0 easiest update yet.

A while back I found these cheap magazine files at Ikea to house the over abundance of magazines we have laying around.  When we first moved into our house we subscribed to "Mother Earth News" and "Better Homes & Gardens" and while these magazines may be a little out dated, the information and ideas will come in handy for years to come - plus they're fun to look at!  Anyways, we have a lot of magazines on hand.

For the past year or so these files have been living on the counter top of our desk/bookshelf in the living room.  While they're not too unsightly, the white was a bit stark compared to the more neutral and dark furniture in the room.  When I came across this idea on pinterest, I knew I had to give it a try.

I had been looking for more ways to display photos from this shoot last fall, and right away jumped to this image.

Before printing, I lined up my 5 magazine files and measured to get an approximate size to print my photo. Surprisingly the dimensions were a perfect size for printing, a standard 12x18" print would do.  I printed a simple poster at Office Depot for a whopping $.49!  The photo is printed in color, but on standard paper - nothing photo quality.

Once home with my photo, I used my quilting tools {I know mom, I'm not supposed to cut paper with my rotary cutter - but it was SO easy!} and cut the photo into 3 1/2" strips.  I then used mod podge to glue the strips to the cardboard magazine files.  Once it was dry, I put two layers of mod podge on top to seal, rounding the edges over the corners and waiting for each layer to dry in between.

It's by no means perfect, but I am in love with it!  And who can complain about such a cheap project?  {Between the Ikea magazine files for $1.99, the print for $.49, and the mod podge I had on hand, this project cost a total of $2.48!}  I also love that over time I won't feel bad about covering it up with another more recent picture - maybe a sweet newborn shot of the little guy like this!

0 birthday walk

0 getting messy...

While I spend my evenings laying around the house relaxing after a long day, my amazing husband is hard at work sanding the upstairs bedroom drywall.

"Assuming I have any hair in 50 years, this is probably what I'll look like!"  - Dan

Love this man!  

0 master update.

Our big project over the past few months has been an attempt to get the master bedroom "livable" for us to move into and free up the future nursery.  While I haven't been as helpful as I would have liked, seems growin' a baby is hard work after all, we've made significant progress over the past few weeks thanks to lots of help from friends and family.

If you'll remember, this is what the master "suite" looked like when we moved in.

Don't you love the red!?! I mean really.  Who paints a ceiling bright red?  If the lights were on at night, the room would literally cast a red hue on the front lawn!  It had to go!  So right away, my generous mother and sister-in-law helped me to cover it with white primer.


Not a bad starting point, although what's up with that bathroom "throne"?  Again, what were they thinking?  Let's put a toilet..uhh....here.  Wait, now we have to put walls around it!  Oh, and can't forget a sink, eh, just put it in the room!  I'd like to think this was done with purpose, but I fear that it was just a haphazard addition.

Here's where we were a year ago.

Being that the house has only one full bath, we thought it'd be a wonderful addition to our home not only logistically, but also an upgrade for the house.  We opted to hire our trusty neighbor Dan to help with the plumbing of the new bathroom after we had solidified a suitable layout.  While the plumbing was being done, my Dan completed the wiring.

Once the plumbing and wiring was finished, Dan got busy framing it all in.  And while he was at it he built me a lovely closet!  The closet that was in the original room was hardly more than a linen closet and would hardly be enough space for one person, let alone two AND storage!  In building the new closet, he was also able to hide the awkwardly placed attic access door as well!!  Bonus!

On the down side, the size of the new bathroom meant that the ceiling fan we installed just months ago needed to be relocated!

This past weekend we were finally ready for the next step - drywall!  Thankfully we had the help of our dear friends Brent & Ellen for the weekend.  Dan, along with these great helpers were able to get the drywall up on the bedroom side of the new walls. 

**We opted to focus on getting the bedroom side of the master suite done so that we could move ourselves up there, we'll continue working on the bathroom, but are not making it a priority before baby arrives!

This week, Dan has been hard at work with the horrendous task of mud, sand, repeat! 

Can't wait until I'm able to get up there with a paintbrush and begin to create the oasis I know this bedroom will be for us!  Stay tuned...the goal is to get it done in the next 10 weeks!!!! Ahh...let the count down begin!

0 hello, third trimester!

Well, we've arrived at the final 1/3 of this pregnancy...the home stretch!  Though, we are by no means ready!  It seems the never-ending to do list just keeps growing, right along with the little guy!

The little man has been incredibly active lately, and feels like he's out growing his home...looks like I'll be having another growth-spirt soon!

A few weekends ago we went to Indy for a childbirth education class taught by a dear friend from college.  There were 3 other couples there, 2 of which were former IWU classmates.  It was fun to catch up and learn more about how to bring this little one into the world as naturally as possible.

In an effort to have the most natural birth possible, I've been doing a lot of reading and found this great book called "Mindful Birthing,"  highly recommend it to any pregnant woman seeking an un-medicated labor and delivery.  The techniques and scenarios discussed in this book, along with the educational background it presented, have helped me to prepare not only mentally, but physically as well to better cope with the some of the pain and discomfort of labor.

We're working hard to ready the house and are excited for visitors over the coming weeks to help with projects!  Our goal is to have the master bedroom "livable" and be able to turn our current bedroom into the nursery.  We know the little man will stay with us for a while, so we're not in any rush to get the nursery done, but at least have a place to put all his stuff that we're already accumulating!  Having a baby fills your house quickly!!  =)

Looking forward to enjoying these last 12 weeks as a family of 2.  We have a lot going on this spring with visitors and trips out of town, I'm sure it will fly by, but we'll do our best to savor every minute!

1 pregnancy cravings and a little bump.

This post is over a week late, but better late than never.  Right?  I'm currently finding it hard to find the time and energy to sit down and blog....a lot is changing around the Ankney house - besides my belly, though it doesn't always seem noteworthy...I'll hopefully get better at sharing the "mundane" as I know many family and friends enjoy this!

Week 24...16 to go!

This pregnancy is going so fast!  Hard to believe that I've been pregnant 1/2 of a year!   I have felt so good these past few months that when I experienced my first braxton hicks the other day I was immediately concerned - that is until a friend reminded me ever so kindly "well, you ARE pregnant!"  Thanks friend, and honestly, I can't complain, my biggest struggle has been sleeping at night and that's mostly because I toss and turn and try to get comfortable!  Though once comfortable I'm out!

I'm even starting to LOOK pregnant - as you can see above, I have a lovely little bump that I just can't seem to stop looking at and touching!  Pregnancy is such a magical and wonderful thing...unexpected and awkward at times...but magical!  I love the constant movements of the little man rolling around and flexing his muscles inside!  

Throughout pregnancy, many women talk of cravings.  Thus far the only two cravings I've experienced have been less of cravings and more of an extreme love of brussel sprouts and pesto.  Weird?! yes.  Healthy!?  absolutely!  I keep saying, if I am going to "crave" anything, at least these two things are healthy!

The other day I found this wonderful recipe on pinterest. 

Amazing!

This recipe is not only super easy to make, but has brussel sprouts AND pesto - PERFECTION!

Too bad we finished it that evening and didn't get to enjoy it another day! {I'll have to make a double batch next time}  And speaking of next time, it's definitely on the menu this week too!!

1 the kitchen. is. done.

Feels good to finally say that after what seems like years of working on this one room.  Getting it done was my major goal for the month of March, and thanks to my mom's help in painting, we were able to get it checked off the list in record time!

{check out the house tour to see what we started with}

When we moved into the house, this was the first space we tackled.  What were we thinking!?  I mean really, who tackles a kitchen as their first DIY project on their first home!?   But we did it.  And have lived to tell about it!

While we're calling this room done, and checking it off the list, there are still a few updates that we hope to make over time, like a subway tile backsplash behind the counter, but that will have to be phase two, after baby arrives!

The layout of the kitchen is still a little weird at times, but we love that there is plenty of room for the two of us to comfortably cook together.  Our countertops are a bit limited, however, and we'd like to build a cart of some sort {kind of like this one} to be able to store a few more items off the counter and have more prep space.

One of the next projects on the list is to build a farmhouse table and bench.  Dan found some scrap wood in the attic that would make an awesome table like this.  But again, no rush there.  Last year I tried some plants on the window sills, but wasn't thrilled with the look, so I decided to try some hanging plants instead.

I bought the rope online and made these one evening afterwork - super easy.  I love how they turned out and can't wait until they fill in a little bit more.

As we were finishing up trim, we realized that the nook by the back door would be a great location for our plant shelf {which originally lived in the spare bedroom}.  Silly us, we measured the space before adding the trim and when we went to move the shelf yesterday realized that the space was now too small for our shelf!  Luckily, with a little patience {which we both lack at times!}, we were able to make it work by propping the shelf up on some blocks and actually building it in place.

I think it turned out pretty grand!  This space has always stumped us on how to use it and I think the plants are the perfect fit.  Hopefully we'll be able to have better luck with our garden sprouts this year!

We already have some lovely pea sprouts - though we're pretty sure we started these way too early.

I love having lots of plants all around the kitchen - especially this little guy, Dan's Venus Fly Trap that's getting ready to flower!

So there you have it, a done {for now} kitchen!  Ahhh...feels amazing!  What feels even more amazing is seeing that the to-do list for this space is so short now!