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ORC: The Big Boy Room – Before {ORC Spring 2016: Week 1}

I’m going to skip all the jokes I could make about taking oh, 14 months off from blogging.  I never really expected to take that long of a break, buuut…I did. I thought about posting a clip of the opening 3 seconds of Sid the Science Kid but realized how lame it is to admit that was the first thing that popped into my head as my welcome back post.  #transformationtoparentcomplete #IusedtobecoolIswear

Reasons why I stopped blogging: my baby became a toddler, I’m expecting #2 in a few short weeks, work seems to be busier than ever, you know, life in general. In short, blogging just didn’t make it on the priority list anymore.

Reason why I’m making myself start again now: as mentioned above, and fairly evident in my instagram feed, baby boy #2 is coming soon. I’m 32 weeks now, and in case anyone remembers slash cares, William was born at 37 weeks. I’m told we should just be ready for anything as far as timing – this one could be earlier, could be later, no one friggin knows.  So – as my tax season winds up we are in overdrive to get William transitioned into his “Big Boy Room” and into a toddler bed ASAP.  And what better timing than to document it all and participate in the internet-famous One Room Challenge! This room is getting updated in a short period of time no matter what, so let’s see if I can eek out 5 more posts on the next 5 Thursdays? Challenge, accepted.

Of course you might also recognize some of the Featured Participants as well. I’ll be linking up on Thursdays (hopefully) to the Guest Participants page. Go check out the other 200+ bloggers that are joining in on the fun (or at least pretend to).  And if you landed here from the ORC main page – kudos to you for clicking through this far. I know I’ve gotta be one of the last thumbnails. That is dedication.
So let’s look at the glorious “before” of this room. I’m going way back to the MLS listing. We bought this house back in June of 2014, and had the rugs ripped up and the floors refinished before we moved in.  After that, this room became a catchall for out grown baby junk and whatever else we didn’t want to look at up until about 3 weeks ago.  Feast your eyes:
The real estate photographers get a lot of credit. I haven’t seen this picture in a long time and this room doesn’t look terrible, just majorly dated.  What you can’t really tell from this picture is:
  1. Those radiators have about 10 layers of paint on them, and are constantly falling away from the           wall. Hours of fun for a curious toddler.
  2. There are about 3 different types of molding in this room. Some clamshell, some colonial, some walls have shoe molding, some don’t. This inconsistency is quite consistent throughout our house, by the way. Drives. Me. Insane.
  3. This room is pretty small. Like 8 x 10 small. Trust me, that bed, if it were still there, is way closer to the doorway in person.
  4. And that doorway is in the left corner of the room (basically where the photo is taken from), however, the door opens TO THE RIGHT. Whyyyyyyyy.
  5. The ceiling boob light is about 11 inches to the right of the center of the ceiling. I repeat. Whyyyyyyyyy.
Good news is 1, 2, 4 and 5 are fixable to a satisfying degree for me. And, even better, they actually are now fixed.

So come back next week to either see if I had this kid super early (dear god let me at least make it to 37 weeks again) or to see what we did next in the room.  #nailbiter

Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4 Week 6

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How to Make a Custom Bean Bag Toss Game

I can hardly believe this time a year ago I was just days away from from getting married!  To celebrate I’m going to be posting the rest of the wedding-project related posts that have been sitting in draft form through out the month of October.  For more wedding projects check out my Wedding Fun tab…

Here is my super serious ‘how to make your own cornhole/bean bag toss game’ tutorial. (<—sarcasm font.)

First, go to a Dave Matthews Concert at Citifield in 2010 with a bunch of your friends and have a FANTASTIC time.

This was our amazing half tent that we pre-gamed under.  It was windy so it was easier to hold down at half staff. I was going to post more pictures, but realized they were slightly inappropriate – let’s just say I won a LOT of beer pong games that day.  If you look closely, you’ll see the cornhole game on the right side of the picture.

Have one of your friends bring their own cornhole set (also known as bean bag toss) and have him leave it in your trunk for three years (Thanks Chris!).

 

 

Decide you want to make your own cornhole game for guests to play at your wedding several years before said wedding.  Bookmark (pre-pinterest!) some really good tutorials on how to make them from scratch like this one and this one.
Have all sorts of grand ideas about making this from scratch.  Fast forward to one month before your wedding, and realize you don’t have the time to make it yourself, and recall that you still have your friend’s game in the trunk of your car. Insert maniacal laugh here.

Start by giving a quick sanding and wipe down to the front of the boards. I used a spray primer and still had to give these guys about three light coats before I was able to fully cover the old markings. I was also feeling a little impatient, and the day was a little humid, which may have contributed to my not so stellar coating of spray paint.

Try your hand at your new silhouette cameo and adhesive vinyl. Ditch the vinyl when it keeps ripping on you, and create stencils for hand painting.

Rejected…Here comes another layer of spray paint since the vinyl
ripped the paint off!

 

Empty Silhouette boxes are also a great place to rest your work while you paint.

Once the paint is dry, give it one last coat of spray sealant to make it smooth for the bean bags to slide off of it. Enlist a friend to cover the bean bags with extra fabric from some other projects from the wedding like this.

The other side said “Mr.” and had a top hat!

Set up at the wedding and enjoy!

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