The "mother load"

I can't even describe the absolute compulsion my brain experiences when I am pregnant. My nesting starts from the day I find out I'm pregnant until the baby comes (with the exception of when I have morning sickness.) So I usually get 2-3 good weeks of cleaning in before I get sick, and then I tear everything apart when I feel better. We have 2 bedrooms upstairs, and 2 in the basement. Since one of the upstairs bedrooms is the nursery, and I didn't want Princess and Dozer to share a room, I decided to move both kids downstairs. So that meant 2 rooms to get ready for kids!

Here is Dozer's new room. I found this awesome lime green and grey striped bed spread that came with a gray bedskirt. I found lime green sheets to go with it as well.

You can't see the curtains well in this pic because of the light, but you can see them a little better in the pic above. I was going to buy some fabric to make curtains out of, but I doubted I would be able to find anything that looked like the bed spread. Plus, I hate decorative pillows. I rarely make my own bed, and I make my kids' beds even less frequently. So the nice decorative pillow shams always end up on the floor, under the bed, blah blah blah, some unattractive or messy place. That is why I never use the shams. So I made curtains out of the shams!! I said to my brain, good idea. :) And I used some old shower curtain rings I redecorated to match to hang them.

I painted these stripes 100% by myself!! I had my doubts, but it turned out so good!! Love it! I am terrible at guessing how much paint I need. I ran out of every color in each room.

I wanted their rooms to have plenty of inspiration and spiritual reminders. So I put a picture of the temple above Dozer's bed along with 2 quotes.

The happiest people don't have the best of everything, they just make the best of everything.

Wrong is wrong even if everyone is doing it, and right is right even if no one is doing it.

I printed them both off my computer onto scrap book paper and used frames from the DI I painted.

Here is Princess's room. I painted the largest wall teal blue, and I hand painted the tree. The blossoms are a sponge stamp. I made the small quilt on the bottom left a long time ago. I'm not 100% in love with the tree, but I don't dislike it enough to redo the whole thing.

Here is her bed. Black bed skirt, damask bed spread, and cool teal, gray and black striped sheets. I attached the shams to the wall to make a kind of head board since I hate decorative pillows. I'm not sure how I like it though. We'll see.

Inspiration for her room.

Live in such a way that if anyone should speak badly of you, no one would believe it.

If this isn't your castle, then you're not my prince.

It is our choices that show who we truly are, far more than our abilities.

Printed both quotes off my computer onto scrapbook paper and used frames I painted from DI.

Here are the curtains I made for her room. You can't really see them at all :/. But check out the picture of her bed and you can see them better. They are just strips of fabric and strings of beads tied onto the curtain rod. With some boa at the ends of the rod.

I found this small lamp on clearance, and I remade the whole shade to match everything.

I also made a headband holder out of an oatmeal canister and a candlestick.

Found this frame on clearance at JoAnn's 80% off. Made a bow holder out of it :).  All the hair holders are hung over the built in desk in her room. I designated the area her "hair station." The basement bathroom is really tiny, so it works well to just put it all in her room.

This is in my living room. I made this sofa table out of scraps of wood we have had laying around after several projects from long ago. I just finished putting the doors on today. It has 2 shelves inside that are for toy storage. The doors are metal, so kids can put magnets on them.  I want to say that I am so proud of how this small wall turned out. It has been such a weird and unusable area. I tried to put a couch there, but it just didn't work with the lay out of the room. And the placement of the doorbell and the thermostat made it really difficult to hang pictures on this wall. But I came up with a configuration I have loved that just works around it. Plus the sofa table idea used up the space in an efficient and appealing way. I have turned this awkward place into my favorite wall in my house! :).

More inspiration in my living room this time.

Get on your knees and pray, then get on your feet and work.

Next to eternal life, the most precious gift that our Father in Heaven can bestow upon man is his children.

Our master bedroom has been a collection of hand me downs since college. Which has worked wonderfully for us, and we are so grateful!! Now that we can afford some other things though, I wanted to have some sort of theme to go in our room. Both the master bedroom and bathroom I chose a mustard yellow and black theme because it was easiest and already kind of "went" with the colors in the bathroom. I decorated this chandelier I have hanging over our tub. It was pretty bare before, and I love it now!

Here is my magnetic make up board. Out of reach of kids! (for the time being anyway!)

Here is our master bed. I had to make it to take this picture. :)  It is made of trees off of the mountain by the house I grew up in and barn wood from an old barn from the farm I grew up on. It is hand made by some friends of my parents and hand carved by him as well. It wouldn't fit in my parent's house, so I was the lucky one!! It's pretty sentimental to me. I hand stitched on the yellow stripes to cover the green ones that were there originally.  I bought the night stands off KSL. The lamp to the right I recovered with left over yellow fabric from the comforter. There are also some candles I painted yellow to match. I completed this project quite a while ago, but I thought I'd share anyway :)

I added a menu planner to my pantry door in my kitchen.  It has all the days of the week, pen holder, grocery list, menu items, and my monthly menu.

I rehung all the pictures in my stairwell, and added the large Family. I love how it turned out! It uses the space a lot better.

Here is my guest bathroom! Since I'm moving the kids downstairs, this bathroom transitioned from the kid bathroom to the guest bathroom. I made these shower curtains out of the old brown shower curtain I had and an old sheet. Super proud of myself. Got some new towels and rugs to match as well.

And the most amazing thing about this is I managed to stay under our budget every single month since my nesting started!!! Also everything you see on this page (except for the master bedroom pic) has been accomplished since the beginning of February.

BUT this is not all, my friends!! I also 

had my hubby help me fix the chicken coop lid, 

made a cover for the nesting box out of scrap wood

finished the last edge of the shelf in my laundry room

cleaned out all the dead weeds along the fence in our yard

burned half of the weeds (this seriously took hours! There were that many branches and weeds.)

deep cleaned and conditioned the inside of my car

took apart and meticulously cleaned the car seats. 

Built awesome storage shelves in the basement

went through every single box in the basement and got rid of everything that hadn't been used in a year. 

went through my cold storage room and organized my food storage, 

we have been buying a portion of our food storage every month

went through my upstairs pantry and threw out all the expired stuff. (I was surprised how much there was)

got rid of kitchen appliances, utensils, and dishes we haven't used in a year. 

cleaned out the toy closet. Seriously at least 1/3 of it is gone! 

went through all the kid clothes. got rid of anything with holes or that was worn out. 

got rid of books and office supplies we don't use

went through my closet and got rid of anything I haven't worn in a year before I got pregnant. 

reorganized every shelf in my closet 

got rid of a ton of shoes, jewelry, belts, hair things and clothes

My hubby did the same in his closet

I cleaned all the mattresses, sheets and pillows in the house

cleaned all couch cushion coverings

cleaned and conditioned the leather couches

cleaned the carpet

washed every frame in the house

replaced 3 light fixtures for my birthday :)

cleaned off all the other light fixtures in the house

cleaned out every cupboard, shelf and drawer in the whole house

got rid of broken sand box toys

cleaned the filters in the furnaces, washer, dryer, and vacuum

pulled out the fridge and oven and cleaned under them. 

cleaned the ovens

cleaned the inside of the fridge, freezers, dishwasher, and microwave

cleaned the cobwebs off all the high things in the house

cleaned out the fire place

cleaned out my craft cupboard

dusted EVERYTHING

cleaned all the baseboards

washed every window and track

did some CE

organized all the exercise equipment and got rid of stuff we don't use. 

vacuumed out all the vents. 

updated the 72 hour kits

filled and painted every ding in the wall in the house

fixed the crib bumper on the sewing machine

made a nursing poncho

fixed the door on the basement bathroom cabinet so it swings the other way

bolted all the furniture to the wall

laid wood on the attic floor for storage

rigged a TV stand on the entertainment center in the basement so we could move the TV downstairs. 

made an online scrap book

scrubbed every surface and every floor in the house

and finally took one HUGE load of stuff to the DI.  

I seriously haven't left one nook, cranny, shelf, cupboard, box, corner, or single item in my house untouched. I seriously evaluated the usefulness of every single thing in this house and got rid of anything I didn't deem necessary. I was very willing to get rid of crap!! And it has felt so good! Everything is perfectly organized, and I know where everything is. I seriously have only a handful of things left on my list to complete before the baby comes.  Not everything has stayed clean :). But that is totally ok. That's just how life goes when you have kids. And I wouldn't have it any other way.