Pinterest Pin of the Week, is where I share my favorite Pin of whatever has been on my mind during the week: Decor, DIY, Gardens and Food and much more. It's all about the details and creating useful storage in unexpected spots in bathrooms.

via Pinterest

Favorite Toddler Books

I love to read and lucky for me both my both my boys also love to read. Tabari evens spends some of his allowance on buying new books! Not to brag or anything, lol. I used to love reading to Tabari when he was little, lucky for us we have another little one in the house who's also loving to 'read' toddler style. He picture reads his books and the ones he's really in love with hands me to read to him. He loves reading the same ones over and over and I have fun reading then over and over, lol. I love discovering new books to read to Avery and was inspired to share a his favorite books with you all after reading a recent post on Aubrey & Lindsey's Blog. I plan on ordering a few of the books she mentioned for Avery and see how his loves them. For now the books below are his absolute favorite. 

1. Little Blue Truck 2. My Dad Loves Me 3. If You Can We Can 4. Little Blue Truck Leads the Way 5. Cars Galore 6. Goodnight Moon 

The book 'If You Can We Can' # 3 he will only let me read it to him, if anyone else tries to read it to him he takes the book out of their hands and brings it to me, no joke! It's a mommy great mommy & me book and a must read for any little ones you know. I'm planning on joining Scholastic Book Club for Avery. I've been ordering books though them for Tabari for years, I had a bunch saved for Avery sadly we no longer have them. I've always loved their selection of books and the price is always great for a wide range of ages. I was checking out their lasted flyer the other day for Avery's age group and was amazed how many great board books they have all price good. I always try and buy board books for him, perfect for 'little rough toddler hands'. Oh and I'm not getting paid for this, just sharing for other parents looking for good book deals. 

What is your little ones favorite books to read over and over ? 

Visual Philosophy Giveaway:  

Our Home Tour: Drywall Edition

I don't think I've ever really done a proper tour of our home all at once, so when I was at my mission to snap a bunch of pictures and share with you all our blank slate home tour. 

Drywall was hung a week of so ago and since taking these pictures, the seams have been taped and they are starting texture this week. I'll share updated pictures of the house after its been painted. Here's the view a portion of our living room looking into it from the dining room / kitchen. I love all the natural light our home gets it really feels up the space. We also added four pot lights to our room in addition to the main center light. Good lighting is important! 

** I'm having a loading issue with blogger, some pictures only wanted to remain sideways. due to this issue I'm unable to share pictures of better angles and some rooms. I will update when I can **

Here's our kitchen, its hard to tell in this picture but its was actually smaller before than it is now. Before it was an 'L' Shape kitchen with cabinets under the window then stopping midway on the back wall, our fridge used to float on the wall across from the window. We changed up our floor plan and were able to get rid of a strange bump out in our kitchen (before removing a hallway coat closet) Our kitchen layout will now be a 'U' shape, I can't wait to share more details of our kitchen. Click here to see how I'm picturing our kitchen and how this exact space looking a few weeks ago. The lighting in our kitchen is now a great balance for a room this size, we have four pot lights and one light above our sink, and also wired for under cabinet lighting! Hello Happy lighting changes! 

This is the view of our dining room, really eat in kitchen, but hey its my house so I can rename rooms if I want to! On the left is the opening to our living room we which doubled, before the opening was super small. Now the flow of our house feels much better and more open but now too open. On the right the is the doorway which leads to our laundry room / mudroom. Read more about my ideas for the space here. Another change we made to this room was adding more outlets and more the light  fixture so its centered in the room, before the lighting always too close to the window, throwing the balance of the room off. 

Here's another view of the same space looking in for the new wide doorway in our living room. Again our space is small, but it will be big on style! 

Here's our main bathroom aka the Boys bathroom / Guest Bathroom. The space actually looks bigger in person and thanks a few changes we've made to the layout it is bigger. Remember the 'bump up' I talked about in our kitchen, well it also bumped out into our bathroom. Allowing for only a 24 inch vanity! By removing the closet & swamping the vanity and toilet positions we can now fit up to a 60 inch! Counter and storage space are awesome, and I'm excited! lol 

Avery's room, so wish I could share more pictures with you (stupid blogger) ! Trust me his twin windows looking darling in the space! The door on the left is his new closet, it once at double sliding doors which I loathe. Since the closet is small a reach in type closet we opted to put a single door instead. 

Here's our bedroom, our room also gets great lighting!

This will be french door view! On the left of the french doors is our master closet on the opposite side is our master bathroom. The space between the bathroom & closet is nice and wide. We could easily fit a chair / bookcases in the space so many possibilities! I can already picture Avery playing in the little space and looking out our french doors.

Another view of our bedroom on the opposite wall is our new bedroom! Our bedroom feels so good in person and I can't wait to share more pictures once its 'more finished' and making more sense! 

There's our little house we adore and miss so much! I'm hoping to upload more pictures of our home once blogger decides to cooperate with me! 

What do you think so far? Any questions?  

Newest Craigslist Find

I've been shopping on Craigslist for quite awhile, and usually can find some amazing deals. Remember our solid wood dovetail drawer dresser I freshened up, click here for a quick reminder. I haven't had much luck on Craigslist in a long time, the selection in my neck of the woods has been very spotty. Even though its been a rough road for me, my fellow blogger & friend Shavonda from A Home Full of Color recently scored two amazing deals. First she scored 6 amazing Bentwood chairs and a campaign side table! Read more about her finds and the crazy good deal here. 

Lately I've been on the hunt for a new coffee table for our living room. I really wanted an oval coffee table, I just though it it would work so well in our not so big living room and complement our two sofas and break up all the straight lines in the room as well. I actually found two coffee tables I love, but there were to small hiccups. One was way out my price range (smidge too fancy for us) and the other I'd have it for a really long time and it mad me happy & Hasani like it too! All positives. Everything was unicorns and rainbows with the second coffee table until it was no longer available at West Elm. Cue me crying. So I was back on the hunt and decided to give Craigslist another go, since I kept coming up empty handed in the style I fell for (cast iron, oval, bottom shelf bonus) 

On Friday morning, I came across the perfect for us coffee table. I quickly emailed the link to Hasani and got his thumbs up. We were both happy about the style, lines and price! The seller and I texted back and forth and Hasani and I picked up our new to us coffee table on Saturday morning. 

Sellers Craigslist picture

Sellers Craigslist Picture

I love it, in person its amazing, super heavy and very well made. Oh and its cast iron, just like I've been really wanting! I got it for a steal, seriously people only paid $80 bucks. I'll admit I was a little nervous to have a glass coffee table since we have toddler, but he's out of the 'bang everything' in site phase and so all should be fine. I've always thought would could always hire out and have a wood top made, so it looks more like the West Elm version. So we'll see. For now I love it as is and so can't wait to see how its going to look in our living room. It's nerve wracking buying a few pieces here and there and then waiting for ever to see how its going to actually work in your space. 

What I've Learned

I decided to change up Fridays normal post about our house rebuild update, on Monday I'll share our a tour of our house so far (drywall edition) I've been thinking a lot lately of how when you go though a 'life charger' it can change who you are as a person and how you deal with things. I feel a 'life changer' can fall into many categories happiness & sadness: birth of a child, graduation, passing of a loved one, marriage, new career, illness and many more. 

The past few months since dealing with the fire loss at our home, I've learned many new things about myself & some I already knew to be true but everything has been reaffirmed. Life is an amazing journey and its crazy to think I'm still getting to know myself at 32 years old! I put together a list of life lessons I've learned the past several months. I already knew 2, 4 & 6 to be true. But some other numbers I didn't pay as much attention to as I do now 1, 3, 7 & 8. I also learned when I'm in a funk and having a bad day a really bad day, I still try and remain positive 11. 

  

It may sound silly but putting together this little life changer list has really shown me how much I've grown as a person & how truly happy I am day to day even with all the craziness that is our new normal these past months. 

Have you gone though any 'Life Changes' that have taught you new things about yourself? 

**Update: Tuesday I'll share our Home Tour Drywall Edition**

Giveway: Visual Philosophy Prints

***** This Giveaway is now Closed *****

Hello Everyone, I've teamed teamed up with Etsy Seller Visual Philosophy for a wonderful art print giveaway for two of my readers open to everyone worldwide which is so exciting and a first for Chic Little House. Visual Philosophy is a mixture of fun electric modern prints. I really love their fun whimsical prints: ranging from Mid Century Modern, Nursery Prints & Kitchen artwork and much more. Giveaway details below.  

Congrats to Darnetha & Shelley!! For each wining a print from Visual Philosophy! 

Prize: Select Your Favorite Print 

How to Enter: Please visit their Etsy site Here Reminder: Please post a comment below sharing your favorite Art print and leave your email information so I contact the winners. The two winners will be selected using Random.org

Giveaway Starts: Monday March 18, 2013

Giveaway Ends: Thursday March 21, 2013

Number of Winners: Two Winners, Open to Residents Worldwide

If you have any questions about the Giveaway please email me at [email protected] Thanks & good luck! 

Pin of the Week

Pinterest Pin of the Week, is where I share my favorite Pin of whatever has been on my mind during the week: Decor, DIY, Gradens and Food and much more. Easter is just a few weeks away and I'm dreaming of goodies I want to bake for my family. 

via Pinterest

Our Home Rebuild: Feeling More Like Home

Hi Everyone, every Friday its my goal to share the weekly happenings of our home rebuilding progress. We are in the process of rebuilding our home due to a house fire loss in July of last year, read more here. We are only mid way though the month of March an already there's so much progress. Our home now has a new roof, the siding is done (still need to select paint) our HVAC is set up unit going on today (rough HVAC already done), electrical hand wiring is done. Soon, I'll have a page on my blog where it will be easier to our home rebuilding process in one spot. I put together the pictures in a collage maker, sometimes its more fun tell whats going on using a collage.

1. This me, doing a huge cheesy can't believe I'm sitting on my new tub grin. I already shared this picture on Instagram, you can follow me here. I'm super happy about our new master bathroom and seriously had to stop myself from climbing in, it was way to dusty lol. 

2. Here's our new siding looks in the back out our house. We are super in love with the lap siding! We also used Hardee Shingles in small front portion of our house. This weekend I'm heading over to take better pictures of our exterior using 'my good camera.' I'm also working on post to share all the details of our siding choice.

3. Insulation is in! You now that that means? Drywall call go in our home passed the insulation inspection, so last night when I stopped by our home, they were already putting walls up. The guys are moving fast & doing a GOOD job which is super important. Can't wait to go over there today. Along with our insulation our home was hardwired for an alarm. I shared the above pic, because I can't get over all the amazing light Avery's twin windows get, I'm in love. 

4. This is a picture of our living room, hello insulation and lovely light. 

Seriously when I have a few moments here and there to stop by our home in the evening after work, I'm always overcome with emotions both happy and sad. Sad for everything we lost and being reminded how hard worked to transform our little house, but then very thankful for everything we do have. I'm beyond thank for to have my family and happy that soon we'll be moving back home. It's starting to 'feel more like home' again and that's a good feeling. 

Make sure you stop back later today for my Pinterest Pin of the Week 

Lighting Ideas: Laundry Room / Mud Room

I'm back this week with another round of lighting ideas for our home. We are in need of lighting for the entire house so I started putting together lighting ideas, so I don't throw my hands up and stick boob lights everywhere. This weeks lighting ideas focus on our Laundry Room & Mudroom which is a new addition to our home and off the kitchen / dining area. Read more about my laundry room / mudroom ideas here. 

1. Lamps Plus 2. Lowes 3. Lowes 4. Lowes 5. Lighting Universe 

For some reason, it seems like I'll be forever drawn to drum shade styles: One, Two, Five. I like that three is unexpected, I'm not a huge fan of the color gold in the picture it looks to shiny and cheesy, but painted black I think I'd love it. I'm also digging Four, its the perfect mixture of modern with a touch of vintage, nice wink to our houses plus 50 years. Whatever light we choose it has to give off good light since it will be our main light source in the room. 

What style do you prefer?

Window Placement for Our Bathroom

We are in the process of firming up our bathroom selections: flooring, vanities, lighting and finishing touches. Are you shocked we're not further along, lol? We've picked a few things out and 'letting things settle in our minds' and not rushing into anything. In case your a new reader to Chic Little House, our home had a house fire in July 2012 and we are in the process of re-building, read more about our journey here. I love natural lighting in bathrooms, that's one of the reasons we opted to install a bigger bathroom window in our main bathroom. Since installing the our new much larger window, I'm amazed how it makes our bathroom feel larger and more open. Here's a picture of our bathroom a few weeks ago after our new window was installed. For our main bathroom there was only one window placement option, above the tub. 

Originally when I was working with my dad planning out the bathroom space, my dads also a contractor so we really appreciate all his input throughout this whole. I placed the the window in the tub, like our main bathroom and was settled on the decision. Then a few weeks later I was looking the the rendering for our master bathroom / closet and french doors and realized the window placement 'threw off the look' of our french doors from the outside. Sometimes you get so caught up on the inside look of your home its easy to forget how it will reflect on the outside of your home. 

I decided a window over the our toilet facing the opposite wall as our french doors would work better visually on the inside and out. At first I was a little nervous about the window location swap, then I remembered some pretty bathrooms I pinned that had the exact layout of our new bathroom. Call me inspired and happy for window placement change up.

via Pinterest

Just like in the picture below, our bathroom window is to the left of vanity. This also makes me tempted to DIY a stencil for our bathroom. 

via Pinterest

I love all the natural light this window lets in next to the vanity and mirror

via Pinterest

One of the reasons I was nervous about the window swap was the view, painly speaking there is no view just a peak at our neighbors garage. Thankfully from the other direction you can't see inside, down the line we may add a privacy film, but I'm more keen on creating beauty & privacy outside our window. Between our home and the fence line we have over five feet of empty side yard space so to speak. 

Along with our bathroom window, we now have our new bedroom window on the wall along with our older sons existing window. I like the idea of buying or DIYing a simple trellis that's either freestanding or attached to our fence that we can grown flowering vines on. I would love to see greenery outside of those windows year round instead of a fence and a peak of our neighbors garage. Something along the lines of this trellis below would be both pretty and serve a purpose. 

via Pinterest

Where do you prefer window placement in bathrooms? Also have you had to conceal & improve a not so lovely view outside your window? What did you do to tackle it?

Pin of the Week

I'm thinking of creating a little reading nook in Avery's closet, were he'll be able to 'read' his books and play with his toys when he wants some quite time. This little reading nook, make me smile.

via Pinterest

Have a fun filled weekend!

More About Our Laundry / Mudroom

As you may already know we decided to make some layout changes to our homes original floor plan read more about those changes here. One of the changes we decided on adding was an indoor laundry room / mudroom room that would be apart of our homes new floor plan.  The idea to create an indoor laundry room space happened while having a conversation with my mom one evening about our homes floor plan changes, we were discussing how it would be great if there was another option to access our backyard without going though a bedroom or garage when we have guests over. Even though there was a sliding glass door in Avery's room after the room officially become 'his room,' we no longer used the door as an access point. The sliding glass door in his room was replaced with a pair of twin windows. Even though we are adding french doors to our bedroom, we didn't like the idea of them being used to go in and out when we have guests over (read: messy bed etc.)

My mom and I our heads together and she mentioned her childhood house in Arkansas had a laundry room that they used to access their backyard. Then a light bulb went off in my head. My dads current home has an indoor laundry room with access that has access to his backyard patio. My mom's laundry room is inside her home in a hallway between her her kitchen entrance. I loathe isn't even a strong even word for how much I despised doing laundry in our old poorly lit garage. Most garages in homes after 1990 have nice garages that are dry-walled with plenty of light. Our laundry room in our garage was poorly lit and felt crowded when trying to complete laundry while my vehicle was inside. 

We played around with a few laundry room location ideas, and decided the best fit for our home was creating an indoor laundry space in the garage. We worked it out so the new space is additional square feet to our home. We didn't want to loose ability to fit a full size vehicle in our garage, so my dad suggested bumping our garage forward five feet to 'make it work' as Tim Gunn would say. 

I'm super excited about creating a functional and pretty laundry room and mudroom space for our home. I did a quick sketch of how we are picturing our laundry room space. We will have one dedicated wall to for our laundry, we plan on buying a front loading washer & dryer. I like that with this style it will allow us counter-top space above for folding laundry, clothes pins and baskets etc. We plan on installing a simple affordable counter top of the space. Ikea sells affordable butcher block counters that we could DIY ourselves, I also like the idea of stainless counter tops, if there are affordable. 

For the back splash we are thinking DIYing a tile back splash or using a fun stencil pattern for the entire room. We plan on using in-stock cabinets for our storage space and painting them a color, we also want to install a clothes rod between the pair to hang wet clothes on to dry on. Here are a few laundry rooms I've 'pinned' over the past few months, so many great ideas. 

via Pinterest

via Pinterest

Fun playful art will also be a must for this space. I adore this printable art from Caravan Shoppe, can't wait to add it to our new space. 

via CaravanShoppe.com   

Who needs boring old wood clothes pins, when these darling bird clothes pins are much cuter, so tempted lol. 

via Crate & Barrel

For the mudroom portion of our small space I'm hoping to create a little room for seating a spot to hang our coats. It's going to be tricky to create this since this little room has three doors: garage door, patio door and kitchen door, we configured the doors so none of them bump into each other. We are very happy we will now be able to access our patio and backyard so easily, thanks to this additional space. I'm sure this area of our home will get plenty of use, since its the first and last space my family and I will enter / leave during our daily routine. The mudroom space below is a great (larger scale) example of the space I want to create for our home. Comfortable bench seating, a spot for bags and backpacks and upper concealed storage space.

via Pinterest

I can picture a pair of these hooks attached to painted board above a bench. I'm hoping to find the perfect small bench for a spot on Craigslist for our mudroom area of our new space. 

via Target

Our new laundry room / mudroom is shaping up nicely, I'll pictures of our new space once there's drywall up. Do you have a laundry room our mudroom area in your home? How do you keep your area organized?

Lighting Ideas: Great Outdoors

This week the siding on our home will be completed, and I'm loving how it looks so far. It's a game changer, bet you didn't know siding is a game changer, for me it is, lol. It really gives our home a nice update with keeping the charm of our older home. Now that our siding is almost done, its getting me excited to add pretty outdoor lights to our homes exterior. A Few weeks back I started putting together lighting ideas for our home, so I don't cave and stick boob lights all our our house (living room and dining room). I feel lighting can really add the 'Wow Factor,' to a room, I feel it also adds the 'Wow Factor' to the outside or your home. 

We need 8 outdoor lights for our home, so my goal was to look for great outdoor lights that are also budget friendly. The plan is to use a mixture of smaller lights next to doorways and medium lights depending on the doorway and pair of larger lights on each side of our garage. 

1.Overstock.com 2. Homedepot.com 3. Homedepot.com 4. Lampsplus.com 5. Lowes.com 

We've narrowed down outdoor lighting options to 5 styles, but they are so different in style. Our old outdoor light outside our front door is very similar to # 3. Hasani is most drawn to #3. I really think # 1 and #4 would look good. I like both for very different reasons, one would look pretty and fit well with our 1950's rancher, I also like the seed glass. Four is simple and sleek, maybe too sleek and modern for our California rancher. 

Which outdoor fixture style do you like best?

Pin of the Week

Like most people I'm longing for Spring, and in Northern California, I've been lucky enough to spot some lovely signs of Spring. I'm anxious to create a groupings of flowers and pots outside our front doors and outside our french doors. I love dreaming of Spring and things to come. 

Have a fun weekend everyone!

Our Home Rebuild: Busy Week

It's been a crazy busy week at our home! On Tuesday Hasani and I met with the electricians to go over all the electrical for our home, I'm happy to say our home will be well lit and have plenty of wall plugs thanks to 'California Code.' I'm in the process of picking at all of our lighting fixtures (except for our recessed lighting) so far I've put to ideas for our living room and dining room, in an effort not to stick up boob lights all over my house. 

In addition to our electrical work, our new roof & seamless gutters were installed. I have to admit I'm pretty much in love with our new gutters they look so sleek all around our entire roof. I'm also digging our 'designer roof' that's the style they call our shingles, love that I can say our roof is designer, lol. I'll share more details on our new roof next week. 

They have also started on our siding, the style looks great on our house. Can't wait to see it all completed and share more details about what siding we went with for our house. 

We love stooping by our home during the week and seeings the projects, its excited knowing we'll be back in our home in a few months. That's when the far part for me at least begins, decorating :) Next week, I'll share the details on our siding & roofing choices.