Tina Jay Photography | Philadelphia Wedding Photographer

Nothing has made me feel more like "wow, I'm getting old" than this past Valentine's Day. Why, you ask? Because my gift from Jay was a sewing machine, and his gift from me was a miter saw. And the worst part? We were both SO EXCITED about our gifts. Like, couldn't wait to tear the box open and use 'em excited. At least these gifts gave us lots of motivation to get things done around the house:)

I had seen SO many sewing tutorials and projects on Pinterest, so that's what sparked my interest in wanting a sewing machine. As soon as I got it, I bought a ton of fabric on Fabric.com, loaded up on sewing supplies, and got started.

My first sewing projects were these pillows for the third floor window seat, and the curtains hanging behind them:

I was proud of myself with the pillows, but don't look too closely at the curtains. They're not the best things you've ever seen:)

And here was my 2nd big project - roman shades for our back door. I used THIS TUTORIAL that a friend sent me from Pinterest, I was surprised how easy it was:

I liked the idea of roman shades vs. curtains, because this little girl likes to keep watch out the window - I wanted to be able to pull the shades up for her:)

I'm not gonna lie, I was pretty proud of myself with this project:

And here is the shade completely pulled up: Don't mind the pile of Jay's shoes in the lower right corner. It's a never ending battle in our house (I just want them put AWAY). I have "don't sweat the small stuff' on repeat in my head when I look at that shoe pile:)

I've been loving all of my sewing projects lately - but so far nothing has been to complex. Everything I've sewn has literally been a rectangle - I'm hoping to tackle something more complicated soon!

Whew, it feels good to cross another huge project off our never ending "to-do" list in our house. We had been meaning to tackle this space ever since we moved in to the house, but it was a pretty big project, so we finally just got around to working on it. This is our third floor guest room (our third floor consists entirely of this room) - it's an awesome room, but it needed some love. I should have taken some close up "before" pictures, because you can't really get a feel for how damaged the walls were, and how cracked the window frames were. It took Jay a loooot of time to fix those walls.

See that empty space below the windows in this photo? Remember that empty space, to see what we did with it:)

I also should have taken "before" pictures before we were getting ready to spackle and sand, but hey - at least I remembered these photos at all! I usually forget all about "before" photos.

And the finished product! The shelves are still a little bare - I need to make some trips to Home Goods to fill that in, but besides that, it's all complete:) Do you see that window seat over there? I LOVE IT. It's my favorite part of the room now!

I am in love with this light gray paint color:

Some details around the room. I'm usually not a fan of dried flowers anywhere in the house - but that's a portion of my wedding bouquet, and I just can't bring myself to part with it!

Love that photo on the right. That's Holly, and my sister's dog Daisy. They're best friends:)

And of course a close up of Jay and my dad's handy work - doesn't it look AMAZING? I'm so impressed with the final product. Thanks for helping us out on this, dad!

It fits this little nook perfectly, and doesn't it look like it's always been there? Jay even lined this window seat with cedar on the inside - is anyone else as impressed as I am? He's becoming quite the handy man:)

It feels so great to have that room checked off our list - but the bathroom up there? That's another story. One day we'll tackle that project! Happy Wednesday:)