Hope you all had a fun and safe Labor Day weekend!

We took advantage of the long weekend by tackling a few items on our ever-increasing to-do list.

The biggest item we crossed off our list was,

buying the baby’s crib!

I’ve had my eye on the Kendall crib from Pottery Barn Kids for the past few weeks so we finally decided to bite the bullet and order it. We wanted a simple, white crib that was sturdy and well-made. Harder to find than you would think. We happened upon this model in the store one day and loved it. Pretty, simple and a great price. Can’t beat that!

We’re not planning on buying a quilt or a bumper, only a cute bed skirt and crib sheet. Bedding sets run around $200 and honestly, since you can’t even use a bumper or quilt with a newborn, I believe it’s money better spent elsewhere.

Oh and for anyone who’s been wondering, I’ve definitely popped. Yep, can’t hide this baby bump any longer. Here’s a pic from this weekend…

So weird. Justin says I’m definitely in the “not chubby and probably pregnant but wouldn’t ask if you were” stage. I’m A-ok with that.

As for the rest of the weekend, we scratched a few more items off our to-do list…

1. Buy a new mattress. Check!

Sears was having a great deal on mattresses, plus Ebates.com was offering an additional 6% cash back, so we ordered a new one for our bedroom and will be moving our current mattress to the guest room. I can’t wait to get everything switched over and start finally pulling the guest room together.

2. Buy a rug for the guest room. Check!

Overstock.com was having a great deal on rugs this weekend. An extra 10%, PLUS I found an extra coupon code to get an additional 12% off. It always pays to google “store” coupon codes. This is { the rug } I ordered and I’m keeping my fingers crossed it works in the space.

And finally here’s a little tip if you decide to go mega-shopping in one weekend. When you buy a crib, a mattress, a few online items and go massive grocery shopping, your bank will think your card has been stolen and call you to confirm. Especially if you’re normally a cheap-0 like me. At least they pay attention.

What about you guys? Any fun projects or great sales this weekend?

Today I want to share with you a moodboard that I recently created for a client. I’m still in the middle of the project, so hopefully I’ll have a few great “before” and “after” pictures once installation is done.

The clients wanted a light, bright space with a few fun pops of color. Here’s what I came up with!

I’m a little obsessed with this color scheme. Juuust a little.

Yesterday, I promised to share with you another furniture make-over that “sits” to the right of the {dresser}. If you guessed a chair, DING, DING! I’d say you win a prize, but really you just have common sense. I really should have made the clue harder.

So, several months ago I was thrift store shopping with my friend Megan (hi!) and we came across this chair. At $15 it was the perfect price to add to the guest room. The only issue was that it looked like it came straight out of a lawyers office. Not really how you’d want to welcome your guests. Luckily, I had a can of spray paint and the perfect $2 fabric I had snagged way back in { this post }.

If you want to find a chair that you can easily re-cover using fabric and a staple gun, flip the chair over before you buy it and check to see if the seat easily screws out. Trust me, it’ll make the whole project much, much easier.

After I had removed the screws, the back and the seat easily popped out of the chair and I was left with two ugly cushions, and a chair frame ready for painting.

Since the wood of the chair had a smooth finish, I lightly sanded it and first sprayed a coat of primer. This helped the white spray paint to adhere much easier than if I just used the white paint alone. A few coats later and I left it to dry while I re-covered the cushions.

The first step in re-covering the cushions was to remove the old fabric. I simply used pliers to remove all the staples holding the fabric down. Once the fabric was removed, I was left with two bare cushions.

I cut out a large square of fabric, placed the cushion on top, and got to staple gunning! The easiest way to do it is to start with one side, then do the opposite side. That way you can make sure to pull the fabric tightly across the entire cushion.

When it comes to the corners, just pretend like you’re wrapping a present. Pull one side tight and staple, tuck the corner in, and then pull the other side tight and staple.

Once you get everything covered and the chair is dry, start to reassemble! The fabric wasn’t very thick so I was able to feel around to locate the screw holes and push the screws right in to attach the cushions to the chair base.

Here’s the after!

I chose to run my seam on the front of the chair back (follow that?) and am going to add a row of buttons up the seam to add a little more character. It’s on my to-do list, which means we’ll see if I get around to it. This year.

Not a bad make-over for under $20!

I’ve mentioned it a few times lately, but things have really kicked into gear at the Smith house. Something about bringing home a baby in less than six months really makes you jump to finish any and every project you’ve ever thought of before. And some you haven’t.

Justin is out of town this week in San Francisco (lucky) and here was a short conversation we had before he left…

Me: “So I’ve been thinking about a few new projects I want to do when you get home. What do you think of x,y,z?”

Justin: (breaks into a cold sweat) “Umm, I think we have enough now with the office, the guest room and the baby’s nursery. Maybe?”

Me: (secretly plotting how to get everything done) “Ok, we’ll see how it goes.”

(I love that hardworking man.)

Anyway, we did get a little help with our guest room make-over last week. My dad came up for the day and helped me (aka, I supervised) re-paint our old bedroom dresser. It used to be a blonde wood but I painted it a dark brown back when we first got married. Since we’re using it in the guest room, I wanted  something lighter and brighter. I already had the soft teal ceiling paint leftover, so being a cheap-o, decided to use it!

Here’s what we started with…ugly right?

A few coats of paint later and done! Easy and free transformation. Best kind in my humble opinion. If you can’t really tell by the picture, the dresser is now a very, very, very soft blueish teal. Much easier to see in person.

I have another room project I’ll share tomorrow that was under $20 and “sits” to the right of this dresser. That’s the only clue I’m giving so check back tomorrow!

The window/door installation is FINALLY done! Amen!

It feels like forever since we started pricing different companies and getting estimate after estimate. It was a pretty clear choice who we went with in the end as a couple of the other companies made the mistake of saying these things to me,

“When are you guys wanting to have kids?”

“How much did you pay for your house?”

“Honey, sweetie, sugar, etc.” {Do NOT call me anything other than my name!}

“Well, we sell this type of window but it’s not really good. This other kind is better.” {Umm, ok. No thanks.}

As you can see, it was an interesting few weeks with window salesman. Oh and never forget to ask for a better price. I managed to get an extra $400 off just for asking. I told y’all I’m cheap.

Here’s the before picture of our living room…

And here’s the after! It’s so much lighter and brighter! In real life, the screens on the bottom of the windows aren’t very noticeable and we decided to go with a 3/4 glass door instead of a traditional french door for a different look and LOVE it. The window shades were a steal from JcPenney on sale for about $13 a shade! We still need to repaint the entire room and get some curtains, but what do you think? Big transformation, huh?

Oh, and I also finally found the perfect cushion for my $10 thrift store chair I shared a while back. The cushion was 50% off at World Market (my latest obsession) so for the chair and the cushion, I only paid $25! Score! It’s currently sitting in the guest room but will make it’s way to the kitchen at some point.

There you have it, a completely random house update. I have a few more projects to share, including an update on our guest room so stay tuned!

I hope everyone had a fun and productive weekend and survived Monday! We’re up to our eyeballs in projects over here. Between doing work for clients and starting a few new house projects of our own, I’m seriously dreaming of lamps and chairs at night. This morning we’re finishing up our new window/door install so hopefully I’ll get to share a picture with y’all tomorrow. It’s amazing what changing a window can do for a space!

Until then, I want to share a fun take on one of my ideas that a reader sent me. A couple days ago I received this message from Astrid,

“These pillows are the result of combining your posts on how to turn a placemat into a pillow plus your news of a sale at World Market! $2.50 each plus the cost of batting for 2 new pillows for under $10. And just the splash of fun and color my apartment needed I also picked up some new patio furniture. Love reading your blog. Keep up the great tips!!”

Didn’t she do a great job?! I had to stop myself from running out of the door and going back to World Market as soon as I saw this picture. Two pillows for under $10, yes please. Thanks for sharing, Astrid!

If you have a project you’d like me to feature, email me at SomethingLikeThatDesigns@gmail.com !

Here’s a glimpse of things I’ve found and loved over the past few weeks…

First up, this bench from TJ Maxx. At $150 it would look fantastic at the base of bed to add a little texture to any room.

Next up, one of my favorite I-Can’t-Afford-Anything-In-There stores, Anthropologie. I loved this cute ceramic egg carton! It would look great on a dresser to organize stud earrings. I can’t remember the exact price, but I’m pretty sure it was under $20.

I also loved these cute ceramic berry containers that were also from Anthropologie. A couple white and yellow ones came this close to coming home with me.

Even though it was on the pricey side, this Anthropologie lamp had me at hello. I believe it was $265, but holy cow was it pretty. I could design an entire girly bedroom just on this one lamp. (Sigh.)

Aaand just to even things out, this lamp from Target was bright, cheerful and on clearance for under $20. Can’t beat that!

There you have it, my finds for the past few weeks. What about you guys? Anyone drooling over something they’ve found?

First off, thank you guys SO MUCH for all the well wishes and congrats! It really did mean so much to us both and I feel lucky to have such great readers. Y’all rock!

Second, if you live near a Cost Plus World Market, go there ASAP. I saw { this post } last week and decided to check it out for myself. Holy deals! We were only in there for 20 minutes and snagged two great buys. In fact, if I can get morning (ahem, all day) sickness under control today, I’m going to hit up another location.

Here’s what we got…

I can’t find the exact outdoor table online, but it looks almost exactly like this one below. Perfect for dinners on our deck and you can’t beat the $65 price tag! 75% off, yes please.

I also grabbed this cute little chair. It was regularly $80 and I took it home for $20. It was the only one in the store so I made poor Justin lug it around everywhere so no one would snatch it. Rough life being married to an interior designer.

Now is the time to shop around for outdoor furniture since store are making way for new seasonal merchandise. I’m still looking for a few chairs for the table, a couple pots and a bench for our front door, but slow and steady wins the race. Or gets the best discount.

Happy shopping!

I’m about to start on the biggest design project of my life…

designing my own nursery!

Justin and I are beyond happy to announce we’re expecting our first baby in February!

We’ve had a hard time keeping it a secret the past few months, but now we’re ready to shout it from the rooftops! Or just start pinning tons of nursery ideas on Pinterest. You know, the important stuff.

I’m excited to share every step of designing the nursery and our guestroom (hi, grandparents-to-be!) and hopefully get back to posting a bit more regularly (thank you first trimester) for all you loyal readers. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate each of you!

Well, I’m going to be a mom. (Squeal!)

Hope you all have been having a wonderful week! It’s been busy over here which means lots of fun projects to share in the weeks to come. Today, I want to share with you one of my favorite designer discount sites, Joss & Main!

If you’re over the Groupon/Eversave/Million Deal Emails A Week phase (yep, me too), then you’ll love this site. It doesn’t offer discounted teeth whitening or car washes (thank goodness!). It’s just pretty things you’d love to have in your home. Basically, heaven.

Here’s a peek at one of their sales…

You can really find items to fit a variety of price points, from the inexpensive all the way to “holy cow who could afford a $999 lamp”. If you’re interested in signing up, just click the link below! Happy Shopping!

 { Sign Up For Joss & Main Here! }