Home Tour: Upstairs Landing / Laundry / Boys' shared bath

Hello, all! So nice to hear from so many of you. Many of you commented that you have been reading since before Harbor was born- wow!  That kind of makes us like family, right?   : )   I had a few questions that I wanted to answer:   1. How do you make your hair wavy? I use a cheap Conair Wal-Mart brand curling iron and "Freeze It" hairspray {around $4 in a gold colored bottle at Wal-Mart} Cheap stuff!  But that hairspray is fantastic! I do roll it a certain way on the barrel and use my fingers to tousle it before I spray it, but nothing technical or fancy.  My mom is a stylist in a salon and I get lots of awesome products, but those are my two tried and true tips.  If I can think of it, I'll take a few pictures the next time I style it.   2. Do I use a Cricut to make my banners and buntings around the house? I actually do have a Cricut, but I don't use it for my banners, mainly because I'm lazy. Ha! The home banner in our dining room on the big white painting was from Mops last year and I cut out all of the circles with our salad bowls as a template. I also used mixing bowels and salad bowls to cut out the "School" banner in our formal living room.  Fancy Nancy, hu? : ) I use my Cricut for card making, but would love to use it for my banners. I just can't ever seem to coordinate plugging it up and having it ready. Salad bowls are so much faster. Especially if I use them for dinner later. {Just kidding!}   Keep the questions coming if you have them! Many of you asked home school type questions and I responded to you personally. I'll try to answer anything I can.   Alrighty then. Home Tour continued: I'm going to take you upstairs to our upper landing where we have our laundry and the boys' shared bathroom.  

 

If you read our blog while we lived in Detroit,

 you might remember we had a green frame gallery going up the stairs.

 

I needed to do something different, so all those frames got painted and dispersed throughout the house. Here, I painted embroidery hoops gray and we all did a hand print on burlap.

The kids, additionally, added foot prints.

 

We also have a huge plant shelf, but I've left it open and undecorated.

 

This is the upper landing- we still use this bench we made back in our Arkansas house out of our first newlywed dining room table. We cut the legs off and covered the top with foam and fabric.

We sit on it to put on shoes and sometimes we brush teeth on it with the kids.

This overlook balcony ahead looks into the great room.

 

I also use the bench to stack the folded clean laundry after it comes off my bed.

Harbor puts away anything of his that doesn't go on a hanger.

 

One of my very favorite parts of this house is the laundry right in the heart of the upstairs.

In Michigan, we had our laundry in the basement and our bedrooms on the third floor.

It was a hike I don't miss.

But I did have great thighs from all that carrying and climbing!

Ha!

 

The balcony looks over the fireplace mantle.

 

This is the view from the balcony looking back towards the staircase.

 

I get asked about this new graphic print art a lot.

I bought it at Big Lots this summer!

Run!  They might still have some!

$15 a print!

 

Down this hall are the kids' rooms and their bathroom.

 

The shower curtain is from Target and I added about four inches of gray ruffle to the bottom.

Poor boys.

At least I'm not ruffling their pajamas or pillow cases, right?

: )

 

These canvases I made when we learned we were moving to Detroit.

You might remember them from Harbor's Michigan bedroom.

They are now at home in the bathroom instead.

Harbor's room got a big face lift and they matched the shower curtain, so here they are.

 

And just because Harbor thinks it is hil-arrr-ious!

I'll tell you that we used a green frame from our Michigan stairway/gallery wall in both the powder room and the boys' bathroom to frame their hand towel.

Ha!

I think they are only three of about 50 frames that didn't get repainted.

{Click here to see the aforementioned green gallery wall we had in Detroit.}

 

Sneak peek into Harbor's room!

 

And Henry's room!

We pretty much redid everything the same in here as we had before.

 

And when you turn around and head back down the hall,

you face our bedroom and the big, empty plant ledge.

I can also see into the formal living room.

I love that if I'm upstairs,

I can look into the great room and formal living room within about five steps.

Gotta keep an eye on those young un's! 

: )

    If you're new, and want to see more of the house: {we just moved in about five months ago} This is the formal living room This is the great room This is the dining room/kitchen