Ellie Week: Ellie gets a new room.

the night before Ellie's birthday, we dropped her off at Grandma + Grandpa's house for a special sleepover party so that we could work away on Ellie's room without her knowing. we headed to home depot to buy a couple of last minute things and then we ordered chinese take-out (mostly because it seemed like the most home-renovation-ish option). sadly the chinese food was an enormous fail out of sheer disgustingness and...more disgustingness. bummer.
regardless, we got working.
and work we did.
sanding, painting, organizing, painting, building, decorating, painting....
all through the night.
you read that right...
ALL. THROUGH. THE. NIGHT.
seriously! we didn't sleep a wink.
M joked that we were celebrating her birth in true-fashion, reenacting the night she was born (which was also an all-nighter).
it was crazy.
and made us feel extremely old because we really wanted to give up and go to bed multiple times.
what's happened to our lively, energized spirits?
we're just not the party animals we once were.
anyway.
here's a before photo, when it was mostly still a nursery:

and now it's mostly finished...and i'm super happy with how it turned out.
some things we did:
:: painted bed
:: painted dresser
:: added knobs to dresser
:: painted knobs on dresser
:: created a castle stencil to use (M is amazing)
:: painted castle stencil on wall
:: made/hung rain gutter shelves
:: painted picture frames/ added new art + photos
:: created the little reading nook
:: found a funky dollhouse to add- for $10 off craigslist (sa-weet)
:: hung canopy over bed- with new, princess-y bedding

first, here are two photos from my phone because i couldn't get my camera to zoom out far enough to get a full shot:


and now here are a few a gazillion close-up shots off "the good camera."

i looovvvee her little bed nook.

 

and the reading nook turned out pretty cute too.

here's a pic of the funky dollhouse we found:
(lucky for Ellie, Grandma + Grandpa got her a dollhouse-family + furniture for her birthday. she loved it all, of course)

and i thought i'd show you some of my favorite details.
the rain-gutter shelf across the top of one of her walls-

complete with print about being a princess/daughter to a king, a picture of her + the princesses at Disneyland, a print about reading i love and that used to hang in my Kindergarten classroom, a watercolor print of the temple, a vase that used to be my grandmother's, and a letter "E" i randomly made out of buttons one night last week.

 

here's a couple of random close-ups:

some other details i love:
the 5x7 holga print of the Disneyland Castle on her dresser:

the cutest little princess sheets on the planet:

the little Disneyland Autograph book with pictures from our trips that sits on her toy-box:

the framed Tangled gold book, and the picture of Rapunzel & Maximus (i have a couple of more tangled pictures to frame) + the tissue-paper banner i whipped up in 30 seconds:

and of course, the not-even-close-to-perfect-but-still-awesome-castle stencil on the wall:

so after frantically finishing all we could through the night/Saturday morning, we brushed our teeth, but stayed in our jammies by 7:30 to be at Grandma + Grandpa's house when Ellie woke up.

we had a delicious birthday breakfast- and had a fun morning with G+G.
(though, truthfully, i was in such an exhausted haze that i don't remember most of it...other than lots and lots of laughing...it's amazing how many things are funny when you haven't slept).
then, Ellie was verrrrrrrryyy anxious to see her birthday surprise.
so we headed home.
this was her face before we walked in her room:

and this is her seeing her room for the first time- she was so excited and surprised! (SUCCESS!)

so happy...which made every lost wink of sleep worth it.

and really, she hasn't wanted to leave her room since.
she loovvveessss it.
(relief).

 

and now i'm pretty sure it will take me all week long to feel human again...

but like i said, that wrinkled-nose grin combined with her 3-year-old-squeals of delight made it all worth it.

these are the moments that being a parent rocks.

and that's it.

hope you liked it.

big hugs to you all!

hope you're doing lots of super-fun-n-cool-SUMMER-ish stuff.

xoxo