Front door facelift and baby proofing

Every now and then I get these crazy urges to make something, paint something or sew something (very pioneer like as I have no sewing talent or sewing machine) and I am always, ALWAYS trying to reorganize, redecorate or both. (She get it from her mama). This is such a part of my personality that when I was pregnant, people asked if I was "nesting". Well, no . I nest all year long. I did feel a desperate rush to finish some little projects but I wouldn't call that nesting, rather just being realistic. about time constraints.

Without further delay, I thought I'd share some random DIY and redecorating around here.

First up: a simple wreath for in-between seasons. It turned out OK I think. Wreaths can be oddly expensive so I was happy to do this one myself. Clearly. E for effort!

Second up: My dear clock. It broke (the batteries corroded I think and that just did it in) but I didn't want to throw it away because 1) my grandma gave it to me 2) that's wasteful. So! I turned it into a  decoration. I like it AND I had zero pinterest help. I'm proud of that. I LOVE pinterest too but it keeps us from being creative sometimes. sometimes...

Before

After (I have bought an "H" to go in the center but I have to paint it)

Front door face lift: This entry had been bugging me for a while. It lacked a lot and needed help. So empty and random. I hadn't fixed it in a while because 1) I didn't know what I wanted to do 2) I didn't want to buy anything. (John and I hope to move relatively soon and I don't want to take more than I have to). I did, however, have an extra set of bookshelves sitting in the garage from when we transformed my "sitting room" to Ellie's nursery. I bought some gray paint and Voila. I'm really happy with it. I hope to add a little wooden bench or something at our next house but we'll see what's possible then. This works for now.

Baby proofing: Around the time Ellie turned 9 months I started thinking about how to make her room a little more active baby friendly. By this, I meant to create an open playing space, make toys/books easier for her to get to, move some things out of reach and make sure there was nothing easy for her to pull over (definitely had one of those).

The changing table, bookshelf, and toy bench were the targets. You can see the previous arrangement here

For the changing table, I moved some baskets from the bottom shelf to the top after consolidating diapers. (As a side note we are not currently doing cloth diapers as Ellie starting to break out from them. They are on hold at the moment...) Anyway, the bottom shelf turned into a little book area for Ellie with the book that are age appropriate. She can sit here and grab at/ pull out whatever she wants. I come back in 2 seconds later and pick it up! (OCD for life!!!!! jk...kinda)

 

Where these toys are there used to be a small bookshelf and the main reason we started moving stuff around. It would have been way too easy for Ellie to have pulled it on herself. Also, there were several books on the bottom shelf that I could foresee just being a perpetual mess. The majority of the books weren't baby friendly so most of them went into the toy chest (see next picture) and the ones that could handle Ellie's attention span stayed. All was replaced simply with a basket of (small) toys and her stroller. This gives her a lot more space to just play in as well. As a side not: I don't know why I ever had the shelves out as I knew Ellie would become mobile and those things weren't stable for a "pulling-up" baby. New mom learning curve I guess.

And here obviously is the new rocking chair/toy chest arrangement. The chair used to be with the bookshelf but it got moved to make more play space for Ellie.

The only other change was her big toys were put in the closet in a bin because I don't like clutter and Ellie can simply go to the closet and get out what she wants as she gets older and can walk. It's all friendly to her and practical while still looking put together and nice.