The Best Room in the House

First, what's a room redo without a good BEFORE photo, so here it is:

Our lovely laundry room/closet

We had fun creating a place together for our boys. It is really a sanctuary, free from dirt and lizard poop. We keep the window closed, the window unit on, our shoes off, and the dogs out. It is very different from the rest of our house... by about 20 degrees!

We wanted to incorporate pieces of Guatemala. The textures in the world around us are beautiful! We are lucky because we can think up something in our heads and either find the supplies to make it ourselves or have someone else make it for us for cheap. We tried to choose things for their nursery that could be used in either their room when they get older or in other parts of our house later on. So here it is... finally finished!

Jimmy made the boys two beautiful cribs out of Spanish Plum. They are solid!! I absolutely love them! He also found the fisherman's net in the market one day and surprised me.

We made several attempts at a homemade mobile, and then finally ordered this one. It is balanced (unlike ours which just hung stagnant in the air), so the school of fish are in perpetual motion. They really look like they are swimming! There is a worm on a hook in the middle. The boys are fascinated by it... almost as much as their parents. It sort of hypnotizes ya.

We had a carpenter make the rest of the furniture out of mahogany from drawings we gave him. It's the cheap wood here. He even made the mirror which the boys enjoy making faces in! I made the curtains out of white linen woven here. The bucket hats are courtesy of their Grandma Kiki!

Like most houses here, ours doesn't have closets... or does it?

This is a branch that fell off a tree in our yard. Jimmy chopped it down to size in true Guatemalan fashion with a machete!

Here is where we store their toys:

We found this round rug in Guatemala city. We spend a lot of time on that thing, reading books and playing. It has a high pile, so it's a cozy spot amongst the hard tile.

The little wooden horse is from my childhood.

We love maps, plus they are educational... right?!

We used our projector and sketched the outline on the wall and then hot glued rope over it. There are many plusses to concrete walls! The rope that the boys can reach from their cribs or the floor is in short sections so that if they pull it off the wall somehow (it's stuck on good) it is not long enough to strangle them.

I told Jimmy I wanted a kayak for their nursery... honestly I never thought he'd find one. Well, Jimmy got in touch with the guy who makes them for the hotels on Flores. They use them as planters. He carved one out of a tree just for Jonah and Silas! You know their mama is going to put plants in that one day!

I begged Jimmy to take me to the market in zone 1 when we were in Guatemala City last year. It is full of beautiful things made by the locals. It has a reputation for being a violent place, so Jimmy made me shop fast! I found these baskets that we used for the light fixture and then covered the cords with burlap. I want to go back!!! Jonah and Silas enjoy these as much as their mobile. We lift them up and they smack the lights and make them swing.

Jimmy's parents helped us purchase these chairs... as in they went in over half! They are microfiber (which is good since they are puked on regularly), shipped from the States. These rockers are the glue that hold this circus together! A couple weeks ago when both of us got the flu at the same time we each grabbed a boy and pretty much slept in those things the entire weekend. We also sleep there when the power is off and we can't use our monitor. (Honestly some weeks we sleep in those things more than our bed because we just accidentally fall asleep in them!) Needless to say, we are very thankful for these comfy things. With twins I would highly recommend having family within a thousand miles to help, but if that is not possible, these would be the next best thing!

So thanks for visiting our home! Come over anytime... we will probably be in the nursery!

CRAZY ITEM OF THE DAY: This is so common here that it is hard to even notice stuff like this anymore and think "I should take a picture".