Before Blogging Throwback Thursdays #4 - One Fish, Two Fish

This month's party snuck up on me.  I've been super busy with the end of the school year's physical party planning, and the blogosphere has been jumping with the big Blog Party being co-hosted by a dozen fantastic bloggers.  Last month we had a great turnout, and hopefully we'll get a nice turnout despite my lack of planning.  So having done absolutely no planning, I got up this morning and walked around the house looking for something to take pics of.  Here's what I came up with.  The kids' Under The Sea bathroom.

This project started when we had to rip into the wall behind the shower in the toilet alcove.  We had some frozen pipes, and there was no access panel, so we had to cut a hole into the wall to fix the leaking pipes.  We wanted to keep access to the pipes available, but I didn't want an ugly door, so we built this removable recessed magazine rack.  It's basically a box with some doweling, and some applied case molding.  The whole unit can be pulled out if need be, because it just sits in the hole with no nails or anything.

As long as we were ripping into walls, I figured that was as good a time as any to replace the salmon colored toilet with a white one, pull down the apricot & blue floral wallpaper, remove the speckled tile wainscoting, and pull up the yucky bathroom carpet(why?!)  The tile floor was ugly and missing in a few spots, and we didn't have the budget to replace it.  I found an ugly $12 remnant piece of sheet vinyl flooring and flipped it to it's back side and painted it a sandy mix of colors with a couple of trompe l'oeiul accents like this starfish.

I found a remnant piece of green shag carpeting that I thought looked like anemones, and had it cut and bound into rugs for in front of the sinks and tub.

The whole room was painted including the ceiling.  I wanted the walls to look like a giant picture book, so I painted my sea critters in a cartoony style.  These floating shelves went in over the toilet.

The window needed an easy care valance, and what could be lower maintenance or more appropriate than a fishing net.  I got this net at the craft store, and boy did it ever stink when I pulled it out of the package.  If you're planning on recreating this look, make sure and give yourself time to air your net out outside for a couple of days before bringing it in.

The bathroom had a giant plate glass mirror like you'd find in a movie theater restroom.  I created a frame for it with 1x4 lumber and wrapped the frame in hemp rope.  It was easy to do, but my hands were torn up something awful by the time I finished wrapping the frame even with leather gloves.

Not wanting to miss a detail, I painted a switch plate cover at the local paint your own pottery store,

and hung the shower curtain from little fish hooks.

I'm linking this up to A Glimpse Inside's Catch a Glimpse Thursdays, Paisley Passions' Thrilling Thursdays, Funky Junk Interior's Saturday Night Special, Remodelaholic's Anonymous, and I <3 Naptime's Sundae Scoop.  That's my Before Blogging entry, now let's see yours.

Remember this is a party for anything you bought, made, or did Before Blogging.  Could be something big or little, just something you'd like to share.  This link will be open for a week, so you have plenty of time to take a pic and link up.  You can grab a party button here.

Before Blogging Throwback Thursdays - Let's Get This Party Started

I've got my party dress on, and there are hors d'oeuvres trays out on the buffet.  Fingers crossed that my guests will show up.  Remember this is a party to show off some of the things you've made, done, or bought from Before Blogging, and since I know you all existed pre-blogging I can't wait to see what you bring. 

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I showed you Snuggle Bunny's room makeover back in November.  I had made it over while Computer Genius was away on business.  The skateboarder/snowboarder theme should work for at least several years.  When Whirling Dervish was in his tweens, I made over his room from the child like room with felt wall,

 to a NY Jets theme that will take him all the way to the college years.  Raised by Buffalo Bills fans, WD is his own person, and a rabid Jets fan.  We hung a NYJets wallpaper border and nailed half round molding at the top and bottom of it at chair rail height.  I hand painted the football field wainscoting.

I painted out his bi-fold closet doors to look like lockers.

We built a bed with trundle underneath.  It could use some magic eraser action.  I love the metal locker bins we found at Lowe's.  I painted them Jets' green.

His bedding set came with a coordinating striped bed skirt, but we didn't need it with the platform bed.  So I used the fabric to make coordinating valances, and dress up his desk chair.

There are football shaped footholds in the end of the bed.  He no longer needs them as a teenager, but he was a very small tweener.  He uses the one foothold as a special cubby, now.

Above his bed, is a magnetic scoreboard.  I made it personal with his name being the name of the field at the Meadowlands, and painted the improbable score(Jets 42, Patriots 18) in glow-in-the-dark paint.

He has all the Jets branded accessories possible.

WD's put his own mark on this room with  posters,

and autographed memorabilia, but loves the overall look of his room, and hasn't asked for any changes.

I'm linking up this room to Little Red House's Mosaic Monday, It's So Very Cheri's Party Time, Polka Dots on Parade's Wow Me Wednesday, Savvy Southern Style's Wow Us Wednesdays, Domestically Speaking's Power of Paint Party, Fireflies & Jellybeans' Show off Your Stuff Party, French Country Cottage's Feathered Nest Friday, At the Picket Fence's Inspiration Friday, Remodelaholic's Anonymous, and Grunged Glittered, and Branded's Blog Hop.

Now how about that party.  First the rules:

#1 - Take a pic of something from Before Blogging, write a post, and link up the specific post here.

#2 - Grab my party button and put it in your post, so that your regular readers can find the party.

#3 - Visit a couple of other party guests & leave a comment.  We all love comments, so spread the love.

You don't have to become a follower, but following will help to remind you about the next link-up party.  This party will run for a week, so you have plenty of time to link up if you don't already have a post planned.

OK, Let's Party!(Fingers crossed I did the linky thing right.)



I'm a Big Boy Now

Sorry about the blogging break.  A virus infected my computer while Computer Genius was away last week.  Luckily he's back and, living up to his name, has fixed my problem.  I spent the first chunk of the week working on this makeover and wailed when I realized I couldn't post about it.  We had purchased one of those convertible cribs that transitions from a crib, to a toddler bed, to a full sized bed when we were expecting Snuggle Bunny.  Something like this one.

We moved him up from the toddler bed to the full sized bed earlier this year, but hadn't really transitioned his room from the nursery decor to more of a "Big Boy" decor.  His nursery had been decorated in Snuggle Bugs(I originally refered to him as Snuggle Bug, but that quickly morphed into Snuggle Bunny and that's the name that stuck.)  I went nuts with buying up all of the Snuggle Bug decor in the baby shop.  I bought the bedding, valances, lamp, mobile, and border.

I even cut out bugs from the leftover border to scatter on the walls.  I love this one crawling along his window.

The first step in the decor update was interviewing my "client."  SB told me that he wanted to be a skateboarder, or maybe a snowboarder when he grows up(Don't worry, Dad, he's now decided an astronaut or architect would be much more practical, but he still loves boarding.)   SB was also very clear that orange is still, and will always be his favorite color. 

Naturally, we also needed to construct a budget for this remodel.  We wanted to keep this redo under $150(excepting the new mattress and boxspring.)  SB had some great pieces to work with.  His bed was a quality piece, his bookcase was a classic shape and a great height for him, his toy chest was constructed by Computer Genius and hand-painted by yours truly and would be staying, and his carpeting was custom cut and bound for his room and would be staying.

With this as a jumping off point, I started looking for affordable bedding that would work.  I looked and looked and looked.  The fact that we would be keeping the green rug and incorporating orange into the room was making the bedding search difficult.  It was time for a trip to the fabric store.  SB picked out some great flannel and chintz fabrics and I picked them up during one of Joann's Holiday sales for super cheap.  I spent the next few weeks cutting what felt like a gazillion squares.  I sewed appliques on a few of the squares and created this rag quilt.

I found this fantastic throw pillow clearanced for $2 at Home Goods.  I couldn't have made it for less.

After removing the wallpaper here,  most of last week was spent taping,

 priming, and painting his room.

His room needed 2 coats of primer and 2 coats of paint to cover up the previous paint color change.  Okay, so you're thinking, "Wow!  That's really orange."  And it is.  But don't worry - it's just one wall.  The other walls were striped to tie the orange in.

I happened to find perfectly coordinated baskets clearanced at Lowe's and snagged them to corral his smaller things.  I also recovered his lampshade in a coordinating fabric scrap leftover from the quilt.

And on the orange wall, I applied a fabric skateboarder silhouette with some liquid starch.

The skateboard is some green felt cut from the felt that I used when I had covered an entire wall with it for Whirling Dervish when he was little.  The great thing about using starch to wallpaper your walls is that the fabric is completely reusable when you eventually pull it down and the wall is back to it's original condition with just a wipe of a sponge.

I placed his toy chest in the niche next to his closet and above it hung his changing table upside down as a shelving unit for his tv, dvd player, and stuffed animals.  He can stand on the sturdy toy chest to change out movies or retrieve an animal.

I still need to decide on whether I'll be sewing new valances, or maybe going with tan(from the bedding) drapes with maybe some orange ribbon trim, or maybe just leaving the windows bare with just the blinds for light control.  What do you think?

Thanks for popping in and checking out SB's room transformation.  I'm linking this makeover up to My Romantic Home's Show, Tell Friday and Frou Frou Decor's Fabulous Friday Finds and Between Naps on the Porch's Metamorphosis Monday.