Beauty Room Tour

Today's post is all about my beauty room. This room has gone though several transformations over the years. First, we painted it yellow and used it as our guest room. It then became a guest room/office for a while. Finally, when we were renovating our bathroom a few years ago I set up a mirror at the desk in here and made a little vanity for myself during construction. I loved getting ready in here so much that I created a permanent vanity area for myself in here and the room was transformed into my beauty room.

Here's a peek inside:

I get ready in here in the morning and also use this space to do the majority of my blogging and photography.

The vanity setup is mostly from Ikea. The desk is the Liatorp. I added a glass topper to prevent the white desktop from getting stained from makeup products. I think it gives it an elegant touch.

On my vanity, I have 4 of the MUJI 2-Drawer Acrylic Drawers stacked up. These drawers are slightly taller than the ever popular 5-Drawer system by MUJI. This makes them more versatile on what you can store in there. The top drawer is the lift-top version that I leave open so I can store my foundations and setting sprays upright. These are great quality and a great value. The US MUJI online store doesn't seem to be open right now but you can find these on Amazon or go to one of the US Stores.

To the left of my desk I have two of the Alex 6-drawers stacked. I like these compared to the 9-drawer version since the drawers are wider. I use this to store my makeup collection and accessories. I still have plenty of room left to grow.

I hope you enjoyed this peek inside my beauty room! I've been meaning to get this post up for a while now. I've been enjoying this space for about 3 years but alas, I'm being kicked out. This is the bedroom adjacent to the master bedroom so it is going to be the baby's room. It is actually empty in the process of being painted right now. I took these pictures over the summer. We moved the vanity, alex drawers and some of the decor upstairs to the guest room. I rearranged the furniture a bit in there and it actually fits quite nicely. While I'm sad to see this space go, it will be nice to have our little guy right next-door. I can't wait to share what I have in store for his nursery! Stay tuned!

Reference:

Paint: Behr, Moon Dance
Sunburst Mirror: Homegoods
Trifold Mirror: Pier 1
Foil Prints: I See Noise
Baies Candle: Nordstrom
Voluspa Candle: Bloomingdales
Orchid Quatrefoil Pillow: Motif Pillows
Purple Lattice Pillows: Dawns Decor & More
Bed: Ikea
Side Table: Target
Bedding: Target
Dress Form: PB Teen
Storage Drawers: Ikea
Desk: Ikea
Mercury Glass Jars: Anthropologie
Votives: Z Gallerie
Makeup Mirror: Target
Chair: Ikea
Faux Sheepskin Rug: Ikea
Chandelier: Home Depot

A Pink, Blue and Burlap Gender Reveal

As soon as we found out we were pregnant, we knew we wanted to have a Gender Reveal Party. It just looked like so much fun and the perfect way to share with family. The theme was "What Will Baby Bee?" Here's a recap of the night:

It has been pretty warm around here even though its September so we took advantage and had a BBQ with all the fixings.

We decorated with pink and blue accents with some touches of burlap. I ordered the mustache and lip cutouts from Etsy and then we glued them to bamboo skewers to use as a fun prop for guests to cast their vote.

There were definitely more boy votes than girls...

The cake was from Guilty Bakery in Plymouth. They did such an amazing job recreating the design I had found and really brought it to life. They even added an extra layer of frosting so no one could peek through the rosettes.

The baker instructed us on the "right way" to cut into a gender reveal cake, which is to cut straight into one of the sides and tip a piece over. I was so happy that she told us that because it was so much more climactic with everyone finding out at once!

It's a boy!! The room exploded into screams and even a few tears! It was such a great way for our families to share in the experience of finding out the sex of our baby.

The cake did not disappoint. It was a vanilla cake dyed blue with whipped cream and blonde Oreo filling. Oh so delicious!

Reference: 

Burlap Chalkboard - Michaels

She or He Banner - Ichabods Imagination on Etsy

Mustache and Lip Cutouts - Custom Creative Craft on Etsy

Cake - Guilty Bakery

Blue Mason Jars - Target

Beverage Dispenser - Bed Bath & Beyond

Spring Closet Clean Out

With the warmer weather finally upon us, I've been really motivated to get things neat and organized with some spring cleaning. Living in an older home, one thing we really struggle with is storage space. Each of the bedrooms has a closet, but it's a small one. Both of the downstairs closets came with one lower shelf but no upper shelf above the closet rod. I always thought this was such a waste of space so I enlisted Mike's help to install upper shelves in the downstairs bedrooms. 

We bought two pieces of plywood and cut them to size to fit each closet. I painted them white to match the trim and then Mike installed them with heavy duty shelf brackets.

The extra downstairs bedroom is basically my bonus room. There is a bed in there but it is also where my vanity is and it's where I get ready in the morning. We use this closet as overflow storage. I store my purses in there, my bathing suit cover-ups as well as our larger sweatshirts. I found these hanging circular organizers at Bed Bath & Beyond. I believe they're actually meant to store belts but I'm using them for handbags and baseball caps. They work like a charm!

Having the extra shelf up top has been awesome. I now have a place for my camera equipment, larger hats and board games. This freed up the bottom shelf and I now use that for shipping supplies for when I occasionally sell on eBay and Poshmark.

Moving on to the Master closet:

This closet is larger than the one in the guest bedroom. I remember when we bought the house this was advertised as being a "double closet" because the space extends on each side past the door, which is nice but I still managed to fill it to the brim. Seriously, the rod was sinking in the middle and was about to break. These are just my clothes too, Mike uses the upstairs closet which is about this size. This is where most of the clean out took place. I went through everything and got rid of about a third of my clothes. I made three discard piles: to toss, to donate and to sell. I organized what was left and we installed the upper shelf and some new shoe racks.

I'm using the upper shelf to store our extra bed pillows. These are the fancier ones that I put out when I fully make the bed. Before these were kind of shoved in the back on the bottom shelf and some of them were even in another closet. My hope with having them on top shelf is that they are more easily accessible and that it will inspire me to fully make our bed more often. We'll see!

When we moved in the previous owners had made a little shoe shelf for this closet. It was made out of warped particle board and to say the thing was rough is an understatement, I really should've taken a picture. I replaced them with these shoe racks from Target. 

Lastly I wanted to share my scarf organization. I got this cute little owl scarf organizer from Bed Bath & Beyond a few years ago. I keep all my lighter fashion scarves on him. 

Cleaning and organizing is oddly therapeutic to me. Although I put it off and it's an overwhelming task to think about, once it's done I feel so much better. I love having a place for everything and it's nice to have less "stuff" to worry about. I got rid of so many items that I hadn't worn in years that were just taking up space. I hope this helped give you some ideas on how to clean out and organize your closet. Have you done any spring cleaning this year?

Be Our Guest

Today's post is all about our Guest Bedroom. This room has gone through a lot of styling changes over the years. However, over the past year it had become a catch-all for some of our camping stuff as well as items we had to move out of the attic when the roof was leaking this winter. With warmer weather on the horizon, it gave me a surge of motivation to clean it out and pretty it up for spring.

Here's a peek inside:

Our house is a cape-style with three bedrooms. Two on the first floor and one upstairs. When we first moved in, our first thought was to use this upstairs bedroom as the master. I ended up nixing that idea in the end because one of the bedrooms downstairs is actually larger and there is no bathroom on the second floor. We initially used the extra downstairs bedroom as the guest room and used this upstairs bedroom as an office. Over the years we found that we just weren't using the office so we decided to convert this bedroom into the guest room and moved our desk area into an alcove in the upstairs hallway. I really love the way it turned out. It makes more sense for the guest room to be upstairs, that way guests will have their own little quiet area away from the rest of the house.

On the left side of the room I have an antique dresser that was in my parent's house that I use as extra storage. I styled the top of it with some fresh flowers as well as some framed photos. I recently found a box of old photographs in the attic and framed that gem of my sister and I at my aunt's summer house when we were little. Glamorous!

In the corner I have an antique parlor chair that came from my great aunt's house. The upholstery is original and my intent is to have it reupholstered at some point but I think it actually looks great for it's age. I added a pillow with one of my favorite Audrey quotes. I love all things French and this room has a bit of a Paris feel.

I added a little welcome tray to the bed with some water, greenery and a note card containing the wifi password. 

This luggage rack came from my grandparent's house. I've always thought it was so cute, but I just couldn't figure out what to do with it. When I stumbled upon it in the attic it dawned on me the perfect place would be in the guest room. I put out some fresh towels and soap on top.

One of my favorite things about this room is the built in bookshelves. They're a great bonus element to the room and I had so much fun styling them.

My favorite piece on the bookshelf is this glass pedestal stand. It is actually meant to hold a cupcake. I filled it up with some of our wedding items: the handkerchief I carried, my headpiece and one of the sand dollars we used as our escort cards. It's such a fun way to display some of our wedding details.

This vintage nightstand is one of my most treasured yard sale finds. Better yet, it was a steal for only $10! As soon as I laid eyes on it I had the guest room in mind. The shabby cream and gold details match this room so well, I only wish there were two of them!

I hope you enjoyed this peek inside my guest bedroom! It is eclectic, with the mismatched furniture and colorful details, but that's what I love about it. Strangely, I think it all works together to give the room a homey feel. I love mixing antiques with modern pieces.

Reference:

Paint: Olympic, Secret Passage

Bedding: Amy Butler, Lace Work

Eiffel Tower: Pier 1

Sunburst Mirror: Target

Paris Pillow: Sarah Smile Design on Etsy

Fish Bowl Vase: Home Goods

Tray: Target

Mason Jug: Bed Bath & Beyond

Tea Lights: Crate & Barrel (similar)

Terrarium: West Elm

Alarm Clock: Casa.com

Pedestal Cupcake Stand: Pottery Barn