immediately, and the idea of painting the shutters and putting them up on the wall without a desk or something under it for god knows how long drove me crazy.  Ridiculous, I know.  So instead of doing that, I decided to make them into a headboard.

I bought the shutters on ebay for a grand total of 50p.  Awesome!  I had to pay £9.99 for shipping, but a pair of shutters for £10.49 was pretty good.  I had originally wanted to put up some kind of barn door, or something up as a headboard anyway, so the shutters were perfect.  They needed a little cleaning up, but that was easy enough to do with a pan brush and some soapy water.  Once they were dry, I just screwed a 1x4 to the wall [we already had this, since I bought one to make a shelf in our old place] and then screwed the shutters into that end to end.  I think they look pretty cool, and the hubs always thinks I'm 'clever' when I do stuff like that... he wasn't sure what I was doing at first, but he always comes around when he sees the finished product.

4. Bedding.  The duvet cover was from La Redoute [as before], mattress protector [waterproof, just in case my water broke in bed] and pillow cases from Argos, fitted sheet from John Lewis.  Total cost: £60.

5. Cushions.  We already owned these.  I had bought them at Ikea when I moved to Whitechapel with a university friend over 6 years ago.

6. Bedside tables.  This was cool too.  I couldn't find any bedsides that I liked, because I wanted them to be a funky color, but high enough for our bed [which is about 3 feet of the ground].  After scouring the internet, I still couldn't find anything, so I dragged Dan to the furniture thrift store, and we found these two battered white bedside tables for £10 each.  Jackpot!  He carried them home on the bus [delivery was £18... no, thank you!], and I got to work.  I removed the doors, and used two tester pots of 'Pea' from Wickes [as before] and painted the carcass.  I then took some wallpaper that I had found at work [from Cole & Son] and covered the doors and the upper shelf to add a little bit of interest.  I then reattached the knobs and doors [I had to reverse one of the doors because the both opened the same way, which seems weird if they were a set to begin with...], and voila!  New bedside tables!  Total cost: £22.50.

7, Pictures behind the bed.  This was a free one also!  I took the frames that were on the wall in our old living room at the apartment, displaced the rock'n'roll collages that I made [I kept them though... maybe E will want them in his big boy room, when the time comes], and replaced them with wallpaper samples that may have been from work also [I had them sent there... ahh, the perks of being a professional interior designer]. Easy and free!

8. Dressers.  We got these at Ikea.  Cheapo Malm dressers at £35 a pop.  Total cost: £70 [I wanted my own dresser].

9. Wardrobes.  Built in!  We slapped a coat of paint on as mentioned before, and my dad brought over the old door knobs from their kitchen [they re-did their kitchen a couple years ago] and replaced the crappy ones in situ while I was in labor [it was over 56 hours, so he had plenty of time!].  Free - huzzah!

10. Window treatments.  Nightmare!  I couldn't find anything long enough for our windows that wasn't ridiculously expensive, so I thought it would be a good idea to make my own.  This would have been okay if I wasn't so cheap thrifty cheap an bought a £20 sewing machine.  Anyway, they're done and blackout lined.  I got the fabric and lining online through a google search [no idea where they came from!], and the tracks were from Ikea.  Total cost: £105.

Total cost for the room: £1,112.99.

YIKES!  Oh well, this was definitely our most expensive room to do, but we love it.  I do need to put something in between the windows.  I'm thinking this [from Visual Etiquette]:

House tour preview.

Since I said [months ago] that I would show off the house, here's a little preview of what it looks like [looked like, actually... pre-baby].

Here is part of the living area:

This is the guest bedroom:

Here is part of the master bedroom:

And my favorite [unused] room - the nursery:

There's still a bit to do in the bedrooms upstairs [just some decorations left to put up, really], but at the time I was too pregnant to finish, and now the little monster is out and takes most of his naps face first into mommy's boobies [what better pillows are there, really?], so it may be a while - unless daddy wants to give mommy some work time over the holiday weekend... hint, hint... daddy doesn't read this...

I'll go into detail about the rooms over time also.  We have some pretty cool landlords that let us paint the bedrooms, and we didn't actually spend too much on new stuff when we moved in [we're both cheap budget conscious, and I like refinishing furniture/making stuff up as I go], so it may serve as a good how-to go from a one bedroom shoebox to a three bedroom house on the cheap a budget.

We're not cheap...

New Start.

So it's been pretty busy over here since the little monster came along [but I don't mind that].  It's amazing how quickly the day goes by with this little guy, but he changes so much every day that I just don't want to miss a second of it.  I can't believe that he's already gone from this:

to this:

Come to think of it, I can't believe that I've changed that much in 8 weeks either.  I guess 28 hours of labor will really take it out of you...

Anyway, I'm going to try to get back into this blog thing [once the E-man decides to take his naps away from me - we're working on it...], and I'm starting work on refashioning some of my clothes, since all of our money is going toward diapers, formula, etc. [and all of my clothes end up getting drool on them anyway].  First up is this little number:

from dee*construction [the sweatshirt-blazer - though I do like the whole outfit].

Hopefully I'll have mine done for Monday, but that all depends on this little guy sleeping in his crib during at least one of his nap times [today I got 45 minutes, which is progress from yesterday's 20]...

Summer is here!

So I realized this morning that I should really take pictures of this house before the little man gets here and chaos reigns supreme... So today was spent cleaning and subsequently taking pictures [and remembering at all costs to put the camera back into the hospital bag fully charged].

[This was me today, but with far less effort into getting dressed... from milanmaternity.blogspot.co.uk]

But before I get into that whole mess - I am way excited that it has been 3 whole days of it feeling like it's May [before that it was more like January/February]!  Hence the need to go out and water all of the pretty flowers that our landlord left for us, as well as the daydreaming about living in a place where it doesn't rain, and we can have a sitting area that looks like this:

from bhg.com

I could totally kick back with a margarita or two on this lovely sofa - listening to some tunes, waiting for my burger... or lobster... you know, whatever...

See below for where to buy!

In the UK:

1. FSC Parasol, Lido 2m with base, £68.20 at John Lewis; 2. Ammero Sofa, £275 at Ikea; 3. Outdoor Cusion, £15 at Next; 4. Tam Tam stool, £15 at Habitat; 5. Coral Tapered Lantern, £25 at Debenhams; 6. Porcelain Tealight Holders, from £8 at Graham&Green; 7. Applaro Folding Table, £17.50 at Ikea; 8. Playnation Stripe Cushion, £20 at John Lewis; 9. Harlequin Scatter Cushion, £24 at John Lewis; 10. Anorak Kissing Robins Cushion, £45 at Heals.

In the US:

1. Build-your-own Chesepeake Platform Sectional, from $79 at Pottery Barn; 2. Smith & Hawken Patio Umbrella, $157 at Target; 3. Marimekko Apelsiini Pillow, $34.99 at Crate&Barrel; 4. Shine Company Side Table, $60 at Walmart; 5. Paddywax Candle, $13 at Macy's; 6. Square Modern Lanterns, from $7.50 at Pier1; 7. Decorative Garden Stool, $90 at JCPenney; 8. Yellow/White Geomatric Pillows [2], $56.99 at Target; 9. Fiona Outdoor Pillow, $34.99 at Crate&Barrel; 10. Ikat Outdoor Pillow, $35.50 at Pottery Barn.

Now to organize all of these pictures... and take out the trash.  Maybe after the little guy's hiccups stop.

Here comes the sun?

I was pretty psyched to see the sun over the weekend [and again yesterday!], but the lovely English weather has harshed my buzz once again by bringing the rain.  So I thought that a good way to get me a little excited about summer [if it ever arrives] would be to try to replicate a nice summery bedroom, a la this one:

from tatertotsandjello.com [best.website.name.EVER]

The room is so bright and sunny, and I love the blue/yellow/white-washed wood panelling behind the bed... and I'm now regretting every design choice I made in the house... See below for where to buy:

In the UK:

1. Logan Duvet Covers, from £30 at John Lewis; 2. Aspelund Bed, £99 at Ikea; 3. Herrup Rug, £35.99 at Ikea; 4. Linen Cushions, from £40 at Graham&Green; 5. Handle Mirror, £45 at Marks&Spencer; 6. Urusula Cable Knit Pouffes, £175 at Graham&Green; 7. Lindvend Side Table, £14.99 at Ikea; 8. Gold Ruched Throw, from £45 at Next; 9. Mandalay Roman Blinds, £22 at John Lewis; 10. Kramare wall light, £6.99 at Ikea.

In the US:

1. Basic Modern Rug, $39.99 at Target; 2. Pavillion Pillow, $20 at Pier1; 3. Brimnes Bed Frame, $129 at Ikea; 4. Organic Essential Blanket, from $59.99 at Pottery Barn; 5. Lemon Rope Pouf, $159.99 at Target; 6. Marimekko Pipperikera Duvet Cover, from $89.95 at Crate&Barrel; 7. Bamboo Roman Shade, from $38.24 at Walmart; 8. Scalloped Accent Table, $29 at Walmart; 9. Navy Scalloped Mirror, $19.99 at Target; 10. Husvik Wall Lamp, $29.99 at Ikea.

Still working on stuff in the house, but we're getting there... I'm a little bit slower than usual with the weight of the monster inside of me.  Lots of pictures to come, and in the meantime, I"m going to try to get this kid to do a little head-spin so he's facing the right way to get out... I'm picturing something like this:

I'm sure that's how it works.

Blast from the Past

It has been a while since I was on here, and lots of things have happened for us.  For starters, we moved out of central London, and into the suburbs.  Secondly, I'm as big as a house - getting there anyway.

So, since we're only a couple of weeks away from D-day, we've had to do A LOT of work on the house/getting ready for the little monster to show himself... and I'll post pictures of the room makeovers very soon.

Until then, I've decided to get back into the blog-o-sphere [I hate myself], and go back to my old tried and true see-something-I-like-and-try-to-replicate-it-on-the-cheap.  So here it goes:

Image from blimi.eu

I love the mix of industrial in the dining chairs and retro in the accessories and accent chairs in the foreground... not to mention the burst of lime.  See below for where to buy...

In the UK:

1. Round Facet Mirror, £110 from Next; 2. Forte Table, £399 from Made.com; 3. Just Staggering Framed Print, £45 from Graham&Green; 4. Bertoia Dining Chair, £130 from amazon.co.uk; 5. Bourbon Vintage Cabinet, £199 from Made.com; 6. Mies van der Rohe Style Apple Green Barcelona Chair, £289 from cultfurniture.com; 7. Metal 'Home' Hanging Letters, £25 from Debenhams.

In the US:

1. Raie 3-Drawer Chest, $199.95 from Pier1; 2. Swan Swivel Chair, $249 from Walmart; 3. Malachy Mirror, $199 from Crate&Barrel; 4. Stretched Typography Canvas (Set of 3), $79 from Pottery Barn; 5. Shell Round Dining Table, $105 from Walmart; 6. Obbligato Chair, $182 for 2 from Walmart; 7. Decor Shapes, $11 from ACMoore.

That's all for now, but I'll try to be better... we'll see how that goes.

Christmas Time

So I haven't really thought about Christmas all that much this year.  Probably because I'm not going to be back home in Maine.  It becomes just another day when you're not in familiar territory [not that I haven't been in London-town for the past 3 Christmases, but it's unfamiliar all the same].  Nevertheless, I decided to decorate the apartment yesterday.  Nothing to crazy [although D thinks I go overboard... how easily he forgets what my parents house looks like this time of year], and nothing new to add to the collection [I can't believe you can't buy 'Fetus' First Christmas' ornaments].

Ha! Oh, so creepy... [but one of the many reasons I haven't been on here in quite some time].

Anyway... all of this Christmas talk got me thinking about my dream Christmas-y looking house, and I found this little gem:

from homeforchristmas.co.uk

I'm all about the traditional stuff when it comes to Christmas.  Real tree [though ours is fake because I cannot bring myself to buy one of the sad little trees around here], red, green and white everywhere, stockings hung by the chimney with care [again, we have no chimney, but they go where the chimney would have been had this house not been converted into 3 apartments].  I've thought this all through... but how cute is this area?  Not out-of-control Christmas crazy, but simple and sweet... and the furniture would look great any time of the year.

See below for where to get your Christmas on:

In the UK:

1. Slumber Sofa, £999 at Graham&Green; 2. Linen Snowflake Stocking, £15 at John Lewis; 3. Knodd Bin, £10.99 at Ikea; 4. Snowflake Heart Decoration, £2.99 at John Lewis; 5. Nathalie Chair, £499 at John Lewis; 6. Red Ribbed Throw, £20 at Debenhams; 7. Mistletoe Spruce Garland, £17.50 at Marks&Spencer; 8. Ludde Rug, £23.99 at Ikea; 9. Natural Felt Cushion, £28 at Debenhams; 10. Red London Markets Cushion, £24 at Debenhams.

In the US:

1. Mia Chair, $199 for 2 at Walmart; 2. Brick and Bamboo Bin, from $13.97 at Walmart; 3. Estate Stocking, $19.99 at Target; 4. Cow Parade Rug, from $377 at Walmart; 5. Camdon Fir Garland, $30.99 at Target; 6. Vaughn Sofa, $1399 at Crate&Barrel; 7. Ives Throw $69.95 at Crate&Barrel; 8. Felt Ornaments, $2 for 4 at Target; 9. Peace on Earth Pillow, $19 at Pottery Barn; 10. Ruffles Pillow, $29.95 at Pier 1.

Might give an actual update on what we've been up to once we figure out how to download pictures from our new camera... what camera comes without instructions??