Preparing for Foster Kids: Bedroom Tour

06/16/2011

Our kids room is done-done-done. Ready to go. Just add kiddos!

I’m kind of in love with this room. It was so much fun to put together. It’s a mix of new and old. It’s a mix of patterns, textures and colors (mostly blue, green and gray … our favorites). It’s a mix of gifts, sentimental items and things purchased especially for our kiddos.

Sources: The walls are Ellie Gray by Sherwin Williams. The bed, crib, rugs (machine washable bathmats!), stuffed spaniel, stuffed vegetables, twin duvet, under bed storage box and book ledges are from IKEA. The twin sheets, lamp shade, and (shower) curtain are from Target. The alphabet animal poster, puzzle blocks, and alphabet flash cards are from Petit Collage (I won from a giveaway on Design Mom). The green quilt on the bed was a wedding gift handmade by a friend. The reading chair (reupholstered), night stand (painted), green crib sheet from Pottery Barn, stacking ring toy and full length mirror (painted) are all from yard sales. The yellow lamp is from a thrift store. The xylophone is from an estate sale. The Gee Wiz game on top of the dresser was a gift from an antique store given to us by a friend. The monkey poster is by French Paper gifted from the same friend. The mobile and toss pillows are handmade by me. The color wheel clock is from MOMA given to me by my Uncle Bob many years ago. The dinosaur is Jason’s from childhood. The chalkboard door was painted by me. The folding chair is from a yard sale. The dresser is from Target purchased second hand from craigslist (we’re still looking for a changing table height mid-century replacement). And lastly, the blue Sekova guitar originally belonged to Jason’s mom when she was a teenager and was the guitar Jason first learned to play on as a boy. In high school he painted it blue. It’s not playable now but I love that it’s finally displayed somewhere. It means a lot to me. I’m so proud of my incredibly talented husband, who is now living his dream as a professional guitarist.

Here’s the floor plan. It was quite a puzzle fitting a twin bed, crib, chair, dresser and night stand into a 10 x 11 room while still leaving some floor space for playing. Once we put the KURA bed together we decided to flip flop it and the night stand with the reading nook and wall mirror in my original plan. It just worked better with the design of the bed.

19 Comments | Art, Art: Bedoom for Foster Kids, Art: house tour, Art: interior design, Art: mid-century design, Art: modern design, Family, Family: Foster Parenting | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt

8 Years

06/14/2011

Happy Anniversary, Jason. You are my best friend, my biggest encourager, my rock. You make me laugh and feel loved like no one else. I think we’re a great team. Like peanut butter and jelly, you and me. I’m so glad to be by your side on this crazy adventure! I’ll forever be your wifey and you’ll always be my right hand man.

All photos by Beth Rose Photography bethrose.com

(One more photo and “8 Things We’ve Learned in 8 Year” here.)

A funny story about how we celebrated our anniversary will be coming tomorrow.


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Posted by mahlbrandt

Modern Wood Fence — Finished

06/13/2011

I was going to do a little photo tutorial on building wooden fence gates but Jason had to go and build these while I was at work. I’m really not upset but you’ll have to go somewhere else if you’re looking for a step by step.

Let’s just celebrate together that the gates are done!

Our weedy yard is on the other side of the fence along with our fruit trees, ugly black compost bin and our vegetable garden (behind the compost).

The gate pictured above is so tall that from the inside we couldn’t reach over to unlatch it. The solution was to add a pulley chain to the gate latch. I got all handyman on it and went to hardware store myself to buy chain and eye hooks. See what I did here?

But then I got all woman on it and used a paperclip to attach the chain to the latch because… it worked. And it was easy.

I realize the paperclips are not really a great long term solution. Did I mention this is not a step by step tutorial? I’m pretty proud of myself, though. Just pull to open. I think Jason will be pleasantly surprised when he gets home. I hope the paperclips last that long…

This section of fence separates our patio from our driveway. (Once, a long, long time ago this was all just one big concrete parking slab.)

 

This path leads through the gate into the yard (where the compost bin, fruits and veggies live).

 

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Posted by mahlbrandt

Phone Photo Friday

06/10/2011

Double Feature: Our black raspberry bush has been doing great this year! I’m getting a handful like this everyday. Perhaps I should thank the cicadas for keeping the birds busy and full…

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Full of Hot Air

06/07/2011

Over Memorial Day weekend I went with Jason down to the Hot Air Balloon festival in Decatur, Alabama. Jason was playing with Guy Penrod so the guys got the VIP treatment in an air conditioned RV (it really wasn’t very fancy) while the wives and kids wandered around in the heat and enjoyed all the arts and crafts, bouncy houses and greasy food. The highlight of the day—besides the concert, of course—was when all the hot air balloon suddenly started popping up out of the ground. At least that’s what it looked like.

This first one was my favorite.

Up it goes…

I wonder who sponsored that one?

Thanks Decatur! The balloons were lovely.

The night ended with fireworks—which I LOOOVE—a cheese pizza and a long drive home. Thankfully Jason let me sleep because I was beat.

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Posted by mahlbrandt

Cicada Invasion!

06/06/2011

Run for your lives!

Seriously, we have a bizarre and fascinating, also annoying and disgusting, phenomenon going on in Nashville right now. Every 13 years by Divine clockwork, hundreds, thousands, millions? of cicadas (Magicicadas to be exact) emerge from the ground, sing, mate, lay eggs and die. All in the span of 4-6 weeks. We’re about 3 weeks into the madness right now. It’s not just a few cicadas here and there; it’s ear-piercing loud at 3pm. It’s crunchy steps through the parking lot. It’s swatting and yelping every time we’re outside. It’s cleaning splatters off the windshield several times a day. They don’t call it an invasion for nothing.

This guy (or girl) is one of the many that likes hanging out on our bamboo. Smile!

The whole event is really quite strange and I’m glad it’s almost over. Thankfully, the bugs are pretty harmless. They don’t bite. They don’t prey on other creatures. They don’t eat crops or plants. They drink the sap from trees and blades of grass. The only harm they do is cutting slits into small tree branches when the females lay their eggs. But in the grand scheme of things, this is actually a benefit — this process prunes trees and aerates the ground, so I’m told. Here’s our newly planted pear tree. Can you see the cicadas?

How about now? Can you see them?

Oh, there they are. And… this is when Lucy and I got creeped out and ran for the house. She’s OK with them until they squawk. Then she gets freaked out. And boy to they squawk. And chirp. And buzz.

The posters below (and a few others) are designed by Anderson Design Group to commemorate this crazy occasion. Anyone need a birthday gift idea for me? They’re available at CicadaInvasion.com.

If you haven’t had enough yet, check out this video I shot through the window of the conference room at work last week. My office is on the 4th floor so it’s right in the tree tops. The cicadas are so loud that I can hear them from my desk which is through a cubicle wall, a hallway, an office and a thick glass window. In the video you can hear them pinging and ponging off the window. They’re pretty clumsy.

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Posted by mahlbrandt

Phone Photo Friday

06/03/2011

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Preparing for Foster Kids: Technical Safety Precautions & General Household To Do List

06/02/2011

Here’s the part of preparing our home for foster kids that’s not as much fun to talk about or photograph as designing the bedroom. We have a checklist of things that need to be done in our home before an inspection. These requirements differ from state to state and agency to agency, I’m sure, but here are some of the things we had to buy/do:

• outlet covers on all of our electrical outlets
• cleaning supplies and chemicals stored in a locked cabinet
• all medications (including vitamins) stored in a locked box
• smoke detectors in various locations throughout the house
• carbon monoxide detector installed
• minimum 2.5 lb. fire extinguisher rated for class B and C
• hot water heater set lower than 120 degrees
• matches and knives inaccessible to children
• landline telephone available (we decided to sign up for Vonage for $15/month)
• flashlights in working order and accessible (we got a nightlight/emergency light/ flashlight)
• bedroom for child with proper clothing storage
• bedroom for child has a window
• separate bed and mattress for each child
• infant crib in compliance with government safety standards
• area rugs secured to floors; mirrors and wall hangings secured to walls
• internet adult sites inaccessible to children (we use Safe Eyes to block these sites)
• pets are up to date on all required vaccinations
• automobiles in safe operating condition
• vehicles equipped with child safety seats for infants/young children and booster seats for older children

So that’s only about half of the list, but it covers most of the main requirements. I was looking for this information online out of curiosity before we started the process so maybe someone else out there will benefit from seeing our list. We added to this list our personal list of projects to get done around the house before we welcome foster kids into our home:

• buy furniture (crib, bed, dresser, rugs) for the kids room
• hang book ledges (pictured above—I did this all myself! I’m very proud.)
• decorate kids room
• paint the kids room
• paint the rest of the house… or at least the master bedroom, living room, kitchen and hallway
• finish the fence blog post coming soon!
• close up all the gaps along the bottom of the fence so Lucy can’t wander away
• remove the dangerously sharp fireplace hearth  Booyah!
• get the electricity fixed in 2/3 of the house (this is a new development as of yesterday … stupid old wiring! Right now have 4.5 rooms without electricity … the kids room, my cloffice, both bathrooms and the ceiling light in the kitchen.)
• get a new vehicle – The Silver Bullet. Yay!
• build a new patio table we got a great deal on an already built one
• finish drywall and trim in Jason’s studio aux room
• finish drywall and paint in the laundry room
• clean out studio aux room and closet
• clean out our bedroom closet and dresser and give clothes to charity
• clean out cupboards
• clean and organize pantry

Ok, so most of the things on our personal list have nothing to do with preparing our house for kids EXCEPT that we want to have all of these things checked off our to do list so that once we have kids we can just relax and have fun in the evenings and on the weekends. Sounds like a nice dream, right?

4 Comments | Art, Art: interior design, Family, Family: Foster Parenting | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt

Summer Days (Daze?)

06/01/2011

It’s been a busy past few days and I don’t have time to write any of the posts I have in my mind to write. For now, here’s a picture of where Jason and I have been eating a lot of our meals lately:

And an update on recent goings-on:

• We’re 2/3 of the way through our foster parent certification. Paperwork is done. Classes are done. We’re waiting for the home study writer to contact us to set up home study interviews. We’ve been waiting for 2 weeks and it’s been a relief, actually. It kind of feels like the calm before a storm. Not that we’re dreading it but we’re just savoring the (potentially) last few weeks of just the two of us.

• But, of course we’re staying busy! We have the kids room almost all the way finished. There are just a few pieces of art left to hang on the walls. When it’s all done I’ll do a proper photo tour. And we’ve been painting. Now seemed like a good time to paint the rest of the house. So far we have the living room (and the kids room) done. The kitchen, master bedroom and hallway are next in line. The project to do list that’s taped on the wall of our hallway is almost done.

• Our new van has one tire that’s mysteriously worn much more than the other 3. We’ve been planning to replace all 4 tires soon. After an almost-blow-out last night (we have a rubber flapper), now is the time to replace all four. We were hoping we could wait a few months but ack! Oh well.

• Have you heard about the cicada invasion in the middle Tennessee area? It’s a 13-year cycle. I’ll post more about that later in case you’re curious…

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Posted by mahlbrandt

Martina’s Childhood Favorite Toys: Handmade Barbie Furniture

05/31/2011

It would be hard for me to chose what my true favorite toy was but I certainly loved playing house. Thousands of hours were clocked playing with my Fisher Price Little People, you know the small, choking-hazard ones from the 80s? I had the tudor house, the SUV and camper, the hospital, the tractor, the school bus and of course lots of Little People. My mom still has these but she insists they stay at her house. She did, however, hand over the boxes labeled in colorful markers and glitter “Martina’s Stuff” containing all the handmade plastic canvas Barbie furniture gifted to me by my Granny.

I had forget just how many pieces there were in this set. Granny must have spent many hours making all of this for me. I feel very blessed that I had it. I didn’t get interested in Barbies until late elementary school days. My best friend Michele and I would set up huge Barbie cities in my basement and spent hours playing.

The two [barely] surviving Barbies have seen better days. Naked, chopped off hair, and both missing a hand due to a tragic dog attack. I think I’ll be on the lookout for some decent clothed Barbies at yard sales this summer.

Let’s go on a little tour of the Barbie house. Note, anywhere you see drawers or cabinet doors they’re functional! Here’s Barbie’s bedroom with a bed, rug, dresser with mirror, vanity chair and table, and a room divider screen:

The kitchen with area rug, china cabinet, corner hutch, stove and table with gingham tablecloth:

I love the blue vintage style stove with heart details:

The formal dining table with white lace tablecloth and 4 chairs:

The living room with area rug, fireplace, love seat with pillow, arm chair with matching footstool, coffee table, end table and floor lamp.

There is also an entertainment center for the TV, stereo and speakers:

I wonder if our kids will recognize this brown box with a picture on it as a TV:

Like Jason’s Definitely Dinosaurs, I’m really glad my mom saved this furniture for me, that it’s still in great shape, and that it’s pretty indestructible for our kids to play with. Too bad Granny hadn’t used her own house for inspiration and made this furniture mid-century!

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Posted by mahlbrandt

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