Only took me about 15 months, but I finally managed to put something together on this wall. First we painted it green. Then, 9 months later, I picked up a free shelf at our church swap meet. I nailed it to the wall, half-painted, and set some stuff on top. Then Sara from A Vintage Poster sent me that sweet little orange elephant print. I knew I wanted to put some pictures on that wall, so I picked up some cheap frames at Michael’s, but I felt overwhlmed trying to figure out what colors to choose in order to coordinate with the already existing green wall and orange elephant print. Is there a website for this? I decided that my best bet was color explosion, so I grabbed some bright blue and yellow paint.

Here you can see T1 at birth, 6 months, 12 months, and 18 months.

I’m not sure I’m in love with it. In part, because I just kind of threw the frames on the wall without measuring, and I think the shelf is too far over to the left, and the frames too far over to the right. It also feels a bit cluttered. Maybe the frame the elephant is in needs to be painted white? Oh well, it’s good enough for the 6 months we have left.

This is my sidekick. He desperately wanted to nail holes into the wall, but I wouldn’t let him.

Source

I really want this. What would we make it say? Maybe TH’s last name+house.

I think an excellent birthday/Christmas gift for That Husband would be some terrariums, but they’re expensive to order from sites like Etsy, and I always felt a little overwhelmed at the though of DIYing it (I feel overwhelmed at the thought of DIYing pretty much anything). Bonnie wrote a really great post about some that she made though, and I’m feeling like it might be accessible after all!

Source

Now the real question is, do we have anywhere to put them that T1 won’t have access to. Lately our home has been stripped of pretty much any and all knick-knack style home decor unless it’s placed really high, because he is a bit of a terror that likes to pull everything down.

Before I left, I finally got around to taking pictures of our apartment for a tour of our third place. You can see our first apartment here, and our second apartment here. We are slowly building up a collection of items we’d like to keep forever, and I’m forcing myself to be patient while we don’t have the money to decorate our rooms to a Pinterest worthy level. My mom has created a beautiful space in her home, and it’s hard for me to remember that she’s been working at it for almost 30 years, while I’ve barely been married for 3.

This is the entryway, where every guest is greeted by the jogging stroller. It takes up a lot of space, but sometimes I use it as a high chair so it’s nice to have it next to the kitchen. The little teardrop vase is from CB2 and filled with turbinado sugar. Random, but free, and That Husband likes to dip his finger in and have a little taste of something sweet every once in awhile.

To the right of the entryway is the kitchen. Kristin of Bien Living chose the green shade that we painted in here and I love how it brightens up the space a little bit. I want to have a kitchen space that is free of clutter and items littering the counter, but I can’t seem to get rid of enough space to make that happen!

To the left of the entryway is the guest bathroom/T1′s bedroom.

The speaker on the counter blasts white noise whenever he is sleeping, and the pitch black room helps him sleep longer.

Next our bedroom (which is technically not the master bedroom in this layout but we liked it better for our bedroom), with our bed still sitting on the floor. Maybe in Dallas we can get a cheap metal frame to set it on? T1 likes it this way because it’s low enough that he can climb up on top of it. My jewelry display to the left of the dresser was free (just hammered a few nails into the wall) and is so convenient.

Each time we move I put a new quote above our bed. This time it is If you asked me to say why I loved him, I can say no more than because he was he, and I was I. The colorful square to the right of the closet is a picture of TH’s childhood home, and will look a little out of place until I order a second photo that depicts my childhood home. I thought that was a sweet little touch for our bedroom.

Our bathroom.

The room I like the least, the office. Why can’t we keep have it more organized? When we move to Dallas we plan to finally invest in some storage, instead of stacking things on the floor.

My desk to the left was $20 on officemax.com, and I think TH’s cost about the same. The changing table to the far left, and the matching cabinets/drawers in the middle were free from someone moving out of our building the same time we moved in. As you can see we change diapers right next to my computer desk. It stinks (literally). The baby prison keeps the baby out of our stuff while still allowing us to be in the same room we are.

The green wall is T1′s little corner. I’m working on getting some more stuff on the wall.

Whew! Let’s look at a much prettier and better organized room. Kristin is responsible for many of the beautiful pieces you see in this room that I’m excited to reuse in our next place. She chose the paint color, and linked me to the blue/white bowl in the left of the frame,t he rug under the dining table, the futon, the pillows on the couch, the white coffee table, and the blue table that sits next tot he couch that you can’t really see from here.

Our last living room looked like this, and without Kristin’s house I think that’s exactly what this one would look like as well. Using her long distance design service* though, I was able to see the potential our living room had, even on a limited budget. I’m going to have her draw up a board for my office when we move because I think it’s time for me to be working in a space that helps me feel creative and inspired. Maybe That Wife will make enough money through advertising for me to help fund that little project of mine!

So that’s our Chicago apartment. What you can’t really see here, are the breathtaking views, which I’ve showed before here. Our next place won’t have the same views, but we do think it will probably be a HOUSE. I’m really looking forward to renting a house and having a backyard and a garage once again.

*Kristin is a friend (she was Mrs. Quiche!) and provided her long distance design services free of charge. She didn’t ask me to blog about this but I wanted to anyway because I liked it so much.

Last night before I went to bed I decided to record what it looked like outside. When I woke up this morning it was clear and no snow was falling, but by the time I came back up from my workout it was a blizzard again. Up until this morning my CSA and Co-Op were telling me I would need to drive out and pick up my deliveries tonight! They have since changed their mind and I’m going to go pick things up tomorrow.

Too bad T1 is so young that he doesn’t care about the snow. It would be fun to take him out to build a fort after the wind dies down!

Chicago Blizzard 2010 from Jenna on Vimeo.