Happily Ever Before & After Week 1: Coastal Cottage Family Room/Four Generations One Roof

Hey Everyone!!!

Remember a couple months back when I said I was gonna be starting a new segment on the blog called Happily Ever Before & After?! 

Well, I decided that it is finally time to kick this thing off!! 

Are you with me?!

Ever Friday, I will be featuring a fabulous room makeover from a very talented blogger! I will share one main "Before" picture & one main "After" picture and then provide you all with a link to check out the room in its entirety! Once a room has been showcased, it will go into a collection of links on the "Happily Ever Before & After" Page where you can easily find it again. As more & more rooms are showcased, that page will continue to grow and will be a great source for you as my readers!

*Please Note: I do ask that if you choose to "pin" a photo from these segments, that you do so from the link I provide (rather than from my site) that way the blogger who is being featured gets the credit! Please & Thank you!!

Now....onto the first beautiful makeover!! 

I'm so happy to be showcasing this GORGEOUS Coastal Cottage Family Room from Four Generations One Roof! Jessica is the author of this fantastic blog & I had the pleasure of meeting her earlier this summer at the Haven Conference! She is such a sweet person & has the coolest Boston accent! :) She also has a pretty awesome sense of design style.....check out her new family room!!

First, a "Before" photo.....A very brown, very traditional, very dark family room......

Turned a Bright, Airy, & Cheerful new space .....

Can you believe it's the same room?! 

I love the wall color, the wood planks, & all of the beautiful yellow accents throughout the room!!

What is your favorite part?!

To see more detailed pics of this room & learn about how Jessica transformed the space, be sure to  CLICK HERE!  Oh yeah....and make sure to tell her I sent ya!! 

Hope you all have a Fabulous Friday!!! 

Have a room makeover that you would like to have featured?! 

Contact me: tdiehl2005 (at) yahoo (dot) com

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Warm & Creamy Bacon Dip

Hey Friends! 

I don't know about you all, but football season officially kicks off in just a couple weeks & football season for us, means lots of yummy football foods & snacks! Today I wanted to share a quick & easy dip recipe that is sure to score you a touchdown with your family & friends! 

                               

                       

WARM..... CREAMY..... BACON.... 

Do I have your attention yet?! 

I thought so! :)

Okay! Here's what you'll need.....

  

Ingredients:

1-16oz container sour cream

2 cups of mild shredded cheddar cheese

1 package of real bacon pieces

1 8oz package of cream cheese (softened)

1 cup of chopped green onion

*Pre-Heat Oven to 425 degrees*

Combine cream cheese & sour cream in a large mixing bowl.....

Mix sour cream & cream cheese thoroughly until creamy.....

There will be some little "lumps" from the cream cheese....that's okay!

Add in the bacon pieces & shredded cheddar....

Chop one cup of green onion & then add to mixture....

Mix all ingredients together & place into a small casserole or baking dish.....

Place in oven for 15-20 minutes (depending on depth of baking dish) or until edges are golden brown....

Serve with tortilla chips or your favorite cracker (townhouse crackers are the best). Our family prefers tortilla chips....mostly because we are chipoholics....and we love salt! :)

So that's it! 

Quick, Easy & Delicious!! 

Let me know if you try it!! 

I hope you enjoy!! :)

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Inspiration for Parker's Baseball Bedroom

Hey Everyone!

I hope y'all are having a great week! 

I know that I've been a bit absent from the blog the last few days & AGAIN, I apologize!

 I promise I'm not the slacker that you all might think! 

I've actually been really busy with a rather unplanned room makeover! More details coming on that soon! There have also been some design changes going on with my site! You like?! I hope so!

Anyway....last Friday, I shared some pictures of Parker's Vintage Baseball Bedroom & told you that even though I am pretty content with his room as is, there are some things I am still wanting to do in there!  I thought I would take some time today to talk those plans & share some ideas that having been brewing in my crazy brain!

First of all.....isn't Pottery Barn just AWESOME?!

(Pottery Barn Kids)

I mean seriously, does anyone do it better?! 

The perfect room.....the perfect accessories....the fluffy bed linens. 

For real though......how do they get their beds to look like that?! 

For months now, I have been drooling over that was scoreboard! Isn't just SOOO CUTE?! 

Of course, now that Parker's bed is in front of the windows in his room, putting the scoreboard above the bed really isn't an option anymore....

And since I'm really loving the bed in front of the window, I'm not moving it again! Not only do I think that the bed looks better here (previously on the wall where the TV is), but it's SO much easier to make now that I can walk around both sides of it! 

You may have noticed however, that this wall is pretty plain......

"What do you mean Tonya?! There is a giant baseball player on the wall!"

Yes, yes, I know. But, the baseball player can be moved! He is just a decal that peels off easily & can be placed anywhere. I'm thinking that he could stay on this wall, but perhaps move him over & down a bit to make a scoreboard just a little above his bat. It would have to be more horizontal, much like this one. 

 (via)

I found this sign while searching Pinterest earlier today. It even comes with a full tutorial!! 

SCORE!!! 

I'm also loving this Pottery Barn room as well....

  (Pottery Barn Kids)

I know that this room has nothing to do with baseball OR sports, but I love how the bedding is neutral in terms of a theme, much like Parker's bedding. Although the room has a "train" or "railway" type them in terms of the decor now, the theme can be easily changed by switching out the wall art, accessories, etc. 

I also LOVE the striped around the top of the room as well as the wainscoting along the bottom! I would love to add a stripe to Parker's room & have been wanting to for a while now, but here's the thing....I'm kinda SCARED!! I'm always afraid that I won't be able to tape everything off the right way, that my lines won't be level, that the paint is gonna bleed through! I'm seriously gonna need some emotional support for this! You hear that MOM?!  :)

In terms of wainscoting, I would like to install some beadboard or even some board/batten in his room if possible. Who knows how long that might take though!

 Between the scoreboard & the stripes I think I'm gonna be busy for a while! :)

Have you ever painted stripes on your walls?! 

Got any tips for me?! Let's hear them!

Parker's Room..... Vintage Baseball Boys' Bedroom

Happy Friday Friends!!

I can't believe another week has come & gone! CRAZY!!
Am I the only one who feels like time is flying?!

I mentioned in my post yesterday that Parker has started full days of school this year & that I am slowly adjusting to having just one child at home with me throughout the day. I've noticed that I'm able to keep the house a lot cleaner since there is only one child destroying things as opposed to two! And since Parker is gone all day, his room stays nice & tidy! Imagine that?!

Then it occurred to me that I really haven't shared too many photos of his room here on the blog!  So now that his room is nice & tidy.......Let's take a tour, shall we?!

 

We moved Parker into this room about 2.5 years ago when I was pregnant with Griffin. I knew I wanted to do a sports theme in his room, but I didn't want the bedding to reflect that theme! I knew that his room could still reflect a sports theme just by adding some wall hangings & other accessories while leaving his bedding somewhat neutral. I absolutely adore his plaid bedding!  It's traditional, it's classic, & it's just so BOY! I also feel like this bedding is something that can "grow" with him for a while! I could easily change his theme without having to buy new!

The bedding (quilt, shams & two throw pillows) was purchased through JcPenney's online store. When I bought it, it was on clearance, so I am pretty certain that they don't carry it anymore. :( The curtain panels were bought at Target around the same time. I bought six curtain panels total, but only used 5 of them. The sixth panel was used to make another set of pillow shams for the bed. The baseball rug was purchased at Kohl's.

We recently just moved around all of the furniture in his room. The bed used to be on the wall were the TV is, but I am loving it in front of the windows instead! Isn't it amazing how just moving furniture around can totally change the feel of a room?! Its like a mini room makeover without having to spend any money! 

LOVE it!!

As far as his furniture is concerned, it was purchased online through JcPenney as well. All of the furniture pieces (including his bed) were in his nursery & followed him into his new "big boy" room. The crib we purchased converted to a toddler bed & then into a full size bed. 

Most of all the wall hangings & accessories in this room are from Hobby Lobby.  Everything you see here was purchased there with the exception of the lamp! I bought it at Gordman's.

Hobby Lobby has tons of sports frames to choose from. I bought several different ones they had available & filled them with pictures of Parker playing ball at one of our local baseball fields. We just took a glove, bat, & baseball helmet with us, and I snapped pictures while him & his daddy played ball.

I printed all of them in a sepia tone to kinda match the vintage style of the decor. I love the way they turned out! Even though these pictures are a couple years old, they are still one of my favorite parts of his room!

The baseball guy was also a Hobby Lobby find....

To the left of the dresser, there is a baseball player decal on the wall that my mom found at Walmart for $4.00 a couple years back. Again, since it was purchased a couple years ago, I don't know if it's still available.

The "Little Slugger" pillow was made by my mom & can be purchased in her etsy shop. 

You can find it HERE.

This "entertainment center" was actually his changing table when he was a baby. Now it houses his TV, movies, books, games, etc.

Another photo taken by myself & frame purchased at Hobby Lobby....

This little table was a project that I made a while back. It serves as his nightstand & is just decorated with some old vintage baseball books I purchased at an antique store & a ceramic baseball glove & ball. 

The base of the table is actually made from an old baseball bat. 

I shared the full tutorial on how to make the nighstand HERE.

And one last look at his room as a whole....

What do you think?!

What is your favorite part about this room?!

Although I am overall pretty happy with this room, there are still a few projects I am wanting to complete! Perhaps I will share some of those ideas & some inspiration pictures with you next week?!

Let's plan on that, okay?!

Until then, I hope you all have a fantastic weekend!!

p.s. I will be adding these pictures to my home tour page! 

To see more pictures of our home you can click HERE.

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Griffin Turns 2...Thomas The Train Birthday Party

Hey Everyone!

I hope you all are having a great week! This week was Parker's first FULL week of school & I am slowly adjusting to having just one child at home. Things have definitely been a lot more quiet at home throughout the day & I have also found that it has been a whole lot easier keeping the house straight now that I am only cleaning up after one child! Imagine that?!

Speaking of that one child, he had a birthday this past weekend!  I can't believe he is two!! We celebrated Sunday evening with family .....Thomas The Train style!  I thought I would share some pictures of the party decor as well as some pictures of the birthday boy himself!

Griffin has turned into a Thomas The Train junkie over the past couple of months. He loves playing with his trains & watching Thomas videos on TV! So, coming up with a party theme was pretty easy!

I ordered all of the printables from this site. The order came with Thomas The Train invites & thank-you cards, but the cupcake toppers, wrappers, & water bottle labels were just color coordinated with the Thomas theme which I loved because for me, a little bit of Thomas goes a long way! 

 We don't have a cupcake stand that we use for birthday parties, so I always just make shift one by wrapping boxes in brown shipping paper and then stack them one on top of the other! I bought a package of Thomas The Train centerpieces at Party City & cut them to decorate the cupcake stand/tower. I also added a stripe of turquoise ribbon that I had leftover from this project to give the stand a little more color! 

Just like Parker's party, I ordered the cupcakes for Griffin's birthday at Walmart. They do an awesome job with the cupcakes (delicious) & they can customize the icing to match the party decor. And at just $6.00 a dozen....you can't go wrong!!

I love customized water bottles for our kids' birthday parties. I've used them for the last three parties we've had! They are such a cute & personalized touch & so many of the etsy vendors who sell party packages offer them! 

They turned out so cute! Don't you think?!

I didn't have quite enough room on our make shift cupcake tower & I need a little something extra to add to the table anyway, so I got out this serving tray that I bought at HomeGoods a couple years ago. It went well with the colors in the party decor & solved my cupcake dilemma. We added some chocolate chip cookies to the bottom to give our guest a couple of goodies to choose from! 

I think Griffin actually preferred the cookies to the cupcakes! He managed to sneak four cookies before the party even started! He was just tall enough to reach the bottom level of the tray....little stinker!

One more look at the "cake" table as a whole....

As for the birthday boy....

Well, a Thomas party isn't complete without proper Thomas attire, am I right?! Griffin had a coordinating shirt & hat for the occasion! The shirt was actually a Goodwill find! My mom snagged it at our local Goodwill for just $1.00 & the party hat was purchase at Party City for $1.99.

 Love this cheesy smile taken with his birthday presents....

He actually did a pretty good job of opening & unwrapping his gifts this year....

Although his big brother was always there for back-up in case he needed it! We had to keep reminding Parker that it was Griffin's Birthday, not his!

After he managed to open 4 or 5 gifts, he really just wanted to play with his new stuff rather than keeping opening more. Typical 2 year old, I suppose!

To go along with the "Thomas" theme, he got lots of Thomas gifts!

Movies.....

And even a Thomas The Train ballpit!

Which had to be inflated PRONTO! I love this picture of my hubby, my dad, AND my uncle blowing up the ballpit!! Too funny!

This gift was definitely a big hit at the party! Parker & Griffin had a great time playing inside & throwing the balls everywhere! I know I'm gonna be finding neon plastic balls in every room of the house!

I tried telling my mom that the ballpit would be a great thing to have at Grandma's house since she has a larger home than I do, but somehow she wasn't buying it!

Oh well, they are only young once right?! 

Someday when they are older, I'm gonna wish I was still finding plastic balls while I'm cleaning house!

I'll keep reminding myself of that over the course of the next several months in meantime! :)

Enjoy the rest of your week & as always, thanks so much for stopping by!!

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