JAM City (2nd-5th grade)

JAM City (Jesus and ME), formerly known as KIDMO, is kinda still in progress. I'm waiting to purchase (remember: budget??) a skyline decal the full length of the blank wall. Oh yeah! It will be off the hook when it is done! But since this room is already the most drastically improved (in my opinion) I share it with you now....

In all its original glory:

The murals were cute, and a nice idea, but this 1990's peach was more than I could handle

This storage cabinet was a beast. With the help of my niece Savannah, we braved the spider webs inside and tossed the majority of what was left behind and kept the salvageable. (Side note: for all the schtuff they left behind, why couldn't it have been really great, much needed things? Like skyline decals and money? Instead it was glitter and foam stickers which we needed like a hole in the head.)

Thankfully we cleaned the walls because all the yellow bled off.

Farewell sweet murals!

 Once the room was painted I was itching (literally, dang spiderwebs) to start decorating. After 2 weeks of cleaning I was ready to see SOMETHING come together. The paint had barely dried and I was ready to hang signs. These signs were leftover from our previous location. I really love them, but they didn't work in the huge space we had before. Concentrated on one wall here, I think they look great! So week 3 or 4 and this room was coming together! The dark wall paint was actually left over from the room at our old church.

I ordered this sign and traffic  light as soon as we knew we were moving. We never had our discipline policy clearly stated, and it varied by teacher. I was able to personalize this on a OSHA state sign website.

This room may have been the first to start coming together, but it was also the last to be done. It houses our new storage cabinet and was the dumping ground for all the supplies. It took days to get it all organized and cleaned out. Much faster thanks to this beautiful helper! 

After we would get it cleaned up a bit, another load of boxes would make its way over. The night before our first service Jose and I were still scrambling to find homes for the final boxes of random junk.

My dad was kind enough to hang this first set of cabinets up!

 It is hard to see, but I love this mirror Debbie found for the room. Recycled magazines!

 An entire walk in closet of craft supplies was consolidated into this metal cabinet!!

Hopefully soon I can show off the finished final wall!

Kinder/1st grade room

Kindergarten room was my saving grace. This room required very little from us. The mural was already cute, and except for a few finishing touches (all of which I was able to delegate and get help on!) it was ready!

Ok so the original room pre-"renovation"

 During "renovation:

 And after! See the difference??

If you couldn't see the difference, I'll point them out to you. White board (bye bye flannel board, sniff sniff), chair rail (ahhhh....), cabinet above sink, and little reading nook.

Pre-k

I figured I would show you the rooms moving up in grade level. Next up is Pre-K (3 and 4 year olds). This room was the hardest to conceptualize, and decide a theme or color scheme. I ended up deciding I wanted a tree theme Psalm 1 (he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, which yields it's fruit in season), and then went with Owl theme (wisdom).

The room started like this:
First matter of business was to take down the old cabinet, and paint!

We cleaned it out, and painted it taupe. Since I couldn't decide on a wall color, I went neutral. I had already done the hard part of picking the taupe color when I painted our hallway at my house. Ezra's bedroom is the same color (Behr Brown Teepee) at only 25% saturation. For this room I did the color at 50% lighter saturation. Pastor Jose and Debbie and Pastor Jim loved it so much that our whole church is practically this color now! The sanctuary, mother's room, and hospitality room! Something like 20 galloons of this color was used!

Once the room was painted and cleaned, I had cabinets from the old church moved to this room. Would you believe the space was 101 inches, and our old counter was 99 inches! Perfect fit!

Cabinet and counter up looking snazzy! Along with a bulletin board from our old Cafe!

To the right when you walk in the room. I got the curtain rod idea from Pinterest of course!

I always knew I wanted colorful paper lanterns in this room and was so excited to find the owl idea on Pinterest. Funny story (Sarah D. are you reading?) one night we threw out all kinds of old craft kits that we didn't think we would need. We got rid of all kinds of foam pieces. That night in bed I sat up when I was thinking of items I needed to purchase....like foam pieces for the owls! I couldn't get to the church fast enough to open up the garbage bag and take some foam the next day!

 I actually let my niece Savannah and her friend make the owls! They came out great! Debbie surprised me and added the sticks underneath to weigh them down. So cute!

 The lighting is horrible, but here is the general idea of the room. I scored when I found this rug on clearance at Walmart! Shhh...It is an outdoor summer rug, but to me that means durable!

 This tree decal is temporary. We have a read wood tree project that is going to one day go on this wall. For now we will take what we can. It looks pretty dinky in pictures, but it isn't bad in person.

For not having a clear idea of what I wanted in this room, I am so happy with how it turned out! I look around and see so many perfect elements falling into place in this room!

The Move- Tiny Tots

After 60 days, Five Cities Vineyard is all moved into our new home! This past Sunday we had our first service in our new church building! I couldn't help but be a bit emotional all morning (part of it was the sermon). I kept looking around that all that had been accomplished, all the time people donated, the energy that was spent on fixing the place up and making it ours.  

Lets recap a bit. A few days before Ezra was born (March 19th) our pastors were contacted by the owners of this church property offering to sell it to them. When my baby was a week old we, along with the other pastors and leaders of the church we went to see the property. For the next two months we prayed about this decision. On May 6th we had a trial run service there (after a May 5th work day there!). A business meeting was conducted in early June. Finally, the last week of June our pastor felt that there was an overwhelming number of indications that our church was suppossed to move forward. July 1st escrow began, and August 31st it was ours! September 2nd was our first service!

The two months of escrow and moving seemed to go by really fast (so much to do!) and really long (we've been doing so much for so long!). Most of our work on the property was a blast. We had some great turn outs of volunteers and the cleaning, painting and prepping was fun! Seeing progress being made was so encouraging. It was a blessing to see many people helping out.  I really enjoyed almost the entire process. It was so exciting seeing the rooms come together and look around at all that everyone did! I got to admit the last two weeks started to take their toll on me! Seeing the deadline approaching,  with so many tasks to wrap up nearly led to a mini melt-down. Somehow I survived those last few 12 hour work days while battling a breast infection, fighting a cold, tending to 2 sick kids, and planning a teachers meeting.

So now the fun part! The revealing of the final products, and a look at the progress.

We will start with Tiny Tots (2 and under).

Remember we inherited it looking like this...

And it ended up looking like this

I love this room! It might be my favorite. This room took more time than any other. Little projects ended up having more detail than I could have imagined.  

Along the way there were many hours put into this room. Like painting the changing table.  After deliberating on the color, reading how to paint furniture, conferring with the paint pros...Jose primed it, then painted it with a brush, didn't like the brush strokes, sanded it, then spray painted it. Even Aubri helped out!

One night after working really hard (and feeling like much hadn't been accomplished) I held the fabric (which took 3 stores and as many hours to pick) up next to it the freshly painted table and was giddy with excitement that I was getting the look I was going for!

Here is the table all set up with the curtain Donna made for it! I really wanted a chandelier in this room, but it wasn't in the budget. Debbie, our pastor's wife, donated her POTTERY BARN chandy to the cause! She even let me spray paint the perfectly nice, and perfectly new chandelier. Turns out it doesn't show up much, so we may have to tweak it a bit.

Policies are now displayed in brightly painted frames (instead of the plastic paper protectors pinned on the wall)

Cabinets went  up! 

And the alphabet wall....oh the alphabet wall.....is complete! The ABC wall is one of my favorite things ever, but sure took a lot out of me.  A few nights it cost a lot of sleep even though I kept meticulous notes (did I need a K still, or a J? Was that letter really the right size, especially next to that C...). Of course being on a budget, I was really mindful of creating beauty without costs.  I think the total alphabet cost around $40, and most letters were less than $1.  I spent quite some time picking the spray paint colors (which ended up being used around the room in the chandelier, frames, etc), and then finding scrap paper. I bought the paper when it was on sale for 16cents a sheet! 

A friend from church called one day while at Beverly's craft and she found some paper mache letters for 50 cents a piece! She picked up 6 different letters! I went to my local Beverly's the next week and found the huge ones on extra clearance for 15 cents a piece (F, H and Z)!! A couple were from Restoration Hardware online on clearance for 99cents, and the X was a Restoration Hardware originally $50.00 plaque for $3.99 (my most expensive letter!)

I will take an updated picture, don't mind the missing K! My friend Sarah contributed the letter and it hadn't been hung yet!

A few of my favorites... Love the H (i think it is supposed to be an I which makes me love it even more. I covered it in burlap we found in the supply closet and added some flowers I found for pennies at Michaels. The I (as well as other letters) were leftover from our old church building, and I added some bling that I love. The J!! I found it hidden in the pile of outdated, dirty frames in our church yard sale. It was a horrible wood color, but with some yellow spray paint PERFECT! I looove it! I couldn't believe how perfect the J colors were! The odds of finding a framed letter in our colors from the 70's!

Another view of the room. The bunting banners above the window were sewn by my friend Amanda! They came out perfect!

This Micah 6:8 verse was an idea I found on Pinterest. It was one of the last projects that got done.

I take that back, the gate was the last project! Jose was able to permanently install a baby gate to keep the kids inside. Imagine working with a door frame 1/4 inch to small for perfect installation...

And that is Tiny Tots! I love how cheery it came out!