In the late 2000s I kept a personal mom blog called Nest Bliss. I reviewed books, wrote about the house and the girls, and was even in the Wall Street Journal. These posts are from then: light, young, a mom in her late twenties. I have edited them to stand on their own.
I have been crafting, building and doing kids projects by the truckload at home. I think I am in serious withdrawals from the constant work of re-habbing my old 1950's house which is still in escrow or 'house purgatory' as I like to call it.
I regret a thing or two about buying my old house, but I always loved working on it - repainting the walls over and over, ripping up all the flooring, cabinets on and on. I think though I've found the fix while I're renting in building projects.
Ana White is brilliant and her free woodworking plans are awesome and easy and I am flying through them, I think up to seven now!
and this is just finished with some sample satin orange paint with polyurethane on top.
Lilly really likes it the most.
Oh and for the longest time I wanted some metal cafe chairs and I finally bought these from Overstock.com. They had super reviews but I just couldn't imagine that they would be great for $50 each but they are awesome!
Substantial, stack-able and both retro and modern at the same time. I can't imagine them not working for me somewhere no matter what my next home set up is like.
Now of course I want another set of four in red so I can use both sets and host an outdoor dinner like Nie Nie .
I sold my black hutch on Craigslist and put up some Ikea kitchen bars and shelf over the girl's little table. The little bins above it have napkins, silverware, small straws and cloth placemats so Ava can set her place at whatever table I am eating at.
She really likes the process. I try to sneak in some Montessori style where I can ;) Oh and the clips for hanging the artwork are also from Ikea, they are curtain clips that fit the $1.99 kitchen bars perfectly.
I just used long galvanized nails to hang them. Ah having a little space to eat in the kitchen is so nice! My other dining space is all carpeted and it was becoming such a stress with Lilly to eat there three times a day!