A few weekends ago, I saw a little contraption at Ikea that I just love.

It's a metal tin that hangs on the wall and can be used to hold anything- utensils, plants, pens, etc. I absolutely loved the concept as soon as I saw the tins and I knew I had to recreate this somewhere at my house. Luckily, my mom recently gave me a bag of our wedding decor that she found in her attic. Part of that loot included some metal tins that we had used to line the chairs at our ceremony with hydrangea stems. Aw, sweet memories. My little love buckets.

This weekend, David and I finally put those love buckets back to good use.

So there you have it, my little DIY bucket garden wall!

Well hello and happy Monday, friends! It's been a long time coming, but I'm excited to share with you guys our slate room/living room makeover reveal!

I first shared our game plan for the room in this post. Want the quickie version of our goals? Move our main living space from our living room to the empty den/family room in our house, in order to have more space for baby H and his baby goods. Between the toys, the gear, the play areas, etc.,  I never realized how much space one tiny human could possibly need!

David and I affectionately call the den the "slate room" because of it's gorgeous slate floors. Yeah, we're totally genius with that nickname, aren't we? Just call me Captain Obvious. For the past two years, this room has sat completely empty in our house, believe it or not. Before, the room was painted a dark brownish, orange. Also known as hideous. At least in this room- the paint color coupled with the slate floors created a cave-like feeling in the room. Not the look I was going for!

BEFORE

Once we took our house off of the market, I knew I wanted to redo this room before the baby came. If he and I were going to be hanging out around our casa all of the time for the first few weeks of his life, we might as well do it in a space we love, right?!

So I did what I do best and came up with a to-do list for the room. Woot woot. And I've actually accomplished a lot so far from that list! The last you heard, we had painted the room (with Behr's Mineral paint, the same that's in our kitchen). But here's what else we've done lately.

SLATE ROOM MAKEOVER TO-DO LIST:

1. Paint the room, including ceiling, walls and trim. 

2. Move living room furniture into the room.

3. Potentially buy a new sofa/ sectional.

4. Purchase a new console table.

5. Purchase a new rug to anchor the baby's play area.

6. Decorate/accessorize the room. 

7. Add window treatments.

Want to see all of this in action? Welcome to our revamped slate room!

I had mentioned that I wanted to purchase a console table to break up the space between the TV area and the baby's area. But I decided that my old living room Target slipper chairs were enough to do that. Instead, I bought new end tables! They're the Gia Showcase table from World Market- I picked them up on sale for $99 each plus I had a 20% off coupon. Score. I love the rough natural wood finish of the tables- they bring such a great texture to my living room.

All of the other furniture and decor in the room came from our living room. The room is certainly not decorated exactly the way I want it right now (yes, those are empty picture frames at the end of the ledge!), but it's certainly getting there.

The baby's space is on the far side of the room, near the window wall. And the other half of the room is a more traditional living room format for TV watching, etc.

Just like I planned, I picked out a fun rug (the Hayden Zig Zag rug from Pottery Barn) that matched our current living room rug to sort of define the baby's play space. Check out all of the rug options I contemplated here.

See how all of little man's gear fits right in?!

David and I also bought this cheapola bookshelf and baskets from Target as a quick storage solution. The jute rugs are from World Market.

All in all, I'm absolutely loving the space. It is filled with light, which makes spending all day in there a dream come true. And I absolutely love that my little man will rock in his swing and stare outside at all of the pretty greenery and natural light. It's perfect!

Of course, you can see from my list that we still have a few more things to do in the room.

SLATE ROOM MAKEOVER TO-DO LIST:

1. Paint the room, including ceiling, walls and trim. 

2. Move living room furniture into the room.

3. Potentially buy a new sofa/ sectional.

4. Purchase a new console table.

5. Purchase a new rug to anchor the baby's play area.

6. Decorate/accessorize the room. 

7. Add window treatments.

But overall, we're on the road to completion! So, whatcha think? Do you want to come kick me the same way I want to kick myself for not making over this room two years ago?!

For those of you who are new 'round these parts, I'm talking about the built-in wine rack on the wall between my dining room and kitchen. As I was repainting my dining room a couple of months ago, I decided to do something fun with the back of the wine rack. Thanks to the input from many of you, I finally made a choice and set a game plan into action.

And I chose option number.... none of them. I know!! I'm awful. So anti-climactic. I really loved all of the options in my post, but none of them ended up working with my new Ikea rug. With that said, I went on the hunt for wallpaper that would work with the new colors in the room (hence the reason we are fast-forwarded about a month!) but didn't really find anything I loved. And if I did love it, they wouldn't sell me the small amount of square footage I needed to cover the area behind the wine rack. Back to square one.

I think it was my girl Bailey who suggested that I paint the back of the rack. Bing bing! We have a winner. 

I love how the wine rack incorporates the grey and white from my kitchen. 

And I'm loving how it works with the dining room as well! 

Now that the stenciling is done (all it took was four bottles of wine!! ha), I am a happy camper!! : )