thar she blows! boys' bath update

DIY season continues at Casa de Lenney. Next on the hit list - the boys' upstairs bath. You may remember from our house tour: part 2 that this is the only upstairs room that we haven't really touched.  This room serves as the kiddo's bath and a guest bath, so it needs to be fun for the little dudes but not over the top childish for visiting grown ups.

This bathroom has a few things going for it. It's not horribly small, the tile is basic white (no crazy pink tiles to try to battle with), and it has a skylight over the tub, so the room is bathed in natural light most of the day. Since the major surfaces are white tile (floor, tub surround, and vanity) and there's ample daylight, we can do some bolder colors in here and the room can totally handle it.

Here's what we're thinking at the moment (and some of these are freebies!):

oh yes, wait a minute mr. postman

The weather has turned, and it's DIY season in Texas. We moved into this house nearly a year ago, and as I mentioned in the house tour post, curb appeal was not what drew us here. Boring ranch. Beige on peach on beige, and in need of a major update. I was 2 months pregnant and pretty consumed with unpacking/nesting/travel for work/short bout of bed rest/nausea/toddler tantrums/exhaustion, so strangely enough, didn't make it to updating the exterior of the house. The outside hasn't seen anything more than basic maintenance (from the hubs) since we moved in. 

But no more! We don't have a ton of money to spend out front, so we starred with a seemingly small but packed-a-punch update with the mailbox. It's the first thing you see as you drive up, and, well....

Yeah. It was leaning really badly. So that was the first item to fix, followed by painting, staining, and planting. Here's how we did it. 

DIY tent + nap mat

A reader recently asked me how I created the A-frame tent in H's room from the house tour:part 2 post last month, so I'm going to share that along with the how-to on the matching nap mat. That's two..two..two tutorials in one (post)!

How the fabric for both came into our lives is a pretty interesting story. Remember the huge Missoni for Target craze? Well, some poor Dallasite must have gotten a bit carried away and bought a matching Missoni duvet, pillows, shams, and curtains. That's a whole lotta zigzag for one room. They obviously realized this and returned it all after the fad died out. I found it all on a clearance end cap, but with no bar code or price tag. The cashier couldn't find a price for it and asked, "would you take it for $10?"  Um, YES. A queen sized duvet for $10?! Perfect. I used one side for the tent and nap mat, and there was enough left over to make a sweet table runner. The back fabric will make it's debut appearance at Henry's third birthday party. Stay tuned. 

If there was no photographic evidence, I'd never believe Henry was ever that little. Or bald.

things I wish I could tell my 15 year old self

I turned 30 a few months back, and I have to say, I finally feel like I'm hitting my stride. No existential life crisis for me. All the stuff I worried about in my 20s (OK, not all, but a lot of it) seems to be coming together. More likely, though, I'm more confident about who I am and I make better decisions because of it. Basically, 30 is the bomb.

All of this self realization made me think: if I had the chance to time travel back to my 15 year old self, half a lifetime ago, what advice would I have for her? This is what I came up with:

it's friday, i'm in love: outdoor entertaining

It's FINALLY that time of year again. Winter is letting up and we can finally - most days - get outside. Here are a few products I'm currently drooling over. I will be buying exactly none of them, because we are about to spend a gozillion dollars to get our pool up to snuff. But think of me when you're throwing around that bocce ball.

Where to buy: one | two | three | four | five | six | seven | eight | nine | ten

And, once again, none of these companies pay me to say nice things about them. They just make nice things.