With... or without?

Our living room windows have wooden pieces on them that gives the illusion that there are several panes of glass instead of one large window. Lately I've been thinking about taking them off. I did the other day and took a few before and after pictures so I could see what you think.

Here is an older picture of our living room...

And here are the before/after window pictures...

WITH

WITHOUT

WITH

WITHOUT
 

WITH

WITHOUT

These windows are also in the living room on the other wall, and they don't have the "panes." The windows in the dining room do, but the other windows in the house are quite random... there is one on a half of the kitchen window, one of ours, both of Ryan's... but none upstairs. So not having them on all the windows is a factor, too... we don't plan on having them made, because that isn't an important expense that we don't plan on putting into our budget, Also, our house is not new. It was built in 1964 and I don't necessarily want it to look "modern" in any sense; I like the old feel of it with all of the original hardwood and wood work. But the panes were starting to feel "jail-ish" to me in a sense... I feel like it's way more "open" without them. It's kind of a way to "lighten up" the room without having to change anything else.

So, what do you think? Jake's vote is to leave them off, and I'm leaning in that direction as well.

Also, those cheap "shades" are there to stay... our budget is super tight when it comes to home decorating, but we needed something to cover the windows (especially since I'm having a home birth in January, haha). Any ideas for curtains or something to pretty it up? You can see in the section with the bay window that there isn't a lot of ceiling above the windows, so I'm not sure what to do there. Help me out, creative friends!! :] I'm good at organization but my decorating skills (on a budget) are lacking.

Mission: Organization {vacuum closet}

I had been waiting to organize my vacuum closet until I was able to find the plastic "drawers" to keep all the little random things in (batteries, screws, outlet covers, etc) on sale. Is "vacuum closet" a good name for it? I don't really know what else to call it. Anyway, I finally found a couple drawer bins at Target yesterday for a decent price, so I got to work organizing. I actually took a before picture this time, too. I knew I would be organizing the closet soon, so a lot of things just got thrown in there recently... which makes it look so much worse! Haha.

Before:

After:

Don't mind the little vacuum-obsessed sweetie in the last picture ;] He seriously asks to vacuum at least several times a day. What a good helper!

So all I bought were the two drawer bins and the big plastic bin on the top shelf. I put all the extra lightbulbs and garbage bags in that bin. The cost was close to $10 which is more than I've spent on any other organizing project, but those drawer bins are not cheap! Oh well. One more thing organized! And I've been working oh-so-very-hard on the guest room upstairs. All the baby clothes and "stuff" are organized... yay! The room is almost clean. I didn't take a before picture of that... oops. I think my urge to organize/clean is so spontaneous that I forget to take a picture before hand. And by the time I do remember, I don't even feel like taking a picture for fear that I will lose my motivation or get distracted by something else!

My tea is calling my name...!

Ryan's Bedroom

Wow, hello neglected blog... oops. I have been so busy with Ryan that I keep forgetting to post here!

I thought a fun post for today would be to share Ryan's finished bedroom. When we first moved in, his room was light blue. It wasn't ugly, but we wanted to make it more gender neutral since he (hopefully) wouldn't be the only one sleeping in that room. We painted it a green, and it looked really nice with the first coat... but we had to add another one... and that's where things went downhill. It was dark, obnoxious, ugly, neon... just ew. Remember the pictures from our house tour?

It wasn't the worst color it could be, but it was definitely not what we wanted. It just didn't seem like the room even belonged in our house, because the color was so "out there."

Anyway, so we did a lot to his bedroom since then... we re-painted, built cornices to go over the windows,  I made curtains, a mobile, and a fun blanket, added shelves, put a dandelion decal/sticker on his wall, got a dresser and lamp from Ikea... I think it looks very cute, and the color is much more "normal." 

We forgot to paint the inside of the closet (it's still blue), but I think the different color is kind of fun. 

My last project to do? I have a white glider that I bought for $10 in the basement that needs to be recovered... when I find the time (and fabric I like), I will recover it and it will go here in Ryan's room. This glider will go out in the living room since the wood matches out there better. First room in the house... complete!

Papa's Little Helper

After a small paint fiasco in Ryan's room, we weren't really loving the color that was on the walls. Since it wasn't an expensive fix, we decided to repaint. 

You can see the "ugly" green in the above photos. It looked a lot darker than that in person, but yet had a neon tinge to it. It just wasn't a great color.

The dark green color may look decent on the screen. In fact, I actually kind of like this picture. It looked way different in person, though. We wanted to go a lot lighter because the dark neon green color just didn't seem to "fit" in our house. It made the room seem much smaller than it already was, too. So the lighter color in the above photo is what color it is painted now. Against the dark green, it looks kinda lame and very yellow... but since the walls are completely covered now, we have nothing to compare it to... and it actually looks really nice, I think. It's just a light, airy shade of green with a tiiiny hint of yellow. The room looks so much more spacious now, and the suffocating feel is gone. It feels a little more gender neutral, too, which is good because this won't be Ryan's room forever.

Ryan wanted to get in on the painting action. He was extremely interested in the paint brushes and thoroughly enjoyed flailing his arms around with the brush in hand.

 [Ryan and papa painting]

(disclaimer: no, we didn't really subject our child to paint fumes. There is no paint on the brushes.)

 [I love all the original wood in our house... I think it's so pretty!]

A few days after the paint job was completed, we put together Ryan's new dresser from Ikea. Well, Jake put it together. Ryan crawled all over the place, stole screws, played with the hammer and drill, and watched papa like a hawk. I just sat there and took pictures :]

 [always has to keep his eyes on daddy]

It warms my heart to see Ryan watching his daddy so intently... I'm so thankful for the godly, hardworking, selfless example for Ryan to look up to. I am blessed!